oh goodness I feel very old all of a sudden

[kaberett]

Browsing r/fountainpens today, as one does, I observed the following:

I have been writing out my Morning Prayer as part of my journal prompts and thought it would be fun to have a dedicated "Prayer Pen". Thinking something somewhat decorative/festive with a broad nib and a gold/bronze ink? Something unique, A way to quickly identify the posts when I look back on my journal. Thank you

I am pretty sure I have never before seen "post" used to refer to a physical entry in a physical journal. I am fascinated to know if this is idiosyncratic individual usage or a more general linguistic shift in process.

Comments

[batrachian]

....noooooo that is not what that word means.

I see how they got there. But. No.

[azurelunatic]

Fascinating! I wonder if that person is then taking pictures of the page and putting them somewhere electronic.

[lunabee34]

I bet you're right.

[fyreharper]

Oh goodness o_o

…I find myself hoping that doesn’t catch on… (that is not what that word means!!) :p

[sporky_rat]

oh no I feel like the crypt keeper.

(Huh. The Collect for the day changes, I bet that's be a nice thing to write down in fancy ink...)

[vass]

Oh wow.

I'm still coming to terms with people using "blog" to mean a post on a blog. This new one may need to take a number and get in line.

[rugessnome]

This reminds me of how, when I was in a library knitting group as a teenager, our downstairs neighbor's use of "book" to mean also [mostly knitting/adjacent] magazines and "tape" to mean CD bled into my mom and I's vocabulary. It feels related to synecdoche, but I'm not sure it quite is.

Still can't say I especially want to endorse this extension of "post"...

(though, while I haven't viewed the post in situ, I also almost wonder if it could be less than entirely intentional—if they mistyped, autopiloting onto what is likely a more common word/phrase in modern lives, or perhaps momentarily forgot the word "entry" and substituted something close enough in notion.)

[tree_and_leaf]

In Scotland "book" is quite frequently used for "magazine" in working class usage.

[flippac]

I think it must be a bit of both already? It passes the "most people you might discuss this with will understand what you said" test, so the idea that physical journals are no longer the ideal from which, say, this site deviates? That's definitely common already.

It even makes active sense if your physical journal uses a ring binder system or something where putting something in it is a separate act to writing the text.

[simont]

This reminds me that two usages I'm still struggling with (as a confirmed Fogey™) are the use of "blog" to describe a single post rather than a whole site full of them, and the use of "email" by itself to describe an address rather than a message.

(Mostly because those can cause confusion. I especially remember someone saying "give me an email if you want [something or other]", and it meant "an address to send it to" rather than "a message reminding me that you asked for it".)

[sylvaine]

oh no I feel even older than earlier today when the interns had never interacted with a cassette tape before !

[silveradept]

That's very interesting, and I hope there are linguists who are studying this so that can tell us whether it's idiosyncratic or systematic.

[zasu]

In my advanced age, I’m finding I struggle so much more with finding the correct word, that I have to accept often using a less than perfect one, and, at the same time, accept other people using less than perfect ones. As a former editor, this kind of misuse used to drive me crazy, but I realized that if I don’t want to actually go crazy, I need to tolerate more mistakes. Probably helps that I’ve been married to a German the past 35 years, and he (and his friends and family) constantly make errors. If I want to communicate with them, I have to meet them where they are

[booksarelife]

I’ve also never heard someone use “post” to refer to a physical journal entry and I’m definitely younger than you so I don’t think it’s that you’re old at all😄

(I do wonder if maybe the person couldn’t come up with the right physical word and just substituted or if that sentence construction is normal for them)

[lokifan]

Fascinating! It makes sense, though - kinda like how we went from 'phone' vs 'mobile phone' to 'landline' vs 'phone'. Or 'phone' vs 'smartphone' to 'dumbphone' vs 'phone'. Not exactly the same, of course, but the default changed. Like I can imagine a paper journal entry becoming a 'paper post' or something in future.