Posted by ESC
Got a new book: I Love It When You Talk Retro by Ralph Keyes (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2009). Interesting terms on Page 3:
Retrotalk — allusions to past phenomena. Retroterms – verbal artifacts/verbal fossils that “hang around in our national conversation long after the topic they refer to has galloped into the sunset.” (In the groove, flip-side, like a broken record: referring to vinyl records.) Retronyms — terms needing a modifier to distinguish them from new versions (snail mail/e-mail, acoustic guitar/electric).