I was talking to a guy today who said something about having carpal tunnel syndrome from “typing - but I guess we don’t type anymore, we keyboard. People don’t use typewriters anymore.”
I told him that was bullshit, we’re still typing. A typewriter has a keyboard and so does a computer. We don’t type because of a “typewriter” we type because we’re setting typed text on a “page.”
He said we don’t “dial” phones anymore but we still call it dialing.
I told him that he was full of beans and he was just making it up (about the keyboard - the dialing part I can hang with). We totally still “type” regardless of the machine.
The dial-ring thing and the current keypad are fundamentally different in design and implementation. Typewriters and computer keyboards are trivially different in construction. We definitely still type, and phones are an entirely different situation.
I still type. However, the class my kids took in school, and the BPA (Business Professionals of America) competition they did was keyboarding. Yeah, I thought it was stupid.
Well, assumedly it would condense down to “keying” a resume, but we already have that to talk about things that require keys. “He keyed in the alarm code.”
I agree that there’s really no reason to change this terminology, and that it differs fundamentally from phones. But what is the alternative with phones? We already have the slang “punch in a number.” Should we all be “entering” (or keying!) numbers? And if we do change away, how will it affect classic films like Dial M for Murder? Won’t someone think of the children?!
I would say we still “dial” a phone, because “dial” is the word we use for what we do with a phone. It doesn’t matter that the phone no longer has a dial on it.
I seem to remember that when I was at school in the late 80s/early 90s and computers were just starting to make an appearance in the classroom, they introduced a “Keyboard Skills” class, and talked about “keyboarding”. That name didn’t last long.
We type, and until a shorter word comes around it will remain typing. I have to stop myself from using pic all the time for picture. People shorten everyday words, and keyboard isn’t shorter. I have heard key in and that doesn’t bring a cringe. It’s short so we may end up with it becoming a verb. Keyboarding never.
Think of punching the phone instead of dialing, although some users need to be punched.
Word often drift away from their origins. You wouldn’t object to saying “A westward orientation,” would you? Is “vaccine” incorrect if it’s not created using cow serum? Is “Welsh rabbit” wrong because it has no rabbit in it?
In the cases mentioned, “Type” means “to enter data using a keyboard”; the type of keyboard is irrelevant. Similarly, “to dial” means “to connect to another phone number”; the details are irrelevant.
It’s pointless pedantry to insist that a word must stick with its original meaning, and must never change meaning so that it can, by metaphor, describe other methods of doing the same thing. Or do people in this thread object to my using a form of “pedant” to refer to the women who posted here?
When typewriting machines were first invented, the person operating one was called a “typewriter.” So you would get a sentence like “The typewriter finished his work for the day, rose and left the office.” Very quickly the word came to be applied to the machine itself, and the operator was called a “typist.” That has stuck for more than a hundred years. I don’t think it’s going to change as fast again.
Keyboarding could also be playing a musical instrument, or doing something with the board that holds all the keys in my property management office. “Typing” conveys the idea of a specific action on a specific type of keyboard. Nobody “types” on an organ keyboard.
The one that gets me is people who think that a commercial CD is no longer properly called an album.
Look it up in the dictionary, fella. It’s still an album.