"Smart" is versatile word that is being used more now in technology contexts.
The word has been around since the 12th century. Its original meaning involved pain. When something "smarts" that something hurts. William Shakespeare used it in King Henry VI:
Their softest touch as smart as lizards' stings.
By a century later, smart meant intelligent and bright. It also eventually meant elegant, as in fashion or lifestyle.
Of course, bratty kids came along, and their parents would reprimand them when they would talk back:
Don't you get smart with me, missy.
Kids like this might also be called smarty-pants.
We have phrases using smart. A smart aleck is a cocky, obnoxious person. Aleck is a nickname for Alexander. Alexander must have been a doozy to go down in history in that way.
We have smart cookie, which attributes unusual intelligence to a baked good.
A street-smart person can get by in a tough environment. The smart money is an informed decision. And today I learned that smart money also a legal term. It is "vindictive, punitive, or exemplary damages given by way of punishment and example, in cases of gross misconduct of a defendant."
That really must smart.
And enter the technology world.
The Associated Press Stylebook, which guides newspaper writers on uniform language usage, recently released an update on "smart devices." Smart devices, the stylebook says, is a "general term for a category of electronic gadgets that typically connect to the internet and offer advanced features."
The first smartphone-like device came out in 1992. IBM created the Simon Personal Communicator, and the name doesn't exactly trip off the tongue. The term smartphone came along in 1995 or 1996. I can remember when the term smartphone started showing up in my former newspaper. I was slow to find out what one was because I hoped it was just a phase.
The list of smart devices is longer than I realized. We have smartphones, smartwatches, smart appliances, smart locks, smart homes. Even some cities are smart cities. And there's more: smart bombs, smart missiles and smart cards.
I doubt I will ever understand why anyone would want to watch TV on their smart refrigerator. But that's only a start.
A smart water bottle tells you when you need to drink water.
The smart toothbrush has a camera that allows you to view your teeth on your phone as you brush.
A smart fork vibrates when it decides you're eating too fast.
A smart trash can notifies you of when garbage day is and when you need more trash bags.
I'm bewildered.
All right, I need someone young to take on a long-term task. As more and more people use smartphones, how many more generations will people need to stop using the smart adjective and just refer to it as a phone, an appliance, a fork again? Or will those primitive devices start being call dumb phones, etc.?
MORE EGGCORNS
A few readers sent me eggcorns, those words or phrases that people say when they have misheard the real words.
One child was a little off when singing, "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream ..." His version was:
Row, row, row your boat. Life is butter's dream ...
One boy referred to his elbow as his ankle arm. He called the back door the scream door. And a screwdriver was a screw robber.
One newspaper man mentioned crime phrases that went awry. One suspect was identified by laden prints, though latent prints normally do the trick. And one person was killed in an executive-style shooting, which I guess is a little fancier than an execution-style killing.
One reader mentioned a terrible disease called psychosis of the liver. That's certainly easier to spell than cirrhosis.
One child's Lord's Prayer went askew. Rather than "Give us this day our daily bread," he said:
Give us this day our jelly bread.
"Silent Night" offers an alternate history. Rather than "sleeping in heavenly peace," some prefer to sleep in heavenly peas.
And a couple of kids (and adults) were convinced that cole slaw was instead cold slaw.
Actor and author Malachy McCourt wrote a book called A Monk Swimming. The title came from kids mishearing part of the prayer "Hail Mary." What they meant was the last two words of this line:
Blessed art thou amongst women.
One of my favorite examples from TV is from the show Wings. The brilliant Tony Shalhoub played an Italian taxi driver named Antonio. In one episode, Antonio takes up the guitar. Instead of singing, "Michael row the boat ashore," he sings a song that allegedly helped him learn English:
My goat knows the bowling score, hallelujah
... Sid's new hair is in the mail, hallelujah
YUM
Recently I stumbled on a couple of theories of where the word "yum" comes from. Back when we could go to restaurants, and a waitress would place a piece of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting down in front of me, I inevitably said, "Yum."
Some people say it's an imitative word, similar to when we enthusiastically say "mmm" after a good meal.
Others say it's a word adapted from Wolof, which is a language spoken in the Senegal area. The Wolof word "nyam" means to taste.
Sources include Google Books, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, American Heritage Dictionary, The Free Dictionary, Janga Wolof, The Reluctant Gourmet. Reach Bernadette at
Style on 06/08/2020
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