Evolution of terms

Are you guilty of using these 11 old-timey terms for everyday things?

Would you know what to give a person if they asked you to pass them the "clicker"? And would you say that you know how to safely handle a "range"? Some objects we see every day had very different names in their early days. So we’ve made a list of nostalgic terms that we stopped using over time. See if you know them all!

Why would you call a remote control a clicker? Simple: because of the sound it made when used. The original versions weren’t even electronic; instead, some used mechanical hammers that emitted a high-pitched click to signal the TV and control it remotely.

Before the devices we know today, shaving was a delicate art performed with straight blades. These were known as cut-throat razors, for obvious reasons.

Later, popularized by King C. Gillette in the early 1900s, the safety razor featured a protective guard to prevent deep cuts and made shaving safer for home use. Today, we just call them "razors" or call them by their brand.

Did your grandparents ever tell you to "put on your galoshes"? During the 19th century, the term referred to rubber overshoes worn to protect regular shoes from rain and mud. As waterproof rubber footwear (what we now call rain boots) became more widespread, many people began using galoshes to refer to those as well.

Old refrigerators where people cooled their perishables were known as iceboxes. They looked like wooden cabinets with metal linings inside, and contained large blocks of ice, which were delivered regularly by icemen. The ice sat in a compartment at the top, keeping food cool as it slowly melted, with runoff collected in a tray underneath.

As with galoshes, the term icebox continued to be used even after electric refrigerators became the norm.

Long before denim and jeans became the go-to terms, these work pants were often called dungarees. The name was less a nod to style or cut than to durability and purpose.

The term comes from Dongri, a dockside village near Mumbai, India, where a coarse, durable cotton fabric was produced and exported by the British in the 17th century. When the blue, strong fabric we know as "denim" became widespread, it made sense to call these garments the same way rugged pants had always been called.

You might be thinking, "Don’t we still use that word?" Of course we do. But there was a time when very few homes on the block had the technology to receive phone calls at all.

During the late 20th century, as portable telephones became widespread, a new term was required to refer to the phones with physical cables connected to underground networks. Thus, the word landline emerged to differentiate them from mobile phones.

"Spectacles" might sound quaint today, but for a long time, it was the standard word for a vision-correcting device. Early lenses were handheld and were introduced in Europe in the late 13th century!

The switch to the term glasses began in the 20th century, as optical glass became the standard lens material, and gained popularity largely through colloquial shortening.

Before Spotify playlists and digital shuffles, music lovers gathered around a turntable spinning at the center of the room. This was the common term for the rotating platform used to play vinyl records. Today, as vinyl has made an unexpected comeback, the term is often replaced in casual speech by record player.

This is another word we still use frequently, though its meaning has shifted over time. When typewriters were a must in every office, people often referred to the entire machine simply as **the keyboard**—a classic example of synecdoche.

Of course, the term keyboard was carried over from typewriters, and now we use it to refer mostly to the QWERTY set of keys.

Range was once the common term for a large cooking appliance with multiple burners and compartments—in other words, a long, horizontal cooking surface that could "range" across different heat zones.

As gas and electric stoves became more compact and widely accessible in the 20th century, stove increasingly replaced range in everyday speech.

Today, the word wireless brings to mind Wi-Fi or Bluetooth-connected headphones. But many technologies were "wireless" long before that. Early radio, in fact, was commonly referred to as wireless.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, radio was known as wireless telegraphy because it allowed messages to be transmitted without physical wires. The term gradually faded as the technology evolved, and radio became the standard term by the 1930s.

What about geese is silly?

Who said that rats were treacherous? 10 animals with unfair reputations

Image: Pixabay

Sure, sheep are obedient, and geese are loud. But when did we decide to start calling each other animal names? Since biblical times, we’ve been dragging innocent animals into our human drama to describe each other’s worst behavior. In this article, we’ll explore whether that’s fair, and what other traits animals like donkeys or rats could be identified with.

Image: A. G. Rosales

"Donkey" doesn’t have to be as offensive as one might think. Donkeys aren’t stupid—they’re just cautious. Up until the 1800s, they were known primarily as hardworking animals. But around that time, they fell out of favor as people began to notice their stubbornness.

Today, calling someone a donkey implies they’re being obstinate—or, plainly, dumb—though it’s milder than other animal insults. We can partly blame Mark Twain for popularizing the term as a stand-in for silly behavior.

Image: Pixabay

Blame medieval farmers for this one. By the 1500s, pigs’ legendary love of mud and gluttony had made them the perfect metaphor for human greed and sloppiness.

Today, calling someone a pig might accuse them of being messy, greedy, or even violent, depending on the context. You can always upgrade it to "swine" if you’re looking for a classier way to call someone "awful."

Image: Tomáš Malík

Snakes never did have a good reputation. Their association with sneaky, venomous behavior (already present in the story of the Garden of Eden) meant that by the time Shakespeare was learning to write, "snake" had become the go-to insult for backstabbers.

Today, it’s still the ultimate label for betrayal. Snakes do have a knack for hiding before they strike, and they are, after all, the subject of one of the world’s most widespread phobias.

Image: Pixabay

"Rat" is another word for traitors—and one no one wants to be called. Rats are blamed for silently spreading disease and fleeing sinking ships. Their sneakiness made them a metaphor for turncoats and informants as early as the 1600s.

But you have to admit: the fact that they know when it’s time to leave a sinking ship hints at their intelligence. They’re also highly social animals.

Image: Georg Wietschorke

Weasels earned their shady reputation by sucking eggs clean. President Theodore Roosevelt popularized the term weasel words in 1916 to call out the slippery language of public figures.

Today, calling someone a weasel suggests they’re manipulative or evasive, especially in business or law. Unlike "rat," which screams betrayal, "weasel" implies quiet trickery.

Image: Pixabay

This might be the nicest insult on the list. Someone’s light-hearted attitude—or their playful, absent-minded mistakes—might earn them a loving "silly goose" medal.

But why? Geese aren’t clumsy or silly at all. We might interpret their cackles as loud and erratic, but it’s simply the language they’ve developed to communicate with the rest of the flock—they’re highly social animals!

Image: Andrew Patrick Photo

It was around the 1920s that "turkey" became slang for a theatrical failure—what we’d now call a "flop." The myth that turkeys drown in the rain sealed their dumb reputation, though real turkeys are surprisingly clever. Today, calling someone a turkey is usually a light jab at their clumsiness or incompetence.

Image: Trinity Kubassek

Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire used "sheep" to mock blind followers, and the insult stuck. It’s still hurled at conformists who seem to heedlessly obey norms. The irony? Real sheep have impressive navigation skills and emotional intelligence.

Image: Harry Lette

This one is hard to dispute: the image of lurking vultures is too unpleasant for them to earn any other reputation. Nothing says "exploiter" like a bird that feeds on corpses.

Since the 1500s, the behavior of professionals with shady morals or people who target anyone’s suffering for profit has usually been compared to that of "vultures."

Image: Obo Teng

Buzzards are not vultures, and their name is used with a slightly different meaning. These hawks earned a mistaken reputation back in the Middle Ages. At the time, Europeans compared their behavior to that of noble falcons (good hunters) and concluded that buzzards must simply be lazy.

As a result, the word became a synonym for "incompetent" or "uncooperative."