Dot Wordsworth

Mind Your Language | 14 May 2005

A Lexicographer writes

issue 14 May 2005

‘What does SIM mean?’ asked my husband, looking up like a sulky sunset from a mobile-phone instruction booklet.

Well, I knew what it was, but not what the acronym stood for. This independence of word and significand allows the tiresome multiplication of new labels for new technological gadgets, but it also teaches old words to learn new tricks.

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