Apple probably didn't consult linguists when it came up with "IPad"

anal...@hotmail.com

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Jan 30, 2010, 9:31:25 AM1/30/10

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What a horrific word (apart from putting women off with the feminine
hygiene connotation).

It seems to me that this vowel-sound sequence is quite rare in
English. "Titanic" sounds perfectly euphonic becuase of the third
vowel, but words containing only the two vowels of "Ipad" sound ugly.

Peter T. Daniels

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Jan 30, 2010, 9:48:06 AM1/30/10

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On Jan 30, 9:31 am, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

What an idiotic comment.

"i-" is a separate morpheme from "Pad."

Is "SkyLab" an "ugly-sounding" word? "Dyad"? "Frypan"?

Since when is "sounds ugly" a concept in linguistics?

Brian M. Scott

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Jan 30, 2010, 12:37:04 PM1/30/10

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On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 06:48:06 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:67cb2683-8c87-43b1...@n33g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:

[...]

> Is "SkyLab" an "ugly-sounding" word? "Dyad"? "Frypan"?

No. No. Yes: it's been deformed by an ingectomy. <g>

> Since when is "sounds ugly" a concept in linguistics?

Brian

Harlan Messinger

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Jan 30, 2010, 6:07:39 PM1/30/10

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anal...@hotmail.com wrote:
> What a horrific word (apart from putting women off with the feminine
> hygiene connotation).

a) Why would Apple care that some guy who calls himself "analyst41" on
Usenet thinks the name is ugly?

b) Why would linguists know anything about the personal taste of some
guy who calls himself "analyst41" on Usenet?

> It seems to me that this vowel-sound sequence is quite rare in
> English.

Even if true, so what? What makes you think there's a precept that brand
names need to have vowel sequences that exceed some frequency threshold
in the vocabulary of the base language?

David Librik

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Jan 30, 2010, 7:39:04 PM1/30/10

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[Ignoring the idiotic content of the original post ...]

There's a good reason why "iPad" is a linguistically lousy choice by a
company which also sells the "iPod": the Northern Cities Vowel Shift.

Imagine the confusion in Apple's tech support and customer service
departments as they recieve calls about the /'aI pa:d/. Depending on
the speaker's regional accent, this word could signify either device!

- David Librik
lib...@panix.com

António Marques

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Jan 30, 2010, 8:08:05 PM1/30/10

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Yeah, thought of that too. But my guess is that people will seldom
refer to a generic 'iPod', the specific model will follow, thus most
of the possibilities for confusion won't arise.

But it's hardly a catchy name (heck, iTab would have been better) and
quite honestly the home screen looks awful, almost like something a
cheap competitor who had looked at an iPhone would come up with. I do
hope they do some polishing before release.

John Atkinson

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Jan 30, 2010, 9:13:54 PM1/30/10

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Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 06:48:06 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
> <news:67cb2683-8c87-43b1...@n33g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>
> in sci.lang:
>
> [...]
>
>> Is "SkyLab" an "ugly-sounding" word? "Dyad"? "Frypan"?
>
> No. No. Yes: it's been deformed by an ingectomy. <g>
>

Whereas the first is merely ugly-looking, suffering as it does from a
serious attack of CamelCase.

[...]

J.

Peter T. Daniels

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Jan 30, 2010, 11:19:57 PM1/30/10

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The "feminine hygiene" objection seems silly -- don't women write on
pads of paper (or, I suppose, Post-It notes) any more? Do they get the
giggles over football players' (ours) shoulder pads -- or their own, a
few years ago -- or football players' (yours) knee pads?