iPad vs. iPod? iPainful Pronunciation Problems – An Open Letter to Apple

Dear Apple,

I don’t know whether to thank you or hate you for naming your new product the iPad.  As an instructor of professional English, I spend hours every day helping my clients improve their pronunciation.  Much of this time is focused on vowels.  As you know, “iPad” /ɑɪpæd/ sounds a lot like “iPod” /ɑɪpɑd/.  Having grown up in Ohio, this distinction is not lost on me.  “Pod” is easy for me to say.  “Pad” is even easier, especially with my northern Ohioan accent in which I often say things like, “Where’s it at?” (with a very strong, perhaps even whiny, /æ/).  But what about the rest of the world?  Do you know that you just created an iPainful pronunciation nightmare for my clients?

In Japan, for example, “iPod” is pronounced /ɑɪpoʊd/.  Your shiny new iPad, on the other hand, is pronounced /ɑɪpɑd/.  Sound familiar?  Yep, the Japanese pronunciation of “iPad” is almost exactly the same as the American English pronunciation of “iPod.”  Nice.  Do I correct my clients when they pronounce “iPad” as /ɑɪpɑd/, or are they really just talking about the iPod, in which case their pronunciation would be correct? And, if they overcorrect the pronunciation of “iPad,” they would be saying /ɑɪpɑɪd/, at which point I would be wondering whether they “paid” for the pad or the pod.

Maybe your real goal was to get the international community to talk about the features of both devices.   A 30-second conversation could quickly become a discussion of features.  The iPod (/ɑɪpɑd/? /ɑɪpoʊd/?) would become “that music thingy” and the iPad (/ɑɪpæd/? /ɑɪpɑd/?) would become “that big thingy that plays music, but also does other cool stuff.”  If your goal was to promote conversation about your products, well done.  If your goal was word-of-mouth marketing, well, let’s just say that you may see an unexpected jump in sales of iPods in some parts of the world.

Perhaps I am being too harsh.  Perhaps I should be thanking you for the perfect opportunity to practice vowels in a relevant and interesting way:  “Okay, Hiro, explain the differences between the iPad and the iPod.”  I can finally entice my clients to see that these subtle differences in pronunciation really do matter. Or, maybe this calls for visual aids, in which case every language instructor will be buying an iPad.  Hmmm, maybe that’s the best solution:  “This is an iPad and this is an iPod.”  Hey Apple, how about a volume discount?

Respectfully,

Ovient English