When Did People Start Saying...?

Away with the fairies

Buzz words of past decades

A&E for casualty
aircon for air conditioning
attitude (he’s got attitude)
away with the fairies (yuk!)
bad hair day
bah! (for goodbye - bleurrgh!)

bleeding edge (and why? Obviously from “leading edge” but...? People just use it to mean “leading edge”.)

bless! (bleccch!)
buff for fan
climate control for aircon
closure (blarrgh!)
comfort zone
comfortable in your skin (bleah!)
complex (for face cream)
defining moment
directional, edgy for fashionable (cutting-edge)
diss
do a runner (Minder?)
don't go there (Jerry Springer?)
doobry, humongous, manky (70s?)
doss (v)

du jour (instead of de nos jours. Just as good, shorter, simpler and also funnier (ref to potage etc du jour))

dysfunctional family
early adopter
fabric for stuff, material (probably around 1951)
faux for fake (jewellery)
-friendly (from environmentally friendly, user friendly)
heart-stopping
hellooooo? [bleurgh!]
herbed, nutted, roasted instead of herby, nutty and roast
high/low profile
hoardings for billboards

holistic “The trouble is, these days everybody takes a holistic approach. No one knows what the word means; it started to appear in sentences about 15 years ago and no one questioned it. Everyone assumed everyone else knew what it meant and was too embarrassed to ask.” Jeremy Hardy, ES Apr 27 01

ick factor
initiative for project
kerching!
killer (heels, app)
lead for flex
leverage (1930s according to M-W)
lost the plot
Macca for Paul McCartney and Madge for Madonna
marque for brand
max out
net instead of network (n)
on/off the radar outside the box (stop it! stop it now!)
physically for actually (70s?)
poster child
proactive instead of active
savvy (aaargh!)
shrapnel for loose change (recently, which is odd)
sit for lie (sits at the opposite end of the spectrum)
spiffy
suss

tea light for night light (did you put them in a hotplate to keep your muffins warm?)

the ... from hell
the devil is in the details (it used to be God)
timeline for chronology
to that end (dying out at last 2006)
toxic (relationship, boyfriend)
trim for trimming

values (for morals or priorities) (traditional values are back and much mocked May 17, 2006)

Vicks instead of Vick (long before the company changed its name)
wannabe (re Madonna fans in the 80s)
well-positioned for well-placed
What am I like? (90s?) (Viz)
when push comes to shove (80s?)
wind-up