Words as old as you are

[Satchmo Distel]

I get "domino effect" for 1966 but this is an example of the exact phrase lagging behind the idea because the "falling domino" theory was put forward by Eisenhower in April 1954.

Similarly, 'Afrocentric' and 'New Right' appear in 1966 but the ideas behind them were decades old (DuBois in the 1890s for the former, Hayek in the 30s for the latter).

Many words are very transient and based on technology that quickly came and went. Brand names in many cases. Although this tends to happen more after my year (starting mid-70s maybe).

[Pérou Flaquettes]

In relation to this, I had a discussion with someone over the age of the word "weekend". We thought it must be an invention from around Henry Ford's time. It isn't. It's from 1638. I didn't know people could afford weekends back then.

Interesting word indeed. I would have said 1850s myself when workers started to be given the Saturday afternoon off in many areas (and in some places, like Manchester, even clock off on Friday afternoon from the mid 1840s for certain categories of workers such as warehousemen), often after campaigns and pressure from the workers. Then it spread fairly quickly to most of the country (which, as we know here, hugely benefited football expansion as a spectators' sport which led to professionalism). Circa 1870, the unions (legalised though the Trade Union Act 1871) fought to make that practice national as there were many pockets of resistance, such as Merseyside, for various reasons, I can expand on that in another post if anyone is interested but if you read French I've written on this here, and if you don’t read French the book Red Men: Liverpool Football Club - The Biography (by John Williams) has an excellent chapter on that (Chapter 1: Football in Liverpool. From the very beginning), explains why football on Merseyside only took off in the 1880s as opposed to much earlier in the Midlands, Yorkshire etc.

But yeah, it seems to have been first recorded in the 1630s as meaning "the end of the week" as opposed to a period of rest and leisure. Could be spelt with a hyphen then (has kept its hyphen in French, "le week-end", which doesn’t seem to be the case in other languages, unhyphenated in Dutch, Danish, Polish etc.).

https://www.etymonline.com/word/weekend

weekend (n.), also week-end, 1630s, from week + end (n.). Originally a northern word (referring to the period from Saturday noon to Monday morning); it became general after 1878. As an adjective, "only on weekends," it is recorded from 1935. Long weekend attested from 1900; in reference to Great Britain in the period between the world wars, 1944.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

PF, The Ugly American is a novel that was made into a film with Marlon Brando. You would find the book interesting (if not profound), I think.

My mother was very particular about us properly distinguishing between macaroons and macarons. The fact that she felt that she had to be is evidence that others were not as precise.

These are the macaroons I grew up with, which are a Passover treat (though they can be found year round)

Thanks ursus. How widely used was/is the phrase "Ugly American"?

[ursus arctos]

I'm almost certainly not a good judge of its usage Nationwide, but it was certainly something that I heard more than a few times growing up in "cosmopolitan" circles in New York.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

OK, thanks, I'll try to slip it in a conversation!

[ursus arctos]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it has had a bit of a renaissance recently . . .