Here’s a random linguistic observation… Earlier this week, I was translating away on some public health materials, and came to the expression “composer notre numéro sans frais.” Knee-jerk translation: call our toll-free number (to get information about this public health initiative). And then it occurred to me, is it still correct to call something a “toll-free number,” now that toll calls are not much of a thing anymore, having been replaced by unlimited minutes.
I bumped this to Twitter, and various translators weighed in with other examples of analog terms that we still use in the digital age. Robert Sette pointed out that musicians still call new albums “records,” although vinyl is all but obsolete; that made me realize that radio hosts still say “on tape,” although now it’s “on a digital recorder.” Karen Tkaczyk noted that we still “dial” the phone (using digital buttons?); Lloyd Bingham concurred that although he’s never actually dialed a phone, he still says “dial.” A friend of mine pointed to the expression, “hang up on,” although it’s decidedly less satisfying to “hang up” on someone by emphatically pressing the touch-screen than by slamming the phone back onto the hanging cradle.
There’s no deep takeaway here, just something interesting about linguistic evolution (or lack thereof). Readers, any other thoughts on this, or any other analog expressions that we cling to in the digital age?
How far back do you want to go? I ponder breaking my fast over breakfast often, but I suspect I’m in the minority. The list is never ending, and on that note…
I just finished this book: Words on the Move: Why English Won’t – and Can’t – Sit Still (Like, Literally), by John McWhorter. Anyone who likes thinking about this topic would enjoy it, I suspect. Some of it was familiar to me, but he made me think “Whoa, I’ve never thought about that before” too.
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the author. Much of the content depends on pronunciation, so I would recommend that.
That sounds, like, awesome! Thanks for the tip!!
I not only ponder breaking my fast, but even had a ‘eureka’ moment when I realised the Spanish word for breakfast has the same roots (desayunar = to have breakfast, ayunar = to fast). I’ll still talk about ‘penning my thoughts’ or wanting to get something ‘on paper’ when the actual process involves only keys and screens.
It’s the same in French too, Tamara. Déjeuner.
I translated a fascinating article on this topic a few years ago. I don’t remember many examples, but one sticks out. It pointed out that people who use the term “digital camera” tend to be older, from the days when cameras used film, and people who simply say “camera” tend to be digital natives who don’t feel the need to qualify the type of camera.
It’s so interesting to witness language as it evolves!
Really interesting, thanks!! I recently heard an NPR story about that kind of phenomenon; that to people in their 20s and under, qualifying something as “online” (online shopping, online dating, etc.) is redundant, because everything they do is online. I definitely notice that my teenage daughter, in some cases, does not even know what the pre-digital equivalent of a digital thing is. Along the lines of your example, she recently asked my husband how cameras recorded pictures before digital cameras existed. (Uh…film! And that makes me feel about a hundred years old!!).
Hi Corinne,
How are you?
Just to point out one thing:
Vinyl is not really obsolete. In fact, most musicians have their records on vinyl nowadays, even special release vinyls, as more and more people are buying them again. You can find all kinds of turntables for sale, for all budgets.
I don’t recall the last time I’ve said “dial”, I’ve adopted “I’m gonna call…”
One thing about free calls:
Not every country is like the US. We’re very lucky. I’m Brazilian and whenever I visit family I go back to a reality of calls to/from cell phones to landlines costing more than a landline-landline call. Nothing is unlimited, so in that case, toll-free makes a difference.
Best,
Yedda
Exactly! Vinyl is far from obsolete. Now it is a huge trend. So much so that we have a new company coming to my town that produces vinyl because there is such a demand!
Corinne,
That is a very good point. I was reading about typewriters recently, and I realized that some of the keyboard keys on modern computers (like “Shift” or “Alt”) had a literal meaning in a mechanical typewriter, with parts of the machine moving accordingly. I am not a digital native, but I went from handwriting to computer typing, skipping the typewriter, so I never knew about the literal sense of these key names.
Yedda, I know what you mean — in Russia, some people don’t have unlimited minutes, and calling from one carrier to another could cost you more that in-network, too. At least, that was the case 6 years ago.
I was once helping my son type an essay in Word. I instructed him to save by clicking the disk icon in the top corner. He said, “The what?? You mean that funny square?” Today’s kids might have heard of floppy disks, but they would not naturally associate disks with saving files. Even Microsoft Word has anachronisms!
Yes! The shift key (and the satisfying kah-chunk sound!) was one of my favorite parts of high school typing class.
I think “demo reel” is one of those analogue words still used by videographers. In reality, their demo reels come in the form of links to certain websites they have uploaded their samples on.
http://www.mediacollege.com/employment/demo-reel.html
Great example, thanks!
Hey Corinne,
last month I had a discussion with a potential customer and Arabic translator about translation into Arabic, Quran version. We have been trying to explain that in Quran there was no such words as f.i. “cell phone” or “fridge” 🙂
We have agreed to translate it in a descriptive way.
Very interesting, thanks!
I admit to being a bit of an old-tech junkie, especially when in comes to typewriters. I have a Silver Reed and a couple of gorgeous Olivettis (which I admittedly use more for playing with my kids than for actually writing stuff on, although I have done in the past, so satisfying). But I have to quibble over records being obsolete: vinyl is HUGE these days and is the serious listener’s medium of choice. At least, that’s the argument my husband presents me with as he sneaks yet another bag of secondhand LPs into the house or shameless begs anyone travelling to Europe or the US if they can mule him back some new ones. Forbes agrees http://fortune.com/2016/04/16/vinyl-sales-record-store-day/ There is a translation connection to all this: the sleeves for LPs from the 1950s through 1980s we have that were produced here in Argentina were all translated into Spanish even if the songs were in another language. So you get “Boleto para pasear” (Ticket to Ride) etc. Some are hilarious misses.
Thanks, Victoria!
One century-old example is lowercase and uppercase. I bet most people don’t know that it originated in letterpress printing. It’s firmly incorporated into the language, though.
Another old term, this one is quite deprecated, is Molotov cocktail. Many editors replace it with petrol bomb because the younger set often isn’t familiar with Viatcheslav Molotov and the Russo-Finnish War. Even for those who know its background, it often sounds musty and antiquated.
In summary there’s a lot of old rope in the language, and deciding what to keep or discards depends more on usage and linguistic sensibility than on logic.
Very cool example about the letterpress, Paulo! Thank you.
I recently had this same realization with the word “click” – how we still say that with respect to smartphones and other touchscreens when obviously it doesn’t make a clicking sound anymore. Would there be kids one day who, like some of the kids in these other anecdotes, ask “why is it called clicking when it doesn’t make a clicking sound?” Only after I had that realization did I start to notice that in mobile-specific contexts the word is “tap.”
Obviously these anachronisms abound, but it’s fascinating to me how each of us has had the realization with a different one, and in most cases we don’t realize that the word doesn’t literally make sense anymore.
…and then the other weird thing is that in Windows 10 on my non-touchscreen laptop, the notifications still say “tap,” although you have to click! Thanks, Eugenia, for your comment!
Pour les francophones : même chose pour “décrocher” et “raccrocher” en français qui s’inspirent des téléphones analogiques de l’époque…
Merci!