Jailbreak, v.

[Dave Wilton]

I don't see how this is iPhone related, other than from the iPhone jailbreak
being "in the air."

Rather, it seems to me to be a metaphorical extension of the old
"information wants to be free" meme, which actually appears in the quoted
portion of the article. You don't need the iPhone to make this connection.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Grant Barrett
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 7:35 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Jailbreak, v.

Here's a use of "jail break" as a noun that seems to be an extension
of the iPhone-specific one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/business/media/11carr.html

"Consumers have no issue with time-shifting content--in some younger
demographics, at least half the programming is consumed on a time-
shifted basis--they just want to be the ones doing the programming.
Trying to stop foreign broadcasts and leaked clips from being posted
on YouTube--NBC's game of 'whack-a-mole' as my colleague Brian Stelter
described it--was doomed to failure because information not only wants
to be free, its consumers are cunning, connected and will find a
workaround on any defense that can be conceived.

"You might assume, along with NBC executives, that the jail break of
information damaged NBC's precious choreographed broadcast."

Grant Barrett
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org

On Aug 7, 2008, at 23:08, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 11:02 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> From Slashdot:
>>
>> "They are trying to ... demonstrate why hackers want to_jailbreak_
>> the iPhone."
>>
>> From Urban Dictionary:
>>
>> "JAILBREAK: to crack an iPhone so that it can run 3rd party programs,
>> just like how you were able to install other programs w/PSP"
>
> Noted here a few months ago by Benjamin Barrett, along with
> "jailbroken", "unjailbreak", etc.:
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0805D&L=ADS-L&P=R382
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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