This vivid picture of a century of linguistic innovation serves up a smorgasbord of words added to the English language from 1900 to 2004. As Ayto moves through the century a decade at a time, it's fascinating to see how newly coined words capture or call to mind so much of our history--motor-bike (1903), talkie (1913), flapper (1921), Blitzkrieg (1939), pin-up (1941), atom bomb (1945), flying saucer (1947), Sputnik (1957), beatnik (1958), black power (1966), personal computer (1976), yuppie (1982), AIDS (1984), dotcom (1994), 9/11 (2001), and podcasting (2004), to name just a few. For each decade, Ayto offers an introductory essay identifying the main historical, cultural, and scientific currents, showing how they contributed new vocabulary to the language. For each decade, the book provides an alphabetical listing of words first recorded in that period. Ayto describes each word fully and explains its origins. A final section looks at vocabulary developments of the new millennium.

Full of surprises, this book is at once a glimpse of the past and a treasure chest for word lovers.

About the Author