Although contemporary reports were sketchy, an ice jam in the upper river at Niagara Falls halted the flowing, rushing waters of that mighty cataract on this day in 1848. (来源：http://www.EnglishCN.com)

The immensity of that event got us thinking about the flow of words into and through the English language. What if some natural event had caused the flow of words to stop in 1848? What terms would we have never known? A very rough count turns up more than ten thousand words or senses of words that first appeared in print after that year. The collection ranges from birdhouse and dog biscuit in 1858 to 1878's g-string and microphone.

Over the following three decades, the terms navel orange and rhinestone, baby grand and bell-bottoms, shopping center and greeting card all made their print debuts, as did penny arcade and Young Turk.

Words and phrases continued to flow into English during the 20th and 21st centuries, of course: adhesive tape and cheeseburger; bungee cord and black hole; plumber's snake and dim sum to name a few. We'll close with lovey-dovey (think late 1800s), as we remind you that the rushing waters of Niagara did indeed resume their fall—and that the words never stopped coming—back in April 1848.