this post was submitted on 07 May 2026
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Yeah, that one changed within my lifetime. It's interesting how "rolling" is even in there.
Say the very first car windows had been electric. It wouldn't be called rolling down because there was no "rolling" mechanism. But, we probably wouldn't call it "powering down" or "buttoning down". We'd probably just say something like "lowering the window". So... why did whoever coined that term decide to include "rolling" in the name? Especially because you still need the "up" and "down". You can't just "roll the window".
You also "dial" a phone number, even though the mechanism for choosing the phone number hasn't been a dial in decades. But, at least in that case there wasn't an obvious name for the process of entering a phone number into the system. A car window just goes up and down, why should it matter if it's done with a rolling mechanism or a button? Even though you turn a knob to open a door, you don't "doorknob open" it or "handle shut" the door. You also raise or lower an anchor, you don't "crank the ank", even though that would be cooler to say.
I suppose if the first windows were electric, they might have just said “open the window”
For the phone dial, I suppose we could say “key in the number” rather than “dial the number.” Of course with cell phone touch screens they aren’t even physical keys anymore. Though in UI framework terminology, I suppose they aren’t even physical usually still referred to as buttons. Though you don’t “button in the number.”
And while "button" is a verb, it's used for the original "button" which was a device on clothing used to hold two pieces together. Electronic "buttons" were just named because they resembled these things people were used to on clothing.