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Photoshop Jargon: TWAIN
“TWAIN” stands for “Technology Without An Interesting Name” and is a standard method for acquiring images from scanners, digital cameras and other imaging devices…
“TWAIN” stands for “Technology Without An Interesting Name” and is a standard method for acquiring images from scanners, digital cameras and other imaging devices. TWAIN is a Windows-only command; the Macintosh uses “TWAIN Acquire”.
09 December 2005
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The story of the TWAIN name/acronym is certainly an interesting one, and it actually goes deeper than that.
A Google search for the inspiration for the name suggests a backstory that has the word ‘twain’ for the technology being suggested by what it does; making scanner hardware and the driver communicate, and inspired by the Kipling line (which I paraphrase) about East being East and West being West, “and never the twain shall meet”. Here, they got the twain to meet.
Going forward from that point, perhaps for looks’ sake, the word got capitalized to resemble an acronym and got the back-engineered meaning. Which is clever but a bit off; turns out TWAIN is quite an interesting name.
This is all ‘net hearsay, of course; but I thought it was cool.
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That’s an interesting backstory, and one my source didn’t mention. Thanks for posting it here!
If I had to bet money, I’d say that it’s probable an engineer or someone pulled “twain” from a source like Kipling, then thought up a goofy phrase for the acronym—the word defining the acronym defining the phrase, unlike WYSIWYG, which started with the phrase and in turn made an acronym that makes no sense and seems unpronounceable. (But it is—”wizzywig”)
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