Language evolves over time, but some idioms linger long after their original reference point is gone.
For example, the phrases "by hook or by crook" and "rule of thumb" date back to the 14th and 17th centuries respectively.
With the speed of technology today, phrases can lose their context even faster.
Reddit user Foreign-External8488 asked:
"What phrases still used today (like dial a phone or roll down the window) no longer make sense because of technological advancement ?"
Be Kind, Rewind
"When you go back to an earlier part of a video, do you still call it rewinding, even though you aren't physically rewinding tape onto a spool?"
~ Torvaun
Giddy-Up
"One of my favorites is dashboard."
"On a horse drawn carriage it was a plank in front of the lower half of the driver's bench that blocked clods of dirt & mud that were flung up from the hooves of a dashing—running—horse."
~ tacknosaddle
CC: Say What?
"Carbon copy."
~ Exhausted_Monkey26
"I work at the post office, we still use carbon paper sheets for making copies of certain paperwork."
~ sutasafaia
"I actually looked and apparently the modern stuff, with 2-3 sheets that transfer the top layer down is actually carbonless copy paper."
~ Drigr
"Originally a 'carbon copy' was made by inserting a special carbon-coated sheet in between two regular sheets of paper. The pressure of writing or typing would physically transfer the carbon to the second layer."
"The white-pink-yellow triplicate inherited the name even though it doesn't work that way or involve carbon, and that's what most people think of as a 'carbon copy' and where the computer usage of the term came from. So it's a double example of the phenomenon."
"I'm old enough to remember a time when computers were exotic, and I got my school report cards on triplicate paper."
"I have never seen anyone use actual carbon paper, as far as I know it went out in the mid-1960s, but I have seen it for sale at office supply stores in the 'typewriter ribbons and other old people supplies' section."
~ eat_yo_mamas_ambien
"Graduated in 1987. We used 'carbon paper' in typing class.
"It was like tissue paper with a waxy film coating. To make a triplicate, you'd sandwich the carbon paper between regular sheets of paper, feed all three into the typewriter, then type your letter."
"At the bottom left corner, the 'CC:' literally referred to you making carbon copies to send to other people."
"When you CC an email, that's the reference."
"We'd reuse the carbon paper until it was practically nothing but tissue paper, and the carbon copies were so light you could barely see them."
~ MohawMais
How Do We Explain The Elephant?
"Trunk of a car used to be literally a storage trunk strapped to the back of a car to keep odds and ends (mostly tools) in."
"Now it’s just a word."
"Don’t know how the Brits got boot though."
~ InfinitePizzazz
Lights, Camera, Action!
"Calling it ‘filming’ a video."
"No film involved."
~ obx808
"Filming—the word was used originally because we were capturing to physical film, but now everything-ish is captured to digital, but we still use the verb film."
~ Adamzey
Denise Jans on Unsplash
Purpose Driven
"Glove box."
"The name derives from the original purpose of the compartment, to store driving gloves."
"They were sometimes in a box on the floorboard near the driver, hence the phrase 'glove box'."
~ dav_oid
Ahoy, Watson
"Hang up a phone makes no sense to most people now."
~ wish1977
"This made no sense to me for a while because not many landlines in my country had the phones vertical, and not many payphones were around."
"It is a payphone that made me realize."
~ mochi_chan
"I think the term actually comes from the candlestick style telephone ( in use from 1890s–1940s)."
~ Jestersage
Alejandro Alvarez on Unsplash
Is It Like Chewing The Fat?
"There are actually a lot of these once you start looking. My favorite is slush fund, which is commonly used to refer to an off-the-books budget used for off-the-books purchases."
"The root goes back to the British Navy where cooks would collect 'Slush'—fat that falls off meat when you cook it—and sell it to candle makers to fund purchases for the crew."
~ HugeRequirement8839
8", 5.25", Or 3.5"?
"It’s not something you say out loud, but I love that you still click on a floppy disc to save stuff."
~ stoneman9284
"I once asked my kids what that symbol was and they had no idea there used to be physical media that looked like that."
"I showed them one and they looked at it like an ancient artifact."
~ CU_Tiger_2004
90's gif artist GIFGiphy
If We Used Metric, Would It Be Decimeterage?
"'Footage' originally referred to the literal length of the film."
~ SLMZ17
"We still say footage although it originally described how much film had been captured in feet and now it will mainly just be digital files on a harddrive."
~ Adamzey
Old West Ways
"Riding 'shotgun' used to mean you’d sit up top with shotgun ready to protect the stagecoach from bandits who might attempt to rob or kill you."
~ Ganbario
"When I was a small kid and my parent wanted to discourage me from sitting up front, they told me it's called shotgun because 'if you're sitting up front and not strapped in correctly you'll shoot out the windshield like a bullet out of a shotgun'."
"It's one of those unexamined things my parents told me that I believed for FAR too long. Like, late teens, I think."
~ FlashInGotham
Jim Strasma on Unsplash
Although Any Cloth Would Do
"'Put a sock in it' comes from the era of mechanical gramophones where to turn down the volume you’d physically stuff something like a sock into the speaker horn."
"This was the only way to lower the volume until electrical reproduction/amplification came along."
~ ElectricPiha
"DVR It" Never Caught On
"Also 'taping' and 'on tape'."
~ SLMZ17
"I do still occasionally say that I 'taped' something, vs 'recorded' it."
"Haven't been tapes in ages—except the ones in my closet I refuse to get rid of."
"Can't stop myself."
~ glowingmember
"A few years ago, during Covid, I told my PreK—4/5 year old—students that I was going to 'tape them' singing some songs since we couldn't have parents in the building for a program."
"They looked at me a little scared and confused."
"One boy piped up and said, 'Tape us to what? The wall?'."
"My assistant and I about died laughing."
~ FaceofBeaux
"I still say 'tape it' when I want to record a TV show."
~ pestyfinesty
"I think I haven’t owned a VCR since… the nineties?"
~ Ganbario
Slow It Down
"Pump the brakes."
"You used to have to pump the brakes on your car to stop and ensure you weren't locking it up."
~ Mrlin705
Not What You Think
"'Balls out' is in reference to steam locomotives.
"They have a hanging sets of balls as part of the governor which spun the faster the engine ran & are used to regulate how fast the engine can run."
"Maximum-speed state of a ball governor on a locomotive."
"Going balls out was going so fast it would cause the balls to spin all the way out."
~ Nemesis_Ghost
What would you add?
