Has “call on someone” meaning “pay a short visit” fallen out of usage?

It would appear that the usage of call on someone meaning to visit someone, usually for a short time, as in “We could call on my parents if we have time” has become somewhat obsolete according to this post on ELL.

The idiomatic expression is well present in main dictionaries and in the ODO, for instance it is cited as the first meaning:

(1)Pay a visit to (someone):

• ‘he's planning to call on Katherine today’

while the Cambridge Dictionary (3rd entry) defines the expression as an AmE one:

call on someone (phrasal verb with call US ​) to come to see someone; visit:

• She went to the hospital to call on a sick friend.

So, is this expression still used and commonly understood or is it actually “dated”? or is it more a question of AmE vs BrE usage?

Edit:

After I posted this question a new answer, (actually a wiki answer) has been posted on the ELL question which appears to contradict the main accepted one. Hope someone can offer a more conclusive answer to this question, if possible.

Solution 1:

In sales currently, we certainly use the term, and it isn't a dated phrase (for us, at least). I also don't see a lot of regional (US) variation for this usage, in my experience.

This an example of the common usage I am referring to:

• "Bill isn't here, he's calling-on customers."
• "I usually call-on customers in the morning."
• "Yesterday. I called-on 18 customers!

Although the hyphen is optional, I usually opt to use it because it tells the reader these two words are meant to be said and understood together.

With that said, my blue-collar relatives born in the early 20th Century would use the term. I know doctor's call-on their patients in-hospital everyday.

But, I do not use it in social context, I'd instead say "visit" or "go over to" Sue's house.

So, as to the original question, my humble opinion is call-on is still used and commonly understood; however, in SOME areas (e.g., social), it is becoming “dated” rather than archaic. In professional areas, its usage seems alive and well."

YOU are rather experiencing the gradual morphing of language over time. The older you get, the more obvious the words and usage changes become.

Solution 2:

In AmE it's pretty obscure. It may be due to the fact that while we used to 'make a telephone call', now we simply use 'call' to mean: 'speak via the telephone'. In BrE they say "ring", so the meaning of call as "visit" was not trampled on.

Solution 3:

The last remnant of this usage in American English may well be a call one makes after a death. Obituaries usually contain a notice such as:

Friends may call from noon to 2 p.m. on Friday at the funeral home.

The times given constitute calling or visitation hours. Friends may also call at the funeral home and sign a condolence book without calling on the family personally.

Clergy may make hospital calls collectively, but in reporting a single call on a hospitalized parishioner would most likely say they "visited" someone in the hospital just as anyone else would. More likely would be "calling on" visitors/prospective parishioners.

Contributing to the demise of this usage — even beyond the telephone — is the expression "pay a call on someone," which subsumes the use of "call on s.o."