This is a picture of the back of a key card from a recent stay at a ski resort. It is a bit hard to make out but just above the name of the resort is a sentence that reads:
Upon departure please leave keys.
The wording would make much more sense if the futuronym key card was used because the item in the picture is clearly not a set of keys or even one key for that matter - it is a card that is used as a key otherwise known as a key card.
This is a good example of how technology is constantly adding new words in the form of futuromyms (and retronyms) to our lexicon. And in case technology has erased your memory, a set of hotel keys is pictured below.
While the word retronym is fairly well known and found in dictionaries, the word futuronym (or futronym) was just recently coined in the blogosphere and is not well documented yet. A futuronym is defined as the opposite of a retronym. In other words, where a retronym is a word that includes a noun and a modifier that specifies the original meaning of the noun, a futuronym is a word that includes the original noun and a modifier that specifies the technological advancement that caused the need for the retronym.
For example:
original word - guitar
retronym - acoustic guitar
futuronym - electric guitar
