Language Log

Wireless. Without wires.

Pictured on the right (click it for original article) is a delightful new product design from Neosonik noted as a major innovation by CNET: they describe is as a "wireless" television. It's real. I didn't make it up. The orange cord at the base must be a security feature. And you can tell how excited the crew who took the foto were to try it: they didn't even take it out of the cardboard box.
These oddities apart, the innovation being touted is high definition sound and audio without a connection to the base station that you can trip over. The adjective "wireless" has become ever more specialized: from anything lacking wires, to anything involving atmospheric transmission, and in the last few years to digital atmospheric transmission only, and then possibly with a limited set of protocols. Its use here shows that the third stage meaning has now rendered the second stage meaning inaccessible for typical tech savvy speakers. Whatever will they think of next, wireless radio? Tangentially...

...who are "they" in "whatever will they think of next"? Recent Stanford Grad student Angie Kortenhoven once pointed out to me, acutely, that uses of "they" frequently suggest powerful unnamed organizations and authorities, often referred to with animosity. The powers that be. "They are after me", as we say when we need to increase our dosage a tad. But the faceless people likely to think of things next are good guys, so evilness doesn't seem necessary for a faceless "they". Or maybe with the power to create wireless televisions and such like comes the potential for evil. What will they think of next?

Posted by David Beaver at December 17, 2006 02:08 PM