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.

Tango, Bravo

Codewords decoded: How many did you know?

In situations where clear communication is paramount, especially when lives are at stake, professionals often rely on standardized codewords and phonetic alphabets designed to prevent confusion. Either from movies or from personal experience, it's probable that you've heard at least some of these before, and many have found their way into everyday conversation. Let's find out how many of these code expressions you can recognize.

Mayday is the international distress call used when the sender is in immediate, life-threatening danger. Pilots and mariners use it to signal that they require urgent assistance due to situations such as engine failure, fire, flooding, or medical emergencies.

The word was introduced in 1923 by British radio officer Frederick Stanley Mockford, who based it on the French phrase m'aider, meaning "help me," in an attempt to make it internationally recognizable. Hearing this transmission immediately alerts emergency responders that every second counts.

Not every emergency is severe enough to warrant a mayday call. When a crew faces a problem that is urgent but not immediately life-threatening, the appropriate codeword is Pan-Pan.

Like mayday, it comes from French: it derives from panne, meaning a breakdown or mechanical failure. A Pan-Pan call might be used if an aircraft loses an engine but can still fly safely, or if a ship experiences equipment problems while remaining under control. It tells responders that assistance is needed, but that the situation has not yet become critical.

Few emergency signals are as universally recognizable as SOS. Contrary to popular belief, the letters do not officially stand for "Save Our Ship" or "Save Our Souls." It was adopted in 1906 because SOS is an extremely simple, easy-to-transmit, and unmistakable pattern in Morse code.

SOS remains one of the world's most enduring distress signals, and it's still recognized by rescue organizations all around the globe.

In the NATO phonetic alphabet, each letter is assigned a unique word to eliminate confusion when radio transmissions are distorted by noise or poor reception. If you've ever heard someone spell a name as "Mike Alpha Romeo Yankee," you've encountered the NATO phonetic alphabet.

The system was officially adopted by NATO in the 1950s and is now widely used by militaries, airlines, emergency responders, and many police departments worldwide. Using it greatly reduces the chance of misunderstanding important information over radio.

Roger dates back to the early days of radio communication, when the letter R stood for "received." Before the adoption of the NATO alphabet, the US military used Roger instead of Romeo to represent that letter_._

Although modern communications systems have changed and the US military has fully embraced the use of the NATO alphabet, Roger remains standard aviation terminology, and it's one of the best-known radio acknowledgments in the world. It conveys a very simple but important meaning: "I have received and understood your message."

Although many people assume Roger and Wilco mean the same thing, they actually convey different messages. Wilco is short for "will comply." In other words, it tells the sender not only that the message was received and understood, but that the instruction will be carried out.

Saying both Roger and Wilco is technically redundant in proper radio communication, since complying necessarily implies understanding, but the combination is often heard in movies and television.

In the NATO phonetic alphabet, Tango simply represents the letter T. However, US military personnel have also adopted it as a shorthand when referring to a target or a hostile.

This secondary meaning became widely known through military operations in the twentieth century and has since appeared in countless books, films, and video games in phrases like "We've got one Tango moving north."

Oscar Mike, NATO for the letters O and M, is military shorthand for "On the Move." It's a quick way of reporting that a unit has begun moving toward its objective.

The expression is especially common in the US military and has become more familiar to the general public through documentaries, memoirs, and films. It's finding its way into civilian life, meaning simply "I'm heading out."

Ten-codes were developed during the 1930s to allow for brevity and standardization of message traffic in radio communications. They were widely adopted by US public safety departments and by radio enthusiasts.

While the system is being slowly phased out in favor of plain language communications, many local police, fire, and sheriff departments keep using it, and it is still strongly associated with radio culture by the general public. One of the most famous ten-codes is 10-4, meaning "received and understood."

Hospitals around the world use color-coded announcements to communicate emergencies without causing unnecessary panic among patients and visitors. Perhaps the best known is Code Blue, indicating that a patient is experiencing cardiac or respiratory arrest and requires immediate medical assistance.

While some hospitals use their own custom color codes, Code Blue has become so widely recognized that it now appears frequently in television dramas and everyday conversation whenever someone refers to a life-threatening medical emergency.