Outdated Words

Have you noticed that we use words that made a lot of sense at one time, but really don’t anymore? No? Well, just wait until I provide you with some examples, okay?

The easiest place to start is the telephone. With few exceptions, nobody has a phone with a dial anymore, so why do we still ask people to “dial” a phone number? We push buttons to reach someone by phone, or in some cases, we just say the person’s name, and our phone reaches out and touches someone. (For the younger reader, that phrase was the Bell Telephone slogan to encourage folks to use long-distance telephone services.)

Likewise, “hanging-up” used to mean putting the hand-set back onto the cradle of the telephone. Most of us have wireless or cordless phones now, so there’s nothing to hang-up. We disconnect.

Also, when we ask someone to “give us a ring,” that doesn’t make sense, considering most phones beep, buzz, hoot, or toot, or anything but ring.

Writing once meant taking a pen, pencil, or feather, and putting words down on paper for others to read. Now, 99.99% (a made-up statistic) of “writing” involves using a keyboard, or even technology to convert our spoken words into text. So, now a student can “write a paper” that is neither written nor on paper, since it can be submitted electronically to the teacher.

For that matter, “going to school” can be done from one’s living room through on-line education or home-schooling.

The “gas station” or “filling station” of my youth is now mostly a convenience store with some gas pumps. Many of those pumps still say “Self-service,” harking back to the day when a few places offered that money-saving option, versus having the guy (I never saw a gal doing it) come out to put the gas in for you. There is a state law in Oregon that outlaws filling your own gas tank. I’m not sure why.

Have you, or anyone you know, ever put gloves in the glove compartment? It should be called the “maps and emergency napkins compartment.”

Time is another area of change. In an era when all clocks were analog, meaning faces with hands pointing to numbers, the idea of “quarter-to” or “half-past” made perfect sense. Those concepts don’t work with digital clocks or watches. For that matter, watches are disappearing in some circles, since people are tethered to their wireless phones all the time, and those phones have clocks.

I surely don’t mind all these changes, and I do try to keep up. However, when I say something, and someone under 40 years of age gives me a blank stare in return, I need to realize that I may have used a word that doesn’t apply, and hasn’t for years. In other words, I have become my father, and, that’s not a bad thing at all.