Grammar Moses: In lieu of anything fun, read this

"In lieu of current events, we remind members to practice good health habits. Washing your hands, using hand sanitizer, wiping down equipment after use ..."

I was all ready to point out that the person who created this sign for the YMCA clearly does not understand what "in lieu of" means.

A good alternative would be "In place of."

And there clearly are plenty of current events.

So the sign means: "In place of current events, we remind members to practice good health habits ..."

But wait. This was my line of thinking on Monday, before the world started to cancel itself.

Perhaps the sign maker was merely prescient.

While entire sports have shut down, schools have closed and theaters have gone dark, on Friday afternoon YMCAs still were chugging along, slathered in disinfectant.

Rewriting the sign slightly to "In lieu of actual things to do, we remind members to practice good health habits ..." does make some sense from the Y's perspective, I suppose.

I'm now washing my hands of this subject and moving onto something else.

Retronyms

Now here is a part of speech that I'd never heard of. And it's fascinating.

A retronym is a newly created term that distinguishes something current from an older term. How many can you come up with?

• Electric guitar: Can you believe "electric guitars" have been around for almost a century? It's true. Before that, all we had were "guitars." Another retronym is "acoustic guitar." Before electric guitars came along, all guitars were acoustic - that is, they were not electronically amplified.

• Paperback book: Eighty-five years ago, someone came up with the bright idea to make literature more affordable for the masses with paperback books. Until then, they were just books (though I'm sure people made distinctions between hardbacks and leather-bound volumes.

• Silent movies: Movies were silent from their inception in the 1890s until 1927. But until "talkies" started in the early '20s, movies hadn't been considered "silent." They just were.

• Desktop computers: They were simply "personal computers" and they sat on desks in the days when Bill Gates wore dorky glasses and Steve Jobs wore none.

Until the first laptop came along in 1981, there was no need for the "desktop" modifier.

Today we call desktop computers "doorstops."

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.