Back when I was a kid my grandmother referred to every refrigerator as a "Frigidaire". I didn't understand it because the impact of the brand name was lost on me. In this way, she was a creature of habit. Her usage of the term reflected the fact the brand was the first major commercially available product, which was widely used. Of course, competition including other brand names eventually overtook the marketplace, but she and many other Americans never quite got around to updating their vocabulary.
We find ourselves similarly challenged now during a time of rapid technological change, and it may not occur to us that we use terms that are literally outdated. The problem is that we have trouble coming up with better replacements.
Examples? Do you say you "type" on a keyboard? But, in fact, you haven't used a typewriter in decades, if ever. Similarly, some of my colleagues in journalism will continue to refer to "taping" an interview, even though the analog tape-based technology hasn't been used for some time. Is that a "film" you are watching? Well, maybe it is, but it might be all digital.
As a half-hearted attempt to get it right, I might be guilty myself and have heard other folks say they "DVR'd" something, or used the recording capability of their cable set-top box to capture a program for later viewing. Seems like we should be able to do better than that with the word selection. But we're still working on it.
Can you think of other examples? What other terms might be at risk?
Language tends to be a living and breathing entity. But there are cases where the words fail to keep pace with the evolving times because we are thinking about our past habits.
We find ourselves similarly challenged now during a time of rapid technological change, and it may not occur to us that we use terms that are literally outdated. The problem is that we have trouble coming up with better replacements.
Examples? Do you say you "type" on a keyboard? But, in fact, you haven't used a typewriter in decades, if ever. Similarly, some of my colleagues in journalism will continue to refer to "taping" an interview, even though the analog tape-based technology hasn't been used for some time. Is that a "film" you are watching? Well, maybe it is, but it might be all digital.
As a half-hearted attempt to get it right, I might be guilty myself and have heard other folks say they "DVR'd" something, or used the recording capability of their cable set-top box to capture a program for later viewing. Seems like we should be able to do better than that with the word selection. But we're still working on it.
Can you think of other examples? What other terms might be at risk?
Language tends to be a living and breathing entity. But there are cases where the words fail to keep pace with the evolving times because we are thinking about our past habits.
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