When Tinder is obsolete, will we still ‘swipe right’?

“Don’t touch that dial” means don’t change the channel. You probably know this, even if you’ve never seen a TV with an actual dial — or if you don’t watch television that you can’t just pause and pick up later.

The phrase, which refers to a now-obsolete action that used to be routine, hangs around like a ghost with unfinished business.

Same with “putting the cart before the horse.” The idiom survived, but we haven’t used carriages to get around as a practical means of transportation in a century. We “hang up” the phone, even if it’s a cellphone. The VCR finally died last month, but we still talk about “rewinding” and “fast-forwarding” a video. People still make “mix tapes,” but cassettes are long gone. What gives? When a word or phrase becomes obsolete, it can continue on in com- mon usage “if it has an established meaning,” said Katherine Martin, head of U.S. dictionaries for Oxford University Press. “Meaning can transcend technology, but sometimes it doesn’t.”

In the case of the cart before the horse, Martin noted that 19th-century English speakers had a ton of words to describe types of carriages and situations specific to the experience of driving or riding in one. But those words and phrases didn’t survive; it was the idiom with an established meaning that did.

We’re used to talking about how technology is changing language in big splashy headlines. When “selfie” becomes a dictionary entry, everyone has an opinion about whether that is good or bad, or how Kids These Days are ruining English.

Less observed are some of the slower, subtler changes to language caused by our relationship to current and past technology. “Wearable” is now a noun, Martin noted, where it was once just an adjective. That’s a really telling change! But is it a press release? Not really.

You may not have noticed, but the rapid progression of technology over the past decade or so has left a flurry of phrases behind.

Clickbait refers to the act of “clicking” on a catchy headline with a mouse. “But on a mobile,” Martin noted, “you’re not clicking on anything.” You’re tapping.

Podcasting is a portmanteau that takes part of its name from the iPod. Who has an iPod anymore?

And then there’s the idea of the “the tube,” as in “boob tube,” or the TV. Nobody says “boob tube” anymore, but people know what YouTube is, and that the “tube” part means you’re going to watch something.

It’s hard to predict which technologically specific phrases might out- live their origins. One that has potential, Martin said, is “swipe right,” as in swiping right on Tinder in order to approve of someone else’s dating profile. The phrase is very new, but it already has a more general meaning — “to choose something that you like,” Martin explained.

Urban Dictionary (hardly the product of exhaustive lexicographical research, but a pretty good resource for what the Internet says something means) already offers a generalized definition: “‘Swipe right’ can be used any time you make a good choice or approve of something,” the top definition on the crowdsourced site reads. And it gives this sentence as an example: “These burritos are so good! I’m glad we swiped right on Chipotle.”

The question is, will “swipe right” establish its meaning before we, er, change the channel on Tinder?