The Volokh Conspiracy

"clockwise" and "counter-clockwise" aren't quite there yet, but they surely will be.

"Principled conservative Republican" is also on its way out.

I was recently struggling with opening my locker, and after I succeeded, somebody asked me what the problem was. I told him, I kept dialing the wrong number. He refused to believe that this is correct usage. I seem to think it is.

Not quite the same thing, but what will happen to "taping" a concert or a movie? When I burn a DVD off cable, I still say "taped," because it's short and familiar. Will it get replaced by "burned" (or something else) when audio and video tapes become genuinely rare?

The constant use of "We'll see you here tomorrow (or any time at our website)" has always grated on me.

A related topic that you might have fun with is the creation of retronyms -- "a new word or phrase coined for an old object or concept whose original name has become used for something else or is no longer unique." Examples: What was once merely a "guitar" is now an "acoustic guitar." What was once a "television" is now a "black-and-white television." What was once merely a "watch," became a "pocket watch" when the "wristwatch" came into being, but the wristwatch is now an "analog watch" when it's not digital. And, of course, a "restaurant" is now a "sit-down restaurant," to differentiate it from the fast-food and take-out versions. There are many retronyms related to the evolution of computers.

We'll we soon be talking about "siteless" lawyers and law professors?

Whenever I've seen "Stay tuned" on a blog, or in some other context than a radio or TV broadcast, I've assumed that it was used at least semi-facetiously. Do people really use that phrase neutrally?

"To pencil in" an appointment, which I always feel silly saying in the age of the Palm Pilot, but for which I've found no substitute shorter than "to provisionally-but-not-finally commit to."

I hear occasional references to digital memory cards in cameras as "film."

"Of course sounding like a "broken record" went the way of the dodo years ago in terms of literal meaning."

True, but I use that term all the time without thinking, and even the middle- and high-schoolers I teach are completely familiar with the term. I sometimes jokingly refer to a record as a "big black CD that skips."

"I will always call a musical work an "album," whether on CD or whatever. I'm not even sure that the term ever reflected the vinyl LP medium, or 8-track or whatever, but it should survive."

The term "album" (to the best of my knowledge) came from the earliest 78-rpm records (a big black CD that skips *and* breaks *grin*), which, because they only had room for one song per side, were sold in large book-like containers reminiscent of a photo album. And yeah, I also still use that on occasion when referring to CD's.

My favorite here is the idea of betting dollars to donuts, which used to connote a lot longer odds than it does today..

Re floppy disks: Actually, floppy disks are still floppy. They're just encased in a hard plastic shell now. If you break one in half, you'll find a that the actual disk inside is paper-thin. This is as opposed to a hard disk, which, if you take it apart, you'll find hard metal platters inside.

Re phones: It's not just the "dial" references that are out of date. On the earliest phones, the earpiece was hung on a hook when the phone was not in use; that's where we get "hang/hung up" and "off the hook". Also, very few phones these days are made with bells, so references to phones "ringing" are similarly obsolete.

Putting it all together, we can have an almost completely "unmmored" phone sentence: "People kept dialing me, so my phone was ringing off the hook."

Also, as others have noted here, "broken record" and "album" both date from 78 RPM records, not LPs (it's very difficult to break a vinyl record--try it sometime!). When LPs were first sold (late 1940's), they were marketed as "album-length records", hence the name. I don't mind people referring to modern records and CDs as "albums", but it does irritate me when I occasionally hear a two-LP set referred to as a "double album".

If anyone's curious, here's an actual "record album".

And this is exactly why Justices need to keep a copy of their 18th century dictionary handy :)

Heh -- how about "Roll down the window" or "Let's go to the videotape!".

Can't remember the last time I rolled down a window.

"Clicker". Before TVs (etc.) had infrared remote controls, they had accoustic remote controls, that really did click. (But this is one of those usages that is more in the "oldfart" category than the "unmoored" category.

For the "retro" pile, consider standard transmissions: non-enthusiasts think Hydromatics (excuse me, automatic transmissions) are the "standard", even on cheaper cars where the windows are still operated by rolling the cranks.

"Ice box" is definitely in the "oldfart" pile. I'll have to pay more attention to usages from my parents that make me furrow my brow, or to my own usages that make my children cringe, for more entries of that nature.

On "pitfall," if you'd ever played the classic computer game by the same name you'd know that meaning too.

Here's another interesting language wrinkle: in my office, I have the ability to send and receive "faxes" from my desk—by email. Does that really count as a fax? I'm not so sure...

I'm not sure if Abstract Appeal is the blog that prompted this post, but on the chance it is, I'll add this thought:

When I designed my site (exactly two years ago), I used "...STAY TUNED..." atop my blogroll precisely because of the phrase's anachronistic qualities. It was meant to be somewhat out of place in the Blogosphere.

The example I usually use is "dartmouth" which to us is a school in new hampshire (vt?), but to my friend was the mouth of the river dart, where the naval college is.