December 2, 1999

joystick

While I enjoy a rousing game of Pac-Man as much as anyone, I was wondering how a little lever for controlling mechanical motion came to be called a joystick. Just because it's so much fun? Or does it refer to some other form of joy?

A Pac-Man lover myself, I have wondered the same thing for quite a while. The quick and easy answer is that the controller on arcade games is called a joystick because it is essentially a navigational device. This use of joystick comes from the aviation term for the control lever of an airplane. The term joystick was used for the aviation control as early as 1910: ". . .the central lever--otherwise known as the cloche, or joystick is tied well forward" (OED2 1910).

As I'm sure you know, joystick is also a slang word for the penis. The first date for this slang use is very close to the date for first use of joystick to mean a navigational lever. Linguists differ in their analysis of the relationship between the two uses.

To deliver the disappointing news first, I have to say that the term for the navigational control may not be related to the other joystick at all. It may come from joist, referring to the construction of the aviation control system. Some lexicographers even agree with your first guess, that the term comes from the joy you feel while flying.

In a more racy explanation, many linguists claim that the name for the aviator's joystick is, in fact, derived from the euphemism for the male member. Some of these scholars cite the shape of the stick, while others refer to the shaking of the instrument in planes from the WWI era. There is no hard evidence to support either claim, but those are the possible etymologies. You can decide which one you prefer.

You don't see as many game joysticks now as you used to. I've missed my old Atari control with the joystick and the single button. So I have been happy to see the joystick making a comeback over the last few years. At some post-Atari point in gaming history, let's say the late 1980s, all of the arcade-style joysticks were replaced by D-pads (the four directional control buttons on the left side of the hand-held controller). The new generation of analog controllers has brought the joystick back in smaller form (raising the question "does size really matter?"). Most of these systems now have both the D-pad and the small joystick, called the joypad, or the analogpad. Fans of the old fashioned joystick will have to join you at the arcade to play a round of Pac-Man.

Heather