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The misuse of the word "traditional" isn't limited to the beer world. Elsewhere it's also used with the very vague meaning of "sometime in the last few hundred years".

I was shocked to hear it used in this particular context: a BBC TV report about replacing the street lights in Sheffield. The reporter said that LED lights were going to replace the traditional orange street lights.

Traditional? Street lights can be traditional? Wouldn't a traditional street light be a gas one?

It's probably my age that makes me baulk at this usage. Because I can remember those sodium lamps appearing. I can even remember the very first time I encountered them. It was in Sunderland, probably about 1968 or 1969. They were introduced even later than that in Newark. Not much more than 40 years ago.

Here's a phiosophical question. How long does a practice or an object have to have been around before it becomes traditional?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20308297


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