DO YOU HAVE YOUR OWN DEVICE ?

more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday

During my tour around the UK, each night we stayed in another city and in another hotel. My first question was when we had got our room keys "Do you have Internet". The answer was always "yes" except in one hotel which looked like a little castle and was in renovation.

Besides my astonishment about the sometimes horrendous internet connection prices, I was also confronted with a new word "device" ! I mean the word is not new but the meaning has changed. And that I didn't know. The first time when a receptionist asked me if I had my own "device", I asked myself what she meant ! I asked her "what do you mean by device ?" she looked at me surprised and said "an iPad" No, I answered,  I have no iPad but I have a notebook. Now she was surprised. I told her that it was also a computer but in miniature, and therefore also a "device". When I had payed I told her to better use the word Computer instead of "Device" or she should say "do you have a thing"! 

I didn't want to remain ignorant and googled for the word "Device" !

An online dictionary explained :

de•vice (dɪˈvaɪs)
n.
1. a thing made for a particular purpose, esp. a mechanical, electric, or electronic invention or contrivance.
2. a plan, scheme, or procedure for effecting a purpose.
3. a crafty scheme; trick.
4. a word pattern, figure of speech, theatrical convention, etc., used in a literary or dramatic work to evoke a desired effect.
5. something elaborately or fancifully designed.
6. a representation or design used esp. as a heraldic charge or an emblem.
7. a motto; slogan.
8. Archaic. devising; invention.

In short : a device means a thing !

I found a new website "Webopedia" ! (not Wikipedia) and there it makes it really clear :

"Any machine that feeds data into a computer"

For example, a keyboard is an input device, whereas a display monitor is an output device. Input devices other than the keyboard are sometimes called alternate input devices. Mice, trackballs, and light pens are all alternate input devices.

I rubbed my hands and purred like a cat ! Now I knew ! I will show them that old ladies are not so stupid as especially young males think when it comes to computers ! I only hoped to find a receptionist who would ask me "THE" question "do you have your own device ?"


my devices

And it happened in the last hotel ! I innocently looked at the young man and asked him, "what device do you mean exactly ? my keyboard, my monitor, my mouse, or my Ethernet cable ? I have it all, but I call that a computer !" I should have taken a picture of his face ! But then he started to laugh and I explained him my adventure with the word "Device" in the first hotel, and still laughing he agreed, that never ever again he would ask a client "Do you have your own device ?"

Devices