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What’s in a name?

By Jean-Claude Elias - Aug 28,2014 - Last updated at Aug 28,2014

Names matter though it’s what they actually represent or refer to that matters even more. Take, for example, a person with an “unconventional” name. Once you get past the first time surprise you stop thinking how unconventional the name is and you only see the person, what she or he means to you. The same goes about a high-tech device, whether it’s called a computer, a tablet or a smartphone, or a phablet — some unconventional name, the portmanteau word for a phone that is almost as large as tablet.

Still, with the ever growing number of communication and computer-based devices, the newest of which being the connected watch, giving a meaningful name to equipment may help to better deal and communicate with it, or at least to think about it.

The term personal computer (PC) was coined in the early 1980s and now refers to what we commonly call today a desktop computer. PC is too general and not fashion anymore but it was how all machines were called back then, except for really big mainframes or servers. In between the huge mainframes and the PC there was nothing in those days.

Back to smartphones, the only devices that truly deserve to be called personal computers.

The one single attribute that makes them unique, different from all computer formats and designs, is the fact that they are permanently tethered to us — or us to them if one prefers. I for one take my smartphone with me all the time when I move from one room to another in my apartment. The bond is stronger than with any other electronic device. Not even my wristwatch is nearly as dear or as important to me. Besides, the phone serves as a watch as well. There is hardly a device that is so personal.

We’re now used to calling them smartphones but the term is less accurate than PC. Moreover smart can be applied to any high-tech device nowadays, given that they almost all come with smart functions and features, since they all sport a processor, memory of some kind, a digital storage area and before anything else connectivity to the web.

Renaming smartphones as personal computers won’t change the technology, or improve functionality or the machines’ performance. It may, however, change our already strong feeling towards them. Suffice it to see the tens of thousands of applications available for these devices. Desktops are nowhere near.

Actually the adjective personal was aptly used about 18 years ago with the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) that is practically forgotten now. The PDA, however ridiculous it may appear now with its weak, outdated characteristics, was the true ancestor of the smartphone, with its size and the role it was supposed to play as a really personal computer-based device. However and essentially, the lack of telephony and wireless Internet (understandably, back then) quickly killed the PDA. What remains today from it, again, is the notion of “personal”; a legacy to take into consideration.

It is strange and totally unexplained that the industry didn’t carry further the PDA terminology and that from the concept of “personal” it didn’t extrapolate, in any manner, a more significant neologism in naming smartphones. The IT gurus could have coined a term that would have been more representative of the device’s functionality.

Granted, coming up with a name that would mean exactly what it should and that would be attractive enough, is not easy. Industry leaders spend fortunes paying consultants and advertising specialists to find the name that would do the job. It requires knowledge, technique and loads of creativity. Besides, smartphone is not that bad, given that the “smart” part in it flatters users, making them feel, well, smart.

I have the feeling that in a couple of years someone is going to find a better name, one where the “personal” notion is emphasised and clearly expressed.

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