calling dibs on "retronym treadmill"

[Jonathan Lighter]

The first "smart" things I can recall hearing about were "smart bombs" at
the end of the Vietnam War.

"Dumb bombs" followed not long after.

JL

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      calling dibs on "retronym treadmill"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At least I don't seem to find anyone else calling it that.  Of course =
> the model is "euphemism treadmill", coined as far as I can tell by =
> Steven Pinker for an observation dating back at least to Cicero.  The =
> retronym treadmill is similar and I was just reminded of the pattern =
> when I noticed a reference in this NYT piece in Sunday Styles on people =
> (like me) who retain our "dumb phones": =20
> =
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/fashion/a-hardy-group-holds-out-on-smart=
> phones.html<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/fashion/a-hardy-group-holds-out-on-smart=phones.html>
>
> Why does it illustrate the retronym treadmill? Well,
> "Corded phone" (formerly known as "telephone") once cordless phones came =
> into existence
>
> Landline phone (formerly known as "telephone") once cell(ular)/mobile =
> phones came into existence
>
> Dumb phone (formerly known as "cell phone") once smart phones came into =
> existence
>
> =85
>
> "Dumb phone", of course, is not something either Teddy Wayne or I can =
> call dibs on; there are 261K raw google hits, mostly (of course) in =
> direct contrast with "smart phone".=20
>
> LH=20=
>
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