Wednesday, September 28, 2011

A smarter way to app

The Windows Phone people are rolling out a new version of the operating system, known officially as Windows Phone 7.5, known unofficially by its code name "Mango." The tagline (or one of them, anyway) seems to be "A smarter way to app":




(Click here to see a 30-second video.)

The meaning they intend seems to be "a smarter way to use apps" as opposed to, say, "a smarter way to create apps." (Which would be a meaning that might have some traction in the group I work in.) Or I suppose you could interpret it as "a smarter way for us (Phone) to present apps to you (user)."

Certainly app has been established as a noun, and there was the interesting tussle earlier in 2011 when Apple sued Amazon over the trademark "App Store."

But I haven't till now seen app being used as a verb. Of course, this is marketing, and those folks are nothing if not playful with grammar.

3 comments:

Infinity88 said...

Hold on, let me app that.

Lauren said...

I noticed a friend using 'app' as a verb back in March (http://lozguistics.blogspot.com/2011/03/to-app-my-favourite-new-verb.html) - am amused to see that it is gaining currency!

Anonymous said...

My Dutch family use "app" as a verb when describing sending a message using WhatsApp. I think it's kinda cute.