Screw it, I’m pronouncing it 'iPhone eX'

No "Ten" for me.
No "Ten" for me.
Image: Ambar Del Moral/mashable

What's in a name? Do the letters and sounds we assign to a thing reveal some deep truth about it, or perhaps exist as a comment on the society that named it? And who, once a new creation, phenomenon, or idea is introduced into our world, has the right to bestow upon it the taxonomic binding that will forever hold it in a tangled grip of association? If all objects have a Platonic Ideal, does there exist too a perfect combination of markings on a page which speak to a form's true self? 

That is all to say: screw it, I'll be pronouncing Apple's newest phone "iPhone eX," thank you very much. 

Starting today, November 3, the iPhone X is available in Apple stores across the world. Eager fans, lining up in the cold and rain, will have the chance to drop either $1,000 or $1,149 on the model of their choice. But deciding between 64GB and 256GB won't be the only head-scratcher — perhaps the biggest question of all is what to call the damn thing. 

Sure, Apple has told us that the phone is officially known as the iPhone X (pronounced "ten"), but i'm not buying it. In eschewing its past naming convention of good old fashioned numbers in favor of Roman numerals — and in doing so calling the phone "ten" — the Cupertino-based company is trying to have it both ways: implicitly saying this is a phone for the ages, but that it's also not too pretentious. 

According to Apple, the iPhone X is both different than everything that came before it, thus deserving of a likewise distinct label, and also totally a value proposition (Tim Cook promises) meriting the folksy "ten." 

That sentiment squares up nicely with the tech giant's official position that its latest smartphone represents the future. Don't look back to the iPhone 8, 7, or heaven forbid the 6, Apple cautions us, but rather look upon the X, ye mighty, and despair that you don't have one (yet). 

Sure, the phone has some pretty cool features (no headphone jack!), but there's no way I'm calling it "ten." Doing so would represent buying into Apple's self-serving mythos — something I'm not quite ready to do. 

Look, we get it. The X is new. It's shiny. It's going to change everything. The phone will both allow users to pretend they're a poop emoji and read their identical twin's text messages. But should it force us, against all better judgement, to bend to Tim Cook's nomenclature-shaping will?

Names are powerful things. In a world constantly in flux, they allow us to pin a thing down — and, in doing so, understand it even if only for the briefest of moments. What we choose to call the objects surrounding us ends up shaping how we view those things. This, in turn, has the power to change us. So let us, for once, decide to change in the way we want. 

And anyway, "ten" just sounds dumb.

WATCH: A hands-on review of the iPhone X

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