Word Watch: Hand-Me-Up

Image Credit: Getty Images, T.H. Murphy/Flickr

Bruce Sterling points us to a remarkable and timely new term – “hand-me-up”. It’s the act of a member of a younger generation passing along newish, but out-dated technology to a member of an older generation.

Urban Dictionary’s definition:

Where the young generation in a family adopts and purchases new technology product at a fast rate, and old versions (that are in working order but are not up to current standards) of that technology product are given to the parents or older generations of family.

Commonly occurs multiple times on commodity technology gadgets, leaving your parents with many gadgets to play with.