I know that title isn’t too clear, but I couldn’t think how else to word it.
On the whiteboard at work is a message: IF YOU NEED TO CALL IN SICK, DIAL 222 TO ACCESS BOB’S VOICEMAIL.
So, nowadays (unless you’re my parents) nobody has a dial phone anymore. Yet we still persist in saying “dial” a number. Same thing in my job, where we talk about “dialing in” values that are now entered with a keypad.
Is there a name for this kind of word, that refers to a procedure that is no longer in use?
I would call that an “anachronism”
It’s similar to deprecated, which is used for a number of circumstances: this task has been replaced (dialing a phone, winding your watch), this task causes problems and shouldn’t be used any more (such as using hand signals while driving a car), this is due to be replaced and you should get used to it not being around any more (many types of discrimination).
Outmoded?
Other examples would be, “video tape that with your iphone” even though there’s no video tape being used any more or we “carbon copy bob on that email” even though we’re not using carbon copy paper.
There’s also “skeuomorph” which is when we do things like have the note-taking app look like a notepad even though we’re obviously not writing on an actual notepad, or click an icon that looks like a 3.5" floppy disk to save even though those are long obsolete.
Groups are never “decimated” anymore in the Roman army sense. Yet people still use the word. And they use it mathematically incorrectly.
Even the 3.5 “floppy” disk was itself an anachronism, since it wasn’t actually that floppy to most people. Yes, the internal disk was floppy, but the entire product wasn’t, unlike most previous floppies.
More anachronisms:
Some people still call a TV a “tube”. TV’s haven’t come with actual cathode-ray picture tubes for a while.
It used to be that connecting computers required that physical connections be made with some sort of wire line. So the act of connecting a computer to a network was called bringing the computer “online”. Nowadays, you can be “online” on your smartphone at the beach. The “line” is now metaphorical or abstract.
CD “albums” are a single disc, unlike the true phonograph record albums that actually came with 4 or 5 physical 78 RPM records. If a package comes with multiple CD’s, it’s a “box set” or “multi-volume set”.
One can speak of “filming” or “taping” a drama or presentation, but oftentimes there is neither physical film nor tape involved.
You can still put “your two cents” in, even though postage stamps have cost more than that for decades.
You still can speak of taking care of “lock, stock, and barrel”, even though you probably aren’t carrying a flintlock firearm.
People still “wait to see what develops”, even though most of them aren’t developing chemical-medium photographs in a darkroom.
My favorite: on a sailing ship, a scuttled butt was a barrel containing fresh water, with a hole punched in it. Sailors traded ship gossip while getting a drink of water. We still call this gossip scuttlebutt today as we trade it by the water cooler.
Outmoded, throwback terms, anachronisms … all these seem like good words for describing the idea. There’s also eggcorn, for when the original term has become mutated, often because its origin has been forgotten. For example, on tenterhooks, meaning tense or nervous, is in the process of mutating into on tenderhooks.
It’s probably been a long time since anyone has been hauled along a keel, too. But we still speak of being keelhauled.
Do they rake people over coals anymore, anywhere?
anachronism - a word out of time
Along these lines, you can still “drop a dime” on someone although, even if you could find a phone booth, the call would cost more than a dime.
The term “dial” as a verb certainly exists. It means, “to make a phone call.”
The fact that no one has a dial on their phone any more is not important. The meaning has moved apart from the original meaning. You can orient yourself toward the west, too.
Brief hijack: Whenever technological changes force us to find a NEW term for something that already existed, you’ve got a retronym.
A century ago, nobody would have known what an “acoustic guitar” was. ALL guitars were acoustic! The invention of the electric guitar required a new term for non-electric instruments.
Same with hardcover books
And Mainframe computers
And Rotary phones
My grandmother had electric refrigerators for the last 40 years of her life, but to the end, she always called her fridge “the icebox.”
I’d say that outmoded would be the best choice, since it means “old-fashioned” or “obsolete.” Anachronism is normally used as a literary term, to refer to something in a movie/book/tv show that is depicted at the wrong time. That’s not the same thing as using a term with origins that are kinda funny if you stop to think about it.
Word meanings change-* get over it. *
Doubtful “put your two cents in” has anything to do with stamps.
Hang up that phone!
The term the OP is looking for might be “archaism”, which has a usage more specific to dated language. For what it’s worth, William Safire cited “dial” as a specific example of an archaism in his On Language column back in 2000.
Phones are full of 'em.
“Get two lines for the price of one” where of course there are no actual physical phone lines.
Those young whippersnappers seem to know what “roll up the (car) window” means, but I can’t imagine where they would have seen a window crank in a car.
The whole “cut - copy - paste” is from the days where you cut your type-written page apart to move a paragraph by taping it on a different page. Yes, we did that at work for a while.
I teach beginning computer classes, so the terms for the clipboard, carbon copy, and diskette get a thorough “ha-ha” from me at Microsoft’s expense. Please find the word to describe these!