I'm not using that word 'vinyl' anymore (except for flooring).

How did this creep into the English language? They were called 'records'. LP records or singles. They were still called this even well after the CD was introduced and there were tapes and 8 tracks as well for years before that. I've decided to revert to the proper terminology.



The Police didn't call them vinyl or vinyls LOL.

'I see you sent my letters back and my Lp records and they're all smashed'

Watching this video on Now 70 convinced me Vinyl is plain wrong. Sting has gotta be right!

 

'Vinyl' to describe the format is, and always has been, absolutely correct. 'A' vinyl, or 'some' vinyls to describe what you've just purchased is like fingernails down a blackboard....

 

I don't recall the term being used until the 00's. It was always 'Records' before then.

 

It's a relatively new idiom but fighting it is a lost cause.

 

Probably but it's getting a little annoying. I've even got a phono stage that uses Vinyl in it's name. I'm still going to call out millenials that use the word 'Vinyls' even if I have to bow to the inevitable.

 

If we use the term 'records' like we used to do , will younger folk know we're referring to proper records and not cds?

 

Ok, well maybe start with correcting yourself first because the Lp records were all scratched and NOT smashed !
So yeah, Sting was right, you are wrong

 

The term "vinyl" seems to have started with the resurgence of the LP format. Yes, early 2000's, I have no idea why.
I started buying records during my youth, around 1972. Never saw any stores called "Vinyl World" or "Princeton Vinyl Exchange."

However, I knew a couple of record store owners in the 80's and once in a while they would refer to a new disc as vinyl; ie, "I picked up some new vinyl today." It was slang for record.

 

I’ve got the cd, the cd Album of the Lp Record

 

Younger folk think CDs no longer exist.

 

'My vinyl collection' vs. 'my collection of vinyls.'

I've always referred to my compact discs as polycarbonates.

 

Since vinyl is a nickname for polyvinyl chloride, CDs should probably be called carb.

 

"Phono stage"..... didn't they use to call them 'Phono pre amps"?
I'm joking by the way!
As some have said it's probably to do with after CD's came out & then "vinyl records'' became popular, it's way to differentiate those two especially.

I can assume if your phono stage has vinly(vynl) in it's name it's a Musical Fidelity..... probably?

Cheers
-evo777

 

Yup, I recall back in the 80's they were called LPs, 45's , records... sometimes record albums.
If you said vinyl, they would probably assume you were talking about vinyl siding or vinyl flooring.

 

While I don't think that I have ever agreed with Sting about anything, the use of 'vinyls' is an abomination.
I think that the use of vinyl crept into common use as a means of distinguishing between LP records and CD records in the late-80s/early-90s.

 

I don't recall the common use of the word 'Vinyl' in the 1990s.

 

I think "vinyl" for records is not really a new word, it's been around quite a while. What is new is its generic use for "record". But it has always been used to distinguish modern records from 78s, aka "shellacs". Probably most people today aren't aware of that distinction though.

 

I certainly recall discussions in the early- to mid-90s about no longer being able to call LPs 'records' (short for recordings, of course) as that did not distinguish them from CDs (the point that it had not previously distinguished them from cassettes was somehow missed) and 'vinyl' being used as an alternative. I guess that I have no real means of determining whether that was 'common use' or not, so that might have been a slight overstatement of the case.

 

I get it but to me it just clarifies the format you're referring to instead of having to repeatedly answer the question as to whether by "record" or "album" you're referring to CD, vinyl, stream.

 

That is just fine for me, but LPs should never be referred to as 'vinyls'.

 

As a non-native english speaker I like the word vinyl, it unambiguously defines the medium (in the context of music). Records or albums could be unclear, because record is very close to recording and album could be just interpreted as set of songs on any format.

 

Sting calls them "LP records" because that's what they were called in 1978. Things have changed a lot since 1978.

 

I am definitely old school in terms of being around during the golden age of LP's in the 70's. "Vinyl" did sound a little foreign to me at first. But honestly I don't have a problem with vinyl and I am not going to hassle anyone who uses the term. If the the people new to records these days want to call them vinyl, so what? To me another term for for records isn't necessarily a bad thing, if it brings more attention to this format we love. In the '60's I remember AM radio DJ's saying: "I've got stax and stax of red hot wax, and we're playing them all for you." Records hadn't been made of wax for 50 years, but no one cared. For me there are bigger fish to fry.

 

For now on, I'm gonna call my CDs carbs just to be hip and cool.

 

me too
#me too