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.

Show me the money!

What do you call your money? Learn 11 names from greenbacks to Benjamins

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Money makes the world go round, and in the U.S., there are more ways to talk about it than you might expect. From "bucks" and "greenbacks" to "dough" and "Benjamins," Americans have come up with a colorful range of slang and idioms to refer to cash. Did you know about these 11? Which ones do you use?

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The first entry on the list is probably the most used: The word cash was first recorded in the late 1500s, and its origins can be traced through the French word casse, meaning "case" or "box."

That, in turn, comes from the Latin word capsa, which also means "case" or "coffer." Both terms refer to containers used to store money.

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This self-explanatory term has been used in the U.S. for a long time, and it refers, quite simply, to the fact that paper dollar bills are green in color.

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The slang term "greenbacks" for U.S. paper money dates back to the Civil War era. At that time, the government began printing banknotes with green ink on the back.

This distinctive color was used as a way to help prevent counterfeiting. The nickname stuck around and is still used today to refer to cash.

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Much like the slang term "green," the use of "lettuce" to describe dollar bills dates back to the early 1900s and also references their green color.

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The slang term "coin" is often used to refer to money in general, and it is not limited to just metal coins.

Possibly, this has to do with the fact that coins have been used as currency for thousands of years, making their association with money strong enough for the term to become a generic way to refer to currency.

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There are a few different theories about why the slang term "cheddar" came to mean money. One of the most widely accepted explanations links it to government-issued cheese.

This cheese, often included in welfare packages, became associated with government benefits. Over time, cheddar shifted from meaning actual cheese to representing the money or assistance people received.

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As we have seen so far, food has been a generous source of slang. The word "bread" has been used as lingo for money since the 1930s.

Food is one of the most basic reasons people need money, and the slang term "bread" likely comes from the fact that bread is a staple food in many households.

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The last food-related term, "bacon," refers to money or earnings in phrases like "bring home the bacon." This expression dates back to the early 1920s and is widely believed to come from a county fair game in which participants would win a greased pig if they managed to catch it.

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"Benjamins" is another self-explanatory money-related term. Franklin has been on the $100 bill since 1914. Less commonly, other dollar bills may also be referred to by the people depicted on them, such as Washingtons, Lincolns, Hamiltons, and Jacksons.

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An idiom used to describe a large amount of money, commonly a thousand dollars, "big one" has been a popular slang term since at least the mid-1800s.

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The word "shekels" has been used in English since at least the 1820s. It comes from the ancient shekel, a type of coin used by the Hebrews, Babylonians, and Phoenicians in ancient times.