The other day I was talking to my son about moving some computer files that I had on my desktop computer to my laptop. My son speaks fluent geek speak but I don’t so it was about three sentences into his answer before he said a word I recognized; cloud.
I interrupted him and asked, “So I can just move it using the cloud?” He said, “Sure Pops, if the cloud is easy for you, use the cloud.” That’s when it struck me, in the course of my life time the world has become a completely different place, we speak a completely different language and I have become far more fluent in geek speak than I care to admit.
It goes beyond that, really. There is a whole new vocabulary that didn’t exist when I was my son’s age. Ryan, our younger son, is 30 years younger than I am and he speaks a language that would have been pure gibberish when he was born.
For example, here are some things that would have never been said when I was 24 but are a common part of my vocabulary today:
- I’ll Skype you later.
- I object to those texts being admitted into evidence, Your Honor.
- I’ll call you from the car later.
- I missed that but I’ll watch it On Demand later.
- I can’t find my phone.
- The computer in my room is too slow; I’ll use the one in the office instead.
There are even more things that we said every day back then that just don’t come up in conversation anymore, for instance:
- I hate it when my phone cord gets all tangled up.
- The pilot has turned off the no smoking light…
- I bought the album and the cassette.
- Isn’t Sonny and Cher’s daughter cute?
- I pledge allegiance to the flag on the United States of America…
When Ryan was born in 1987 if you had told me that I would be making video calls to his mother every day from our home in Nevada to her apartment in Italy using a computer that sat on my lap, I would have sworn you were crazy. There is no way I would have believed that I would still be married to Ryan’s mother 24 years later!
Seriously, back then the closest thing I had ever seen to a video call was in cartoons when Mr. Spacely yelled at George Jetson on their futuristic TV phones because Spacely Sprockets was falling behind Cogswell Cogs in the production of…well, sprockets I guess. I never understood how cogs were such a threat to the sprocket market but I always understood that there was no such thing as a TV phone; but there is now!
The night that Ryan was born, after leaving the hospital I drove home and used the list that Sandra had left by the phone in the kitchen to call our family and friends to spread the great news. It was a wall-mounted phone with one of those insanely long cords that always hopelessly tangled in several places effectively making the cord about eight inches long. Sometimes it got so short you almost couldn’t answer the phone; come on, you remember that!
When our youngest grandbaby was born a few years ago our son posted an announcement on Facebook instantly notifying friends and family, then pulled his phone from his pocket and clicked on my picture and his magic phone called me. He didn’t have to drive home, he didn’t have a list on numbers to dial and he doesn’t even have a “home phone.”
The Jetson’s world is showing up and I didn’t even notice it arriving. A lot of cool stuff has become obsolete and, along with them, phrases that will never again be uttered. There was no announcement and no memo or even an email saying it was over; much like console TVs and Eric Estrada, they quietly became irrelevant and went away.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very cool that Sandra and I can video chat as long as we want to for free while she’s away in school (yes, I’m still clinging to the fantasy that she’s coming back…it could happen!)
I also think that we’re less likely to hear the words, “You can’t say that on TV” much longer, and it’s highly probable that we’ll hear, “Unleaded is $4 a gallon” very soon.
Jane, stop this crazy thing!
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