For the nomophobic: "Here are some apps you can get _for_ a steal."

[Joel S. Berson]

At 5/22/2012 06:36 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

>Well, as long as the writer gets his point across, WTF? Besides,
>another generation and "at a steal" will be only literary.

It clearly means "apps you can get that will help if your smartphone
is stolen."  (Well, youcannevertell, if there's no context
given.)  See the Boston Globe's "G/Living" (magazine) section today,
on the problems faced by owners of smartphones that go missing.  9
million of its 15 million smartphone owners in 2011, according to a
study by "security firm Lookout" -- one every 3.5 seconds -- you're
not alone, at least in losing your smartphone.

Many who have lost contact with their smartphones, whether by loss,
no battery power, no network access, or just plain not checking
frequently enough, feel they have lost part of their lives.  And they
have, if it's the only entity that knows the telephone numbers of the
people in their lives, or has all and the only photos of their
vacation on Santorini.  I see it's called "nomophobia", the fear of
being out of mobile phone contact.  Dates from March 2008, Google
News suggests.

Joel


>--
>-Wilson
>-----
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-Mark Twain
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org