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I'm not sure if this is a "when did people start" situation. I have never heard a layman use "earphones" in casual conversation.
by slg 1y ago
I'm not sure if this is a "when did people start" situation. I have never heard a layman use "earphones" in casual conversation.
- hnlmorg 1y agoPeople definitely used to. Or at least in the UK they did.
- wk_end 1y agoYeah, might be a UK thing. In Canada/the US I've only ever heard "headphones" and "earbuds" (a specific kind of headphone).
- hnlmorg 1y agoThat would explain my surprise then. :)
- slg 1y agoAnother example of us being separated by a common language. I don't think this has ever been common in the US.
- simmons 1y agoI don't think it was ever common, since earphones weren't that popular until people started calling them "earbuds", but the term was historically used in at least some circles in the U.S. The 1988 Radio Shack catalog [1] seems to mention "earphone" 57 times, including two mono earphone products. [1] https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Radio-Shack/Radio-Shack-1988.pdf https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Radio-Sha...
- slg 1y agoThat’s interesting, although that seems to be a different usage than OP mentioned. It seems to be used interchangeably with headphones as it’s also being used to describe cables and jacks.