Retronyms: Renaming the Past

Languages evolve over time. The words we use change, as does the way we use them. Today I'd like to take a look at retronyms, which are created when we rename something from the past because something newer is now the most common usage of a particular word. Here are a few of the most common reasons for and examples of retronyms.

Technology

A reel-to-reel. It was originally known as a tape recorder,
until modern tape recorders came about.

Technology is often responsible for the creation of retronyms. Nowadays almost everything is digital, while previous technology was analogue (without the ue if you're from the US). Before digital technologies, things like clocks and watches were just that, clocks and watches. Now, with the advent of digital clocks and watches, it is common to say an analogue clock or an analogue watch in order to differentiate.

Before email, we simply had mail. Now, you might hear people refer to the sending of letters, cards, and packages as snail mail (as it is much slower than email).

As automatic systems became increasingly common, use of the term manual became necessary. In the UK, most of the cars we drive are manual, but in the US, cars are often automatic, making the distinction necessary.

Landline phones were just phones before we had mobile phones. With smartphones becoming more and more common, are we going to start calling older models dumbphones?

Media

The way we refer to media changes as we develop newer technologies. For example, all films used to have no sound. Once films had sound, those without became silent films or silent movies.

Now that films are almost always in colour, a lot of older films are said to be black and white. Likewise, what was once just animation is often called traditional animation to differentiate it from computer animation.

Numbers

Anything with a sequel or later numbered version often gets a retronym. For example, the first Star Wars film was originally called just Star Wars. Now it's Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, as Star Wars became the title for the entire series.

Other examples include video consoles and computers. The original PlayStation is often referred to as the PlayStation 1 or PS1 to differentiate it from the three subsequent versions released, numbered 2, 3, and 4, obviously.

Classics

Newer versions of things often mean we call the first version the classic version. Remember Coca-Cola's failed attempt at New Coke? Me neither. However, when the company's new version of Coca-Cola failed, they were forced to bring back the old version, which became Coca-Cola Classic or Classic Coke.

Historical Events

I remember studying World War I and World War II in school. However, for the poor souls living through the first of these tragic events, it was just referred to as The Great War, it only became the First World War after we continued to make the same mistakes again. Let's pray there's never a third.

Languages

In the UK, we speak British English. Previously, this was known simply as English until it became necessary to differentiate between British, American, and other varieties of English.

These are just a few examples of retronyms. Which are your favourites? Can you think of any possible future examples, such as non-virtual reality, for example? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

Punctuation Can Be the Dog's Bollocks

We all know that punctuation is pretty damn important. It helps us organise ideas in our language when writing, express ideas with delivery that would otherwise be lost (such as shouting or asking a question), create lists, show possession and make contractions, to name a few.

Punctuation can dramatically change sentences, and is incredibly important in many cases. Don't believe me? Consider reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.

In the past, we've looked at many of the different types of punctuation that we can use. Today, I'd like to look at a lesser-known type of punctuation (mainly because I like languages and can be very immature), which has fallen out of use but should definitely make a comeback.

If you're familiar with British English slang, "the dog's bollocks" means "the best". However, in this case I'm talking about a type of punctuation with the same name.

So, what did dog's bollocks look like? Either ":-" or ":—". Clearly, given the name, I'm not the only one in the world who thinks this sort of looks like something else. I don't think the "dog" part is really necessary though.

What did we use dog's bollocks for? To indicate a long pause (or should that be paws?). If you're reading silently or in your head, this probably isn't too much of an issue, but when you're reading something aloud, you could do with a few dog's bollocks for good measure.

If you're interested in seeing some examples of dog's bollocks, look no further than the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which features nine shining instances of dog's bollocks.

Languages in the News: August 2016

Today we're looking back at all the language news that made the headlines throughout the month of August.

With the Olympic Games taking place from the 5th to the 21st of the month, it's hardly surprising that August was full of news stories about the games. The Providence Journal reported that American TV network NBC attempted to have the opening ceremony's official language changed from Portuguese to English in order to boost viewership. You can read the full article here.

Once the games started, organisers praised the multicultural South African women's football team's efforts of working through their language barriers. Read about their multilingual efforts here.

The beautiful Emerald Isle.

The Irish Times brought us news from Tajikistan, where journalists are being fined for using words that authorities deem "incomprehensible" in order to protect their official languages from contamination by foreign words. The article also covers ways of protecting Irish in Ireland, as well as covering how the Académie Française deals with foreign words making their way into French. Read all about it here.

The Guardian looked at Hawaii Sign Language (HSL), a language which was only discovered in 2013, has around 30 native speakers, and is not very well documented. HSL is in trouble, and Ross Perlin's in-depth article about the language can be read here.

Lauren Collins of The New Yorker spoke at length about love and languages. If you're a romantic at heart, you may enjoy her fascinating piece about learning language for your heart as well as your mind. You can enjoy the article here.

The Oxford Dictionary's blog, in keeping with all the sporting events going on in the Olympic Games, shared some of the words commonly used when talking about long-distance running. You can expand your vocabulary by reading the article here.

It may look like a planet, but it isn't.

Quartz was full of praise for the upcoming science fiction film Arrival, which features a linguist who is trying to communicate with an alien species as its protagonist (finally!). Read the article about the film here.

CBS reported that the Voynich Manuscript, which is in an unknown language, was to be published in order to give the public a chance at deciphering it. However, at nearly $10,000 a copy, this isn't a task for amateurs. Read the article here.

On NPR's website, Leah Donella discussed the terminology that was, is, and could be used when discussing people with multiple backgrounds, how the terms came about, and how it feels when these terms are used. Read all about the topic here.

If you have any other interesting news articles on languages, feel free to share them in the comments below. We'll try to share the best ones on our social media!

Weekly Articles from The Lingua File

Here at The Lingua File we love talking about language and we love writing our blog posts. Since paying the bills and doing our beloved jobs as translators takes up more than enough time, starting Monday, we'll be posting weekly.

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It's So Fluffy! What Does "Fluffy" Mean If You Don't Speak English?

The other day I came across something sort of weird... the word "fluffy" isn't very universal. Sure, a lot of languages have similar words, but none are exactly the same. I currently live in Spain, and I've found that my Spanish-speaking friends who speak English understand it, while those who don't can't find a useful translation that really encompasses everything the English word means.

So what does it mean? If you look "fluffy" up in a dictionary, the first definition you might get is: "of, resembling, or covered with fluff".

You must admit, that's pretty useless if you don't know what "fluff" is.

Apparently, "fluff" is "soft fibres from fabrics such as wool or cotton which accumulate in small light clumps".

In English, clouds can be fluffy, clothing can be fluffy, and above all, soft toys can be fluffy. If you've ever seen the film Despicable Me (in English), you'll have seen, without a doubt, the best example of "fluffy" in use.

In the film, a young girl named Agnes sees a plush unicorn toy at a funfair and exclaims "It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!", a perfectly natural reaction to such an incredible and "fluffy" prize. Take a look at the following clip:

As you can see, you can check out this scene out in a multitude of languages. If you go straight to European Spanish, which started the whole debate, you'll see she uses the adjective blandito (soft), while the Mexican Spanish version uses hermoso (beautiful). Here's the European Spanish version for your viewing pleasure:

I'm not criticising the dubbing here, but just pointing out that maybe "fluffy" doesn't really exist or work well in Spanish. However, let's have a look at how they dealt with it in France...

The French version says C'est trop génial!, which is more or less "It's brilliant!", which completely ignores the plush and fluffy nature of the soft toy. However, it doesn't make the scene any less cute!

These aren't the only two examples. The Italian version uses morbido (soft) and the Portuguese version uses fofo (cute).

However, I don't think it's just a Romance language issue! For Danish, they chose to use nuttet (cute).

From the versions available, I reckon German comes the closest with the term flauschig, which apparently means "fleecy" (though I'm not a German expert). To me, that seems quite adequate when it comes to describing the unicorn, don't you think?

Finally, there's the Swedish version, for which I have no idea. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Here it is:

Apparently the word is fluffsi, or something like that. Is this accurate or a loanword?

When it comes to the word "fluffy", is it uniquely English or just a lacuna between English and Romance languages? Do you have a better translation in your own language? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below, especially Swedish speakers, since your dubbing has me bamboozled!

The End of the Linguistic Relativity Rainbow

On Friday, we looked at linguistic relativity, scholars Berlin and Kay, and how languages exist in different stages according to how they name colours. To put it simply, their work showed that all humans understand colours in the same way, and that differentiation is not due to culture.

This was considered to be true because the ranges of colours in each language match up across languages. For example, in the Stage II languages we mentioned on Friday, the red they distinguished would fit within the same range of red shades across other languages.

The Munsell System that was used by Berlin and Kay.

This means that any given Stage II language should consider "red" to be within the same range as in other languages, regardless of stage, given that they distinguish the colour "red". This understanding of colour and language became known as the universalist view. All colour perception is inherent within humans, so no matter what language you speak, you generally distinguish colours across the same ranges on a physiological level.

The scholars Kessen, Bornstein, and Weiskopf tested this idea using babies, in order to see how they responded to different colours of light. This was done by measuring habituation, whereby you respond less to a given stimulus as you get used to it. For example, you might get a fright if you hear a sudden loud noise, but if you constantly hear sudden loud noises, you barely respond.

In their study, the babies responded more to what we'd think of as distinct colours, rather than different shades or hues of the same colour, just like adults would. This supported the idea that our understanding of colour is with us before language has an opportunity to affect how we think about colour.

Of course, if you're familiar with academia, you won't be surprised to find out that there are ideas challenging Berlin and Kay's work. Their methodology was later criticised by other scholars for being Eurocentric and Western.

While Berlin and Kay thought that the concept of colours was universal, their critics started to side with the ideas of Sapir and Whorf, saying that language does shape how we think. This side of the argument is known as the relativist view.

Russian Blues, geddit?

If we don't all see or understand colours the same way, how could we test this? An interesting test used native speakers of English and native speakers of Russian. In the Russian language, there are unique terms for what English would call dark blue (siniy) and light blue (goluboy).

English speakers were asked to match a reference colour to one of two choices. If they were what we think of as different colours, they could do it pretty quickly. If they weren't, it took them a little longer. This meant the Russian speakers were quicker at matching their two known blue colours than English speakers were. You can find the study here.

What's the conclusion? A lot of studies support the idea that all of us have the same inherent understanding of colours, and a lot of studies support the idea that languages affect how we understand colours. What's at the end of the linguistic relativity rainbow? Who knows? The debate rages on!

The Beginning of the Linguistic Relativity Rainbow

Linguistic relativity is based on the works of Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, and describes how the language we speak can affect and shape the way we see the world and how we think.

While this is sometimes known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the hypothesis itself was not created by Sapir and Whorf, but rather by linguists Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg. Brown and Lenneberg decided they would use colours to test Sapir and Whorf's ideas. Since then, colours and linguistic relativity have been the best of friends.

What is the difference between blue and green? If you speak English, or one of the languages that distinguishes between them, you're probably thinking that they are obviously different colours. However, if you speak a language that doesn't distinguish between them, there is no difference. When presented with what I call "green" and what I call "blue", you would probably describe these two blue-green colours based on whether they're a light, dark, rich, or pale blue-green, rather than providing unique colour terms for each.

How many colours are there in this ring?

With this in mind, today we'll be looking at the work of American scholars Brent Berlin and Paul Kay. These two worked with colours and languages and suggested that languages, in terms of the colours they distinguish, can be classified as being at a certain stage.

For example, in a language in Stage I, there are two distinct colour terms that describe either a dark-cool colour or a light-warm colour. You could consider these similar to, but not exactly the same as black and white in English. Every language has at least these two distinctions.

Languages in Stage II include three distinct colours: those from Stage I (the previous stage) and the colour red. Pretty simple, right? So let's have a look at all of Berlin and Kay's stages:

Stage I: Dark-cool and light-warm

Stage II: Red

Stage III: Green or yellow

Stage IV: Green and yellow

Stage V: Blue

Stage VI: Brown

Stage VII: Purple, pink, orange, or grey

Berlin and Kay stated that languages developed terms for certain colours in certain orders, and would not have distinctions for colours in the higher stages before distinguishing those in a lower stage.

This means, according to Berlin and Kay, that our blue-green issue from earlier would exist in all languages of Stage IV or lower (as a Stage V language would distinguish between them). This also means that any language that distinguishes brown from other colours already distinguishes blue from green.

That's just the start of our trip to the end of the linguistic relativity rainbow; we'll be back on Monday with more ways to consider how languages, and their users, name colours.