【Lodam Bhabhi (2024) S02 Part 1 Hindi Web Series】

Dongles have Lodam Bhabhi (2024) S02 Part 1 Hindi Web Seriesbecome a pervasive aspect of our existence.

New iPhone users who refuse to abandon the headphone jack are common dongle users. Dongle streaming devices are regularly employed in our homes, drooping from the television. Even Google is making more dongles now, to accompany its new Pixel 2 phones.

Yes, Google, which earlier this week declared its massive, all-in commitment to developing devices that employ sophisticated AI technology, is also in the dongle-making business (it was already making Chromecasts).

As we settle into a dongle-filled society, it's an appropriate moment to ponder the origin of such a silly word being used to describe a device with a purely technical purpose. Simply put, a dongle adds functionality to another device.

SEE ALSO: Hey, smartphone makers: I still want a headphone jack

However, the word "dongle" is not new. If first appeared in print in New Scientist,in 1981:

"The dongle is an extra piece of memory that is plugged into the computer, without which the program refuses to run."

Only later did it become popularized and perhaps thought of as new, which is typical.

"What you find is most words that you think of as new, aren’t new," Sarah Ogilvie, a linguist and lexicographer at Stanford University, told Mashable. "A lot of new words have much older histories than you would have thought."

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

But what transpired some 40 years ago to create such a curious new word?

"As for its actual origin, I think it's just a playful alteration of 'dangle'," lexicographer and "all-around word nut" Ben Zimmer told Mashable.

This explanation seems like a plausible answer, as dongles often do dangle. It's also conceivable that "dongle" derived from "dong," which also naturally dangles.

"Whether the phallic suggestion of 'dong' was in the minds of the word's creators and early adopters, I cannot say, but it's very possible," explained Zimmer.

Ogilvie isn't sold on any particular theory — just yet. "All theories are as plausible as one another. It's hard to know," she said.

Ogilvie, however, believes there's a good lead: the Commodore PET computer. This archaic machine was one of the earliest personal computers, released in 1977, and it accepted a dongle-like device to give it more memory. Perhaps an early Commodore developer might be able to shed light on who first named the dongle.

The company is now defunct, but Mashablewill update this story if we can find any early Commodore developers.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

There is one certainty about the word "dongle": its meaning has expanded in the last four decades. Linguists have a superb term for this, "semantic broadening." After its semantic broadening, "dongle" now has a "general meaning of anything that plugs into a computer that provides additional functionality," Ogilvie said.

While it's typical for words to change in meaning and scope over time, "dongle" has experienced semantic broadening at an accelerated pace. According to Ogilvie, 1,000 years ago the word "bird" (Old English) referred exclusively to young birds. It took centuries for the meaning to encompass "all birds."

Dongle, meanwhile, saw its meaning broadened in just a few decades time. Where will it go next?

---

Featured Video For You

---

This guy has 1,500 passwords, and a few tips for staying secure

---

Topics iPhone Innovations

• Social Good
• Science
• Shopping
• Games
• Deals
• Life
• Tech
• Entertainment

• Unfree Agents
• People are learning their real bra sizes thanks to a calculator that's gone viral on TikTok
• 'Disaster Girl' meme NFT sells for $500,000 at auction
• Happy Birthday, A. R. Ammons
• A Brief, Cheesy Interlude
• The Comfort Revolution is dead. Long live the Comfort Revolution.
• Recapping Dante: Canto 17, or Dante Goes to Los Angeles by Alexander Aciman
• Remembering Mavis Gallant
• The Silent Treatment
• Announcing The Paris Review’s 2014 Spring Revel

• Harold Bloom, 1930–2019 by The Paris Review
• One Thousand and One Nights by Samantha Hunt
• Cooking with Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa by Valerie Stivers
• Redux: What You Usually Find in Novels by The Paris Review
• One Word: Avareh by Amir Ahmadi Arian
• The Currency of Tears by Sabrina Orah Mark
• All Our Leavings by Jill Talbot
• What Susan Sontag Saw by Benjamin Moser
• Poetry Rx: The Radiant Bodies of the Dead by Claire Schwartz
• Harold Bloom’s Immortality by Lucas Zwirner

• Condo-Maximum
• A brief history of Elon Musk and X, the brand he can't quit
• Siberian roundworm revived after 46,000 years in permafrost
• Instagram has automatic captions now, and they look slick
• Al Gore’s Pivot to Idiocy
• 'Talk to Me' review: RackaRacka YouTubers create fresh horror with creepy seance game
• 'Quordle' today: See each 'Quordle' answer and hints for July 28
• Why a Long Train Ride Is Perfect for Writers
• A Coalition Government of the Heart
• Happy Birthday, Jonathan Lethem

• The Eclipsing of Steve Bannon
• TV shows to watch (and finish) on a flight
• Elon Musk reverses plan to get rid of 'light mode' on Twitter
• Snap diversity report debuts new anti
• Citizen Zuckerberg
• Sadie Stein on Disney’s 1935 Silly Symphony “The Cookie Carnival”
• A brief history of Elon Musk and X, the brand he can't quit
• Interview: Director Justin Simien reveals 'Haunted Mansion's less obvious inspirations
• Echoes of 1968
• Happy Birthday, A. R. Ammons