Jan Murphy
@packrat74.bsky.social
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Enthusiastic family historian since 2006; moderator pro tempore at Genealogy & Family History Stack Exchange. http://genealogy.stackexchange.com Fan of F&SF, figure skating, baseball, equestrian sports, cycling. Former bookseller; book junkie.
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Reposted by Jan Murphy
![Gretchen: When you say this in a sentence, people will sometimes give you a double take, but they will understand you. Like, “Oh, yeah, I’m just gonna get the acoustic bicycle because the electric bicycle is on the fritz,” and they’re like, “Acoustic? Oh.”
Lauren: It’s wild that that is actually – is “acoustic” gonna become productive do you think?
Gretchen: Well, this is the thing. I put this on Bluesky because I was so entertained by it, and a number of people got very mad at me because they’re like, “This can’t possibly be the word for it. We should call it an ‘analog bicycle’.” But I was like, the other one isn’t a digital bicycle. An “e-bike” is not the same as a “digital bike.” A digital bike is one you ride in a videogame. Some people were saying a “manual bike,” but technically “manual” means with the hands. And if there’s one thing you don’t use for a bike typically, it is the hands. A hand-operated bike is an entirely different object. These exist. But the typical bike is not that.
Lauren: But also, manual cars only got called “manual cars” because we invented automatic transmission. This is just a series of revelations for me.
Gretchen: Yeah. But my favourite responses are the ones that were like, “All right. If ‘acoustic’ is productive now, I guess that means I have an acoustic toothbrush.”
Lauren: How retro of you.
Gretchen: It’s not an electric toothbrush. I think it’s so silly and so surprising. “Bicycle” has gone through this specifically several times because the current bicycles that we have with two wheels of equal size, when they were introduced, they were called “safety bicycles” because they were easier to handle than the earlier dominant style which had one large wheel and one small wheel.
Lauren: Like a “penny farthing” or something like that.
Gretchen: Well, “penny farthing” is a retronym because –
Lauren: No!
Gretchen: [Laughs] Those first got called an “ordinary bicycle,” much like a “standard transmission,” and then they’re really not the…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jh3ldn2xrumqoh6lr3mxdrwb/bafkreibdkggpsm73r4jm4uxig2s4frwhpivkm6cdyeazwbuerukewxxjaq@jpeg)
Reposted by Jan Murphy
Reposted by Jan Murphy
Reposted by Jan Murphy
Reposted by Jan Murphy
Reposted by Jan Murphy
Reposted by Jan Murphy
Reposted by Jan Murphy
Reposted by Jan Murphy
