I have been off-planet for a while. On returning I found the following hacks had taken place.
When did an APB become a BOLO? (police work)
When did bolts become fasteners? (car work)
When did disgusting become ewww?
curious
Bolts became fasteners on the day when not all of them were (literal) bolts.
The other words, I’m with you. 
My workplace, a 911 centre, was using BOLO from before I started there 12 years ago. Oddly when making a note in a report that we aired a BOLO on the radio we invariably note “APB aired”. Go figure.
Bolts have been fasteners for a long time. ‘Fastener’ is a category term that includes bolts, machine screws, wood screws, rivets, pins, clips, nails and probably a lot of other things too. The change that happened is the usage of the category term for items within the category.
Don’t know when the change happened, but BOLO (“Be On the Look Out”) is somewhat more descriptive than APB
That’s reserved for people who eschew adjectives in favor of interjections.
BOLO seems easier to say than ABP, imho…
Ewww is fairly new, starting about 1985 according to ngrams. Ewwww is even newer.
BOLO is not replacing APB. APB is gaining on it.
Fastener has increased slightly, but bolt is still by far the more common word.
Caveat: Ngrams doesn’t pick up spoken uses, message boards, social media, or lots of other casual usages so those may bias what you hear in daily life.
I think “spoken” vs. “typed in a formal document” vs. “typed in quick communication” are often much more different from each other than we realize.
In my mind, BOLO became more popular with the TV show NCIS. The acronym LEO also became more common, IMO.
Yes, obviously popular in films and TV, but this must be mirroring actual police usage, no? When did the police do this switch over? might be my real question.
Bolts have always been fasteners, the same way oaks have always been trees. I read a lot of automotive repair info, and I haven’t seen the change you mention.
Oh, my word. Had no idea it was an acronym. I think - if I thought about it at all - I probably thought it was “Bullo”, short for bulletin, short for All-Points Bulletin: cop slang, basically.
“Ew!” I first heard on Big Bang Theory, when Ramona Nowitzki was introduced to Howard Wolowitz.
Howard: Howard Wolowitz, Department of Engineering, co-designer of the International Space Station’s Liquid Waste Disposal System.
Ramona: Ew.
Howard: You know, the Pishkin–Wolowitz liquid waste disposal system is turning a few heads as well.
Ramona: Again, ew.
While we’e at it, when did vd* (venereal disease) become std (sexually transmitted disease)? I mean, it’s not actually new - I first heard it about 30 years ago when I was at a free clinic getting birth control and I unknowingly sat with the STD sufferers. I had no idea until one of the women in the waiting room told me - but it seems like the term changed overnight and everyone heard about it but me :o Maybe a better question would be why it changed.
- Dopers of a certain age may remember the old films from Sex Ed. where a guy learns he has gonorrhea and has to call all his partners, whereby we see all these girls pick up the phone, listen for a moment, and scream “You have WHAT!!!”
It’s most commonly STI, for “sexually transmitted infection” these days. Because “venereal” isn’t all that intuitive a word so “sexually transmitted” most accurately describes how you get it. And “disease” has connotations of severity that aren’t always appropriate. STI is the most accurate usage and therefore preferable.
Somewhere along the way, computer programmers stopped “writing programs” and started “creating applications”.
Negro —> Colored Person —> Afro-American —>Black —> African-American
When I was in college, “colored” was forbidden, unless you were specifically referring to the NAACP. Today, I see “person of color” seems to be acceptable in some contexts.
This is, simply, wrong.
Sweat shirts became hoodies.
Thongs used to be shoes, now they are underwear.
DWI became DUI
I’m still trying to figure out the right thing to call my internet/TV provider, since I’ve used cable, satellite and DSL, all within the last 10 years.
But we still dial a phone.
Go figure.
Word of the decade for the 2010s might be ‘super’
1.) Only if it has a hood. A sweatshirt with no hood is still a sweatshirt.
2.) Shoes. Huh? (You mean flip flops?)
3.) Nope, different legal meaning that varies by state. Driving under the influence vs. driving while intoxicated. One is alcohol, the other is drugs - I can never keep straight which is which - and some states only use 1 and don’t legally recognize the “other” charge.
4.) ISP. Internet Service Provider. (I never differentiate satellite or whatever, for T.V. services, now that I ponder it. I just say the company name, and I think that’s what I hear others say as well. No need to specify if it’s cable or not, just say, "I saw this show on Netflix and … ")