The Beastie Boys and the OED

The OED is the Oxford English Dictionary, a dictionary unlike any other in any language. Most dictionaries catalog the most common words and their most common uses, spellings and pronunciations. As languages change, new words arise, old words fall out of common use and the dictionary updates to reflect these changes.

The OED is different in that once a word goes into the OED, it never comes out. The OED (attempts to) chronicles the entire history of every word in the language, including words that haven't really been used for decades, maybe centuries. It also provides quotations for every word, illustrating the various meanings and showing the earliest date that the word has been recorded. The authors and people cited in these quotations include the most revered, influential, foundational and august authors our language has ever known. Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, and many, many, many more are quoted, either as the first person to record a particular word, or has having written something that illustrates one of a words meanings.

It also quotes the Beastie Boys. Six times. The B-Boys are credited with contributing to the meaning of 'back' as an adverb (as in "back in the day / there was this girl around the way" (actual quote)), 'drop:' to impart knowledge or wisdom, freq. about social issues, esp. through the medium of rap or hip-hop music ("now here we go dropping science"), 'ill:' as an intransitive verb meaning to behave badly ("License to Ill"), 'mellow' (a noun meaning a close friend), 'peace' as in "peace out," and 'mullet,' referring to the infamous hair style.

The most interesting thing is that they are cited as the first people to use the word 'mullet' in reference to hair. They probably didn't coin it, and with some digging, you could probably find an earlier citation, but for now they are the oldest.

If you don't believe me, here's a link, but you have to subscribe to the OED to get in, or access it from an institution (library, university) that subscribes.