Talk:Retronym

Contents

1 Vinyl record 2 Rotary-dial telephone 3 Female "Sr."? 4 Catholic 5 charcoal 6 Acoustic guitar? 7 Posthumous names 8 Catherine of Aragon 9 Classic? 10 Sit-down restaurant

Vinyl record

"Vinyl record: A term that arose to distinguish 33⅓- and 45-rpm phonograph records (LPs and 45s) from the compact discs (CDs) that have since replaced them for nearly all physical records and record albums."

I don't know that this is appropriate for this article. I believe that vinyl (PVC) records were called vinyl records when they first came into popular use - so as to distinguish them from other (generally earlier) phonograph disks made of other materials like shellac, rubber, metal, glass, etc. So yeah - not really a retronym. As hard as it may be for us to believe now a days, the vinyl record was at one point a technological inovation over earlier forms of recording. :)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramophone_record#Early_history for more background...

  --Blackcats 03:10, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Rotary-dial telephone

Re: "Rotary-dial telephone"-- For a time these were the newer, more modern variety of telephone, while they were replacing the previously usual standard type of telephone. -- Hello Central, gimme Infrogmation

This raises some interesting questions. Is "rotary phone" actually a retronym, or was it a neologism created when phone companies began replacing the manual switchboard systems with automated switching systems directed by dialing? And did the old-style phones acquire a retronym themselves? -- Jeff Q 22:22, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Female "Sr."?

When I added the retronymic use of "Sr." (senior) for fathers who (foolishly and egotistically, IMHO) name their sons after themselves, I found myself wondering if there are any famous uses of "Sr." for women. I can't think of any, nor can I think of any "feminine" substitute for this practice. It isn't because of lack of need. (My own family includes three generations of Marys and two of Carolyns, as well as four Davids! My Marys have nicknames to distinguish themselves, and the Carolyns just get confused. Who ever invented this practice?!) I suppose it's less frequently necessarily in societies where women adopt the surnames of their husbands when they marry, or where they acquire compound or hyphenated names, but surely this comes up from time to time. Someone famous must have dealt with this issue! -- Jeff Q 09:03, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, certainly before a girl marries she has to be disambiguated from her mother by some means. And if they're going to do it by giving the child a double-barrelled name, then this ought to be just as common for boys. For that matter, how were Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor commonly known before George VI ascended the throne? -- Smjg 15:43, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is being disambiguated from one's mother a painful process
(;-)? Joking aside though, wasn't she known precisely as Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon ? Dieter Simon 01:25, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Catholic

Would the term "Catholic" be a retronym, since the Catholic church only started using that term after the advent of Protestantism? ☞spencer195 03:46, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

It was first used (in 1551, according to OED) to mean "universal" in non-ecclesiastical use. So the word itself wasn't invented by Catholics. Not sure if this info helps. --Menchi 04:31, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

A lot of non-Roman Catholics also consider themselves to be Catholic, Eastern and Greek Orthodox for example, and high Anglicanism. A strong case could be made for saying the RC church changed so much after the Schisms that the new term "Roman Catholicism" doesn't refer to the same entity that used to be called ... er something else.

The term was long used to distinguish the church from "heresies" like Arianism, Donatism, and so on. The OED will, of course, only list uses in English. --Iustinus 19:08, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The term was certainly in use by the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) since it appears in the Creed there agreed. Mark O'Sullivan 11:45, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

charcoal

What about charcoal? Before the advent of the then so-called "sea-coal" in the Middle Ages, charcoal should have been generally known as just "coal". --Cendol 10:19, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

Acoustic guitar?

The acoustic guitar is distinguished from the classical guitar in that it has metal strings. I assume that this is the origin of the name, not a retronym after the electric guitar. — Asbestos | Talk 08:37, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Actually, this would seem to suggest both acoustic guitar and classical guitar are retronyms. Somewhere along the way, these adjectives were added to distinguish a new kind of guitar from whatever was just called a "guitar" before. Perhaps the problem is that the arrival of the electric guitar was not the retronym-spawning event. Does anyone know the etymologies of these variations? — Jeff Q 09:08, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You're probably right. The American Heritage Dictionary (http://www.bartleby.com/61/91/R0199150.html) has electric->acoustic as their first example of a retronym anyway, so perhaps best to leave it. — Asbestos | Talk 09:50, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Posthumous names

Would the posthumous names entry really be a retronym? It's a name awarded after death, not a name added to distinguish it from something modern.

I agree, it does not meet the definition given in the article.

Catherine of Aragon

Is Catherine of Aragon a retronym? I suppose she was called "of Aragon" under certain circumstances to begin with, but the period sources I've seen tend to just call her "Queen Catherine" (even in treatises about the annullment of her marriage to Henry VIII) I assume "of Aragon" started to become a common epithet for her once Henry married Catherine Howard and Catherine Parre. If anyone has a period source, preferably one in Latin, that refers to her witih her epithet, I would like to see it. --Iustinus 19:18, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Classic?

Wouldn't classic rock and classical music be retronys? I doubt Mozart called himself "classical".

Sit-down restaurant

I believe that this item ought to be qualified as US usage. In the UK, "fast-food" outlets are generally referred to as "cafés" despite the best efforts of one major US chain to dignify its establishments, and "take-away" [southern England] or "carry-out" [Scotland and Northern Ireland] facilities are generally referred to as "shops". Mark O'Sullivan 11:55, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Not in the parts of the UK I've experienced - "fast food restaurant" and "café" tend to refer to different things, though maybe there is some overlap. And "fast food outlet" also seems to be a quite common term, which I suppose could refer to fast food restaurants and takeaways alike. and for the record, here are some Google statistics:

• "McDonald's restaurant" 111,000 (UK 4,640)
• "McDonald's outlet" 3,510 (UK 121)
• "McDonald's café" 139 (UK 6)
• "fast food restaurant" 558,000 (UK 22,300)
• "fast food outlet" 42,800 (UK 10,300)
• "fast food café" 933 (UK 390)

Some of these ratios surprise me a bit, but still imply that "restaurant" is the usual British and worldwide term. -- Smjg 10:01, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)