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Looks like a neat laptop. I don't really understand why apple feels the need to forgoe articles for their devices, however. For instance, they write "MacBook A
by NoraCodes 4y ago
Looks like a neat laptop.
I don't really understand why apple feels the need to forgoe articles for their devices, however. For instance, they write "MacBook Air features..." rather than "The MacBook Air features..." as would be grammatically correct in English.
- timmattison 4y agoThey’ve been doing this with a lot of products for a long time. “Today we announce iPhone … with iPhone you can do anything!” I think it is very strange.
- Silica6149 4y agoIt certainly sounds weird to english speakers. I imagine they shorten sentences to not lose people's attention.
- eproxus 4y agoWould it be equally weird or correct to write the macOS? After all, it’s short for “Mac Operating System”. I’m not a native speaker so I’m genuinely curious.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoIt's deliberate. I guarantee that it's about building a "brand mindset." They've been playing with text copy for decades. If you say "iPhone," instead of "The iPhone," you've turned "iPhone" into a pronoun. That has a different "connection" to people that hear it. Branding seems to be something that a lot of tecchies (including Yours Truly) have difficulty with. There's a lot of subtle psychological games that aren't easy to quantify.
- Adraghast 4y agoDo you mean common noun instead of pronoun?
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoI think of it as a “pronoun.” It makes it into a “person,” or some kind of major deal, like we call localities (usually) by their single pronouns. Sometimes, “The” becomes part of the pronoun, like “The Netherlands,” or “The Bronx.” Usually, though, we assign pronouns (I’m not an English major, though, so the proper term may be different). Like, you can’t have “a brooklyn,” or “an amsterdam.” They want to make it so we can’t have “an iPhone.” Good luck with that…
- whynaut 4y agoThe term you want is Proper Noun.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoThat makes sense. Thanks!
- skyyler 4y ago>Like, you can't have "a brooklyn" Every Brooklyn outside of the one in NYC is just "a Brooklyn" and not "THE Brookyln"
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoFair point. Then you also have Brookline, in Bastin.
- wizofaus 4y agoIt's already a proper noun (not a pronoun!), but it's being treated almost as though the name of every individual Apple device is the product brand name, which is weird. Using a product brand name without an article is normally only done for uncountable/mass noun things like "gorilla glue" or many food/drink products.
- rootusrootus 4y agoOnly if you don't pay much attention to PR. Lots of manufacturers talk this way when referring to their own products. Apple isn't blazing a new trail here.
- pigtailgirl 4y ago-- doesn't the imply there are others of similar? maybe what apple is saying is that there is no other iPhone except the iPhone so the is redundant? - just a guess - i agree it's odd --
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoOne of the first ways a cult gets everyone on the same page is altered language and speech patterns.
- Silica6149 4y agoI mean, apple knows their customer base. It wouldn't be unlikely that their writing is somehow catered to who they know would buy their devices.
- bigDinosaur 4y agoFortunately I have free-thinking windows installed on my desktop to counteract my Apple cultist indoctrination.
- millzlane 4y agoFor me it's android. As long as I can replace the default apps like the sms app and the launcher. I will continue to use android.
- Karsteski 4y agoIt really does seem very cult-like with the way Apple wants everyone to change up English for their product specifically...
- rootusrootus 4y agoIf you think this is changing up English, you may not be speaking English as a first language? Referring to products as a proper noun is very common. E.g. Ford will tell you "Mustang offers a powerful engine... blah blah blah" not "The Mustang offers..."
- Karsteski 4y agoEnglish is my first language, and yes to me that sentence would sound odd. Perhaps that's something common in American advertisement and not elsewhere
- gumby 4y agoEven they find it hard to keep up this stupid convention. Ppl who work there of course say “the iPhone” but you even see it slip out frequently on stage at the big events. Even Steve Jobs, the originator of this convention and supposed stickler for detail used to say “the iphone” quite a bit.
- BaseballPhysics 4y agoThey're treating "MacBook Air" as a proper noun. It's to personify their products, presumably with the idea that people will "connect" to them, for some hollow, tech-oriented definition of "connect".
- FredPret 4y agoJust wait until the devices wake up, then it’ll be correct
- grumple 4y ago"MacBook Air" is an idea. A concept. "The MacBook Air" is a thing. How mundane. Or something like that.
- Silica6149 4y agoExactly, it's just Apple's style of copywriting.
- bigDinosaur 4y agoThat sounds almost verbatim from one of the Jony Ive design marketing videos around ~2011 or so.
- nojito 4y agoIt's to prevent people from pluralizing the product name.
- gumby 4y agoGood point, should it be “iPhones” and “MacBook airs” or “is phone” and “macbooks air”? Apple needs to speak out on this issue. Why the coverup?
- nojito 4y agoPhil Schiller actually answered this a few years ago https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/30/11541268/apple-grammar-is-weird https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/30/11541268/apple-grammar-is... https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/725791354769399808 https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/725791354769399808 https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/725937759022514176 https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/725937759022514176 https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/725938369826414592 https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/725938369826414592
- macintux 4y agoI still get occasionally likes for my tweet in that thread, 6 years later.
- mcphage 4y agoDefinitely “MacBooks Air".
- frosted-flakes 4y agoJust like LEGO, which demands that you always capitalize the brand name and never pluralise it, likely so that their trademark doesn't become generic. "I have lots of LEGO bricks", not " I have lots of Legos". Of course, that's corporate BS and everyone can feel free to use it however they want.
- paulcole 4y agoJohn Gruber in shambles. Driving through Cupertino begging (thru iMessage) for Tim Cook's home address.
- martin_a 4y agoMaybe they want to think about their products more like a platform than an actual product? Would that explain that difference in language? edit: What @grumple said further below.
- adhesive_wombat 4y agoOoo yes, it's so stilted and unnatural and transparently done on purpose. It's nearly as bad as people referring to a baby as just "baby" rather than "the baby" or "your baby".
- hbn 4y agoReferring to their products as a proper noun is an old Jobs-ism that he intentionally did. I'm pretty sure it goes all the way back to the original Macintosh, that he wanted to be referred to as just "Macintosh" in all the marketing material, and his on-stage announcement.
- rootusrootus 4y agoIt also predates Apple by a long time. Steve Jobs didn't invent this, though he did use it.
- adolph 4y ago"Think Different" Missing "ly" transforms two words from humdrum imperative verb/adjective pairing to action whose object is enigmatic, provocative and whose verb stands strong, without qualification. (I attempted to write this without articles. I don't really agree with using "whose" but needed a replacement to "for which the") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_(grammar) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_(grammar)
- schroeding 4y agoThey just took a page from the Columbo[1] playbook. Why use names when you just can call it "baby". :D [1] https://youtu.be/pZ0PzRuAv0Y?t=108 https://youtu.be/pZ0PzRuAv0Y?t=108
- maurits 4y agoBecause Steve Jobs used to do this, e.g. introduction of Macintosh.[1] [1]: https://youtu.be/2B-XwPjn9YY?t=23 https://youtu.be/2B-XwPjn9YY?t=23
- napkin 4y agoHeh, my mother was recently alarmed by the following iOS notification: (password-at-risk-blah-blah)... 'iPad can help you re-secure your account.' She associates poor grammar with phishing attempts, so assumed this could not have been a genuine notification from Apple. When I checked my own devices, it seems clear that their approach is at least consistent.
- paulcole 4y agoThink Differently would also be grammatically correct in English. But Think Different was what Apple went with. When you write, you make the decisions. Another way to think about this is that when introducing a friend you wouldn't say, "Hi, this is the Kelly." You'd say, "Hi, this is Kelly."
- hyperdimension 4y agoThat has always bothered me, and I swear no one ever seems to notice. I see it everywhere, and it clearly must work, since you can even see it being said by owner of devices.
- layer8 4y agoSteve Jobs wanted to anthropomorphize the devices. It’s already in the Lisa manual: https://farm2.static.flickr.com/1413/712113879_a7079d8cc8.jpg https://farm2.static.flickr.com/1413/712113879_a7079d8cc8.jp... Or here for the original Macintosh: https://www.flickr.com/photos/peterme/1253692391/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/peterme/1253692391/
- mensetmanusman 4y agoIt’s interesting where our language goes. I do not say “The Windows” etc. when talking about software, but I definitely say “The iPad” etc. when talking about hardware.
- NoraCodes 4y agoI agree, that's very interesting! I also omit articles when talking about software, except when talking about a particular instantiation of the software; for example "Windows supports Nvidia hardware", but "the Windows installation on this device is broken". (And, indeed, "Windows installation is broken in the presence of NVMe drives" would mean, to me, that _all_ new Windows installers are broken for NVMe drives.)
- _ea1k 4y agoI remember thinking that about the way Jobs introduced the ipad 2: https://www.google.com/search?q=ipad+2+jobs+speech&oq=ipad+2+jobs+speech&aqs=chrome..69i57.5249j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_4ZfFYoeHELa0qtsPlruk0AM16 https://www.google.com/search?q=ipad+2+jobs+speech&oq=ipad+2...
- mproud 4y agoI believe it’s also a branding and copyright protection tactic to prevent diluting the name.