Discussion Forum (Archived)
Guest
At the risk of inventing a word for which a unknown-to-me synonym already exists - how about epinym (with an i, not an o).
I'm referring to words and expressions, often technology-based, that have not been around as long as the processes or realities they describe - e.g. regular as clockwork, clockwise. What did they call that before clocks existed? OK, that question is probably easy enough to answer, but my real question is, what do you call such words and expressions?
OK, maybe you could call a lot of them neologisms. But clocks have been around for the better part of a millennium. You could hardly still call clockwise a neologism after all this time.
Any ideas?
Here's a few more examples:
A mile a minute
Spinning one's wheels
To sound like a broken record
This is not rocket science/brain surgery
etc etc etc
I realize golf is very old, but for what it's worth, hailstones have often been compared to the following (dates are just single examples, not earliest examples):
a man's head 1883
buckshot 1885
eggs 1868
hens' eggs 1852
large hickory nuts 1854
large marbles 1886
marbles 1857
marbles and hens' eggs 1900
musket bullets 1860
pigeons' eggs 1845
pullets' eggs 1871
small peas 1854
stones 1883
very small peas 1854
walnuts 1878
Grant Barrett said:
Post edited 1:55PM - Apr-06-09 by Grant Barrett
I realize golf is very old, but for what it's worth, golfballs have often been compared to the following (dates are just single examples, not earliest examples):
a man's head 1883
buckshot 1885
eggs 1868
hens' eggs 1852
large hickory nuts 1854
large marbles 1886
marbles 1857
marbles and hens' eggs 1900
musket bullets 1860
pigeons' eggs 1845
pullets' eggs 1871
small peas 1854
stones 1883
very small peas 1854
walnuts 1878
I'm going to assume "golfballs have often been compared" was meant to be "hailstones have often been compared". Anyway, I do seem to remember reading one article that addressed this very topic, and the writer had uncovered "plover's eggs". Wouldn't have been much help to me, I'm afraid; there are scant few plovers in these parts, and even if they were more plentiful I feel no inclination to raid their nests.
(And then there's the report David Letterman once gave when he was doing the weather back in Indianapolis: "hailstones the size of canned hams".)
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
1 Guest(s)