Early Out’s post in this thread:
…got me thinking. What other terms that were frequently used a few years ago are now so obsolete as to be unknown to young children?
Older terms for that thing in the kitchen that keeps things cold come to mind, like icebox or Kelvinator[sup]TM[/sup].
How about phonograph, LP, hula hoop, jitterbug, hectograph?
Any more?
You may as well add Cassette Tape and VCR to that list, my kids have no idea what those are.
Already obsolete:[ul][li]Radar Range[/li][li]Slide rule[/li][li]Punch card[/ul] [/li]Fast-becoming / practically obsolete:[ul][li]Mimeograph[/li][li]Floppy disk[/li][li]Typewriter[/li][li]“Don’t touch that dial!”[/li][/ul]
Pay phone is getting there too, I think. They seem to be almost obsolete given the prevalence of cell phones. Likewise phones with cords, and heck, “cordless/handheld phone” loses its meaning because there’s no alternative. Let alone dial or push-button phone.
What about Prussia, Siam and Autogyro?
leaded or unleaded?
Pretty soon, the kiddies will be asking Unca Cecil, “Why do we dial a phone?”
party line
Kerr jar or Ball jar
curtain stretcher
washboard
coal chute
log or trig tables
tire iron
rabbit ears (or any other form of TV antenna)
What’s rare about party line?
What does it mean to “wind a watch”?
(paraphrased from Bloom County)
(it was a comic strip. In the 80s. Opus the penguin? Bill the cat? Milo? Binkley? Steve Dallas? ok, nevermind)
Maybe it depends on where you live? I know I haven’t picked up a phone and interrupted soneone else’s conversation in many, many years.
Which reminds me, kids might wonder someday why we say a phone “rings” when there are no bells. They beep, bloop, trill, chirp, or play the latest Britney Spears hit, but they don’t really “ring” anymore.
I’m afraid that outside of our little world here, “straight dope” is no longer current.
I was thinking of “party line” in the political sense, where I still hear it. I’m not sure what the other kind means myself. 
What is this ‘curtain stretcher’ of which you speak?
Betamax
East Germany/East Berlin
Reel-to-reel
Telephone Operator
The speaking clock on phones, also.
It means several homes shared a phone line. They had their own phone numbers, but still, if you picked up the phone and another household was on the line, you could hear their conversation. You had to wait until they hung up before you could place your call. Or ask them nicely to hang up if your call was an emergeny.
Have you ever dialed your own phone number to see what would happen? Have you noticed how you have to hang up before your phone rings? That’s what it was like to call other houses on your line.
I feel like I’m too damn young to have had first hand experience with this, but, alas, I grew up in the sticks and remember it all too well.
Like every kid, I tried this many times. Always got a busy signal. I guess my alternate-universe self was on the line, too.
In fact, with call waiting and the number of phones people tend to have these days, busy signals may be on the way out as well.
Speaking of comic strips, I recall seeing a Peanuts strip years ago wherein Charlie Brown and Linus find a washboard. Charlie Brown wonders how it works and Linus says he doesn’t know because he can’t find any way to plug it in.
Kids today often don’t know how to use a rotary dial phone–I’ve had to instruct children who needed to make a phone call from my house on how to use mine.
Neurosis seems to be a word that is going the way of the dinosaurs. Nowadays you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Social Phobia or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or something else along those lines. Nobody is just plain neurotic anymore. (And before anyone flames me, I’m not suggesting that this is a bad thing–just that it’s a sign of how language changes over time.)