When I found out that Apple’s tablet was called the iPad, I thought it was a funny name, and probably a poor choice, and immediately made a few iMaxi jokes to assorted friends.
I knew it was juvenile humor, and lots of words mean lots of things — but still, it was honestly the first thing I thought of when I heard the name.
I figured I would get over it. Then the extraordinary Sarah Haskins tweeted this:
iPad is a funny name, but not as funny as the word Period! Which means menstruation and the end of a sentence and sometimes a unit of time!
And it made me think more about the issue, and I tweeted this:
@sarah_haskins somehow iPad is different. iPhone, it’s a phone! iPod… wtf is a pod? who cares! iPad… not emotional. it’s an object.
@sarah_haskins do you say “pad” to refer to “pad of paper” nearly as often as you say “pad” to refer to something in your purse?
@sarah_haskins Therefore, it is funny.
To which she responded:
@johnjoseph I haven’t carried or talked about pads since I was 12. And yes. I do say “pad of paper” and “padlock” and “pad thai”
And this is actually the point I am making — you don’t say “pad” to refer to a padlock or to pad thai. I responded:
@sarah_haskins Great, now whenever I eat Pad Thai I am going to think of it as Are You There God, it’s Me, Margaret Thai. Thanks.
@sarah_haskins anyway, my extremely important point was, do you ever say “pad” to refer to a pad of paper? Or do you say “pad of paper”?
To which she responded:
@johnjoseph I just say pad, because I assume context will inform the listener whether I am holding a pen b/c I want paper or a menstrual pad
[hahahaha, I ♥ Sarah Haskins.]
Okay, so, really that’s the reason why you can theoretically always use any homograph for a brand. “Pad” really sticks out to me because it it is so rarely used standalone to mean anything other than a feminine hygiene product. I don’t know, maybe some people say “Can you bring 5 pads to the conference room for the meeting?” all the time when referring to pads of paper (which is presumably the concept which Apple intends to invoke with the name iPad). But somehow that usage seems very odd and uncommon to me.
Where else is “pad” used? Keypad… signature pad… ink pad… landing pad… I cannot think of a single usage where it is used standalone, other than for sanitary napkins. But of course, I’m writing a blog post to make this point, so I might be inclined to not think very hard about counter examples.
So I ask you, dear reader:
- Does it seem weird to refer to a pad of paper as a pad?
- Can you think of any other cases where we say “pad” by itself to refer to something?
