Phoenix, Arizona in the days of horseless carriages

If you're not familiar with the term "horseless carriage", it's not surprising, since people haven't used that term now for over 100 years. It meant what we would call a car today, or an automobile. Of course, back before there was such a thing as what we now call "cars", the main way that people got around was with horses. So when cars were invented, they were described as horseless carriages. A carriage, by the way, is what we would call the body of a car. And at the time, describing things by what they were missing makes perfect sense, and only becomes confusing later on.

I'm also thinking of what people called a receiver that didn't require any wires to get an electronic message, like a telegraph. When radios were new, people called them "the wireless". Yes, of course you still needed a wire to plug them in, but they received information right through thin air, with radio waves. The new name caught on!

Here on my computer I have a "wireless mouse". When wires were required to connect a mouse to a computer, the name seemed to make sense. The wire was the tail, and the body of the thing was the mouse's body. Nowadays it's still called a wireless mouse, but I have a feeling that in the future it will need a new name, like a "click-a-thing".

Of course names for things persist. Even today, the power of a car's engine is measured against the theoretical power of a horse. Yes, that's what horsepower means. And it goes back to measuring how powerful the engine of a horseless carriage was - people needed something to compare it to - was it as powerful as a horse? Two horses? Four horsepower? Eight? Twelve?! Wow!

And so, to be fair, Phoenix still has horseless carriages. In fact, a LOT of them. I see them every day. But no one uses the old-fashioned term anymore, they're just called cars.

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