Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 December 23

= December 23 =

What to call this thing?
I have a philosophical problem.

I know that the correct(?) name for the device on the right is "USB flash drive". Where I live, almost the only name ever used for this kind of device, even among technically oriented people, is simply "USB". A common usage would be "I'll just go and get my USB to save that video on".

Now, I teach IT in high school, and I'm a bit of a language pedant. When my students call the thing in the picture a USB, I am always tempted to correct them, saying something sarcastic like "A USB what? Don't you know the difference between an adjective and a noun?" The kids tend to get sick of me doing this, and respond with something like "But that's what it's called."

Should I persevere?

On a tangential note, what do others here call the device in the picture? (I'm in Victoria, Australia, and I am interested in the usage elsewhere.) HiLo48 (talk) 00:00, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * New England, US, here. Most people around here call it a "flash drive", "thumb drive", or "pen drive".  Dismas |(talk) 00:03, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Also "memory stick", "USB stick", "USB key", "key drive", and probably more. These things have more different names than anything I can think of. 86.179.5.83 (talk) 00:19, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Or even "dongle", at least in the UK. Though that is less than helpful, as even specifying "USB dongle" doesn't exclude wireless adapters etc. It is confusing, and it'll probably get replaced with something else before it all gets sorted out... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:36, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, people call these dongles as well, do they? Originally, and as I remember it, a dongle was a sort of hardware "key" that you needed to get a piece of software to run. Oh ... and as far as the actual original question is concerned, "USB" by itself doesn't sound right to me. As you say, "USB what?". 86.179.5.83 (talk) 00:41, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Persevere? Nah, it's a losing battle.  Don't abandon your own standards, but insisting others meet them is a slippery slope when it comes to spoken language.  There are lots of terms for these devices, with no one of them seeming to dominate, and you even question the correctness of "USB flash drive" yourself.  Your issue seems to be that if your charges do use the word "USB", they must use it as an adjective in conjunction with a noun, and not as a noun itself.  That's the pedant in you speaking; presumably, you wouldn't object to them calling them just "flash drives" or whatever.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  00:54, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm a bit surprised that the kids call it just a USB, since one would think they're savvy enough to know that USB as a descriptor is "insufficient". However, that's English for you. We call a photograph a "photo", even though its literal use is similarly ambiguous. And then there's the "telly", which comes from the "tele" part of "television", yes? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:59, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * People say things like "I can't talk now, my 2:30 has just turned up". I've seen websites that tell me the organisation hosting it is "a Section 501(c) non-profit". It's a really retrograde, imo.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  02:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * An expression that really irks me also comes from teaching, although I've seen it used in other professions as well. It's when a training event is described as an in-service. (Dunno if the hyphen belongs. I suspect the users of the word don't care.) I gather the term arose by turning the adjective in "in-service training", still an ugly expression, into a noun. But it gets better when someone is taking over someone else's role and announces that "X is going to in-service me". The imagery created by turning the adjective into a verb is worrying. HiLo48 (talk) 02:19, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm reminded of this common American usage:
 * -"I'm going to the store."
 * -"Can I come with?"
 * ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That originated with German settlers speaking imperfect English. In German, Kommst du mit? is perfectly standard, and they just took it over word for word into English. I believe even today it's only heard in parts of the country where German-Americans historically dominated. (Incidentally it's completely ungrammatical in my idiolect, and I had never heard or heard of it until I was in my mid-20s, so it's not "common usage" everywhere in America.) Angr (talk) 06:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I've heard (and used) it often, and I have no German ancesty at all, but I live in the midwest, and a lot of Germans settled in the midwest, so maybe that accounts for its prevalence. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:23, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I always do a double-take when I hear the expression "student-free" or "pupil-free" day. That would be from the teachers' perspectives, but isn't school supposed to be all about the students?  To them, it's a "teacher-free" or "boring bullshit-free" day.  :)  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  02:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * To them, it's just a free day. Angr (talk) 06:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

You ask, "Should I persevere? " Just my opinion, but yes, you should, if you believe proper use of the language is important. Do not diminish your own standards just because others have. — Michael J 02:14, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Doesn't matter much i think. A word even if it's wrong but everyone uses it then it became acceptable to use it. Nobody will care. A great example would be "i'm doing good", it's wrong grammatically but accepted. Plus this is just a name of something, don't make a big deal out of it. After all the purpose of naming something is to tell others what you want so as long as the purpose is fulfilled, i see no reason to make it more difficult than it is.Trongphu (talk) 03:17, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, up to a point. I think we all accept that language evolves over time (and those that don't are presumably conversing with each other in some obscure pre-Chaucerean dialect). The problem here is that evolution seems not to have done a very useful job - it seems that nobody can agree what to call the thingummy... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:28, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * How about if we call it a USB suppository ? :-) StuRat (talk) 03:56, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Would you like me to tell you where to put that suggestion? :-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:18, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I've always called it a USB stick myself, but I can't think of a single reason why USB alone should be considered wrong. There's no other common, everyday device that "USB" refers to, so why not? In fact, I'm going to start calling it plain "USB" from now on. Angr (talk) 06:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * See the trouble you've caused, HiLo! :) --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  06:52, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Meh.
 * A few years back, when these things were just becoming common, I was working in an Aboriginal school and we decided to call them Message sticks. The kids at the school liked it and picked up on it, but sadly the idea didn't spread any further. HiLo48 (talk) 07:45, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * If you're teaching IT then I would recommend that you explain (briefly) about the Universal Serial Bus and how it simplifies the connection of peripherals. I can remember seeing the technology for the first time and wondering why it had taken so long to come up with such a good idea.  You could then explain (once) that flash memory is just one of many peripherals that can be connected to this bus, but your pupils will continue to use their abbreviation whatever you tell them, so just use the correct term yourself but accept their usage without comment.  My opinion is that "USB drive" or "flash drive" will eventually become the accepted name as rotating hard drives are phased out, but I might be proved wrong.  Incidentally, USB is a noun, not an adjective, but commonly used attributively.    D b f i r s   08:34, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * "USB drive" or "flash drive" will eventually become the accepted name as rotating hard drives are phased out The communication channel and the storage medium are independent. I have an external (to my computers case) hard drive with a rotating disk (not flash memory) that I plug in to a USB port. Would anybody call it a "USB drive" now? How do we indicate that it's not flash? Do we care anyway? Maybe we don't need to wait for rotating disks to be phased out. What about the memory card from my camera, that I can plug into my PC (in a dedicated slot - not a generic USB port); is it a "flash drive"? If so, what do I call it to indicate that it's not a USB flash drive? Mitch Ames (talk) 09:46, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Well I did say it was my opinion, and you don't have to agree with it. I think some people already call your portable hard drive a USB drive don't they?  But my point was that the rotating technology will disappear as flash memory continues to reduce in price and increase in capacity, then all "drives" (other than CD, DVD, etc) will be flash memory, and the ones connected via USB will be called "USB drives" (attributive use of the communication channel to qualify the noun "drive", even though nothing is "driven" in the physical sense).  Your memory card is a card rather than a drive, though I agree that the technology is identical, and only the capacity and connection method will distinguish "drive" from "card".  (High capacity cards are, of course, sometimes used as backup "drives".  Are they "card drives"?)  This is all speculation anyway, so I apologise for introducing it.  Perhaps some new technology will overtake all of the current storage methods, but USB is now so efficient that it is likely to last a while longer, and "drive" seems to have entered the language as a synonym for "storage".    D b f i r s   11:25, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm a little bemused; my daughter (16-year-old) and her peers call these "thumb drives" or "thumbs" for short. So do the adults with whom I deal (techies and non-techies). I've literally never heard anybody, techie or otherwise, call them a "USB". I'm in Milwaukee, but I'm also generalizing from national events (union conferences, science fiction conventions, etc.) that I've attended. I'm suspecting this might be a local usage in your area. -- Orange Mike &#x007C;  Talk  14:23, 23 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Personally I tend to call them a "data key", and I'm not even sure where I got that usage from; perhaps it was branding on the box of the first one I ever had, which I won as a prize at a conference back in early 2002 before I even knew what they were. FWIW it was a massive 64 MB, and I believe it was valued at over $100! OK, a related question - in terms of desktop computers, almost everyone I come across incorrectly calls the system unit the hard drive. This has similarly annoyed me for years. Anyone else got an opinion on that one? --jjron (talk) 16:12, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I never heard the term "system unit" until this very moment. With a non-iMac desktop computer where the display is separated from the rest of the computer, I tend to call the box in question "the CPU" (which is almost, but not quite, as inaccurate as calling it the "hard drive", of course). If I were talking to a tech support person, I'd probably still call it "the CPU" or something similar, assuming that she/he would understand what I mean. -- Orange Mike &#x007C;  Talk  16:18, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I WAS a tech support person when a somewhat unsophisticated user first spoke to me about wanting to move their hard drive, probably 15 years ago. I had no idea what they were talking about. HiLo48 (talk) 22:01, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * 2002, jjron? Wow, the first time I was ever aware of the existence of whatever-these-things-are-called was in 2008.  I remember it clearly.  I was doing some work for someone, who said he wanted to meet up with me and he'd hand over some editing changes.  When we met, he produced this thing, but it meant nothing to me.  I asked him for the disc I was expecting containing his changes, and he said they were on the thing he'd just given me.  I forget what he called it.  He had to show me how to use it.  But after that, everyone I met seemed to have one.  They'd all obviously colluded to share this information but keep me in the dark about it.
 * Reminds me of the first time I ever heard the term "MP3 player". The company I worked for was offering them as an inducement to buy our products.  I worked closely with the marketing department, and when they first started discussing this idea, everyone in the room except me knew exactly what they were talking about, and it was clear the general populace was assumed to know about them too, since there'd be no point in marketing something if nobody knew what exactly was being offered.  I had to ask "Er, what is an MP3?".  The concept I grasped immediately (I was using Walkmen when some of my colleagues were still toddlers).  The name, however, had never ever come my way till then. I got some funny looks, and I had to counter with "Well, there has to be a first time for everything".
 * I remember when videos first became popular - everyone was talking about them, and it was impossible not to know about them. Same when CDs replaced cassette tapes.  But these days, information just seems to spread psychically, and people are just assumed to know what's going on.  And expected to know, more to the point.  All without anyone ever talking about it.  It's a tough world for those of us who spend their lives living under rocks.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  18:54, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * My first encounter with flash drives was early in my first semester of college, in late 2005, when a friend sold me a used 512M drive for $20 — I didn't trust it, so I refused to buy it without first placing documents (text files with gibberish) on it, deleting them from the computer, and viewing them later from the flash drive. Nyttend (talk) 04:12, 24 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Here's a suggestion. See if you can find (old computer shop, mothballed computer, whatever) a serial mouse, a PS/2 mouse, and a USB (connector-ed) mouse, and ask THE STUDENTS what words they would use to describe/differentiate them?  Might drive into their heads that USB is a protocol, both hardware and interfaces, not just the name of one item that uses that protocol.
 * Or not :-)...  --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 01:11, 25 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Here in the midwest US I've most often heard flash drive or thumbdrive (or thumb-drive, thumb drive, etc.) used, though for people with an IT background "removable drive" or even "removable flash drive" (to differentiate from a flash-memory hard drive) seem to be common as well. I've also heard keydrive (presumably a concatination of "key-chain drive"?) HominidMachinae (talk) 05:29, 26 December 2011 (UTC)


 * That mouse suggestion raises an interesting point. Nobody bothers to say 'have you got a USB mouse I can plug in', etc, they just say 'have you got a mouse'. If you gave them the wrong sort, serial or PS/2, they'd probably swear for starters, and many people (esp. HiLo's younger demographic of students) would then be savvy enough to say 'no, a USB one'. Where I'm heading is that they know that a USB flash drive isn't strictly "a USB", it's just a convenient shorthand name for it because no one wants to blab out "USB flash drive" or something equally wordy every time they're talking about it. Additionally most of the other possible shorter terms we've mentioned already have other pretty definite meanings in common use around computers - "a drive", "a pen", "a thumb", "a key", "a stick", even "a flash", ...? Now, if you point to the hole on the computer and say 'what's that' most of them would probably say a 'USB slot', or for some a 'USB port' (I wonder if many would just say 'a USB', but if they did you'd have them!). They also know that many other things plug in there: mouse, cameras, phones, iPods, external hard drives, etc (but you don't say 'I'll just plug in my USB camera'; as with the mouse earlier, the USB part is unnecessary). So my point is that they probably know full well that it's not just 'a USB' as plenty of other things are 'USB something', but roll their eyes when you pick them up on it because they also know you're just being pedantic because no one bothers with the USB for anything else, thus essentially reserving its use for the little USB flash drives (well at least in their world). In the same way they know that saying LOL isn't the same thing as actually 'laughing out loud', but would be rather annoyed if you invaded their world to pester them about it all the time. So to go right back to the original question, should you persevere with your pedantry? Well I'd say find out if they do understand the distinctions above, and if they do, then let them call it a USB without bothering them any further (oh, but make sure they remember to use a more specific term on exams if it should ever come up!). --jjron (talk) 16:35, 26 December 2011 (UTC)