# Anachronisms that persist
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 10, 2021, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009 "2021-06-10T22:28:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2021, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/101 "2021-06-13T16:45:44Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> Unix and DOS also had “folders” long before Windows, only that they were called “directories”.
And we have the command “[cd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cd_(command))” which means to change directory.
And I still phone my parents. Even though it’s with Zoom.
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2021, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/102 "2021-06-13T16:50:23Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> but technically a directory and a folder are exactly the same thing.
Correct, but I’m pretty sure that the Apple GUI actually displayed a folder to the user, long before Windows did the same. DOS and Unix were still both in the command-line ‘directory’ mode when Apple was telling us to double-click the folder icon.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2021, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/103 "2021-06-13T17:06:35Z")
> [@Railer13](#):
>
> Correct, but I’m pretty sure that the Apple GUI actually displayed a folder to the user, long before Windows did the same. DOS and Unix were still both in the command-line ‘directory’ mode when Apple was telling us to double-click the folder icon.
Yes, of course you’re right, and this raises the question: what was a folder/directory actually and originally called in the Mac world? I simply have no idea, the last Apple computer I used was a IIe, at school.
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2021, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/104 "2021-06-13T17:15:53Z")
Well, they were called folders on the first Macs (the boss bought a whole ONE Mac for our department). Even the earlier iterations like the Lisa had folders, but I know they looked like, and were called, folders in 1985.
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2021, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/105 "2021-06-13T17:16:35Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> what was a folder/directory actually and originally called in the Mac world?
To add to what @digs just posted:
Seems to me (and I cannot verify) that the Mac OS had the term ‘system folder’ which contained all the OS files.
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2021, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/106 "2021-06-13T17:34:20Z")
> [@Railer13](#):
>
> Mac OS had the term ‘system folder’
Oh, yeah, it did. I miss all that vintage stuff. Like if you plug a drive in and it doesn’t show up, you can open “SCSI Port” and force it to mount your drive!
And [Clarus, the Dogcow…](https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/08/12/the-history-of-clarus-the-dogcow-clarus-apple-mac-apple/).
[ ](https://i0.wp.com/512pixels.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/campus/InfiniteLoop6.jpg)
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### Author:  [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2021, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/107 "2021-06-13T18:21:51Z")
Regarding steamrollers, for a long time I assumed they used steam to heat the asphalt to make it more pliable as they rolled it out, sort of like how a steam iron works. I’m not sure when I figured out the name actually came from the fact that they were originally steam powered machines, and modern ones do not use steam in any way, but I’m sure I was well into adulthood when I figured it out.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2021, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/108 "2021-06-13T18:52:46Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> Unix and DOS also had “folders” long before Windows, only that they were called “directories”. Then some time Microsoft decided to call them “folders” (since Win95?), but technically a directory and a folder are exactly the same thing. (I still switch between both terms all the time.)
This. AFAIK, Unix was the first system to have a multi-level hierarchical file structure consisting of a root directory and arbitrary levels of subdirectories, going back to the late 1960s or early 1970s. It’s possible the idea was borrowed from earlier lesser-known systems. I’m very unclear on the exact chronology of all these things.
The term “DOS”, for disk operating system, had been around before Microsoft. I thought it was a rather generic term for any disk-based operating system, and then Microsoft appropriated it as the name of their system.
So I’m not sure who first called directories “folders”, but it seems to have come along with Graphic User Interfaces – and these go back to the early 1970’s, before either Apple or Microsoft were using GUI’s.
The DOS command-line interface, BTW, was not a Microsoft original. Us old-timers may still remember CP/M, a primitive (by today’s standards) operating system for small personal-sized computers. Microsoft copied from that extensively. CP/M did not have a multi-level file system – Microsoft copied that from Unix. But MS-DOS looked a lot like CP/M even internally – if you programmed both at the assembly-language level, there were obvious similarities.
Folders became a bit more abstract than directories. They came to be repositories for all kinds of things – e-mail folders, printer folders, network connection folders, etc.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2021, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/109 "2021-06-13T22:51:13Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> Something old is new again: Collections of files are grouped together in an abstract place called a “folder”. This is a deliberate anachronism created by Microsoft
not exactly an anachronism, more an new invention, because a ‘file’ was a folder - “get me the ACME file”. The ACME file would have contained copies of the invoices – which became ‘records’ in a ‘file’. The files where held in a filing system - implemented perhaps in filing cabinets (hence, .cab).
Of course ‘file’ was an anachronism: a row of documents, a row of soldiers, the string or wire on which the row is strung.
Speaking of which, the expression ‘red tape’ seems to have gradually fallen out of use? I can remember seeing files bound up with red tape, but it was long ago.
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### Author:  [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2021, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/110 "2021-06-13T23:53:13Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> I still hear accounts on the news about someone “filming” with their phone.
I was an advisor for a youth group and one of our kids got a job doing video camerawork at a local public access TV station. It would drive him crazy if you said “filming” instead of “taping.” Mostly it slipped out unconsciously, but we’d push his buttons with it sometimes.
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### Author:  [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/111 "2021-06-14T00:46:36Z")
I’m still a little confused. Why is it exactly that they’re called folders? I’m looking for an in depth and incredibly off topic explanation. And it would really help me out if several of you could talk past each other flexing your dork cred and start each post with “Actually…”
TIA!
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/112 "2021-06-14T00:58:01Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#):
>
> I’m looking for an in depth and incredibly off topic explanation. And it would really help me out if several of you could talk past each other
If the Board ever wants to update its mission statement to something more realistic, this is a strong candidate.
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/113 "2021-06-14T02:06:29Z")
> [@blabbermeister](#):
>
> My friend still calls birds dinosaurs, even though it’s been millions of years since they were dinosaurs. Some people just get stuck in their ways.
Is this an attempt at a whoosh? Birds _are_ dinosaurs.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/114 "2021-06-14T02:17:53Z")
> [@SCAdian](#):
>
> Is this an attempt at a whoosh? Birds _are_ dinosaurs.
I have a dinosaur feeder in my backyard. I get a lot of Cardinalsaurus Rex.
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### Author:  [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/115 "2021-06-14T15:02:48Z")
“Driving” a car has been anachronistic all along. When wagons and so forth were pulled by horses, a human held the reins and [drove](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drive) the animals, in the sense of forcing or compelling them to move forward. But a car gets its power from the engine inside of it; in fact, that’s why they’re called **auto** mobiles. So in the entire history of automobiles, no one has ever “driven” a car. They’ve steered it and accelerated it, but never driven it, because the power is **not** out front, having to be goaded forward, as with an animal-drawn vehicle.
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### Author:  [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/116 "2021-06-14T15:05:31Z")
Does anyone working in restaurants still encounter elderly couples ordering ‘Sanka’ when asked if they want caf or decaf? You did 25 years ago, not so sure about now.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/117 "2021-06-14T15:34:32Z")
Duplicate.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/118 "2021-06-14T15:44:48Z")
In people of my acquaintance, the term “clicker” seems to be reserved for the garage door opener remote. TV remotes are just “remotes”.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/119 "2021-06-14T15:44:55Z")
Now this is a personal one, an anachronism that continues in my family.
> **[meaning and origin of the phrase ‘this is where we came in’](https://wordhistories.net/2019/05/30/where-we-came-in/)**
>
> when there were consecutive screenings of a film, spectators could start watching at any point and stay on to watch the first part on the next showing
In the Youtube era, I found a new use for that. One day my brother noticed that I was looking at a long clip of the old German version of Baron Münchhausen, we were curious if a movie that old was available in Youtube or other video stream places, it was.
So we watched the feature. Interesting to notice how such a quality production was made by the Germans and Italians in the middle of WWII. Anyhow, as soon as the naked ladies 😉 in the palace fountain appeared in the computer screen I noted:
“Ah, this is where we came in!.”
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2021, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anachronisms-that-persist/944009/120 "2021-06-14T15:56:31Z")
> [@bump](#):
>
> In people of my acquaintance, the term “clicker” seems to be reserved for the garage door opener remote.
Do you know many people from the greater Boston area? Around here, the TV remote was known as a clicker, or more accurately, a clickah.
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