July 5, 2010
The debate is on about all things great and horrible about the iPad. There is no doubt that it is the darling technology of the moment. There are many companies who have had tablet products just waiting for a breakthrough, and there are many techno-mimickers racing to bring you abundant choices this Christmas.
One thing is sure: If Mr. Jobs decides to speed up the upgrade cycle, his iPad could cement its position as a Meme and a Morpheme.
As defined by the Free Online Dictionary of Computing, a Meme is “an idea considered as a replicator, especially with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do.” If Mr. Jobs and Friends do a very good job with iPad, they can create a “meme complex”, which is “a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion.” Whoa! That’s good marketing!
While iPad has a long way to go to become a meme, the likelihood that it will — or has already — become a Morpheme is strong. iPad, like Google, is “a meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word, such as man . . . that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts.” Put another way, iPad is not only a Noumenal but also a Predicate! The path to the rarefied Google status is set: iPad could become a Verb as well as a Noun. You may soon say “I iPaded today”.
Webster is rolling over in his grave, and logophiles are either leaping in joy or horribly depressed at this possibility.
(More tongue in cheek)
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