The past month Gen Zers across the world have been asking their parents, Have you heard of Kate Bush? The singer, now 63 years old, recently hit number one in the UK music charts, replacing Cher as the oldest woman to do so. A song she first released 37 years ago, “Running Up That Hill,” has captured the hearts of young viewers of Stranger Things, a hit Netflix series set in the 1980s.
Nostalgia for the 1980s and 1990s was already a big thing: witness the success of the TV series Halt and Catch Fire and a recent film adaption of Stephen King’s 1986 horror novel It, not to mention the huge new following the sitcom Friends gained during lockdown. Current fashion even harks back to the period with oversized jackets, pleated baggy pants, vests, crop tops and slinky dresses in dopamine pink and lime green.
As with TV shows, so with language. Gen Zers may be surprised to learn that words they think they’ve coined come from their parents’ generation: fam “close friend” (1996), throw shade “to express contempt” (1990), ship and shipping “to advocate for romance between two people” (1990).
One 1980s expression enjoying a big revival is the ick. Just watch Love Island to see contestants using the ick as an excuse to dump their love interests: “Sometimes when he holds my hand, I feel like it’s my dad holding my hand… I’ve got the ick.” Scroll through TikTok, or rather IckTok, and you can hear what gives people the ick: “He asked me to talk dirty to him in Spanish. I’m Filipino!” “He asked me to say his name. His name was Doug.” “When they’re nose breathing and it makes that whistle sound.”
The ick refers to the sudden feeling you get when a new romantic partner does or says something that repulses you in a way that instantly turns you off them for good. It’s usually something trivial, or simply a gut feeling you can’t ignore. But you can never look at them in the same way again. The ick factor never lies. Once you “get the ick” or “catch the ick,” there’s no going back.
The ick factor first appeared in the American Newsweek magazine in 1979. In the 1980s, the expression was used interchangeably with “the yuck factor” for any generic feeling of repulsion. In the 1990s, its meaning narrowed to refer specifically to romantic scenarios. The sitcom Friends devoted an episode to “The One With the Ick Factor” in which Monica sleeps with a handsome young virgin who later admits he is still in high school. When Monica finds out his age, she is instantly repulsed and has to end it.
As a linguist, I wonder which linguistic gems of the 1980s and 1990s might be next—netiquette, dissing, shit-stirrer, cred, def, jacksquat, dweeb, chill pill or ratpack? And when will parents be asked: “Have you heard of Milli Vanilli?”
