ABSTRACT
Undoubtedly the most conspicuous type of language change is the appearance of new words. When a new word appears in the language, there will be an occasion on which you hear it for the first time, and you may very well notice that you have just heard a new word and remember the occasion. Depending on your age, you may perhaps remember the first time you heard somebody mention an MP3, or dirty bomb, or glasnost, or floppy disc, or laser; you may remember the first time President Lyndon Johnson spoke of the escalation of the war in Vietnam, or even the first time you heard the word television. I can remember very clearly the first time I heard the word gay being used to refer to (male) homosexuality rather than exuberance.
