Once again, with the marathon bombings in Boston, we heard a term that didn’t exist when I was growing up: first responder. The blogosphere hums with disdain for coinages of the last 50 years, so I’d like to take a moment, in the midst of our grief and bewilderment at the bombings themselves, to celebrate this one.

A first responder, as we all vaguely know by now, is someone with a degree of training who arrives first on the scene of a disaster. These people might be medical personnel trained in emergency management, firefighters, law enforcement officers, bodyguards, lifeguards, and so on. In one sense, the term first responder is handy simply because it lumps all these people together and doesn’t rely on initials. But more to the point, it both designates what they really do—respond first—and suggests a level of preparedness that none of the job descriptions otherwise…