So the exciting words I looked up today to check for use in 1907 were:
- Post-theater crowd — No! Changed to “after-theater crowd”
- poor sap — Yes, but it doesn’t appear to be common slang at this point– “poor sap-headed” appears a couple of times but sap, meaning simpleton, doesn’t appear to be in significant use during this decade despite having been around since 1815. Changed to “chump” which appears to have been more in use.
- toxic — Yes! Since the 1660s and in use in 1907.
I also accidentally learned that detoxify was coined in 1905 and that detoxicate was the word of choice until then. I figure someone who graduated in 1903 would still use detoxicate.
And the big prize was stumbling upon the 1905 dictionary of slang and colloquial English.
I love it! Words are so fascinating. Seeing how your going about this is great, I ahve an idea for a piece that takes palce in 1879ish, so I will need to do something similar! Thanks for sharing Mary!
Thank you! My WIP includes a diary written in the 1890s. This dictionary will be an excellent resource for crafting and verifying my language usage in it when I’m ready to revise those chapters.
Cheers!