Time Traveler by Merriam-Webster: Search Words by First Known Use Date(merriam-webster.com)
merriam-webster.com
Time Traveler by Merriam-Webster: Search Words by First Known Use Date
https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/
31 comments
Submit the evidence to them! I know some friends who work in dictionaries, and they are more than happy to do revisions on things like earliest printed usage of a word, and people frequently do write in providing exactly that kind of evidence.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/contact-us
Seeing as this one was so easily googlable, the following point will seem a bit silly, but the research performed by dictionary editors is only as good as the source material they can get their hands on. There may very well be earlier documented usages of many words that they define, but if they can't find those earlier usages ... well, the oldest usage at hand is the one that gets documented.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/contact-us
Seeing as this one was so easily googlable, the following point will seem a bit silly, but the research performed by dictionary editors is only as good as the source material they can get their hands on. There may very well be earlier documented usages of many words that they define, but if they can't find those earlier usages ... well, the oldest usage at hand is the one that gets documented.
Bitrot appears in their 1998 or 1999 list. Very wrong. That term is much much older.
Yes. But you still need a credible source for that.
"Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet" — Abraham Lincoln
"Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet" — Abraham Lincoln
Not really. I don’t care if anyone believes it or not.
The tip is interesting and as someone else said, submit it!
> Dataset is incomplete
Every dataset is incomplete, in every bit of resesarch ever conducted or published. The solutions are either to not publish and not bother conducting any research, or to live with our imperfections, advance regardless, and publish, publish, publish (like shipping your imperfect software).
> untrustworthy
It is "untrustworthy" if the word means, 'not 100% trustworthy'. But that meaning of the word is useless: It tells us little, failing to distinguish between 1% and 99% and everything in between, and trustworthiness that varies by circumstance. And by that meaning, 100% of everything and everyone are untrustworthy.
> Dataset is incomplete
Every dataset is incomplete, in every bit of resesarch ever conducted or published. The solutions are either to not publish and not bother conducting any research, or to live with our imperfections, advance regardless, and publish, publish, publish (like shipping your imperfect software).
> untrustworthy
It is "untrustworthy" if the word means, 'not 100% trustworthy'. But that meaning of the word is useless: It tells us little, failing to distinguish between 1% and 99% and everything in between, and trustworthiness that varies by circumstance. And by that meaning, 100% of everything and everyone are untrustworthy.
It is a bound. If they show a use of a term in 2002, you know it is at least that old, but it might be a good deal older. Shakespeare is often credited with inventing huge numbers of words, but it is more likely that he was just the first to get them into print, in a form that survived.
> It is a bound.
Yeah, that seems like a good way to think of it.
> Shakespeare is often credited with inventing huge numbers of words, but it is more likely that he was just the first to get them into print, in a form that survived.
That might be less true than someone might guess today. From ~1475, when the printing press arrived in the British Isles, through Shakespeare's time and until Samuel Johnson's dictionary of ~1755, is called the Early Modern period in English. During it was also the Reformation of the 16th century and the growth of science in the 17th century, and London's population doubling multiple times.
Before that, Middle English was a backwater, a limited language not respected even in its own country. "Early in the period, English was frequently compared unfavourably as a literary language with Latin. It was also initially seen as not possessing advantages over other European language ...". [0]
But early in Shakespeare's career: " ... there was a sudden change between 1570 and 1580. English began to be praised, in contrast with other languages, for its copious vocabulary, linguistic economy (in using words of mainly one or two syllables), and simple grammar." [0]
"The vocabulary of English expanded greatly during the early modern period. Writers were well aware of this and argued about it. Some were in favour of loanwords to express new concepts, especially from Latin. Others advocated the use of existing English words, or new compounds of them, for this purpose. Others advocated the revival of obsolete words and the adoption of regional dialect." [1]
"Tudor-Stuart English education loved words, and its young men spent years studying them to the exclusion of most other useful arts and sciences. Educators, lawyers, secretaries, courtiers, entertainers, and even tradesmen earned their living by their ability with words." [0]
"Studying (in grammar school) historical languages opened up to literate English people four centuries ago an amazing network linking time-present English words (whether taken consciously from Latin and Greek, or descending from then, or simply taken from other current vernaculars) with such time-past words" [0]
"John Florio's title, Worlde of Words (1598, 1611) [an Italian-English dictionary], memorably announces a revelation of the lexical entanglement of English with other tongues, driven by the general borrowing of foreign words by English speakers and writers. Borrowings led to the study of etymology, a tool by scholars that uncovered the past of everything that had names." [0]
Which leads us, through many twists and turns, to OP, Merriam-Webster's etymological dictionary, and the to the language we are all writing in. I recommend either of the citations below for more.
[0] https://leme.utoronto.ca/?page_id=33
[1] https://public.oed.com/blog/early-modern-english-an-overview...
Yeah, that seems like a good way to think of it.
> Shakespeare is often credited with inventing huge numbers of words, but it is more likely that he was just the first to get them into print, in a form that survived.
That might be less true than someone might guess today. From ~1475, when the printing press arrived in the British Isles, through Shakespeare's time and until Samuel Johnson's dictionary of ~1755, is called the Early Modern period in English. During it was also the Reformation of the 16th century and the growth of science in the 17th century, and London's population doubling multiple times.
Before that, Middle English was a backwater, a limited language not respected even in its own country. "Early in the period, English was frequently compared unfavourably as a literary language with Latin. It was also initially seen as not possessing advantages over other European language ...". [0]
But early in Shakespeare's career: " ... there was a sudden change between 1570 and 1580. English began to be praised, in contrast with other languages, for its copious vocabulary, linguistic economy (in using words of mainly one or two syllables), and simple grammar." [0]
"The vocabulary of English expanded greatly during the early modern period. Writers were well aware of this and argued about it. Some were in favour of loanwords to express new concepts, especially from Latin. Others advocated the use of existing English words, or new compounds of them, for this purpose. Others advocated the revival of obsolete words and the adoption of regional dialect." [1]
"Tudor-Stuart English education loved words, and its young men spent years studying them to the exclusion of most other useful arts and sciences. Educators, lawyers, secretaries, courtiers, entertainers, and even tradesmen earned their living by their ability with words." [0]
"Studying (in grammar school) historical languages opened up to literate English people four centuries ago an amazing network linking time-present English words (whether taken consciously from Latin and Greek, or descending from then, or simply taken from other current vernaculars) with such time-past words" [0]
"John Florio's title, Worlde of Words (1598, 1611) [an Italian-English dictionary], memorably announces a revelation of the lexical entanglement of English with other tongues, driven by the general borrowing of foreign words by English speakers and writers. Borrowings led to the study of etymology, a tool by scholars that uncovered the past of everything that had names." [0]
Which leads us, through many twists and turns, to OP, Merriam-Webster's etymological dictionary, and the to the language we are all writing in. I recommend either of the citations below for more.
[0] https://leme.utoronto.ca/?page_id=33
[1] https://public.oed.com/blog/early-modern-english-an-overview...
Very much so - many of these words attributed to 1522 must have something to do with some publication they can attribute these words to, but surely they were in print usage before. Maybe this is a Gutenberg thing: https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1521
This is a common problem in etymology and related reference works. Publications cite the earliest written reference that they are aware of. All any reference like this can state is that N is the first publication date for a term in the sources in which they have looked. No one has time, resources, or access to verify all sources. Most reference publishers welcome it if you notify them of additional occurrences.
It is also widely acknowledged that verbal usages of new words almost always precedes written references so there is a natural lag in that regard, as well.
It is also widely acknowledged that verbal usages of new words almost always precedes written references so there is a natural lag in that regard, as well.
> surely they were in print usage before
Why is that sure? Remember that the printing press came to the British Isles only in ~1475.
Regardless, they need evidence. How else can they determine earliest usage?
Why is that sure? Remember that the printing press came to the British Isles only in ~1475.
Regardless, they need evidence. How else can they determine earliest usage?
It's ironic that each page of Merriam-Webster's site tells you how to properly cite it so references to its definitions are properly attributed ... yet it does not cite its sources for these "first time used in print" dates. It would be a lot easier to verify their accuracy if the site told you WHERE each term was first used in print.
Look at the Oxford English Dictionary (though unfortunately that requires a subscription, but many institutions, including many schools and businesses, proviede access).
Many of these seem dubious but there seem to be no sources so there's no way to check what they actually refer to. Pretty annoying.
It has "brainiac" from 1975. It long predated that as the name of one of Superman's super-villians that had a giant brain.
For things like that, are they differentiating the usage of it as a _word_ vs a name? That seems possible.
The name "Einstein" has existed forever I'm sure, but its current use in language didn't really pick up until, what 1930s/40s or later?
The name "Einstein" has existed forever I'm sure, but its current use in language didn't really pick up until, what 1930s/40s or later?
I typed "time traveler" into the search field and didn't get an answer.
Only 2 new 'words' from last year? "delta variant" "omicron variant". Borrring.
I like an account like https://twitter.com/NYT_first_said that posts when new 'words' appear in the Times for the first time. Gives a good sense at culture changing and when things are getting mainstream enough to be mentioned in articles etc. A fave from these pandemic times is: doomscrolling. ;)
Great recommendation, indeed. There are quite a few misspellings, but more often than not, it feels like a running record of humanity. „petrosexual“ is certainly a Word I didn’t know I needed to know.
Likely, most words will have their attribution set to a past year in most cases, meaning the word count for 2021 may be higher in some years.
Yeah, I wouldn't call those new words in the sense that "geocaching" or "blockchain" were new words when they appeared. Was "Biden administration" a new word in 2020?
Right, not 'new' exactly, but more often than not are recent at least, and have become culturally accepted enough to make it to major news which is notable.
Biden administration was most definitely a new word/phrase as it wouldn't be used or referred to anywhere until he was elected in late 2020.
Biden administration was most definitely a new word/phrase as it wouldn't be used or referred to anywhere until he was elected in late 2020.
Ironically it didn't have "time traveler"
“Hard pass” is from 2014? I would have guessed it was much older.
This is specifically for usage in print, so it's possible that's right for some definition of "print". Here's an example from Pitch Perfect (2012) though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIZfPi-DJso
Here's a word described as being popularized in the 1960s with a first known use in 1979:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biophilia
(although it does mention the meaning has changed a little)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biophilia
(although it does mention the meaning has changed a little)
Who knew the good folks alive in 1500 would be getting so _frisky_.
"Each generation thinks it invented sex." -Robert Heinlein
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reef_Fish_Fishery_Gulf_...