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When innovation outruns language, the past gives us continuityAug 26, 2011 (The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Technology is evolving faster than language's ability to keep up with it. Consider: Wireless is the way we connect. Cell phones, computers, tablets and e-books have become a way of life. Ninety percent of adults live in a household with at least one cell phone and 25 percent of adults have severed their land lines and gone completely wireless, reports the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. At Amazon, Kindle e-book sales have surpassed those of traditional hardback and softcover books. If youngsters have seen a rotary phone, it most likely was in a vintage television show or a museum. But even as new technology takes over, we talk about teaching young children to "dial" 911 in an emergency, even when they would be using a cell phone. "Dialing is something that's a bit of the past," says Becky Welch, associate director of product marketing for Verizon Wireless. "We have a technology where you can use voice commands and are not punching in digits to call someone you're trying to contact." Even the term cell phone has become something of a misnomer, Welch says. Younger users prefer to text rather than talk, and 29 percent of Verizon Wireless customers think of their wireless as their primary device for entertainment needs, such as streaming videos, watching sporting events or listening to music. Cell phone already might be an outmoded term. Welch suggests we call it a "multimedia or multipurpose device." Language doesn't always keep pace with technology. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. "That's just natural -- it takes a while for innovation to feed back into the language system," says Bryan Crable, an associate professor who teaches rhetoric and communication theory at Villanova University and the founding director for Waterhouse Family Institute for the Study of Communication and Society, near Philadelphia. There's nothing new in that, says Rob Kyff, whose column "The Word Guy" runs weekly in the Tribune-Review. Words and phrases often linger long after their original meaning has vanished. "Many of the words and expressions we use are based on obsolete crafts, activities or technologies, yet, they still retain their vibrancy and richness," Kyff says. "Even though blacksmithing is no longer a common occupation, for instance, we say someone has 'too many irons in the fire.' And even though few of us have ever towed a cart with a horse, we say, 'don't put the cart before the horse' and 'use a carrot and a stick' to motivate someone." Similarly, new technologies look to their predecessors. "We borrow something from the past that no longer has literal meaning and use it in a way to understand what we are doing,' Crable says. Now familiar word-processing terms, such as "cut and paste," are borrowed from printers for the commands to move text or images in a document, as an example. Similarly, office workers who never have seen a sheet of carbon paper send an e-mail to a group of people by entering their e-mail addresses after "cc," even though no one is going to get their hands messy making carbon copies. "The technologies change the ways we communicate, but, often, the language we use does not," says Jeff Rice, an associate professor and Martha B. Reynolds endowed professor in writing, rhetoric and digital media at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Ky. "We choose metaphors based on their comfort and familiarity," he says. "We may call an online publication an 'e-zine' or ' 'zine' because the term is really magazine and we are comfortable with that term. Yet, the publication may not exactly resemble a print magazine. It may have video or sound, or in the case of an iPad app like Zite, it may simply be an aggregation of many sources found online." John Cantine, an associate professor of film and video at Pittsburgh Filmmakers and his co-authors Susan Howard and Brady Lewis debated how to use words such as film, video and movies as they were writing "Shot by Shot: A Practical Guide to Filmmaking." As the title shows, they settled on film to mean any traditional short or feature movie, no matter what medium -- film, videotape or digital imagery was used in its creation. "Part of the issue is that people do not understand the difference between film and video," Cantine says. Moreover, "hybrid technology has taken over," he says. "You can shoot, edit and display your movies on a cell phone." Cantine actually prefers the old-fashioned word "movies" for what appears on screens, whether they're in a multiplex theater or on your Smartphone screen. "Movies are short for moving pictures," he says. "The only people who don't like (the word) 'movies' think it's too low brow." Retaining those "old-fashioned" terms can be reassuring, Kyff says. "In a stressful world of constantly changing technology, it's somehow reassuring to use the older terms because they give us an anchor, a sense of continuity and permanence," he says. "Sending our data to a 'cloud' is more reassuring than sending it to a remote data base, and 'pasting' the text gives us a sense of physically placing it and securing it. Even listening to an 'album' conveys a more leisurely, comfortable experience than listening to a 'collection' does." Ultimately, it doesn't matter what name or term we apply, Rice says. "I have an iPhone. I use it more for web-based activities than I do for talking. I could call it 'web device,' but doing so would not help me adjust or experience the device the way I really want to," he says. "'Phone' helps us feel comfortable and understand this device better. ... It also helps consumers adjust to new technologies easier and not see every new product as alien and irrelevant. The language helps us see the relevancy of the tools we use to communicate with. It helps with the transition to new experiences. The experiences will change our language at some point, but likely, not at first." Outmoded words and phrases Type: Whether you're tapping a computer keyboard or pinching, swiping and pressing images on your I-pad tablet, there's no type involved. Taping: If you're using your DVR, you're recording the show. Those accessing it on their laptop or tablet are streaming or downloading it. CC or carbon copy: Even people who never have seen a piece of carbon paper recognize this term for distributing a letter or an e-mail to several recipients. Dial, dial phone, dial tone: When you're tapping, pressing or keying in the numbers and hitting send, there's actually no dial or dial tone involved. For voice-to-voice communications, "call" is an acceptable word as you still are calling them. Dial-up: Even people who still connect to the Internet through a phone line probably are not using a rotary phone. Cut and paste: No scissors or sticky substances are necessary to move words, phrases or images in a document from one place to another. Remove and insert are possible substitutes. Album: No liner notes, cardboard sleeves or flat acrylic boxes are included when you download a group of songs to your MP3 player. So why not call it a collection? Cell phone: When voice-to-voice calling is only one of a bundle of tasks you use it for, this device might better be called a multimedia- or multipurpose-communication device. Film: When you're streaming an entertainment that might have been created digitally, there's no film or video tape involved. But movie still is a legitimate term because the pictures still are moving. ___ (c)2011 The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Greensburg, Pa.) Visit The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Greensburg, Pa.) at www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib Distributed by MCT Information Services |