Last night, I ate with one of my classmates and she was excited that the hospital she’s working in finally has COWs. Or Computers On Wheels.
In Michigan when I was touring several hospitals, I saw that there were WOWs. I finally had to ask the nurse educator, “What is a WOW?”
“Oh, that’s a Workstation On Wheels.”
“Oh, that’s kind of like COW. That’s what I learned in school.”
“Yes, it used to be called a COW but we changed the name to WOW to not offend people.”
“How would you offend someone by calling a computer a COW?” I paused for a moment to think about it. “Oh, unless someone is self-conscious about his weight and you say, ‘Hey, can you bring that COW in here?’ And he thinks that you’re talking about him instead of the computer. I get it now.”
Interesting choice of words~ I guess we have to be careful with our choice of words.