"Stay tuned" - the all-digital generation doesn't get this phrase

[Dan Goncharoff]

Although I am over 50 years old and listen to the radio all the time, I had
never thought of the phrase in this context before. (I guess I had assumed
it meant a positive version of "don't touch that dial".)

DanG


On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Guy Letourneau <guy1656 at opusnet.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Guy Letourneau <guy1656 at OPUSNET.COM>
> Subject:      "Stay tuned" - the all-digital generation doesn't get this
> phrase
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I wrote a status report e-mail to my colleagues this week, and ended it
> with "Stay tuned," with my name following the comma much as one would
> end a formal letter with "Sincerely," and a person of about 22 years old
> privately wrote back to ask me what I meant by being "tuned."
>
> We are about two generations past the era of vacuum tube receivers in
> radio and television, and as radios go digital, the understanding of
> analog amplitude modulation (AM) is passing away now, as is the concept
> of tuning a receiver to a carrier frequency which may drift over time
> due to atmospheric conditions between the broadcaster and the receiver.
>
> Also, changes in temperature of the components of the receiving set,
> especially tubes and capacitors would cause frequency drifts, all of
> which had to be adjusted periodically while receiving the signal; this
> was not 'set and forget' channel selection. There were always knobs to
> twiddle...
>
> - Guy L.
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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