A good crop of words

What the words ad-lib, bimbo, red ink, self-service, supersonic and white-collar have in common is that each is 100 years old this year. And none of them shows its age.

New words coined during the war years (1914-1918) were often influenced by the war (bomber, machine-gunner, enlistee, buck private, etc.) or the Russian Revolution (Bolshevist, Soviet, neo-marxism). And many of the words from that period now seem dated. Not so the majority of the words from 1919, which in many cases still sound relatively new, even modern, a century later.

I am using as a reference Sol Steinmetz's book There's a Word for It, which lists words originating in the years from 1900 to 2009.

Here are a few other words Steinmetz says were coined in 1919: air freight, aircraft carrier, airmail, barbital, culturalism, co-star, dunk, mandated, offline, overreact, skyway, snooty, synchronized, technocracy and tweenie.

Fifty years later, in 1969, there was another war going on, and some of the new words from that year reflect it: grunt, Vietnamization and weaponization, for example. And so many words from that year already seem dated, such as acid freak, jockette and Naderism.

By comparison 1919, with its return to peace and prosperity, seems to have been a banner year for new words.