Not so dumb?

Once upon a time, a phone was just a phone. Then it started developing all sorts of clever new talents like taking photos, keeping your diary and making sure you never missed an email. Gradually, it morphed into the smartphone, the computer masquerading as a phone, something many of us pooh-poohed, right up until we got one, and now we claim we can’t live without them. But what happened to the un-smartphones? Well, according to the Open Dictionary this week, they can no longer just be ‘phones’, we have to specify their lack of smarts – they’ve become dumbphones. I feel a bit sorry for them, to be honest – they’re the ones that are still essentially phones, yet they get called ‘dumb’, and are treated like lower class citizens (in the world of telecommunications, obviously). I have visions of them, sitting in the corner of the mobile phone shop, wearing the dunce cap.