My wife and I both have high school class reunions scheduled this summer. In my case it will be a 50-year reunion. It got me thinking how much the language we use has changed since I graduated from high school half a century ago. The dictionaries we used in those days are totally obsolete now.

Take for instance:

- Chipotle. The dried, smoked, red jalapeno flavoring so popular in Mexican and Tex-Mex foods these days was brought here from central Mexico in recent years.

- The Internet. It wasn’t even a gleam in Al Gore’s eye in those days (he was only 9). Also information superhighway, online, Microsoft, World Wide Web, dot-com, Web site, desktop publishing and a lot of other terms relating to the use of computers to contact virtually anyone around the world.

- Cablinasian, Tiger Woods’ word for his racial derivation. African-American, which replaced black, which replaced Negro, which replaced colored. And I don’t think WASP had even been coined 50 years ago.

- Gay, which meant something entirely different in 1957. And gay marriage would have referred to the happiness and frivolity surrounding a wedding or its reception. And that’s as far as we’ll take that subject in this column.

- Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare supplement, Medicare Parts A, B, C and D.

- HDTV. Plasma TV. LED, LCD, DVD, DVR, VCR, compact disk (CD).

- iPod. Xbox. eBay. Global positioning system (GPS).

- Cell phones. Text messaging. They had the bare beginnings of car phones 50 years ago, but what they have now is something out of the Dick Tracy comic strip.

- Keyboard. Half a century ago that would have referred solely to something on a standard piano or organ.

- At this point in time. Even more recent: As we speak.

- Cholesterol. I wonder if even doctors used the word in 1957? And triglycerides, polyunsaturates, monounsaturates, trans fats and saturated fatty acids. Statins. Prozac.

- Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Ebola virus. Attention deficit disorder (ADD). Alzheimer’s (50 years ago it was still lumped with other senile dementia).

- Electronic ignition. Fuel injection, which was used only in race cars 50 years ago. Air bags. Antilock brakes. Unleaded gasoline. E-85. Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Subaru, Nissan, etc.