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From: jeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Terms which have outlived their descriptiveness
Message-ID: <245@rtech.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 21-Mar-85 03:18:53 EST
Article-I.D.: rtech.245
Posted: Thu Mar 21 03:18:53 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 25-Mar-85 02:30:36 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Relational Technology, Berkeley CA
Lines: 24

I'm interested in terms that originally described what they stood for,
but are now used to stand for things they don't describe.  Here are the
ones I've thought of so far:

	steamroller	- no longer runs on steam

	telephone pole	- doesn't necessarily carry telephone wires

	dialing a phone	- used for push-button phones

	core		- still used to mean computer memory, even though
			  magnetic core hasn't been used in years

	battery		- used for single-celled voltage sources, which were
			  originally called "cells".  "Battery" was
			  originally reserved for multi-celled voltage sources
			  (e.g. a 6-volt battery has 4 cells).

	comic book	- not necessarily comic

Can anyone think of more examples?  Also, is there a name for this phenomenon?
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak