You now read what I ‘keyboarded.’ But back when I went away to college, Mom gave me a portable Underwood and I ‘typed.’
I’m not so ancient that I had to ‘ring up’ the telephone. However I still remember when Mom used the ‘party line’. Today if anyone tries listening in, you must change your ‘password’ because you have been ‘hacked.’ ‘Hacked’ used to mean the guard slammed your arm when you were trying to toss the basketball.
Today’s Mom must decide whether to ‘phone’ or ‘text’ even though she uses the same number.
We oldsters used a telephone ‘directory’ with names and numbers printed large enough to read. Now just go to ‘contacts’ and hope you have already put in the number you want. “Where are you, Ma Bell, when I need you?” may require a translator for ‘geeks,’ another new word. A term the Greeks didn’t have in their vocabulary.
I’m so old that I need a great grandson to tell me how to place a telephone call. Even the grandchildren have been ‘digitized’ and are now called ‘millennials .’
I have a word for all of these changes in nomenclature, not a word you would repeat in polite company. And never on your ‘website’—a spider term—’blog.’
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters from Unsplash
