We are witnessing a return to telephones offering only reduced capabilities compared to today’s cell phones, packed with a wealth of functions. We are already talking about “dumb” phones, just as we have been talking about “smart” phones for a long time. A cell phone is neither smart nor stupid, these terms being reserved for human beings. In an ideal world, the “smart” phone should have been called a “feature phone”. Human nature being what it is, this rather long name thank you would have been reduced to “multi”. As for the family idiot, it’s more of a minimalist phone. It would be more in keeping with the French language to use “multi” and “mini” to designate these two phones than to pass them off as intelligent or stupid. But usage has reasons that reason does not know.
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