What hath progress wrought?

Howard Richler

First proposed 27 years ago by Frank Mankiewicz, a onetime aide to American Senator Robert Kennedy, the word “retronym” has finally come of age. It auditioned in the hallowed pages of the Oxford English Dictionary in September 2006, and by 2007, it was the answer to the following clue in the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle: “acoustic guitar” or “push lawn mower.” The Oxford Companion to the English Language characterizes a retronym as a “phrase coined because an expression once used alone needs contrastive qualification; acoustic guitar because of the electric guitar... mono sound equipment because of stereo sound equipment.”

Technology and science are the most prolific providers of neologisms. Space exploration has necessitated new words such as “moonwalk” and “earthrise” to describe novel experiences.

But alas, the complexity that progress has wrought extends even to language. In bygone days, one could describe things only with nouns. Not only was a rose a rose, but a book was also just a book and coffee was merely coffee. Now we must specify whether we are talking about a hardcover or softcover book (not to mention electronic or paper) or which coffee of the seemingly endless varieties. Technological innovations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries spawned a plethora of new vocabulary: “telephone” came into the language in 1849; “typewriter” in 1868; “television” in 1907; and “movie” in 1912. Due to technological advances, the above singular inventions have turned into the following retronyms: “rotary phone,” “manual typewriter,” “black & white television” and “silent movie.” (For readers of the millennial generation, I should explain the anachronistic “typewriter.” It is a single font, mechanical system for applying ink to paper that handled only alphanumeric characters.)

Remember when people just received mail? Now it could be certified mail, priority mail, email, voicemail, or snail mail, not to mention blackmail or greenmail. Due to the advent of satellite radio, we may soon be referring to the old-fashioned variety as “terrestrial radio.” Likewise, “text messaging” already necessitates distinction from “voice messaging.”

Any change in society can spawn a retronym. A partner used to be somebody with whom you shared a business venture or some manly activity such as cattle herding. Now that the sense of sharing has been extended to the concepts of “life partner” and “same-sex partner,” it has become necessary for entrepreneurs to specify “business partner.” With the development of the synthetic oil “Olestra,” we now have a “fat-free fat.” So what was previously just called fat is now, retronymically speaking, “fat-fat.”

In the old days, your grocery list might read: chips, milk, peanut butter, beer, and gum. Now we must specify if the chips are potato, corn or tortilla; if the milk is skim or whole; whether the peanut butter is crunchy or creamy; the beer, light or full; the gum, sugarless or regular.

Retronyms need not be related to commerce or technology. “Jewish ghetto” is a case in point. The original “ghetto” was a Jewish quarter in Venice in 1516, which had previously been the site of a cannon foundry. Getto is the Italian word for “foundry.” Later, the word ghetto came to mean the Jewish quarter of any city. Near the end of the 19th century, the sense was extended to refer to any poor neighborhood populated by a minority racial or cultural group. Similarly, “Italian Mafia” was once a wholly redundant term. Increasingly, however, the term Mafia is used to apply to ethnic persuasions other than Italian.

What retronyms beckon in our ever-changing world? “Human chess champion” is a safe bet. With ever-increasing fears about sexually transmitted diseases, “physical sex” (as opposed to virtual) is another retronymic possibility. With the online variety of sex you may still contract a virus, but at least it will be your computer and not you that will be crashing.

Howard Richler’s latest book is Can I Have a Word With You? He can be reached at hrichler@canada.com.