Pro (noun.), abbreviation of Professional: born 1798, died 2019, aged 221 (opens in new tab)

What about Porsche with their Turbo trim EV? Turbo, Pro, whatever are just being used to denote something better like plus and premium used to do.

Besides aren't most professional things labeled Enterprise now anyway?

I've seen so much controversy the last couple days over the Airpod Pro for this "reason" that I'm wondering why it took people this long to learn the basic life skill of not taking marketing at face value. I suppose 2019 is better late than never for these people.

For you youngsters just tuning in, welcome! Today we are going to learn how marketers misuse terms to sell you shit. For folks my age, it was words like “space age” and “turbo”. The very first episode of the original Battlestar Galactica had the character Starbuck using the “turbos” in his spacecraft. Those unaware might not know that turbines compress air, which outer space is sorely lacking. But it sounds cool, huh?

Today your generation has to deal with abuse of “pro”. Same shit, different generation. Difference is, back in my day we shrugged it off as salespeople doing what salespeople do, went on about our day. Now we can write indignant blog posts, but frankly I don’t know that it’s worth getting that worked up about it.

PS4 Pro lmao

I always loved how the Gudang Garam cigarettes brings a "Professional" label in its box:

https://www.clovecigarettesonline.com/images/stories/virtuem...

The difference between this and the hundreds of other products using the "Pro" moniker is that this is Apple and it generates controversy (and clicks) better than most other brands. It's a label to differentiate product lines, like "Turbo" on an electric car.

It's enough to do a search for "Pro" on the very same website above to see how many not-so-Pro products they covered over the past 20 years (like phones, cheap SSDs, or consumer cameras).

I do appreciate the article tag is "Humor" though.

Where and when I grew up pro was an abbreviation for prostitute. No one would ever have described themselves as a pro with the possible exception of a golfing professional.

People seem to forget that words can have multiple meanings and those meanings can shift. You can still use the abbreviation "pro" to refer to professionals - a pro tennis player, for example. At the same time, "pro" has been used as an adjective meaning "very good" for a long time, and not just for tech systems, but for people as well (eg, "they're very good, they're a pro").

Did people forget about Prosumer? Pro markets are ridiculously niche and have the price to match (Mac Pro). Most of the areas people complaining about pro I don't get. Not everyone wants to have "professional grade" everything at all times. I use to be a professional photographer, but I couldn't justify 2k+ and all my dev budgets at the same time so most of these "pro" products hit my sweet spot. Not over the top where I'm now learning how to use the tool, but just more than enough to be dangerous if i want to take some quick photos to see if I kept my "eye." So far most of this angst is from professionals who don't speak on their own "pro" tools but will in an instant shit on anything mass marketed with the term. Sigh.

Pro has been added to the name of sports equipment for decades although 99 percent of the pro rackets, pro swimwear and pro boots are bought by amateurs.

Why did someone submit this?

Why is it still here?

A photo site owned by Amazon making dumb jokes based on their misunderstanding of how language works. Insightful.

I'm not the only one to remember the Competition Pro joystick.

This was a long time ago (around 1986).

Back then there were no professional e-sport players.

Tech products have a long history of misleading names, though. In the 1980s and 1990s, a very popular compiler was called "Turbo Pascal" and computers often had buttons to change the clock speed marked "Turbo". Obviously, these products didn't have literal turbochargers in them.

We do use the `Pro` abbreviation for proffesional quite often in french

"pro et contra" precedes.

Airpods aren't professional?

At least people aren't telling me that they are also not made of air or shaped like pods.

That would warp my sense of reality to such a degree that I wouldn't know what to do with my life and I would have to write a 7,500 word essay on why everything should be named literally and post it to medium.com, thus bringing shame to myself, my ancestors, and my descendants.