The 60's

Computer?  What's a computer?  There were none in the 1960's, but nearly all of the words now associated with computers were very commonly used back then...


Laptop:  Where grandchildren sat to hear a story.

Windows:  An accurate weather report.

Mac:  A big shiny truck.

Web:  What was woven when first we practiced to deceive.

Facebook:  A large album of family photos held in place by little black corner tabs.

Links:  Sausages or pieces of a chain.

Chat:  What you had while sitting at a table sipping coffee.

Blog:  An exclamation of Batman’s fists as he battled the Joker (along with “Zap!”  “Pow!”  and “Wham!”)

Hack:  What we’ll do to the old red rooster when she’ll be comin’ ‘round the mountain.

Cookies:  What Grandma gave us before dinner.

RAM:  MUTTON.

Profile:  What was required for all prisoners.

Dashboard:  Where you stored your receipts in the truck.

Settings:  Groups of items; each group containing a plate, knife, fork, spoon, napkin and glass.

Tabs:  What you kept at the hardware store and the five and dime (sometimes you could clear them by fixing a busted pipe, a broken lawn mower, or bringing a regular supply of eggs from your chickens).

Insert:  An advertisement tucked inside the Sunday paper next to the comics.

Bullets:  What were in your gun in deer season.

Borders:  Dividing the United States from Canada and Mexico.

Spell Check:  Mom.

Merge:  Turning your truck off the dirt road and onto the blacktop after the cows moved out of the way.

Fields:  Where the crops grew.

File:  An emery board.

Draft:  1A

Zoom:  The sound an airplane or a Mustang Fastback made as it went by.

Macro:  Usually followed by “ni” and mixed with cheese.

Micro:  Prefix for scope, phone, or -nesia.

Post:  What the paper boy threw into the yard on Satuday Evening.

Network:  ABC, NBC or CBS.

Podcast:  Fishing for whales.

Sync:  Where you washed the dishes, bathed the baby, and cleaned fish.

Twitter:  What the little birdies sang (also cheep, chirrup, or peep). 

Tweet:  What you got when you did somefing vewy good.

Templates:  What you used when drawing house plans or doing geometry.

Domains:   Houses.

Feeds:  Various grains stored in the barn or silo.

Layouts:  Blueprints for a building, plot plans for landscaping, or placement instructions for dress patterns on fabric.

Reader:  A children’s educational book by McGuffey.

Mail:  A letter or bill which was sealed inside an envelope with 4 cents postage and delivered to your mailbox.

Mailbox:  A rounded metel box with a hinged opening on one end and a red “flag” on the side, usually mounted on a short post at the entrance of your driveway.

Friends:  People who spent time together.

Status:   What highly educated or wealthy people flaunted.

Video:  The fancy new replacement for reel to reel.

Password:  What you had to say to get into the secret tree house.

Sign In:  What you had to do at the DMV.

Spam:  Processed ham in a little can; best with white rice and seaweed.

Discard:  An old, unwanted library book.

Desktop:  Where you handwrote letters and bills of sale, and where you kept your dial phone, wooden pencils and manual typewriter.

Word:  Letters assembled into a small group, then various grouped letters put together using proper grammar, to communicate a thought.

Works:  When they're missing, faith is dead.

Charger:  A bull.

Online:  Where, if the ball bounced, you didn't get a point and it was the other kid's turn, but you always tried to argue that it wasn't.

Mouse:  What you chased out of the kitchen with a whisk broom.

Thumbdrive:  Hitchhiking.

Keyboard:  The wooden pegs on the wall by the back door where you hung your truck keys.

Mousepad:  When mice made a nest where hippies lived.

Contacts:  Devices used for electrical connection.

Apple:  What you gave to the teacher to get her on your good side.

Vista:  A view of the mountains on a clear day.

Gateway:  The Golden Gate Bridge.

Dell:  What the farmer was in.

Edit:  When you scraped your typing error off with a razor blade then moved the carbon paper over a little bit before you retyped the correction, hoping you had the letters exactly lined up when you rolled the paper back into place.

View:  See Vista and Windows.

App:  What you said to the dentist to make him upset while he worked on your teeth.

Safari:  A trip to hunt big game in Africa.

Thunderbird:  What you drove if you were hip, far out and out of sight… until your daddy took it away.  Are you still with me?  Groovy!

Crash:  What you did to a party or when you fell asleep on someone’s couch.

Search:  What you did for bobby pins, your Etcha Sketch or your favorite LP.

Printer:  A thick pencil in the hands of a small child.

Scan:  What you did to the horizon.

Cut:  What you did with scissors to paper.

Copy:  What other kids did to you that made you mad.

Paste:  An adhesive applied with a brush which was attached to the lid of the paste jar. (who is Elmer?)

Wallpaper:  What you used to decorate the walls in your house.

Amazon:  A river in South America.

E-Bay:  The word “bay” in pig latin (sort of).

Yahoo:  What you shouted at a country music concert, a sporting event or when you found a dollar bill on the ground.

Google:  A really big number with which only astronauts and math teachers were familiar.

~ae