A few weeks ago I was sat in a waiting room when I heard the receptionist say “I’ll delete that”. Being bored out of my mind, I started thinking about those three words. Or more specifically, the verb in the middle.
Of course, the word ‘delete’ isn’t exactly new: it’s been with us since the late 15th century with little (if any) change to the usage. But what really got me thinking was how commonplace words related to technology has become: the receptionist used the term ‘delete’ was used because it’s the word that appears in Microsoft Windows.
Had the good old system of pen-and-paper been used, then perhaps the phrase would’ve been “I’ll rub that out” or “I’ll get rid of that”. But instead, the programmer’s default phrasing was used instead. (Whether or not this is good phrasing on the programmer’s side is an article for another week…)
A number of new words have also been coined in a massively short period of time, the most common being podcast and blog; and a lot of words have been given new meanings. Words such as desktop, tweet, network and port would sound alien to somebody from the past.
It’s always interesting to see how language usage changes over the years. Which new words are being introduced, which buzzwords from last year aren’t being used as much, how the words are formed. It’s our own little lexicon, with the added joy of terms being added and removed all the time.
No wonder those who don’t follow technology changes closely are easily confused!