Vote for the best verboticism.
DEFINITION: n. An old media format that is no longer popular or easily accessible, such as floppy disks, VHS tapes or stone tablets. v. To try to access data stored in an old-fashioned media format, especially it requires the use archaic technology and/or protocols.
Verboticisms
Click on each verboticism to read the sentences created by the Verbotomy writers, and to see your voting options...
You have two votes. Click on the words to read the details, then vote your favorite.
Retronics
Created by: youmustvotenato
Pronunciation: rhymes with electronics
Sentence: What's with the retronics? You need to get iPhone 17 already
Etymology: Retro + electronics
Hitechniques
Created by: artr
Pronunciation: hīteknēks
Sentence: Rotary phones, transistor radios, 8-tracks, cassette players, VCRs, dial-up modems... Once the pinnacle of scientific genius, these marvels are now considered hitechniques, ancient relics of technology that has moved on. Some of them still function with a patchwork of adaptations. Most are only good for cannibalizing to keep others of their kind semi-functional.
Etymology: hitech (employing, requiring, or involved in high technology) + antiques (a collectible object such as a piece of furniture or work of art that has a high value because of its considerable age)
Relicassette
Created by: Fester361
Pronunciation: rel ee cas ett
Sentence: After several ours wasted, playing on their Nintendo Wii, Mike's kids were bored and decided to explore the attic. Rummaging through old boxes, they came across some mysterious plastic slabs, that appeared to have reels of tape inside. "Dad, how do we get the tape out?" they shouted. "You need to use the relicassette player," he replied. Mike went up into the attic and retrieved a giant metal machine with a huge A4 sized flap on the top. At the press of a button, the flap shot open and all manner of insects flew out. When switched on, the lights in the house went dim and the circuit breaker tripped. "I guess I should have copied these to DVD!" Mike said.
Etymology: Relic; an antiquity that has survived from the distant past. Cassette; A rigid or flexible light-tight container for holding radiographic recording media.
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COMMENTS:
Please be gentle, it's my first (of many, I hope) attempt. - Fester361, 2008-03-16: 04:44:00
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Passéimperfect
Created by: Nosila
Pronunciation: pas say im pur fect
Sentence: Young Billy adored his grandfather and loved it when the old geezer told him stories about the passéimperfect. He knew his grandpa made this stuff up, but he loved to hear about the good old days anyway and in particular about the ancient tools they used. He regaled Billy with yarns about how his phone had numbers that went round and round when he stuck his finger in the holes for each set of numbers. Grandpa also told him about watching tv shows on the one channel in black & white and for some reason you needed a rabbit's ears to see the tiny picture better. (As if!) He also told him of cooking without using a microwave (yeah, right!) and buying big blocks of ice to keep everything in the fridge cold (you've got to be kidding!). That crazy Grandpa, he told Billy that a log on was something you put on a bonfire and that a link was something you put on your sleeves to keep the cuffs closed. He said a password was something you spoke into a grill on a door to get into a speak-easy (must be some kind of spellcheck for voice actioned computers?) Billy loved the really old things that Grandpa gave him. Like most boys his age, he loved dinosaurs. He was so excited today, because Grandpa was coming over and bringing him a thesaurus...he couldn't wait to play with it!
Etymology: passé (out of fashion) & past imperfect (grammar: tense imperfect refers to an action that is uncompleted or abandoned)
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COMMENTS:
Rrrawr! Oh no, here comes the fierce Thesaurus Rex!... That's hilarious. - Tigger, 2008-03-14: 03:09:00
All that was makes me curious about what is to come! Great etymology ... conveys the way passages from the old ... lead to the knew ... growing, evolving, better and better ... perfecting! A Perfectly wonderful sentence and word! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 17:08:00
Thanks, Tigger & silveryaspen. I always thought the best name for the Toronto NBA Team was TorontoSaurus Wrecks...but no one would listen... - Nosila, 2008-03-14: 23:16:00
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Yestersurf
Created by: Mustang
Pronunciation: YES-tur-serf
Sentence: Having only a discarded very ancient computer, their father's first machine, to rely on Lyndal and Terrance had no choice but to resort to yestersurf methods of finding information.
Etymology: Blend of yesterday and surf
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COMMENTS:
'yestersurf - all my problems were on different turf' - Jabberwocky, 2009-01-07: 14:26:00
Oh the nostalgia ... of yestersurf and the song "yesterday" ... I'm off on another trip down memory lane! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-07: 16:04:00
Yestersurf...all my nightmares looked like Smurf... - Nosila, 2009-01-07: 19:04:00
Goes really good with yesterturf - Mustang, 2009-01-07: 22:11:00
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Rosettastorage
Created by: Banky
Pronunciation: row-set-tah-store-ridge
Sentence: Alex was fixated on amassing the largest collection of rosettastored modern media in the known world. The crown jewels in his menagerie were wax cylinders of Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral", "The Godfather Part III" presented in a swimming pool sized Zoetrope, and the painstaking and somewhat ironic translation of "The Mummy" in handpainted hieroglyphics. He would take various tour groups through the displays, pointing out the 8400 5 1/4" floppy disk download of the Wikipedia database on the left, the Russian woodcarvings of "Rocky IV" (mostly featuring gilded images of Drago as a werebear), and a series of dangerous pop-up books chronicling late 1970s blaxploitation pornography. Twice daily he would present various skits on a weekly rotating schedule; retellings of Judith Light Lifetime movies of the week in comedia dell'arte Punch and Judy shows, morality plays based on "Snow White" with wildly different dwarves, epic poems in which he related the trials and travels of Richard Branson, and on special occasions would present weeklong mesquite fueled smoke-signal presentations of Cormac McCarthy novels. His latest undertaking, an exhibit of "Norbit" on a series of Grecian urns was expected within the week.
Etymology: Rosetta stone - the large granite stone found by the French in 1799 which facilitated the deciperhing of Egyptian hieroglyphics + storage
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COMMENTS:
Great word, awesome sentence! - Jamagra, 2008-03-14: 11:21:00
Great word, awesome sentence! - Jamagra, 2008-03-14: 13:06:00
Wow!! - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-14: 14:16:00
Marvelous! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 17:58:00
Love the use of "rosseta". Great sentence,also. - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-16: 17:06:00
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Rusticording
Created by: Tigger
Pronunciation: /ruhs-teh-kor-ding/
Sentence: George totally enjoyed bringing his 8-year-old son with him to help clean out Grandpa's attic — where Grandpa had stored all of his old electronics and rusticordings. Grandpa had been an avid technophile in his day and the attic was like an obsolete technology museum. When George showed him the Betamax and VHS video tapes, and explained that they were like DVD-R's, Nathan inpected them and asked where the lasers went. Then, when they got to the cassettes and 8-track tapes, George told Nathan that they were what people kept their MP3's on, and then he showed Nathan the rust-colored tape and demonstrated how it turned. Nathan wanted to know how people selected the song they wanted to hear, and so George had to explain Fast Forward and Rewind, while his son struggled with the archaic concept. The vinyl records were next, and when George showed him the groove on the record, and explained how you had to carefully position the needle so as not to scratch the record, Nathan just winced and said, "Wow, Grandpa really had it rough!"
Etymology: Rust[ic] - iron [ferric] oxide; also, a thin layer of ferric oxide was used in most magnetic tapes, floppy disks and early hard discs (Old German, rost "red") + Recording - storage device containing information (from Old French, recorder "testimony")
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COMMENTS:
Yeah, I can no longer play my rustaccordion either! - arrrteest, 2008-03-14: 12:04:00
Will use it a lot! Excellent word! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:22:00
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Techstinct
Created by: karenanne
Pronunciation: tek STINCT
Sentence: Why is it that the VHS video format is considered boring and old-fashioned, while both the Beta tapes and the Beta machines required to play them, which are even older, are now considered "retro" and "cute?" I guess the closer something gets to becoming techstinct, the cooler it becomes for collectors due to its rarity.
Etymology: tech + extinct
Technosaur
Created by: rombus
Pronunciation: tek - no - sore
Sentence: As time marches on, we are creating new media but the list of technosaurs is increasing. I have boxes of VHS tapes and records and even though I can still play them, they are not as clear and vibrant as the CD's and DVD's that I now have.
Etymology: Technology (Mechanisms for distributing messages, including postal systems, radio and television broadcasting companies, telephone, satellite and computer networks) + Dinosaur (extinct reptiles, also used as a term to denote something old)
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COMMENTS:
So appealing! How the kid in all of us loves our technosaurs! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-07: 14:47:00
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Antechwhatee
Created by: galwaywegian
Pronunciation: ann teh wot eee
Sentence: the sound of the antechwhatee scratched along, every now and then receding so you could make out a strangulated voice crooning something about gramma.
Etymology: antiquity, tech, what
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COMMENTS:
What a witty clever pun! Nice one! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 23:52:00
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Comments:
Today's definition was suggested by yellowbird. Thank you yellowbird. ~ James
stache - 2008-03-14: 01:22:00
paleodata
stache - 2008-03-14: 01:32:00
oops-wrong box.
arrrteest - 2008-03-14: 11:20:00
A few years ago, while giving a state assessment to 5th graders, there was a passage about artifacts. Included with the clay pipes and broken pottery shards was a section on the record and the record player. I wasn't ready to accept that then, but now I'm somewhat resigned to the fact that it is so.
silveryaspen - 2008-03-14: 17:03:00
Congratulations, Yellowbird and James for the definition and cartoon, that has evoked a lot of deep thinking. Kudos to all you erudite deep-thinkers ... for your words, comments, and wonderful way of uplifting each other with these wonderful interchanges. You've expanded the horizons of my thinking!
silveryaspen - 2008-03-14: 18:43:00
Three cheers for all the fun words created, too! Three cheers for all the trips down the various memory lanes!
arrrteest - 2008-03-14: 20:24:00
Lol,, MEMORY lanes
Thank goodness our memory lanes are still working. I was afraid they may have become non-compatible due to the upgrade to Windows Vista. Thank you Silvery, for showing us the way. ~ James
Today's definition was suggested by yellowbird. Thank you yellowbird. ~ James
insoulheckMi - 2018-05-24: 03:18:00
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hombwedleMi - 2018-05-24: 04:39:00
магазин дешевой одежды из китая с доставкой вико одежда больших размеров доставка