Technological Fruit

Have you ever wondered why so many technology products are named after fruits? Apple, Blackberry? Orange? (Orange is the name of the number 1network service provider in the UK).

My friend sent me this funny scene from the BBC, which makes a joke of the names of technology products. The scene is set in a greengrocers, which is the kind of shop which sells fruit and vegetables. The accents of both speakers is a bit difficult. They are both from London and speaking with a very strong London accent.

See if you can follow (there are subtitles in Chinese):

Vocabulary:

• run out of juice =  no power in the battery (this is a common idiom)
• frozen = this word means 'stuck' when used to talk about technology
• I tell you what =  You can use this when you want to offer a suggestion or something to someone
• blackspots = when used to talk about fruit, this word means black marks on old fruit; when used to talk about technology, it means places where your cell phone cannot get a signal
• Where do you store that blackberry? = where do you keep it?
• use a mouse to drag the blackberry to the trash = this is all computer language but it has other meanings as well
• launch = throw, or open a new application or program
• mess up windows = make the windows dirty, and it also means cause problems with windows software
• date = a kind of small sweet fruit
• they brought out two new apples = 'brought' out means put a new product on the market
• dongle = a USB stick, but this is also British kids slang for penis
• a little bit on the small side = a bit small
• booting = in technology language  this means shut down the computer and start it up again, but it also means 'kick'
• I can't make head or tail of them = I cannot understand them at all
• XBox = sounds like 'eggsbox' which is a box for holding eggs, like the one he is holding