Underwhelming or awesome?

Wise Words: underwhelming or awesome?

US President Obama gave his first State of the Union address last night. He mainly focused on jobs, with a small “j”. The rest of the world seemed more focused on Jobs, with a capital “J”: Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs gave his first presentation of the iPad. In his words, the iPad is “awesome”. It’s also “gorgeous”, “intuitive”, “intimate” and “phenomenal”. Towards the end of the presentation, this quote was displayed on the screen behind Jobs.

“Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.”

Jobs then added: “at a breakthrough price”.

That's a lot of adjectives in one presentation. (And that's not all of them either.)

I followed his presentation on Twitter and Endgadget as it was live-blogging the event. Awesome wasn't the word that the reviewers were using. The adjective I kept seeing was "underwhelming".

The choice of iPad as a product name set off sniggers and gasps. You see, "pad" can also refer to sanitary pads. I find it pretty childish to focus on this meaning now. I mean, we’ve been using keypads for years without ever thinking of periods. Does anyone snigger when you ask for a notepad? Or giggle when you ask how to use a touchpad? Who laughed when rockets were placed on a launchpad? The iPad is a good enough name. I just don’t know if the product itself is awesome or underwhelming.

If I get my hands on one, I’ll let you know.

Update 19.00: The Economist has rated Obama's speech. It was "underwhelming". This definitely makes underwhelming a Wise Word for this week. 

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