The development of vocabulary has been compared to the tide. Words wash up and fade as activities of a society flow and then ebb, each tide reaching a high point in its generation, then subsiding into the oceanic swirl of language. Some words sink in the sand; others join the body of the language for an effect (foodie), for a generation (Savings Bond, McCarthyism), for a lifetime (H-bomb), for an age (acronym).
—Robert K. Barnhart, American lexicographer, Dictionaries, 1995

Posted on May 15, 2000 at 6:39 PM

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