Ten years ago when, Serge Krikalev touched ground for the first time in ten months. Although the cosmonaut's work on the Mir space station was not otherwise remarkable, it did have one unusual aspect: Krikalev came home to a new country. Because the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. had occurred during what was intended to be a five-month mission, Krikalev was left up in the air for an unplanned five months while officials scrambled to find funds to bring him down to earth.
Just as time can play tricks on countries—and cosmonauts—so too can time affect language. Consider two adjectives that made it big during Serge's sojourn in space.

Although the adjective in-your-face first appeared in print in 1982, ten years before Serge Krikalev rocketed into space, it wasn't until nine years later, when Krikalev was orbiting the earth far from familiar faces, that in-your-face rocketed into popularity. In 1991, the American Dialect Society dubbed in-your-face "the most successful" word of the year. But, bold and aggressive as in-your-face may be, that term was not recognized as "word of the year." Those honors went to another, newer coinage: mother-of-all.

[ 04-21-2002, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: gillyharold ]