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John Lennon and Ringo Starr were born in 1940, when the words blitz, paratroops, call-up and quisling came into being, as well as the verb to scramble in its new meaning of ‘to make a speedy take-off’.

Other neologisms of 1940 heralded a bold new unstuffy age of American goods and trends: beefburger, crew-cut, holiday camp, mobile home, nylons, telly, super-duper, youth club. Many were born of inventions: jeep, plutonium, radar. Some, like telly, were chummy abbreviations for recent inventions now so widespread that they felt like old friends. Others, like extra-sensory perception, emerged from a closer study of what had always been there, or – viewed from another angle – what had always been not there.

The following year, 1941, the term welfare state was coined, as were disc jockey, boogie, cheesed-off, Terylene, sunbathe, straight, in its meaning of ‘conformist’, and knockers meaning breasts. It was also in this year – the year between the births of John and Paul – that the word teenager made its first appearance.

Paul McCartney was born in 1942, when spaceman, office block, napalm and sixty-four-dollar question first appeared, along with the abbreviations PR and preggers. George, the youngest Beatle, was born in 1943, when bobby socks, disposable, paper towel, pizzeria, double glazing and falsies were coined. Squarebashing also made its debut that year, and, perhaps as a sort of cosmic counterbalance, so did group therapy and free expression. In England, Barnes Wallis invented the bouncing bomb, and in Switzerland, Dr Albert Hofmann combined Lysergic Acid with Diethylamine to create Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, later to become known as LSD.

Most people date the origin of the Beatles to 1957, when the fifteen-year-old Paul introduced himself to the sixteen-year-old John. Many of that year’s new words and expressions were centred around youth: Frisbee, skiffle, sexpot, scooter, pop art, bonkers, backlash, Hell’s Angel, flick knife, diminished responsibility, consenting adult, role model, angry young man. A long-playing record began to be known as an album. In the USA, female traffic wardens were nicknamed meter maids. The adjective fab, an abbreviation of fabulous, was first heard that year, though it wasn’t to become widespread until 1963, more often than not preceding the number four.

It was also in 1963 that another word associated with the Fab Four came into being. On 5 October 1963 a young concert promoter called Andi Lothian was in Glasgow’s Carnegie Hall when onto the stage came the young group he had booked. For him, the audience reaction called to mind the relief of Mafeking: ‘absolute pandemonium. Girls fainting, screaming, wet seats. The whole hall went into some kind of state, almost like collective hypnotism.’ Amidst the mayhem, a startled reporter from Radio Scotland yelled, ‘For God’s sake, Andi, what’s happening?’ From out of nowhere, a new word popped into his head. ‘Don’t worry,’ he yelled back, ‘It’s only … Beatlemania!’

Fox Photos/Stringer