Thinking Ahead:
I was doing some edits to an article on computers and the Fourth Amendment over the weekend, and spent some time reworking a discussion of the Supreme Court's 1987 decision in Arizona v. Hicks. In that case, a police officer picked up a stolen Bang & Olufsen turntable and copied down the serial number to confirm it was stolen. The Court held that picking up the turntable was a Fourth Amendment search, but writing down the number was not a Fourth Amendment seizure.
Here's the question: When describing the facts of the case, should I describe the turntable as, well, a turntable, or should I just describe it more generically as audio equipment? If anyone is reading my article in 20 years, will they know what a turntable is? Will they wonder what a turning table looks like and why someone would want one? I like to think that people will still be playing vinyl LPs on machines like my Harman/Kardon T-65C for a long time, but it doesn't seem too likely.
Here's the question: When describing the facts of the case, should I describe the turntable as, well, a turntable, or should I just describe it more generically as audio equipment? If anyone is reading my article in 20 years, will they know what a turntable is? Will they wonder what a turning table looks like and why someone would want one? I like to think that people will still be playing vinyl LPs on machines like my Harman/Kardon T-65C for a long time, but it doesn't seem too likely.
Future law students, used to thinking of "audio equipment" as being (for example) purely software programs, might not understand the case if purely abstract terminology were used. It would be necessary to alert future law students about the essential physical properties of the device — that its serial number is physically recorded on the outside (rather than electronically) and it's a physical device that has to be physically moved for this to happen.
Calling the thing a "turntable" provides this information. Folks can always look the thing up to find out what kind of antique such a thing was.
But describing the thing in terms so abstract as to render it indistinguishable from a contemporary device would completely obscure the case once the physical properties of devices change. It was the thing's physical properties — what it was, not what it was used for — that really mattered to the case.
My advice, considering my long experience as a DJ, is to call it a "vinyl record player." It might soung quaint today, but if you are indeed worried about down the road that is the way to go.
"#: Note to those who may be reading this in the distant future: A turntable is an etc. etc. etc."
At any rate, I think that a turntable/record player (I prefer the latter term) is now such an icon of obsolescence that nobody will actually forget what they are. C.f. the buggy whip.
"Record player," or "vinyl record player" will probably mean something for years to come. "Turntable" will be as meaningless as "cylinder" (if indeed that day has not already come.)
And "turntable" is a lot less ambiguous than "audio equipment", which might imply something much bulkier and heavier.
Many students will recognize the term. The others will learn to look up what's unfamiliar, and that's in itself a valuable lesson.
I would call it what it is, safe in the knowledge that 20 years from now, if people don't know what a "turntable" is, they will be able to look it up on something the equivalent of Google or research what it is at something the equivalent of a Library.
I think the word will be good for the next 20 years. But I wouldn't go much past that date.
Still, I think that "vinyl record player" is much clearer and will outlive "turntable" by a long time.
I think that you should simply describe what a turntable is at the beginning of the article. That way, you educate the reader in what a turntable is, and you also don't have to deal with describing an ambiguous "audio device".
There are CD turntables and MP3 turntables, but pull some white labels out of your green bag and you too could be the man like Sasha.
I prefer phonograph (which I suppose is short for phonograph player) as generic for both turntables (which as Craig Oren points out is a component, with line-level outputs that needs to be connected to an amplifier and speakers) and a record player (which is all in one.)
For clarity, as opposed to elegance, you might footnote that a B&O turntable weighed about xxx pounds and was connected to the rest of the hi-fi ^h^h^h stereo ^h^h^h audio system.
I'm a fan of old technologies (I own an acoustic modem and an electro-mechanical adding machine) but for the best references, see what the authors of The Simpsons have Monty Burns say.
The mind boggles about how this process will become even more useful and efficient. I'm not smart enough to imagine or speculate about what form it will take, but if I'm still around, I know I'll want to use it.
Twenty years, yes. The real interesting question is the first premise, what are the odds of anybody reading a twenty year old article, a fifty year old article?
Why worry?
I'm surprised you asked. I thought law professors liked footnotes.
In my view, it's always better to be more precise on the first usage -- "vinyl record turntable" or "hi-fi turntable." I really dislike "audio equipment," because it's the sort of grey verbiage that legal writing is stuffed with. The phrase "audio equipment" is so ponderous yet says so little, it would be better still to say "gadget," "widget," "device," or even "thing." But best yet is "turntable," because that is what it is.
No offense, but will anyone likely be reading your article 20 years from now?