Although modern technology moves forward at a more rapid pace than ever before, there are still plenty of legacy solutions and symbols that are resilient enough to stand the test of time. Like digital equivalents of living fossils, they have managed to survive the disruptive effect of technological innovation and still thrive in highly modern IT-environments.
In this series, we will take a closer look at some legacy icons that are still present in our modern times. In this article we’re going to focus on “hang up”, a term that we still use in present days if we hang up the phone despite the fact that mobile phones don’t have a horn.
Hanging up and old telephones
Cultural practices change, technology evolves, but words, terms and sayings have a tendency to stick around. And not just in some long ago, faraway place, but all around us in day-to-day conversations. A good example is the familiar expression ‘hang up the phone’. In the good old (or primitive and cumbersome depending on who you ask) days of traditional phones and phone cells, phones had two parts: a base and receiver (the horn). To end the call, you had to put the horn back in its base.
Since many old telephone models were wall-mounted, you literally had to hang the phone on the wall fixture after the completion of a call. Kids from now might have a hard time imagining it, but hanging up was actually a physical part of telephone calls for a very long time.
Hang up in the modern mobile era
Although most of us use mobiles these days, the term “hanging up” is still an intricate part of the smartphone vocabulary. In fact, the icon for taking incoming calls or ending calls on your fancy and state-of-the-art iPhone or Android phone still features the classic telephone horn. Hanging up the phone in the modern era does lead to less drama, since you can’t (or at least shouldn’t if you want to keep on using your precious smartphone) slam the phone down angrily after an argument or unwelcome call. But maybe that’s a good thing…
