{{Refimprove, date=August 2014 Archaic technological nomenclature are forms of

speech Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...

and

writing Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of language. A writing system includes a particular set of symbols called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language. Every written language ...

which, while once commonly used to describe a particular process, method, device, or phenomenon, have fallen into disuse due to the advance of

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

and

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

. Such

archaism In language, an archaism is a word, a sense of a word, or a style of speech or writing that belongs to a historical epoch beyond living memory, but that has survived in a few practical settings or affairs. lexicon, Lexical archaisms are single a ...

is inevitable where continual re-invention and discovery makes technical concepts, names and descriptions redundant.

Context

As technology evolves, new

name A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A person ...

s are required to describe the products, services, processes, methods, and devices invented. Often, the first names and phrases brought into use by are by the inventor(s), by journalists covering the development, and marketers trying to sell the services and products. Other terms were developed by the public to explain the technology that they used. Some of these terms were initially widely used, then fell out of the common vernacular. Others failed to "catch on" and never entered common usage in the first place. Sometimes, the technologies themselves were superseded, and the term fell into disuse. In the history of science, forms of words are often coined to describe newly observed phenomena. Sometimes the words chosen reflect assumptions about the phenomenon which later turn out to be erroneous. In most cases, the original forms of words then become archaic and fall into disuse, with notable exceptions. This list documents such archaisms.

Computers and the Internet

; Information superhighway or Infobahn:1990s terms for the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. ;Store: archaic term for memory (e.g. Primary store for RAM). Cf. 'storage', as used by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

Domestic appliances

Radio

;Left of the dial: Refers to the location on an analog radio band selector where most independent or college stations were (and are) located. ;

Transistor A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...

ized: When transistor heralded a new age of mobile music, radio marketers advertised that the devices used this technology. Since the first "transistorized" radios were much smaller than vacuum tube radios people were used to, for a time "transistorized" conveyed a device's miniaturization. As late as the 1970s some even showed the precise ''number'' of transistors. ;

Wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

: Formerly used as a synonym for "radio" (or for a radio receiver), this once-obsolete term has now reentered the language to describe new uses of radio technology, in particular for computer-related functions like "wireless modems".

TV

: Telectroscope: what eventually became called "television" ;The White Dot: Television sets, in the past, powered down slowly as the

capacitors In electrical engineering, a capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy by accumulating electric charges on two closely spaced surfaces that are insulated from each other. The capacitor was originally known as the condenser, a term st ...

in the

power supply A power supply is an electrical device that supplies electric power to an electrical load. The main purpose of a power supply is to convert electric current from a source to the correct voltage, electric current, current, and frequency to power ...

discharged and the picture collapsed down to a white dot in the centre of the screen that then faded away over a period of up to a minute. Many people of the 1940s-70s do remember this moment as the set was turned off at the end of viewing. ; Televisor: A word used by pioneer

John Logie Baird John Logie Baird (; 13 August 188814 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first mechanical Mechanical television, television system on 26 January 1926. He went on to invent the fi ...

to describe what we now call a TV set ;"Don't Touch That Dial": An exhortation to remain tuned to the current television channel, it refers to the use of a rotary knob on television sets for selecting the channel from a limited selection of frequencies (typically a VHF dial for channels 2 to 13, optionally with a U option for tuning channels 14 to 83 in the UHF band on a second such dial). Archaic with the advent of button controls, particularly on remote controls, the phrase is even more obsolete with the change to digital television which sets have no traditional analog controls whatsoever.

Transport

; Clippy: Obsolete British expression for a female

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

or bus conductor (ticket collector) who issued and validated the cardboard ticket by clipping the destination pre-printed on the cardboard ticket. ; Horseless carriage: Deprecated term for an automobile or motor car. Still sometimes used to denote early automobiles. Some American states use "horseless carriage" on their registration plates for what other states classify as "antique" automobiles, those over 25 or 30 years old and not used on the public roads for transportation.

Materials technology

;" Bri-Nylon" :

Portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of the words ''British'' and '' Nylon'' made famous by textile fibre manufacturers such as Courtaulds.

Electrical and electronics

; Condenser/condensor : Early description for a capacitor. ; Cycles per second (cps): Frequency unit for alternating current, radio frequencies, etc.; replaced by the SI unit

hertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or Cycle per second, cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in ter ...

(Hz). ; Electron tube and thermionic valve:"Tubes" and "valves" are still being made, but these older terms are no longer used. ; Hertzian waves: Archaic term for

electromagnetic radiation In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) is a self-propagating wave of the electromagnetic field that carries momentum and radiant energy through space. It encompasses a broad spectrum, classified by frequency or its inverse, wavelength ...

; Micro-microfarad : Historic term for " picofarad". ; Mho : Archaic term for unit of DC conductance. ohm⁻¹ ( siemens)

Chemistry

; Phlogiston: A theoretical fire-like substance posited as an addition to the four elements which could explain weight-gain through combustion. (Such weight gain actually represents addition of

oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...

; an example is the prolonged heating of a metal in air, forming the metal

oxide An oxide () is a chemical compound containing at least one oxygen atom and one other element in its chemical formula. "Oxide" itself is the dianion (anion bearing a net charge of −2) of oxygen, an O2− ion with oxygen in the oxidation st ...

Bibliography

* Karen J. Freeze, James C. Williams, ''Technology and Technical Sciences in History''. ICOHTEC Symposium, Dresden, August 25-29, 1986. Technology and Culture, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct., 1987), pp. 842–849 doi 10.2307/3105187

External links

Museum of Obsolete Objects
Lexicology Archaic