Jeff Caplan’s Minute of News: Quick:  What’s a slang term for “phone”

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SALT LAKE CITY — All of human history, how is it we’ve never come up with a nickname for the phone? 

Ever since Alexander Gram Bell it’s been called “the phone.” For 150 years. It made sense when it was a fixed device mounted to a wall in your house. You had the sink, the oven, the phone. But then they invented mobile and cell service and the dang thing has devolved to the point when all of the collective knowledge gleaned throughout all human history can held in your hand in a little black square — and we still call it “the phone.”

It never got a nickname like the slab. The nip-nop. The thumb toy. Nothing ever sticks. We don’t even see trendy nicknames that disappear — it’s just “where’s my phone.” Or, “Could you make your phone stop dinging?”

I’ll point out the imaginative blokes in England — they used to call it “the blower.” But I’m not sure they use that anymore. 

Can you think of slang for a phone? Sure, a few people give their own phone nicknames.  The ringy-thingy. Or Karen. 

A few people quietly used to call it the porn horn, but the Utah state government took care of that.

But for most of us, the only variation we use is cell. Give me your cell number. And that automatically makes you old, because to the youngest among us, it’s just phone. A ubiquitous always-in-hand phone.

I even checked the urban dictionary for slang names and the best they offer is California Earring. Cute, but not the snappiest. The only slang I can think of is a term you never want to use because it means your precious phone is useless — and that’s when you call it a brick.

Jeff Caplan is the host of Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News on KSL NewsRadio. Follow him on Facebook and X. 

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