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Why do people say “Sky Plussed” instead of “recorded”?
Grand Dizzy
Posts: 7,369 Forum Member
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I have noticed many, many Sky+ users using “Sky Plus” as a verb. For example: “I Sky Plussed it yesteday”. In contrast, I’ve never heard any other PVR users do this. My box is a DigiFusion, but I’ve never said: “I DigiFusioned it yesterday.”
I’m just wondering what is it about Sky+ users that makes them feel the need to buck tradition and invent a new word for “record”?
Sure, back in the VCR days we all used “tape” as a verb. But that was standard English. And it referred to the medium, not to the brand of the recorder. Nobody used to say: “I JVC-ed it yesterday.”
Don’t get me wrong — I’ve nothing against people using humorous coloquialisms. I just find it a little distracting when people feel the need to shoe-horn the name of their hardware into a conversation about TV programmes.
I don’t “Ford Focus to the pub”, or “BT my friends” or “Sebo my carpet”.
Genericised trademarks
Another consideration is that if enough people use a brand name as a verb, it eventually becomes genericised and the owner loses their rights to the trademark. So people who refer to recording as “Sky Plussing” are actually harming Sky.
(This is currently a big problem for Adobe, with people increasingly using “Photoshopping” as a verb to mean “re-touching” and Adobe launching expensive campaigns to try and counter this.)
I’m just wondering what is it about Sky+ users that makes them feel the need to buck tradition and invent a new word for “record”?
Sure, back in the VCR days we all used “tape” as a verb. But that was standard English. And it referred to the medium, not to the brand of the recorder. Nobody used to say: “I JVC-ed it yesterday.”
Don’t get me wrong — I’ve nothing against people using humorous coloquialisms. I just find it a little distracting when people feel the need to shoe-horn the name of their hardware into a conversation about TV programmes.
I don’t “Ford Focus to the pub”, or “BT my friends” or “Sebo my carpet”.
Genericised trademarks
Another consideration is that if enough people use a brand name as a verb, it eventually becomes genericised and the owner loses their rights to the trademark. So people who refer to recording as “Sky Plussing” are actually harming Sky.
(This is currently a big problem for Adobe, with people increasingly using “Photoshopping” as a verb to mean “re-touching” and Adobe launching expensive campaigns to try and counter this.)
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It's just a perfectly normal process that happens in speech e.g. "I hoovered the bedroom today".
People didn't one day think "Ooh I really feel the need to shoe-horn the name of my vacuum cleaner into a conversation". It just happens.
Some trademarks just find their way into the English language...
What do people say for DVD recorders?.
OK, technically, PVRs don’t record anything, they just recieve data directly. But it’s the same effect as recording, and “recording” is the word all PVR manufactureres seem to use.
If it was recorded via DVD-R / CD or whatever a hand over of (programme x) can take place.
But then again as in the case of the vacuum cleaner primacy may not be significant as poor old James Spangler found out.
Perhaps we should adopt the term 'plussed' for digital recordings since there are also V+ and Freeview + machines out there doing basically the same job.
Personally I see nothing wrong with saying 'record' or 'recorded'.
i haven't had VHS in about 6 years, maybe longer, but even before I had Sky+ and I had a dvd recorder, I still said "taped".
My sister did point out that technically I should have said "disked"
You need to get out more.
I expect many people do too.
Sky+ does seem to be the most well-known PVR. No doubt because Sky already had an existing customer base, whereas all the other PVR manufacturers had to start from scratch. I also believe Sky’s PVR was the first in the UK, too, so Sky got all the early adopters who were keen to get hold of one.
I’ve never heard of V+. What’s that?
Yes, it took me a long time to stop calling it “taping” after I switched from VCR to PVR.
My dad still calls it “taping” and nothing else. Then again, he still uses VHS regularly and considers that “good quality”. He also refers to CDs as “tapes”. (He’s a little behind the times in some respects, but I love him!
I wouldn’t feel particularly proud of having to use that ugly, awkward Sky interface — or of having to pay a monthly subscription for my EPG, while everyone else gets theirs for free. (I mock, but clearly a lot of people think Sky’s service is worth the money. It’s just not to my taste.)
As said, it's got the mass market to carry it off. 'Recorded' works for me, though Toppied has a nice ring
V+ is Virgin Medias version of sky+
I considering vhs quite good quality, and im only 23, so I can't blame it on old age. lol.
I bet the term 'freeview plussed it' wont catch on, mainly as most people have been doing the exact thing with pvr's for several years already.
Also, subscribers don't pay for the EPG, they pay to receive more channels of their choosing. If you had to pay to view the Sky EPG, there would be a lot of unhappy Freesat from Sky customers!
and when they switch off analogue TV - will the term "freeview" still be in use?
Won't it simply be called "TV" once that is the only thing being broadcast on terrestrial?
But the thing I hate the most about Sky’s system (and I will never forget this) is that you can’t change the order of the channels or delete unwanted channels . For me, that is an absolute dealbreaker — my worst nightmare. For me, the BBC channels must all be together at the start, then the ITV channels, etc. The channels I hardly ever watch must be near the end. I think Sky’s channel order began with Sky One, then a couple of BBC channels, then a couple of ITV channels, then a Welsh channel. It was all pretty random and irritating. Then there were so many unavailable channels or advert channels right in the middle of all the real channels.
I guess a lot of people don’t care about these things, but for me personally they annoyed me. I probably had more complaints, but it was a few years ago now and I can’t remember.
Back when I had Sky, if you wanted Sky+, you not only had to pay for the box itself, you also had to pay an extra £10 a month for the service (i.e. the EPG).
If the EPG service is free (as you say, via Sky’s Freesat), then I guess that £10 a month was for nothing at all.
You still have to pay it if youre not on sky subscription.
bit of a rip off