Browsing a page of bargains offered to me by Amazon's electronics department - “Latest tablets under £300, Wireless Mice under £30, Network Attached Storage under £150” - I was struck by the idea that anyone time-travelling from the distant past - say, 1980 - though familiar with all of the words used, would have absolutely no idea what any of them had to do with computers. Why, they might ask, bemused, would a mouse have wires anyway? Surely they have a little heart to keep them going, and feet to run around on? And what sort of tablets cost £300? Not aspirin or ibuprofen...
Just to take this last example, the word tablet, until only 10 years ago, when the first i-Pad was launched, was associated in most people's minds firstly with pills, and secondly with the two big, flat stones on which God wrote the 10 Commandments for Moses, according to Exodus. Already today, for most people, the primary meaning of the word is “hand-held touch-screen computer”, too small to write very impressive commandments on, but too big to swallow.
Computer and internet technology has, over the last 20 years, commandeered masses of existing English vocabulary and given it new meanings and associations: a menu used to be only a list of things you were allowed to order in a cafe or restaurant: in computer-world, it is now any list of options that appears on your screen. Computer speak has also shaken up vocabulary and usage in other fields. In terms of punctuation, this - “.” was a period for the Americans, a full-stop for the British; it was never a dot, as in dot com. although “…” might have been dot, dot, dot, and Morse code is made of dots and dashes. The universalizing influence of computer terms has meant that this mark “/” which until 30 years ago was “stroke” in British English, is now known almost exclusively by its American name “slash” (forward slash “/”; backslash“\”).
Our time-traveller from 1980 would be initially baffled (completely confused) by the word laptop, but might be able to work out the meaning, if he or she took a moment to consider how English words tend to evolve...: the thing is, computer language is generally coined (invented) by computer people, who are, basically, very logical. The word laptop is, quite clearly, made from two existing English words – it is, in other words a compound-word. Those two words are “lap” and “top”.
Lap is an odd word: it describes a part of our body that only exists when we are sitting down in a certain position. Your lap is the upper part of your two legs from your knees to your hips, when placed together and horizontal, at a right angle to your body and lower legs. Someone can sit on your lap if you are on a chair, but not if you are standing, lying or kneeling – in those positions you can't put a napkin, your knitting, a book or a computer on your lap, because you don't have one.
Top indicates a relative position – “on/at the highest point of” is on/at the top (of), and “above while touching” is on top (of). The way that certain position-words can be glued to the end other nouns to create compound nouns, and the way that these compound nouns, unchanged, can then become compound adjectives, is one of the English language's many useful tricks. It works like this:
If someone sits at the side of your bed, they are at your bedside (noun); the piece of furniture where you put your alarm clock is a bedside (adjective) table; the way a doctor talks and listens to his patients is called his bedside manner. The top of a hill is the hilltop. A village in this location is a hilltop village. The surface of a table or desk, the horizontal part that rests on top of the legs, is the table-top or desktop. When the p.c., the personal computer, was developed, as a consumer device that didn't fill the corner of a room on its own, it became know as a desktop computer (the first recorded use of this term is from 1958). These adjectives, I should mention, only work in the attributive or prenominal position – that is, before the noun they qualify. You can't say “That village is hilltop.”
When the portable computer arrived – consisting of a screen attached by hinges to a flat base containing a keyboard, like the one I'm typing on now, it was dubbed a laptop computer – ie: a computer that you can use while it sits on top of your lap. I should point out here that, unlike desktops, mountain-tops, hilltops, or the treetops that glistened in Bing Crosby's Christmassy dreams, a laptop had never before been identified as a place. The word didn't exist. That's because a lap only exists as a place to put things on top of, and has no low or middle point. So why not the more logical lap computer? Well, presumably, because the term laptop computer was created to establish a clear comparative distinction between this new model and its lumbering counterpart, the desktop computer: as long as -top is there, the contrast is clear.
Now, when a two-word term, consisting of an adjective and a noun, becomes very common in English, popular usage often shortens it to the adjective alone: instead of “I've lost my mobile phone”, British-English-speakers tend to say “I've lost my mobile.” (American-English-speakers do something similar, replacing cellphonewith cell). A convertible car – one with a removable roof – is generally known as a convertible. So the adjective becomes a noun, borrowing the meaning of the noun that it is usually associated with. This process, in case you're interested, is called illocutionary metonymy, and it is by the magic of illocutionary metonymy that laptop has become a noun, with the regular plural form – laptops – that I saw in that Amazon ad.
The other new lap word that I'd have to explain to a time-traveller from 1980
– lap dancing – will have to wait till another time...
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