“Dreams can come true again when everything old is new again.” — Peter Allen
Have you ever wondered what would happen to a group of teens and twenty-somethings if they were locked in an escape room that contained an analogue clock, a rotary-dial phone and a list of cursive instructions that included a phone contact and a time limit? Would they be able to get out?
The answer really isn’t important because my reason for creating the whole scenario is to illustrate the need for the adjectives that modify “clock,” “phone” and “instructions.” Back in the days before the invention of digital clocks and push-button phones, everybody would instantly know what you meant when you talked about a clock, a telephone — and a lot of other things.
The unstoppable march of progress has necessitated the coining of the term “retronym,” which was the brainchild of journalist and former National Public Radio President Frank Mankiewicz in 1980. His new term quickly gained popularity thanks to language maven William Safire, who wrote about it in The New York Times Magazine.
A retronym is a newer name for an existing thing that differentiates the original version from a more recent one because the original term has become ambiguous. For instance, before disposable diapers came along, we didn’t need to say “cloth diaper” because they were all made of cloth.
As technology zips ahead on fast forward, the number of retronyms for electronic devices seems to grow on an almost daily basis. How many of us still listen to terrestrial radio or talk on a phone that’s connected to a land line? Besides seeing them in classic movies or old scripted TV shows, does anybody watch black and white television — you know, the kind with the big cathode-ray picture tube?
Back in the days when all music was live, no one needed to say “live music,” because it was just music. Then along came records, which improved over time, but not enough to fend off digital technology, so now we refer to them as “vinyl records.”
If you still like to peruse an ink newspaper in the morning, and would rather read a paper book than an ebook, and prefer a paper map to one of those GPS things, then you probably still wear a mechanical watch too.
And how are your relationships? Are you in a traditional marriage — but not with your business partner? Do the two of you go to brick-and-mortar stores and then, perhaps, to a day baseball game that’s played on natural turf (grass)?
It’s getting late, so that’s it for now. Time for me to turn on my old lamp with the incandescent bulb, warm up the transistor radio and enjoy a glass of whole milk. Oh, and I’ve got to go let those young people out of that room — they’re starting to panic.
Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.”
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