The Redundant Prefix

[metllicamilitia]

Smartphones have been around for quite a few years now. Longer than most people think, I can?t even say I know when they first came about. However, I do know I only hear the term smartphone when it comes to advertising and blogging. When I talk to my friends I never say, did you hear about the new smartphone? Or, what kind of smartphone do you have? None of that now, we simply use the term phone. The smartphone is no longer alien, it?s no longer diamond in the rough, or the device to get weird looks. That?s been relegated to dumbphones now. What ridiculous terminology anyway, smartphone and dumbphone. Smartphone has become such a common phrase autocorrect services recognize it as a phone, but not dumbphone.

Really though, when are we going to stop using these arbitrary terms and start simply referring to them as phones. Drop the smart, drop the dumb, given the current state of political correctness I?m surprised that hasn?t been mandated as those terms may offend people, or worse, they could offend the phone. You may laugh, but you know it?s true. The truth is that if you say phone, people not only assume you mean a mobile cellular phone, but a smart one. They assume it to be an Apple, Samsung, HTC, or Nokia one even. Even saying you have or want a Blackberry will get some looks.

Do you legitimately always use the term smartphone? How about smart mobile computer, aka tablet? I can see using the smart moniker for watches or other new devices, but when smartphones have taken the market and is synonymous with any mobile phone, as phone in general is, when can we drop the redundant prefix? Maybe I?m weird, but I feel like I see it too often still, the use should be solely on those who don?t use them, don?t understand them, or yeah, just that. It really has no place in modern vernacular, in my opinion. So what do you say we move past it?

Synchronistically Transposed

 

[Laura Knotek]

I believe that the reason for the differentiation is due to the fact that most smartphone users tend to actually use the 'phone' feature less than anything else than all of the other features. A smartphone is really more of a mobile computing device that also happens to have the capability of making phone calls. I made a lot of phone calls when I used dumbphones (or feature phones). Nowadays, phone calls are the feature I use the least. I typically consider my smartphones to be devices I use in lieu of a computer, rather than devices I use in lieu of an old-fashioned landline phone.