> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://macanorak.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Macintoshes and Anoraks - URL: https://macanorak.com/macintoshes-and-anoraks/ - Published: 2026-09-13T00:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-14T12:02:35.000Z - Description: Under the hood of the MacAnorak name. - Author: MacAnorak - Tags: Field Notes, Under the Hood The idea for this site came after I had a dream telling me to write a blog of Apple observations, called “Raincoat”. I woke up full of enthusiasm, but once reality set in I realised “Raincoat” was a truly terrible name for a blog, although it did guide me in the right direction. So for my maiden post, I wanted to touch on the name of the site. I promise there’s more to it than simply sticking 'Mac' and 'Anorak' together and hoping for the best. When I was growing up in Britain in the early 1980s, I had a Mac long before I had an Apple Macintosh.[\[1\]](#fn1) Anyone reading this who grew up in Britain will know exactly what I mean. A Mac = a raincoat. We called it a Mackintosh, after [Charles Macintosh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles%5FMacintosh?ref=macanorak.com) (I don’t know why we added an extra “k”), the Scottish chemist who, in the early 19th century, developed a method of making waterproof fabric by sandwiching layers of cloth around a rubber solution [\[2\]](#fn2). Raincoats are obviously an essential part of the British national wardrobe. When I was a child, everyone seemed to have one, and everyone called it a 'Mac' for short. Many still call their raincoats ‘Macs’ (I’ve always hated raincoats and as an adult I refuse to own one; I also hate umbrellas and stubbornly resist taking one with me unless absolutely necessary.) But that’s only one half of the name. An anorak is another kind of waterproof jacket [\[3\]](#fn3). But in the UK it has another meaning, possibly unfamiliar to some. It is often used, somewhat unfairly, as slang for a person who knows an alarming amount about something nobody asked them to know about. Which, frankly, sounds rather like my target audience. And me. As a longtime visitor of *The Guardian*, I’m somewhat baffled that I’ve never encountered the *[Notes & Queries](https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-19185,00.html??ref=macanorak.com)* section before. It’s exactly what it sounds like: readers submit questions, often obscure ones, and other readers attempt to answer them. Within it there’s a section called *Semantic Enigmas* (which is, incidentally, a good name for a prog-rock band [\[4\]](#fn4)). One question asked: *[“What do the British mean when they call somebody an "anorak”?”](https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-19185,00.html??ref=macanorak.com)* Jon Wereik, from Hertfordshire, offered this explanation: > *"An anorak is literally a hooded waterproof coat, and the slang term was originally applied to trainspotters - people whose hobby is hanging around railway stations, monitoring the arrivals/departures of various trains and writing down their serial numbers in little notebooks. I swear there are such people, and their hobby requires them to wear suitably draught-proof clothing. By extension it has become applied to anyone with an obsessive interest in a subject... The nearest equivalent non-British slang term might be "nerd"".* Another contributor, John Ness from Glasgow, was considerably less charitable: > *"An anorak is a derogatory term meaning the anal retentive accumulation of minuscule, arcane, and quite often useless bits of information".* That one felt particularly appropriate. There are varying explanations for how anorak acquired this meaning. One version of the story (and it’s a rather good one) traces its meaning back to the pirate-radio era of the early 1970s, when DJ Andy Archer used “anoraks” to describe fans who had travelled by boat to visit the offshore radio stations. It was a chilly day, the visitors were wearing anoraks, and the nickname stuck. This story, apocryphal or otherwise, seems wonderfully appropriate, because it gives us another connection to the Apple Mac. In January 1983, the Macintosh team gathered at the La Playa Hotel in Carmel, California, for a retreat. Steve Jobs told them: *[“It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy.”](https://www.folklore.org/Pirate%5FFlag.html?ref=macanorak.com)* The Macintosh Team had started as a rebellious experimental group within Apple, and as it grew, Jobs wanted to preserve that sense of independence and urgency, rather than allow it to become just another large, bureaucratic corporate team. When the Macintosh team moved into a new building later that year, programmer Steve Capps decided that the building needed a pirate flag. So they made one. Black cloth. Skull and crossbones. And, wonderfully, a rainbow Apple logo as the eye patch. Jobs loved it. ![pirate_flag.jpg](https://macanorak.com/content/images/2026/09/pirate_flag-6.jpg) The Macintosh team had its own pirate flag because it was supposed to be different. Obsessive. A little rebellious. And perhaps just a little bit ridiculous. I was therefore comforted to see the Apple marketing team playfully resurrect the use of the flag for the promotion of the M4 Mac Mini back in 2024\. The product was unveiled by John Ternus, now Apple’s CEO, and I truly hope he brings some of that radical, pirate start-up mentality back with him. This is the Apple I fell in love with. ![pirate-flag-mac-mini.jpg.jpeg](https://macanorak.com/content/images/2026/09/pirate-flag-mac-mini.jpg-1.jpeg) The Macintosh computer was created by a bunch of Apple anoraks whose obsession with minutiae helped them make a computer that was radically different from almost everything that had come before it. Perhaps that’s what being an anorak is really about — caring about the little things, wondering why they are the way they are, and thinking about them far more than is probably sensible. I probably do care a little too much about Apple stuff. I can't think of any other brand towards which I have quite the same sense of loyalty. I feel the care that's gone into the products when I use them, and I get a ridiculous amount of pleasure from interacting with them. I don't want to see Apple fail, or become a historical footnote [\[5\]](#fn5), as so many other corporate behemoths eventually do— although I'm aware that, eventually, every company becomes one. That said, I'm not sure a trillion-dollar company can ever be perfect, so expect a fair dose of (hopefully) friendly criticism along the way too. If you enjoy digging into Apple stuff, subscribe. Let’s be anoraks together. --- 1. Apple employee Jef Raskin [named it after the McIntosh red apple](https://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui%5Fraskin.html?ref=macanorak.com), but intentionally changed the spelling to “Macintosh” to avoid any potential conflict with McIntosh Laboratory, an audio equipment maker. The attempt wasn’t entirely successful: [Apple later had to pay the raincoat manufacturer Mackintosh for use of the name.](https://apple-history.com/gui%5Fraskin2??ref=macanorak.com) [↩︎](#fnref1) 2. Over two centuries later, the Japanese company Yagi Tsusho owns the Mackintosh brand name — [it manufactures the rubbery sandwich core material in Japan before shipping it to a factory in Lancashire to be made into Mackintoshes.](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/oct/12/history-mackintosh-raincoat-charles-macintosh??ref=macanorak.com) [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. Borrowed from Greenlandic Inuit [annoraaq](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anorak?ref=macanorak.com), name for a hooded outer garment originally made of skin. [↩︎](#fnref3) 4. The other areas in the *[Notes and Queries](https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-19185,00.html??ref=macanorak.com)* section of The Guardian would also make good prog rock band names: *Nooks and Crannies; Yesteryear; The Body Beautiful; Red Tape, White Lies; Speculative Science; This Sceptred Isle; Root of all Evil; Ethical Conundrums; This Sporting Life; Stage and Screen; Birds and the Bees.* [↩︎](#fnref4) 5. E.g., Silicon Graphics, Inc ([SGI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon%5FGraphics?ref=macanorak.com)) — their machines appeared in Jurassic Park (and were also used to render the dinosaurs, as well as the T-1000 in Terminator 2), before going the way most computing giants eventually do. [Palm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm,%5FInc.?ref=macanorak.com) invented the smartphone as we'd come to know it, years before the iPhone existed; [Nokia’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia?ref=macanorak.com) phones were the world's biggest in the 2000s; [BlackBerry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry?ref=macanorak.com) was *the* business smartphone — all three exterminated by the iPhone as though it were a T. Rex or the latest Terminator model. Apple, beware: being the company that finishes someone else off doesn't make you immune from the same ending. [↩︎](#fnref5)