close_game
close_game

Turns of phrase: The 1922 lexicon

Feb 19, 2022 03:46 PM IST

There were great books, yes, but 1922 was also marked by new technology and a great loosening up of the social order. Take a look at some of the words added to vocabularies and dictionaries that year.

Thank 1922 for the great books, by all means. But consider for a moment that the year was also a turning point for technology and society in the West. World War 1 had ended in 1918, the world was split in two and, oh, to be on the winning side was, in flapper-girl parlance, “the cat’s pajamas”!

Radio shows and news bulletins became popular in the 1920s, giving rise to terms such as broadcast and listeners-in. (Shutterstock) PREMIUM
Radio shows and news bulletins became popular in the 1920s, giving rise to terms such as broadcast and listeners-in. (Shutterstock)

Birth rates fell, there were more divorces and a great loosening up of the social order. There were jobs, there was money, there was prosperity. Women became increasingly visible in factories, stories, offices and colleges. Everywhere, change was afoot. Just look at the words added to American and English vocabularies and dictionaries that year.

Going out? You could order fancy new drinks like the gimlet (gin, lime juice and soda) or sidecar (cognac, lemon, white sugar and ice). But where on earth would you drink it? Just a regular bar for now. The term cocktail bar was only just becoming popular. It would not be inducted into dictionaries until 1929.

Do it often enough, and you’ll probably become part of a group they’d call café society, fashionable, high-class (or at least pretending to be), and awash in cash. In 2016, that term was the title of a Woody Allen film that captured this era as it dwindled in the 1930s.

The 1920s were an age of new social liberties. Flapper girls were part of café society. And patrons ordered new cocktails like the gimlet. (Shutterstock)
The 1920s were an age of new social liberties. Flapper girls were part of café society. And patrons ordered new cocktails like the gimlet. (Shutterstock)

Meanwhile, fancy new tech was being introduced. Mechanised humanoids were now part of the public imagination, and robots were the accepted term, from robota, the Czech word for forced labour. Big clunky wireless machines had given way to radio shows and news bulletins. Audiences were thanked for being attentive listeners-in, when they tuned in to a broadcast or a scheduled programme. You couldn’t call it media quite yet. That word was popular, but only among advertising folk, who were also starting to use the term graphic design, after typographer William A Dwiggins coined it to describe an emerging commercial form that incorporated text, image and art.

It was probably a great year for lovers — 1922 gave us the first known use of the term French kiss, says the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

There were things to buy and, finally, cash to buy them with. Small sums, set aside for impulse purchases, came to be called mad money, as it still is in parts of North America. You could pick up a tracksuit made from polyester, though those terms would not be in fashion until the 1970s and ’80s. Or you could finally have a name for the finely pressed pigments that would enhance your features on a night out: eye-shadow. And while dunking foods into vats of oil had long been common, the first known use of a deep-fryer can be dated to this year.

Can you guess what these flapper terms mean? Take a quiz by Rachel Lopez

The year also marked how people’s attitudes changed. There were enough folk with new-fangled airs that someone could be described for the first time as being down-to-earth. And post-war migration and job opportunities had caused so many waves of migration that there was now a term to describe the fear of someone foreign: xenophobe.

Some words waited around for decades before they were officially added to dictionaries. The term zyzzyva, for a genus of South African weevils found on or near palm trees, was coined by American army engineer and entomologist Thomas Lincoln Casey Jr back in 1922, but was only added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017. You could say the weevil’s had the last laugh. Zyzzyva is now alphabetically the last entry in the UK’s record of English words.

Catch your daily dose of Fashion, Taylor Swift, Health, Festivals, Travel, Relationship, Recipe and all the other Latest Lifestyle News on Hindustan Times Website and APPs.
See More
Catch your daily dose of Fashion, Taylor Swift, Health, Festivals, Travel, Relationship, Recipe and all the other Latest Lifestyle News on Hindustan Times Website and APPs.

For evolved readers seeking more than just news

Subscribe now to unlock this article and access exclusive content to stay ahead
E-paper | Expert Analysis & Opinion | Geopolitics | Sports | Games
SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
SHARE
Story Saved
Live Score
Saved Articles
Following
My Reads
Sign out
New Delhi 0C
Monday, February 10, 2025
Start 14 Days Free Trial Subscribe Now
Follow Us On