Collective amnesia about the term 'records'

[Saint Jude]

This may sound hypocritical from someone who is part of a forum that was initially called Vinyl Vulture and whose members measure space and time by vinyl.

However, I'm really getting hacked off that the entire nation appears to have forgotten the term records.

The following is a regular occurrence for me:

I enter a charity shop, finds the records and looks through them all.
I then ask the shop assistant 'have you got any more records?'
They say 'do you mean vinyl?'

9 times out of 10 the assistant is older than me, usually by many decades. I therefore assume that in their younger years they bought 'records' from a 'record shop' and listened to them on a 'record player'.

Why do they appear to have suddenly forgotten this in the last few years? Has there been a mass Men In Black style memory wipe that I'm not aware of?

I find the whole phenomenon very strange.

[relkeel]

I picked up a double LP last week and the labels read ' vinyl 1 and vinyl 2'.
Overheard a youngster recently remark to his girlfriend ' I would like to buy this (said while holding a record) ,but I haven't got a vinyl player'.
Does anyone know when the new Vinyl Collector Price Guide is due out?

I guess language is an ever evolving thing.

[Fortunate One]

I'm not so irked by this trend but used to get very annoyed when people began to pluralise the word vinyl a while back...e.g. ''have you got any more vinyls?''
I find it quite funny now and under exceptional circumstances will even slip a ''vinyls'' into record-related chat.

[Expiry2011]

You make flooring from vinyl

[toby.d]

The media dunnit! "Vinyl Makes A Comeback", "Vinyl Sales Increase By 72.3%" etc.

[Slim Jim]

They're still records to me - unless I'm in Newcastle and then they become 'reckaaards'!!

[treeboy]

You make flooring from vinyl

Some people most certainly do

[Headless mermaid]

Most people will forget almost anything that doesn't slap them in the face daily. Except grudges.

[Mondays Child]

I try with my kids to instill the cult of 'records' they just say to me "is it fuck, they're vinyl!!!"

Can't win!

[jb stanislas]

They're still records to me - unless I'm in Newcastle and then they become 'reckaaards'!!

My mate is from Scorland and he calls them "rekids".

[candiman]

They say 'do you mean vinyl?'

At least they didn't put an s on the end.
In fact my perception is that the dreaded 'vinyls' is not as prevalent as it was a couple of years ago, thank god.

Perhaps hip young things are infiltrating the management levels of charity shops and in a wave of corporateness (that's probably a word that should be banned, if indeed it is a word!) insisting that all workers use the word 'vinyl'.

I'm a records man too. In moments of old fogeyness I refer to CDs as records (as in "Kylie's got a great new record out") so perhaps vinyl is used for the avoidance of doubt.

A few years ago in a junk shop (which had some LPs) in an Atlanta suburb, trying to use what I assumed to be the local lingo, I asked if they had any 45s, to which the reply was "guns or records?".

[Shere Khan]

I'm on a music forum chiefly frequented by youngsters. One of the topics was 'Does anyone here collect vinyl'. I put forward the request that we refer to them as records but I've been roundly ignored. They all call them 'vinyls'. Some of them have 'vinyl players'. One chap said 'I've only got three vinyls'. The remainder of his post was rather sweet as it went something along the lines of, ' I've got xxx by Twin Atlantic, xxx by Mastodon and a Pink Floyd one I can't remember the name of'. I also worry about the term 'album'; they've always been LPs to me. I'm not losing sleep over it but my fingernails are taking a pasting

[ginghamkitchen]

I think that vinyl was in the wilderness for a long while in terms of the general populace, so 'records' passed from common parlance in regard to exclusively meaning sound recordings. now when you ask for records, people think you're filming an episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are'.

[Shere Khan]

I think that vinyl was in the wilderness for a long while in terms of the general populace,

They certainly were; so much so that older people, who you might think would know better, when told I bought records, would say, 'Really! Where do you get them'?, as if production had simply stopped dead when CD arrived. At the time there was still a shop selling records even in our small town. Maybe I'd be the same if I joined a food forum and said 'you buy tinned sago! Where, for God's sake'? They might say, 'Have you tried Morrison's you twit'.

[Slim Jim]

I'm a records man too. In moments of old fogeyness I refer to CDs as records (as in "Kylie's got a great new record out").

... and of course when that Kylie record is successful, it'll get in the hit parade NOT the charts!!