Lexicon, much like the giraffe, can be a strange animal. Trends and technologies come and go, but some words and phrases have a way of hanging around despite the fact their actual intended uses have become very nearly or completely archaic.

Think about some of the words we continue to use every day that lost relevance years ago:

• “Any word on the release date for the new My Morning Jacket album?” (translation: I’m referring to the digital files; the only vinyl records I own anymore are framed as art.)
• “I wasn’t home in time, but I set the DVR to tape it.” (translation: I’m not kind; I don’t rewind.)
• “Read me the number, I’ll dial the phone.” (translation: If you still have a rotary phone, there’s a good chance you aren’t even reading this because you don’t have a computer. Maybe it’s an Apple IIc. Let’s just move on.)
• “Anyone interested in heading to the arcade? I think I can get the top score on Space Invaders.” (translation: I own a large number of reptiles and have lived in my parents’ basement for the last 30 years; please help me.)

The last example notwithstanding, it’s a fairly common occurrence. Some words just have a way of dropping cultural anchor and refuse to budge.

This topic actually came up during a discussion with some colleagues that culminated with me saying, “Oh, let me write that down,” before I maneuvered my phone out of my front, right pocket and began pecking away at the screen. I wasn’t really writing, just going through the same motions as one does playing Angry Birds.

Come to think of it, phone could be joining the party. Placing calls is probably the last thing I do with my 1 GHz little friend. I text, send and receive e-mails, take stunning photos and fly through the Interwebs, but I can easily go a day without calling someone. Why call it a phone when that’s its least-common use?

Conversely, Google has pulled a lexicon switcheroo, burrowing itself firmly into our subculture. But its legacy transcends the above examples because we use it for everything. Google has somehow become a noun, verb, adverb, participle, air freshener and a low-calorie artificial sweetener that most of us use every day to basically indicate that we don’t know the answer to something, but we’ll find it – the capital of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), the last baseball player to hit .400 in a season (Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941 – OK, I actually knew that one), the Best Picture Oscar winner in 1980 (“Ordinary People”). Google is single-handedly destroying the barroom discussion because, unlike the loudmouth two seats down from you and your friends, it actually does know everything.

It’s just too bad we can’t Google things like our car keys, but I guess that won’t be an issue when we’re all flying around on robots in two years and we add horseless carriage to the list (in case you haven’t already).

Filed under: Social Media, This and That

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