The Guardian reports on Susie Dent’s publication of a list of 101 years worth of “buzzwords”:

Every year has its buzzword (“a word or expression from a particular subject area that has become fashionable by being used a lot, especially on television and in the newspapers”) and a new book lists 101 of them, one for every year from 1904 until now.

Now, while her usage of “buzz word” may be somewhat suspect, the list is still amusing. It’s also kind of peculiar that she’s associating words with years based not on the year they reached “critical mass” in terms of usage, but based on the earliest year for which the OED has a citation. Seems hard to believe that “sexy” (1956) isn’t even fifty years old yet. And “sex” traces back to 1929?

Obviously she’s made some editorial decisions about the year/word association, since I know people were using the word “green” before I was born in 1971. Still, it’s worth a look. Thanks to the very cool Language Hat blog for the pointer.