GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Technological change demands linguistic change.  The technological world in which our societies are immersed changes our lived experiences and aspects of culture such as language. For example, vinyl disks were simply called records until compact discs, audio tapes and digital files flooded the music market.  An artist may still cut a record today, but the record probably won’t be available in vinyl.   Vinyl, then, is a ‘retronym’ to now describe what was once called a record, which now has other meanings and connotations. This list has 14 other examples of retronyms, which exemplifies the cultural patterns and processes that create pop culture.  

Tags: language, culture, popular culture, technology.