The future is retro!

[muckefuck]

At lunch, I glanced at an article which predicted that sales of digital cameras will outpace those of "film-based" ones within the next few years. It left me thinking, We're going to need a better retronym than "film-based camera".

A retronym is a term that comes into use when the general name for a class of things comes, by default, to refer to what was once a small subclass. The new name coined to distinguish the old default meaning is the retronym. My favourite examples is "acoustic guitar". Once all guitars were "acoustic". Then the electric guitar became ubiquitous in rock and pop and a new name had to be invented for those guitars that can't be plugged in. Other examples include "snail mail" (for those geeky, online types for whom unadorned "mail" means "e-mail") and "pocket watch" (now that almost every "watch" is a wristwatch). Both of these come from the Wikipedia, which has a nice sampling.

Any suggestions? I'm also wondering what we're eventually going to call the kind of phones that attach to a landline. I've heard "landline" used metonymically, but never a collocation like *landline phone. Also, what are we going to call old-fashioned monitors when everyone has a flat screen?

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

It's called "analog photography", "silver photography", or "standard potography".

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but what's the camera called? "Analog camera" I can see, but "silver camera" sounds like a camera with a silver toned casing and how much sense does "standard camera" make once the standard way to take photographs is digitally?

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

You guys still call your feet and inches and furlongs "the standard system". It's all in the usage.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Because for us they are standard! The metric system has had some creeping success (most notably in science--though remember the Mars Climate Orbiter fiasco of a few years back), but most USAmericans have never internalised it. We buy soda in 2-litre bottles and shoot 35 milimetres, but our distances are never in kilometres ('less you're in uniform) and no one gives their weight in kilogrammes (or "stone", like those crazy Aussies).

I could see "standard camera" during the transition period, but not once they make up 3% of all cameras sold.

[gopower.livejournal.com]

"metonymically" and "collocation" -- your LJ is better than the word-a-day desk calendar.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Also, what are we going to call old-fashioned monitors when everyone has a flat screen?

CRTs.

Apropos of nothing except I thought of you while reading it: a tale.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Great story! Time for me to dust off Gardiner and start endorsing my checks in Ancient Egyptian...

Well, biological brother...

[bunj.livejournal.com]

I imagine they'll just be called something along the lines of 'old-style' monitors or 'box' monitors. I don't know how often it will come up, though, as no one will still use them. You can use 'macadamed road' to differentiate from 'asphalt road' but who uses macadam any more?

[spookyfruit.livejournal.com]

The way I've seen cameras differentiated is like this:

Digital cameras
APS cameras
35mm cameras
Medium format cameras
Large format cameras

The non-digital ones are all film cameras, and the fact that you mention a format differentiates them from digital cameras. I've also seen 'CD camera' for a camera that burns digital images onto a CD. The kind of camera then, becomes implicit by the format.

Just another datapoint.

I don't think you'll see camera mean 'digital camera' by default any time soon; similarly 'guitar' by default doesn't differentiate, it seems to me.

-sf-

[parisgreen.livejournal.com]

Also, what are we going to call old-fashioned monitors when everyone has a flat screen?

Anchors.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Is that like news anchors or boat anchors?