Never Stand in Line Again? – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog
That is the promise being made by a company called QLess, which offers “virtual queue management” via cellphone alerts. Its home page makes this alluring statement/threat: “On average, Americans spend almost 3 years of their lives waiting in line.”

This is one area (perhaps of many) in which I am way below average. I hate lines, and waiting in general, so much that I take great pains to avoid them both, whether it’s a physical line or a telephonic one.

Yep, I have to agree. I don’t like lines and will simply go elsewhere if possible.

In keeping with our occasional renaming exercise, can we please stop calling the cellphone a “cellphone” and instead call it “mobile,” as the British do, and which makes much more sense?

I think German has THE silliest word for mobiles: Das Handy. How did that come about? A marathon branding session in the early nineties? A team of university professors discussing a new addition to the German language? A newspaper article? The above linked article claims Handy derives from the word Handfunktelefon.