Yes. I do know that a “phablet” is a frankensteined hybrid of a phone and a tablet, but I am assuming whoever came up with that name had obviously taken a handful of them.
A stupid word, and they are everywhere — I was reading about a “wriblet” today — with the advent of wearable technology, a wrist-bound tablet will become a thing — Dick Tracy style.
That name definitely puts the dick in it.
It is not just new technology that was on the receiving end of clunky nomenclature, take shoelaces — that metal bit on the end is called an “aglet”. You’re welcome.
An affliction. Stupid words are like a rather nasty rash — they are spreading and are extremely painful — one can only hope they’ll scab over and drop off. Here a few off the top of my head: “cronut”, “crowdsourced”, “bromance”, “thought leader” and anything with the prefix “man” i.e. “manscaping”, “mancave”, “manorexia” and “manflu”. Stupid.
Social media has a hell of a lot to answer for. I’m an avid 140 character writer on Twitter (@randomswill), but can’t bring myself to use the word “tweet”. I may have inadvertently used “twitterverse”, but never again. I can guarantee I have never travelled to the dark edges of the “twittersphere”.
“Selfie” is also a very stupid word — I always assumed it had something to do with masturbation, which in a sense it is. Sadly, you can’t escape the scourge of the selfie, it was even a political tool much loved by a not so much-loved former Australian prime minister — see previous sentence.
©Steve Williams 2014