Concept in Definition ABC

On technologyAs in other aspects of life, size does matter, but it happens the other way around for everyone else: the smaller, the better, and the more “sexy”. That is why the term Gadget refers to a small electronic device, which usually performs a function or has unusual capabilities that make it unique.

Although the historical roots of the word Gadget sink in the United States of the 19th century, the modern use that has been given to it begins in 1983 with the homonymous cartoon television series, whose protagonist The main one was a clumsy inspector with a cyborg part in his body, in which numerous tools were hidden, thus becoming something similar to a "Swiss Army knife" human.

It was already used in general in English to refer to multifunctional and comfortable tools to carry around, but in the language Castilian appears as a neologism in the Dictionary of doubts and difficulties of the Spanish language by Manuel Seco, published in 2000 (note

of Author: there could be some previous appearance, but this is the one that I was able to document with safety).

The Spanish voice of this word mimics the English one, coming from the United States, therefore, there is no a translation and adaptation to our language, but rather a "loan" taken from the English language in the form of neologism.

What difference does a gadget of a apparatus that is not?

The border between what is and what is not is so fine that, in my opinion, whether or not it belongs to this category it is determined by the person speaking referring to the object, and not by an encyclopedic punctuation to which gird ourselves.

The common characteristics of gadget is that they must be electronic devices, small and with some innovative functionality.

However, personally, I have come across people who called gadget to a non-electronic device such as a tripod that allows the user to smartphone take photos, in addition to being used as grip to hold the phone more comfortably in its video recording function, it can also be converted into a stick of selfie or a tabletop tripod.

In this case, what has weighed the most to qualify such an ingenuity as gadgetIt has been its small size, and its multiplicity of functions, taking the meaning of the aforementioned 1983 television series.

By the way, the word without accent refers to the original in English. It can be used in a "Castilianized" version, with an accent on the "a", gádget, since there is no equivalent translation in the language of Cervantes, and the word as such (either with or without an accent) does not appear in the RAE.

However, it is possible that it may appear in other dictionaries, with or without accent mark.

Photos: Fotolia - schakty / fad82

Themes in Gadget