"To most people, an "app" is something you download on your smartphone to help you do a specific task."says CNN.com this morning. I guess most people now means airheaded and hysterically eager to buy consumers between the ages of 13 and 24. Those are the people most retailers are interested in and the most likely to speak the language of consumerism, invented to make it difficult to speak without advertising a product or concept thereby.
So what happens when you want to apply for something? Do you app on some sunscreen at the beach? So what ever happened to "application" in the sense of software designed to perform some function? I guess it got teenagerized into a form more easily entered on a telephone keypad derived from the dial phones that began to go out of fashion around 1960. Most people indeed. So I guess for the newspeak speaker it's now silly to talk of developing computer applications and ridiculous all the more if we shorten it to "app." To me it's all something that springs most rhymingly to mind. Two craps for Mr. App.
Yeah, yeah, it's more "evolution" only it's not - it's intelligent design because language now is a consumer product which changes to suit corporate sales, not our communications needs. That's why we have "realtor" for real estate broker, why they sell "homes" and not houses or apartments, why we have "mobile estates" rather than trailers and why health is now "wellness." It's why we have pre-owned cars on the used car lots, patriot acts and worse.
Of course it's not all bad. We now have "tweet" which is easier to type than "mind-numbing and narcissistic banality" although "blog" works almost as well there; which brings me to the point at which I'd better rest my case.
Captain: At first I thought you were trying to type “Apple” and your fingers were frozen so they were stuck on app, app, app…then I remembered you dwell where it’s 73 and sunny! :)
ReplyDeleteYes, companies are desperately seeking the youngsters now-a-days. They're smart. They know if they can get junior and juniorette to nag the crap out of mama and papa they'll make HUGE profits. 'Cept in MY household My son didn't get HIS first cell phone until he turned 16 and got a JOB! He now has to pay the difference in my cell phone bill. My 12 yr old STILL doesn't have one and won't until he gets a job when he turns 16. That’s not to say that he doesn’t nag me every day with just about every excuse under the sun, well clouds here in Pa, for WHY he NEEDS a phone! But I’m one tough cookie…and I’m not referring to that small piece of text stored on our computer’s web browser, either!
App should be a character in a Samuel Beckett play. Sort of like Hamm and Clov....
ReplyDeleteCaptain, what Pamela said about apples, but then: Fiat lux! An app is diminutive for applet, a forbidden fruitlet inside a terrarium displayed on the mantelpiece until next year’s Nativity comes down from the attic.
ReplyDeleteApplet - what a roasted piglet has in it's mouth? The rosy cheeked son of a prince of Denmark?
ReplyDeleteI didn't give my kids cell phones, but of course it wasn't an option at the time. I didn't have a land line until I was 16 and then I bought an old phone and wired it in myself (illegal at the time)
I still can't understand the need to have such continuous contact with so many BFF's but back in the day, there were always jury rigged telegraph lines strung between houses of friends and mine. Later even some (highly illegal) spark gap transmitters and eventually a real amateur radio license and an electronics manufacturing business or two.
Necessity is the mother of education. What profiteth a kid, says the Bible, if he has 900 BFF's and doesn't know how anything works? :-)
B B B But Captain, the indiscretions inside a terrarium are always redeemed by the knickknacks stored in the attic.
ReplyDeleteI'll take your word for that.
ReplyDelete