I was talking with my 21-year-old daughter Samantha recently, and she was telling me about a funny incident she saw. I asked her if she taped it. She asked me what that meant. I hastily replied, “shot video of it.” She said, “Yes, I recorded it on my phone, if that’s what you meant.”
Yes, that’s what I meant.
Then it hit me that none of us have used “tape” in quite a few years and that she may not have truly understood what I meant. Key word here is “may.” More than likely, it was another of her jabs about me getting old. This is the same daughter that I took to the Iowa State Fair and the telephone exhibit that showed how operators put calls through many years ago. She stood at one end and was to dial 1, 2, 3, 4, and then it would patch through to me on the other end. I yelled across the room to her to go ahead and dial. So she pressed 1, 2, 3, 4. I said, “No, you have to dial it,” and I motioned my finger in a circle. She yelled back, “I am dialing it” and kept pressing the buttons. Then it hit me that she had never operated a rotary dial phone before. “Dial” had a different meaning to her.
The outdated phrases don’t stop there. What about “flipping” the channels on the TV? What exactly are we “flipping” now? For that matter, we really aren’t “pumping” gas anymore either, at least not with a lever by hand.
What words or phrases do you use today that are no longer tied to the original meanings? Shoot me a note and share.
Make it a wonderful Wednesday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305 |
