Let the iPad be a lesson to us all: words have meaning.

The jokes began immediately after Apple launched its "magical and revolutionary" new device. Some were more clever than others (my personal favourite: "Are you there, God? It's me, Marketing") but, as a group, what made them funny was the underlying implication. Clearly, it hadn't even occurred to Apple that the word pad has a very specific connotation to 50% of potential purchasers, an oversight that prompted many to wonder if Apple, a) included any women in its iPad focus groups, and b) recognizes that women do, in fact, purchase technology, even if it's not pink.

Also, it's clear no one at Apple watches MadTV.

Adding to the hilarity of the situation was the fact that cutesy euphemisms are usually used in place of words such as pads or tampons (or menstruation, for that matter) when marketing such items. Hence we get TV commercials and print ads lauding the benefits of "feminine hygiene products" that can help us deal with "Mother Nature's gift" and so on.

By naming its product as it did, Apple opened the door to reclaiming the word pad and, by association, periods and jokes about them; not the crude ones made by junior-high boys, but the kind that acknowledge that women menstruate, even if we're not allowed to point this out in mixed company because, eww, that stuff's gross.

The good-natured fun lasted for about 45 seconds. Then the chuckles morphed into snickering (because eww, that stuff's gross) and, shortly thereafter, people stopped laughing entirely and began telling online jokers to grow up.

This brings me to another news story: the recent decision to change the name of Canada's longest-running history magazine, The Beaver.

After 90 years, those in charge have given up on the name, in part because it has come to connote not only Canada's emblematic woodland rodent but also the female vulva. As such, it gets filtered out of subscribers' email as spam.

While I can appreciate how this would create a problem for The Beaver's marketing department, it saddens me to think that we as a society are prepared to concede this change, as if we have no choice but to acquiesce to the redefinition of words on the basis of whether or not they're used as low-brow nicknames for genitalia.

(FYI: the magazine's new name is Canada's History. While it avoids any comparisons to dirty lady bits, it may also be the most boring title known to humankind.)

One last language-related news item: A California K-8 school recently pulled all copies of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary from its shelves after receiving a complaint from a parent whose child used the book to look up "oral sex." The school district is now considering a permanent ban on all dictionaries containing sexual terms because, you know, keeping children ignorant means they'll never have pre-marital intercourse - just look at how well abstinence-only education is working out!

I'm a Canadian Oxford Dictionary gal myself. It's a fabulous resource; not only does it define oral sex, it also defines the terms fellatio, cunnilingus, blow job and going down on - and, in my opinion, that's a good thing. If kids want to expand their knowledge by consulting a reference book instead of say, Internet porn, I say more power to them.

The English language is complex and nuanced, and that's OK. In fact, that's what makes it so cool.

Marlo Campbell is eagerly awaiting the launch of the iBeaver.