So is this:
This is not a blog about either of these.
When chatting about this blog with friends today, one of them launched into her favorite widget story:
"Remember that time we found the widget in the can of Guinness and thought it was a finger?!" (Yes, I do. The tip widget was the offending one.)
Apparently, not everyone has caught onto the word yet. So, while you, dear reader, certainly knows what I mean when I say "widget," I humbly offer a brief etymology for those less in the know...or more into Guinness than computers.
Widget evolved from its now Google-branded predecessor, gadget, "an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty," according to Miriam Webster.
The OED defines it similarly, but in 2003, caught on and added this: "Computing. A visual symbol on a computer screen; a graphical device in a graphical user interface; the software and data involved when the operations represented by such a device are invoked, esp. regarded as jointly constituting a tool."
(In fairness to our stout fans, the beer-related definition was added that same year).
Tool and novelty: two very different words, both perfectly describing the (computer) widget. As we sit here, the widget is moving further from purely a novelty and more towards a tool, a vehicle. Even when the surface function is fun and light, an additional task is added, as in the case of Joost's Coke Bubbles. What a widget does and IS constantly changes and I wonder if our language should change with it.
The word is too lighthearted to belay the strength of these tiny icons, but their power lies in their simplicity, the sly, subversive and unobtrusive way they slip information and activities into our daily lives.
A widget by any other name would be, well, boring.
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