NEWS: 13 Tech Terms You Should Never Say Again

[Basement Cat]

[HEADING=3]This report coming to you from Copper Zen, the Escapist's Grand High Pooh-Bah and a member of the Injustice League [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/The-Injustice-League], Brovengers [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/The-Brovengers], Cataholics Anonymous [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Catoholics-anonymous], Internet Bunker [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/The-Internet-Bunker], and Mod Forum [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Moderation-Team].[/HEADING]

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We're all accustomed to slang becoming obsolete: What was cool during our Freshman year in High School is long since passe' by our Junior year--if it lasts even that long.

Technical terms can stay with us far longer, particularly the older we get. Many older men and women still refer to vinyl records in common parlance when referring to music even though such records went out of production (didn't they?) decades ago.

But here's a news story listing more than "ancient" words:

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http://news.yahoo.com/13-tech-terms-never-again-201251980.html
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The "passe'" terms listed are:

1. Dial (verb)
2. Tune In / Stay Tuned
3. Tape (verb)
4. Webcam
5. Blog (noun)
6. Desktop Computer
7. Film (verb)
8. Smartphone
9. Surf the Web
10. Desktop Publishing
11. Personal Cloud
12. Super Phone
13. Set-Top Box

Topic of Discussion: First of all--how many of these terms do you recognize and second how many do you think may/are/have evolved to take on more contemporary meaning than their original ones?

The author of this story takes a few liberties in equating slang with technical terms. "Tuning in" belonged to radios and televisions, but we're supposed to dispose of "surfing the net" because it's an older term and use "browse" in its place?

"Blog" is to be tossed into the trash can?

What are your thoughts on the "Semantics Nazis", my fellow Escapists?

 

[Vegosiux]

Language evolves, that's all there is to it. As long as you and I both know what exactly you mean, I'm not going to get on your case for what expression you used for it.

Except when you call football soccer, you silly yankees. Them's fighting words.

 

[Basement Cat]

It's just like how a picture of a floppy disk is still used as a symbol for 'save', even though those disks aren't used anymore.

Spoiler

Fail

Try again, Topaz. I hate it when people post pictures/MEMEs/gifs/clips I can't see. It tweaks my curiosity.

Edit: Thanx!

 

[roushutsu]

You wouldn't call your car a mobile air conditioner. You'd never refer to your microwave oven as a digital clock with heating ability or your PC as a Skype box.

Yeah, but now I can't wait to use them. Thanks for the suggestions!

I've heard of all of these terms, some way more than others. Some terms like "dial" I can understand being considered outdated. Nowadays dial-up connections are a rarity, so it doesn't make much sense to continue using it in regards to modern online connectivity.

 

[lechat]

a normal man leading a normal life. nothing could ever go wrong


suddenly it occurs to him noone watching this movie even knows what a record scratch is


i had to search for that sound on the internet

 

[PsychicTaco115]

OH I'M SORRY, I THOUGHT THIS WAS AMERICA!

Freaking people, telling me what I can and can't say...

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

How is "desktop computer" a useless term now?

Did I suddenly wake up in an alternate reality where everyone only has laptops and tablets?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

You wouldn't call your car a mobile air conditioner. You'd never refer to your microwave oven as a digital clock with heating ability or your PC as a Skype box.

Yeah, but now I can't wait to use them. Thanks for the suggestions!

I've heard of all of these terms, some way more than others. Some terms like "dial" I can understand being considered outdated. Nowadays dial-up connections are a rarity, so it doesn't make much sense to continue using it in regards to modern online connectivity.

I see you've never "dialed" a phone.

 

[DoPo]

The author of this story takes a few liberties in equating slang with technical terms.

You can say that again.

The author of this story takes a few liberties in equating slang with technical terms.

Thank you.

Topic of Discussion: First of all--how many of these terms do you recognize and second how many do you think may/are/have evolved to take on more contemporary meaning than their original ones?

Well, let's go

1. Dial (verb)
Yeah, I know what it is. My father used to service analogue telephone systems - grew up with phones with dials stuffed in the cupboard and stuff. And funnily, just yesterday I saw somebody carrying a phone with a dial on the street. I had to take a double take and try not to stare too much.

2. Tune In / Stay Tuned
Yeah, this is dumb to get rid of - it doesn't make sense, yes, but we have these things called "idioms" - this phrase (or phrases) have become part of them, I think.

3. Tape (verb)
I have taped some stuff from the radio. That was a long time ago. Tape is almost gone from commercial usage, I think, anyway. I won't miss this term.

4. Webcam
The author's justification is just...idiotic here. OK, there is some merit in what he's saying[footnote]the Web refers to the World Wide Web which is not the same as the Internet (and "online"). Very briefly, the difference is that the Web is what you see right here - a web page, the Internet is where it is, but Skype is using the Internet, not the WWW. The Internet is lots of islands separated by...something - the Web is one way of traversing between them, Skype is different. One could be a boat, the other bridges between islands (don't pick the analogy apart because of this)[/footnote] but that's just nitpicking, everybody knows what a webcam is, and what it means. Nobody thinks it's only "a camera that works on the Web".

5. Blog (noun)
The author's justification is...well, that's really idiotic here. Blog, by itself, is a viable and descriptive term. Also he fails to mention that it serves exactly what it describes - a (We)b log. He's just complaining about some blogs.

6. Desktop Computer
Meh, nitpicking again. It's mostly used on a desk (hence desktop), who cares where the fuck is the computer actually sitting? Sure, you may not have it on a desk but again who the fuck cares.

7. Film (verb)
It's funny - he's complaining about the verb, when there are films not actually...well, filmed. Whatever, I'm getting to the point where I stop caring.

8. Smartphone
Maybe if people who designed the devices didn't call them phones, we might also stop doing it. Oh and we are getting them with phone contracts and everything. This guy is you know, that guy who is all like "Heh heh, this word you said actually has this really obscure meaning I and a couple of other people know, and you used it incorrectly" type of person. Oh and he's also wrong. OK, well to be honest, smartphone never really did make much sense to me. But it's a term used to the device I own so I don't let it bother me.

9. Surf the Web

Good, can we move on. No? Well, when I say "I surf the Web" I do mean it. As rare as I do use that term. But "browse the Web" is a synonym - it means the exact same thing. Why one is preferred over the other is beyond me.

10. Desktop Publishing
Never heard of that. I don't see why do we need to "move on" either. It's a specific way of how publishing is done. If another arises next month we'd still want to distinguish them.

11. Personal Cloud
OK, he's right - that is pretty dumb. I've never heard of that term before but I even went on the Iomega website and some obnoxious video started playing. Two minutes, that's what I managed to go through - there are another 30 seconds or so of the video but I can't really bring myself to survive them. Somebody in marketing just decided to start borrowing labels that sounded cool. Somebody please go and hit that guy with a block of ice now. It's a network storage device, it is nothing like any kind of cloud. The only similarity is that there is a network involved.

12. Super Phone
Hadn't heard of it. Again, one of the few terms the author is correct about. This is worse than "smartphone" by the virtue of not being commonplace any more, so please don't bring it to be. Otherwise we'll run out of superlatives to describe the next kind of phones in about a couple of years.

13. Set-Top Box
No idea what this is. No idea what he's talking about either.

 

[DoPo]

You wouldn't call your car a mobile air conditioner. You'd never refer to your microwave oven as a digital clock with heating ability or your PC as a Skype box.

Yeah, but now I can't wait to use them. Thanks for the suggestions!

I've heard of all of these terms, some way more than others. Some terms like "dial" I can understand being considered outdated. Nowadays dial-up connections are a rarity, so it doesn't make much sense to continue using it in regards to modern online connectivity.

The article isn't talking about the weird screeching boxes that were used to access the interwebz, it's talking about using this phone

to call people

 

[Basement Cat]

The article isn't talking about the weird screeching boxes that were used to access the interwebz, it's talking about using this phone

to call people

I grew up with phones like that. One funny quirk they had was that if someone called you and forgot to hang up the phone at their end (or didn't hang it up properly so the line didn't disconnect) you couldn't call anyone from your phone in the meantime. The line between you just stayed active.

I remember one case of that from my childhood when my brother--who played the trumpet in school--got out his instrument and played it as loudly into the phone as he could to try to get the family on the other end to hear the noise and realize that the phone wasn't hung up properly. Didn't work. Our phone didn't work for about 5 hours. Eventually someone on the other end noticed and just hung it up.

That's what the old rotary dial phones were like to use--a far cry from today's phones, especially our cell phones, huh?

 

[Twilight_guy]

You're going to have to tell most movie people that they can no longer used the word film as a verb. They're going to be upset.

I've heard and use about half of them. I think dial and film are probably going to be used forever though. They are antiquated but they have become associated with particular types of activities no matter the media used to dot hat activity.

 

[Lilani]

What a bullshit list. Blog? People still have blogs. What else are we supposed to call them, if not blogs? Also, I have a "desktop computer"--an iMac to be precise. If laptops are still laptops, then what am I supposed to call my desktop? And do you not dial a number on your cell phone? And film? Yes I suppose we aren't recording on actual film anymore, but "record" isn't terribly specific and saying "I recorded something" could easily mean just the audio. And what are we supposed to call smartphones? Not all phones are smartphones just yet, there is still a need to delineate between the them.

 

[yeti585]

Technical terms can stay with us far longer, particularly the older we get. Many older men and women still refer to vinyl records in common parlance when referring to music even though such records went out of production (didn't they?)

No, vinyl is still a thing. Though, I don't know how I feel about it. ([link]http://www.merchdirect.com/SayAnything/Vinyl/AnarchyMyDear/?productid=15245[/link])

The "passe'" terms listed are:

1. Obsolete, until you have to call a number that isn't programmed into your phone.
2. More of a nostalgia phrase I guess? Ice hockey commentators still say "drop the mitts"
3. "Roll down the window" theory here
4. Webcam? really? what do we call those things mounted on laptops now?
5. I've never really been into blogs, so I don't know this one.
6. desktop computer
7. "Roll down the window"
8.smartphone
9. Still stands, can replace "surf" with "browse"
10. No clue about this one
11. nope, no clue
12. People would say this?
13. You mean like a "cable box"? As in it connects your TV to TV networks?

that's my take on things.

 

[Basement Cat]

1. Obsolete, until you have to call a number that isn't programmed into your phone.
2. More of a nostalgia phrase I guess? Ice hockey commentators still say "drop the mitts"
3. "Roll down the window" theory here
4. Webcam? really? what do we call those things mounted on laptops now?
5. I've never really been into blogs, so I don't know this one.
6. desktop computer
7. "Roll down the window"
8.smartphone
9. Still stands, can replace "surf" with "browse"
10. No clue about this one
11. nope, no clue
12. People would say this?
13. You mean like a "cable box"? As in it connects your TV to TV networks?

that's my take on things.

Desktop publishing was big in the 80's and 90's, but with the explosion of the internet it went the way of the Dodo bird.

11. Personal Cloud---Never heard of it, myself.
12. Super Phone---ditto.
13. Set-Top Box---Cable box, as you said, but not this term.


I think the author deliberately picked the bottom 3 terms hoping that people would agree with him because they were so uncommon that they didn't find new roots in the vernacular.

Seriously--"Set-Top Box"? What?

 

[yeti585]

Desktop publishing was big in the 80's and 90's, but with the explosion of the internet it went the way of the Dodo bird.

I googled it (and in turn wiki'ed it). And, from what I read it's a fancy term for programs such as Micorsoft publisher.
11-Apparently this is a personal server (or something of the like)
12-A big, powerful smartphone. But, not an iPhone

Google is your friend.

 

[Aussie502]

Seriously--"Set-Top Box"? What?

Not sure what the confusion is about set-top boxes. They're mainly used for older TV's that don't have inbuilt digital capability, allowing those people to receive digital signals. Since the analog signals have been discontinued in most parts of Australia, set-top boxes are still fairly common for people without digital TV's.

 

[Basement Cat]

Seriously--"Set-Top Box"? What?

Not sure what the confusion is about set-top boxes. They're mainly used for older TV's that don't have inbuilt digital capability, allowing those people to receive digital signals. Since the analog signals have been discontinued in most parts of Australia, set-top boxes are still fairly common for people without digital TV's.

Cable boxes. Or converter boxes. That's what I/we called such boxes. I wonder if "set top box" is a cultural thing--you know, like how Americans refer to televisions as TV's (tee vees) and Brits call them 'tellies'.

 

[Aussie502]

Cable boxes. Or converter boxes. That's what I/we called such boxes. I wonder if "set top box" is a cultural thing--you know, like how Americans refer to televisions as TV's (tee vees) and Brits call them 'tellies'.

I have never heard anyone refer to them as a cable box or a converter box. I guess it must be a cultural thing. Also in Australia we refer to televisions as both, although it's mostly older people that refer to them as 'tellies'.

 

[Heronblade]

The "passe'" terms listed are:

1. Dial (verb)
2. Tune In / Stay Tuned
3. Tape (verb)
4. Webcam
5. Blog (noun)
6. Desktop Computer
7. Film (verb)
8. Smartphone
9. Surf the Web
10. Desktop Publishing
11. Personal Cloud
12. Super Phone
13. Set-Top Box

Topic of Discussion: First of all--how many of these terms do you recognize and second how many do you think may/are/have evolved to take on more contemporary meaning than their original ones?

Let's see

-I recognize all of them, along with their original usage (I'm 26 btw, this is no old fogey reminiscing about the good old days here)
-Out of the above, only 5 have either lost their original context, or never had ground to stand on to begin with. Most of these terms reference items and actions I encounter and or use on a daily basis. Hell, even #2, "tune in", possibly the oldest one on the list, is still valid, at least in reference to radio stations.

So yeah, whoever came up with this list is incredibly full of themselves.

P.S. Concerning #8, is there another term for advanced function cellphones? I certainly have not heard one (without specifying OS or model that is)