No mourning end of 'my'

Based on the e-mail messages from readers so far, I feel comfortable predicting that Microsoft won't see a huge backlash from users after retiring the prefix "my" from the Windows desktop folders when the company releases the next version of the operating system. Typical of the reaction was this message from online reader Lawrence Auster of New York City:

"This is good news. The change from 'My Documents,' 'My Music,' etc., to simply "Documents," etc. is fine with me. As soon as I learned the ropes of Windows 98 when I got my computer back in 1998, I changed the name of the 'My Documents' folder to 'Documents' and of 'My Computer' to 'Computer.' I thought the 'My' was ridiculous and childish."

Auster expands on his thoughts on his weblog, pointing out that the phrase "also makes conversation about computers awkward: For example, if you are giving advice to someone about his computer, you have to say, 'Now look in My Documents.' But of course you're talking about his documents, not your documents. ... "

Some people feel even more strongly about the situation. Reader Janice Lukas, for one, hopes this starts a trend that eradicates the prefix from the technology world entirely. She writes in an e-mail message:

"You cannot know how strongly I dislike anything on the net or otherwise that contains the 'my' preface. I find it to be condescending, insulting and sneering and liken it to the overly sugared 'my little pony' garbage. My solution was to never use or participate in anything starting with my. Good riddance to 'my.' "

No messages or calls yet expressing any lament over Microsoft's decision.

Posted by Todd Bishop at May 31, 2005 09:20 AM