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The first computer mouse was given its name by the device’s inventor, Douglas Engelbart.

Because, for some reason, the “X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System” just didn’t catch on.

The first users hated the clumsiness of the name and quickly dubbed them “turtles,” which eventually became “rodent,” which morphed into the cuter-sounding “mouse.”

This name was just right for the shape and size of the X-Y Position Indicator, and it stuck.

These days, mice are sophisticated devices that have many buttons. Some are cordless, and more recently, have no balls for tracking. Instead, a low power laser is used to track the surface it sits on.

The advantage? We no longer have to remove the ball from the poor mouse and clean the rollers so our mouse works like new again.

The mouse is a great piece of technology many of us use everyday, and was destined for cuteness, not boring drivel.

It was invented in the late 1960s by Douglas Engelbart, and was called the “XY Position Indicator for a Display System.” It was a catchy name, but early users quickly came up with a nickname of their own: “turtle.”

The animal motif continued with the more accurate description, “rodent,” that followed.

With its long hairless tail, the little pointer device resembled any number of creatures in the order Rodentia, and these early technogeeks didn’t want to discriminate.

However, good sense and a desire to sell to consumers took over, and the name was changed to “mouse,” which stuck permanently. In every dictionary on our shelves we found mouse, which reads like this Merriam-Webster Dictionary on-line entry:

“mouse: a small mobile manual device that controls movement of the cursor and selection of functions on a computer display.”

Now it’s your turn to come up with a name for touch pads.