Analogue

Feel free to dismiss this as a cranky, nit-picking letter. However, I am amused that the rest of the world has accepted that if a device is not digital, then it must be ‘analogue’. This, I think, really only applies to clocks, watches or other displays of numerical information. Before digital clocks, there was no need for a word to describe a clock face but once there were two types of display, the word analogue was used because the position of the hands on a clock is ‘analogous’ to, or shows the relative distance between, two or more

xed points on the dial. I don’t see how that applies to photography! I’ll shut up now. Gerry Burrows

You may have opened a can of worms here, Gerry. The English language is constantly evolving, with new words, or new meanings for existing words, being added to the Oxford Dictionary every year. In photography the word ‘analogue’ has now, through widespread use, become universally understood to be shorthand for silver-based image making. I’d be interested to hear other readers’ views on this.