Ever feel that the Internet is changing the English language? Ever wondered what someone means exactly when they text LOL or BTW? Want to impress the kids when you go back to school by your superior knowledge of Internet-speak? Well, help is at hand!
The eTwinning team has been scouring the internet looking for examples of techno-speak to share with the readers of our BLOG. Starting with BLOG of course! Here are a few (sometimes humerous) new terms to have entered the English language thanks to online communication.
A blog (a contraction of the term "weblog") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.
Chatting is using software such as Skype or MSN (or the eTwinning Twinspace) to exchange ideas through short sentences which are posted live on the site.
Spamming is the act of sending out unsolicited email, or posting many useless messages on a forum or website, often with the aim of selling a commercial product, but sometimes with a more sinister intent of causing harm to your computer through malware or internet viruses.
To google which was one of the first words my friends' kid learned to say(!) means the act of searching for information on the Internet using the Google search engine.
An egosurfer, one I can relate to, is someone who spends an inordinate amount of time searching for references to his/herself on the Internet.
ID-10-T (or ID ten T) is a slightly nasty nickname given by quite techie people to those who are . . . well, not so techie! If you haven't worked it out yet, it represents a bogus error message which actually reads . . . idiot!
One of my favourites is a mouse potato, a variation on the couch potato (who says society isn't progressing?)
A trasher describes someone who accesses all kinds of websites without thinking about the security risks involved - it's often not intentional, some people don't realise the damage they can do by downloading material from 'risky' sites - I'm sure we all know one or two trashers.
For those of you who are familiar with Twitter, then you will know that a tweet is a small message posted on the Twitter site. Limited to 140 characters (not words - words are so 20th century!) tweets are changing the way we communicate as the English language is compressed into shorter and shorter segments.
If you want to tweet, use a chatting facility, or indeed use text messaging on your mobile phone, then you will find that there is a growing list of acronyms currently in use that, like it or not, many of the kids you teach will already be familiar with and use on a daily basis. Some of my favourites are:
KISS (Keep it simple stupid!) - which is a good tip for blogging, or giving presentations, no more endless powerpoint slides!
PAW (Parents are watching!) - a good one to freak them out, when they think you haven't a clue what they're up to online.
GBTW (Get back to work) - what my boss is probably saying right now.
AFK (Away from keyboard) - an extended trip to the coffee machine.
ADIP (Another day in paradise) - everyday at work :) (Often used sarcastically)
W/E (Whatever!) - puts an end to most points of discussion - it helps when you wave the index finger of your right hand in a circle after you've typed this, although no one will see that of course, unless you are webcamming.
BTW (By the way), acronyms and online communication can express a lot of things, but emotions are still a little bit tricky, especially where humour is concerned. Hence, the term LOL (Laugh out loud) - reminding us not to take life too seriously.
If you know any other internet terms or acronyms, post a message on this blog to let us (and others) know.
Note: The wonderful image accompanying this blog is from flickr.com user jonwatson who is from Calgary in Alberta, Canada If jonwatson is an egosurfer then he'll no doubt see this - thanks for sharing this image with us using the Creative Commons License.
Gr8 post.
Lol Lisa xx
(Ps that's lots of love not laughing out loud!)
Posted by: Lisa Stevens | August 13, 2009 at 07:57 PM
Interesting post. Will put a link to it on our Maltese eTwinning blog. Thanks.
Jeannette
Posted by: Jeannette Cardona | February 08, 2010 at 08:44 AM