We already do this, even when the original reference is forgotten.
We use idioms that refer to Greek mythology (hanging over your head, as with the Sword or Damocles, or Achilles heel), or Bible stories (Judas meaning betrayal, shibboleth meaning some kind of identifier of membership in a group), or Shakespeare (pound of flesh), or horse racing (frontrunner, hands down, across the board) or other sports (bullseye, slam dunk, par).
And in terms of our technology, we use all sorts of things that harken back to some obsolete technology. We use a save icon that is a floppy disk, a database icon that uses cylinder drum memory. We refer to the smartphone interface that enters phone numbers as a “dialer” from the “dial” in the days of rotary phones.
We already do this, even when the original reference is forgotten.
We use idioms that refer to Greek mythology (hanging over your head, as with the Sword or Damocles, or Achilles heel), or Bible stories (Judas meaning betrayal, shibboleth meaning some kind of identifier of membership in a group), or Shakespeare (pound of flesh), or horse racing (frontrunner, hands down, across the board) or other sports (bullseye, slam dunk, par).
And in terms of our technology, we use all sorts of things that harken back to some obsolete technology. We use a save icon that is a floppy disk, a database icon that uses cylinder drum memory. We refer to the smartphone interface that enters phone numbers as a “dialer” from the “dial” in the days of rotary phones.