{"id":727,"date":"2009-07-15T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2009-07-15T07:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=727"},"modified":"2009-07-14T21:21:06","modified_gmt":"2009-07-15T04:21:06","slug":"nerd-words-that-have-made-the-big-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=727","title":{"rendered":"Nerd Words that have Made the Big Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty years ago we had our own tongue. As computers have become more mainstream, the terms we once held as our own are now used in the mainstream. Welcome to my review of terms us nerds use that are grown more common in everyday life.
\n
\nDownload.<\/strong> A download is a file transfer, from a server to a local computer. That’s the traditional definition. The new definition is any transfer of information. People in a meeting refer to the information given by a speaker as a download<\/em>, for example. So you may hear something like, “I have trouble downloading what Steve has to say.”<\/p>\n

FAQ.<\/strong> The FAQ is the Frequently Asked Questions list, which I first saw on the old Usenet bulletin boards Basically the moderators got tired of answering the same questions over and over again, so they built up Frequently Asked Questions list, which became the FAQ. Say fack<\/em>, which almost counts as a swear word.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen FAQ used in printed documents as well. A flyer from my kids’ school had a FAQ regarding swine flu. Would have been called a “FAQ” 20 years ago? Nope.<\/p>\n

LOL.<\/strong> Ah, the LOL or lawl. People say LOL out loud these days. I mean, they actually say “LOL” instead of laughing out loud.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, 20 years ago LOL stood for Little Old Lady as far as I was concerned.<\/p>\n

Beta.<\/strong> Software goes through an alpha test first, then a beta test, which is public. I’ve heard the term beta<\/em> being used to describe anything that’s in a prototype state. In fact, I’ve heard actors refer to a dress rehearsal as a beta test. That’s really weird.<\/p>\n

Googling.<\/strong> I suppose the lawyers at Google don’t mind their company’s heavily-trademarked logo becoming a verb and noun in the English language. So be it. I’ve also heard people refer to Google in real life, such as telling their kid who loses his socks that he can’t just Google it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Photoshopped.<\/strong> The Photoshop photo-editing program has becoming its own verb. It’s common these days to say Photoshopped<\/em> to refer to any picture that’s been modified \u2014\u00a0even if the modifications were done without using Photoshop specifically.<\/p>\n

I wonder if someone would consider one of those old Soviet photographs where party leaders were “erased” as being Photoshopped?<\/p>\n

\"Nikolai

Nikolai Yezhov before he was ordered shot by Stalin.<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Nikolai

Nikolai Yezhov has been Photoshopped<\/em> out of existence.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Reboot.<\/strong> No one would dream of referring to the task of starting over as a reboot years ago. Thanks to the computer, today it’s common to refer to the eternal do-over as a reboot<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Offline.<\/strong> When something is no longer available, it’s offline. The term can now be applied to anyone who is daydreaming or not paying attention. “I told Fred, but his brain must be offline.”<\/p>\n

Spam.<\/strong> First it was this spicy ham product, then it became slang for junk email. Today just about anything that unwanted and in abundance is called spam<\/em>. I’ve heard people refer to regular junk mail as spam. We’ve come full circle!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty years ago we had our own tongue. As computers have become more mainstream, the terms we once held as our own are now used in the mainstream. Welcome to my review of terms us nerds use that are grown more common in everyday life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=727"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions\/740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}