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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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We haven't discussed these in a while. Is "string bass" a retronym? Just occurred to me the other day...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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It appears to be, as separating the strings from the woodwinds. Here's a list I found:
acoustic guitar
AM radio
analog watch
bar soap
bias-ply tire
birth mother
broadcast TV
Classic Coke
classical music
clay pot
cloth diapers
conventional oven
conventional weapons
day game
day shift
day job
dirt road
full-service gas station
free gift
free-range chickens
hardcover book
health food
horse cavalry (thanks to Philip M. Cohen)
horse-drawn carriage
horse polo
land line
live drama
live TV
mainframe computer
manual transmission
manual typewriter
mechanical calculator
natural blonde
natural childbirth
natural flavor
natural language
natural turf
offline publication
oil lamp
Old Testament
one-speed bicycle
open cockpit
organic food
paper notebook (thanks to James Collins)
plaintext
pocket watch
print journalists
propeller airplane
push mower
real cream
reel-to-reel tape recorder
regular coffee
rotary phone
sea salt
silent movie
single-wide trailer
small arms
snail mail
snow skiing
standard time
steam locomotive
straight razor
tap water
two-parent family
whole milk
wood-burning fireplace
wooden ship
World War I
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Cool list, Dr Bill! I was thinking more along the lines of "string bass" vs. "electric bass" (like your "acoustic guitar" example).
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I might argue with a few of those:
Classical music - even if you think modern non-classical is crap there was plenty of music before that which we laughingly refer to as 'serious music'
Tap water - Better might be 'well water' but even that's a bit iffy.
Rotary phone - just out of curiousity, what did we call the first phone with a mechanism for self selecting the desired number (rather than asking Myrt to connect us to City Hall)?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>curiousity
I've always been curious about this "misspell"..
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pure mislexia.
So tsuw me.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Faldage: Wasn't the dial phone the first device to
replace operator?
And isn't it now silly to talk about "dial-up" internet connection. Are there any dial phones still in use?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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My point with the question about dial phones is that the term wouldn't be a retronym if it were applied to phones that had dials added as an innovation, replacing the old 'pick up the ear thingy and jiggle the hook to get the operators attention' phones. (which were probably not known as putetajthtgtoa phones). Perhaps, since we probably stopped using the term dial phone when they became the norm (if we ever used it in that sense) and went back to it with the advent of touch-tone phones, it's a retro-retronym.
I believe pulse is still an option in your modem connection software.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>>curiousity >mislexia.. litigation
no, I was being serial -- some spellcheckers actually accept this. is this attempted standardization? extended mislexia??
archaism?!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Nuh-uh. This is something different, using the adjective to refer to the new instance. If what we call 'web sites' were just referred to as 'sites' and we called physical locations, say, 'geographical sites', *that would be the retronym.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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But but (oh boy, more fray!)--why does physicality have anything to do with it? Why were web sites called sites in the first place? Because they are places you go to.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Well, a store may have a web site as well as a physical site and there could be a need to define which of the two you are visiting.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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They're not places in the physical sense. You don't actually transport your body to the hard drive of some server somewhere. Do we need a retronym for physical places?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Do we need a retronym for physical places?
How about brick-and-mortar?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Why would that be a retronym?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Are there any dial phones still in use?
I still use one just to save the 36$ a year "tone" charge, and if you are skilled enough you can still make a phone call by making the correct sequence of clicks (after the "dial tone").
Advertizers still used the word "dial" in print and voice tell us to "dial 1-800......." and always have from what I can remember.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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"Dial" the verb is, I believe, a backformation from "dial" the noun. You had a dial on your phone and used it to input the number you wanted to connect to. So, "ring" or "dial" became the action. "Ring", obviously I think, came from the phone's bell.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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thanks, Cap.
are dials alwaya round? also makes me think of sundial...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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There's linear dials on radios.
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veteran
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veteran
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Dial < Latin dialis 'daily' < dies 'day'. In the Middle Ages denoted a sun-dial or clockface.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I love soi-disant. It rolls off the tongue much more trippingly than "self-appointed" and the literal translation from the French is much more to the point and scathing. I used it in a meeting at work some time ago, and found everyone looking at me with blank stares. I said "sorry, I meant self-appointed" and moved on. After the meeting one of the (supposedly all university-educated) others at the meeting came up to me and asked me how "that Maori word" was spelled ... 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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> "that Maori word"
LOL! Akaroa Maori, naturellement.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Ayah! And, of course, the two parts of the word both begin with letters not in the Maori alphabet, but given the initial error, missing that one was a tad understandable, I guess. These things happen and at the time I think: I must post this one; but somehow I forget and life moves on. Our project finished on Wednesday, after two years and four months. It's a success; we've had official congratulations from everyone from the CEO on down. Unfortunately, the thanks are just a leedle premature given that the past three months have been "extra time" - using contingency. We also need about another month to tidy up the loose ends. I explained away this need to the business sponsor, quite seriously, as being "injury time", making up for days lost to sickness. Believe it or not, he trotted off quite happily with that one. Let's hope he never actually thinks about what I said ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>>>that Maori wordDass me, Madame Maori
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