add to the Rolodex

[Ben Zimmer]

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 11:18 AM, victor steinbok  wrote:
>
> David Bernstein (of the Volokh Conspiracy) complains about what he perceives
> to obsolete usage in received communication:
>
> http://volokh.com/2011/05/04/how-twentieth-century/
>
> I received a promotional postcard from X Law School, bragging about one of
> > its professors. The text of the card starts, “It would be wise to add
> > [Professor ___] to your Rolodex. Because nobody knows more about training a
> > new generation of lawyers than she does.”
> > Rolodex?
> > I half expected the postcard to conclude with the tag line, “X Law School:
> > Preparing Our Students for the Twentieth Century.”
>
> [...]
>
> Still, I believe, overall, Rolodex "has become somewhat genericized" (Wiki
> language) and the phrase "add to the Rolodex" is nearly idiomatic.
> Complaints about its twentieth century origin seem to be more complaints
> about etymology than about usage.

Note also the persistence of extended/figurative variations on the
theme, such as "mental Rolodex" (55K ghits).

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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