Tape and Dial have a similar etymology, but in modern usage tape has fallen out of use in favour of the more generic ‘record’, while dial is still current.
Dial is used a lot less than it was, admittedly; if you want to make a voice call it’s usually from a stored contact or a number on a website so we just ‘phone’ or ‘call’ people most of the time.
But the physical act of interacting with a sequence of individal numbers to initiate a call? We don’t have a better word for that than ‘dial’
Tape though, there’s a very real chance that a young person can hear ‘tape’ and not have the slightest clue what that means.
That’s true, ‘tape’ is certainly more rare than it used to be, I do agree that it’s fading but I still think ‘the kids’ would have likely heard it from a parent (or grandparent at this point) and asked or gotten the jist from context.
Tape and Dial have a similar etymology, but in modern usage tape has fallen out of use in favour of the more generic ‘record’, while dial is still current.
Dial is used a lot less than it was, admittedly; if you want to make a voice call it’s usually from a stored contact or a number on a website so we just ‘phone’ or ‘call’ people most of the time.
But the physical act of interacting with a sequence of individal numbers to initiate a call? We don’t have a better word for that than ‘dial’
Tape though, there’s a very real chance that a young person can hear ‘tape’ and not have the slightest clue what that means.
That’s true, ‘tape’ is certainly more rare than it used to be, I do agree that it’s fading but I still think ‘the kids’ would have likely heard it from a parent (or grandparent at this point) and asked or gotten the jist from context.