Mastodawn

I always assumed #hipster was a term that came about only in the early 2000s, but here's #Daredevil using it in 1967. A quick check in American #English #literature suggests that the word actually popped up in the 1960s, albeit not as prominently as the early 2000s (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hipster&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-US-2019&smoothing=3).

#Marvel #comics #linguistics #languagechange #lexicology

Kaa

🧶Jun 5

I'm looking for a colleague to teach a course on #lexicology for Masters' students (in English) in natural language processing. If you have any idea, please contact me!
#linguistics @tract_linguistes

Please retoot!

Joshua McNeill May 10

Spotted in #Thor c1967: "enow", an antiquated version of "enough". It's hard to imagine how a writer at that time comes across such old lexical forms as this barely registered in writing from even the 1500s (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=enow%2Cenough&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=en-US-2019&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=false).

#Marvel #comics #linguistics #languagechange #lexicology

Joshua McNeill Mar 31

In #FantasticFour c1967: "toss in the sponge". Throwing in the "towel" is instead much much more frequent in #American #English literature today, but these were pretty evenly used up until about the 1970s (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=throw+in+the+towel%2Cthrow+in+the+sponge&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-US-2019&smoothing=3). As a huge #boxing fan who has watched very many fights between the 1920s and 1970s, this is surprising as I can't recall ever hearing a reference to a sponge.

#linguistics #languagevariation #languagechange #lexicology #Marvel #comics #Fantastic4 #sports

Joshua McNeill Nov 24, 2025

Interesting use of a profanity-laden (homophobic) phrase that's often used on the internet. Usually "being on someone's dick" means you like and defend that person. In this case, it's being used to say that you're criticizing that person, the complete opposite sense really. It's almost as if it has been lexicalized for this person to the point where the rather plain origin is no longer transparent to them.

#linguistics #lexicology #lexicalization #English

Joshua McNeill Aug 24, 2025

#TIL the term #yuppie, or at least the "yup" part, is an #acronym for "young #urban #professional". While the sort of people I interview in #rural #Louisiana for my #research are obviously not #yuppies -- I blame my lack of knowledge on the term on that -- a surprising number of these #francophones and #creolophones are white collar #professionals, specifically many are #teachers, #principals, and #lawyers.