Vote now for your worst net neologism
It's the traditional ta very much to all of you who responded to our call for nominations for the worst net neologism - Mephistophelean vocab so hideous in countenance that it must be viewed only as a reflection in a bronze shield lest the reader be turned immediately to stone. With that in mind, you're advised to approach the …
I want to lose TALKER used almost exclusively over on RegHardware to mean PHONE, it's a bloody phone, it don't talk, stop calling it a talker........grrrrrrrrrr
I have to say that I'd like to vote for most of the unmentionables on the list, but this term (see subject - I won't repeat it again for fear of being too offensive) needs some defending as it is a useful tool for the IT savvy.
When your herculian patience and fortitude are finally tested to the limits of endurance whilst trying to explain something excrutiatingly complex (like how the monitor isn't the 'computer') to your wife/girlfriend/senile mother-in-law you can always fall back on this word to prevent your brain from imploding with sheer frustration.
I'd have been dead from 'committed-to-results' induced skull imploding frustration so long ago I wouldn't have managed to make it into the contract market to earn oodles of cash (none of which I have any more sadly). So give this term a break and leave it off the list.
Fire away commentards
Does this mean that if *tard is binned then you'll stop using the rather lame "Freetard"?
Why?
Because the fucktards that really push the Web 2.0 agenda are the same fucktards that really pushed Web 1.0, got it wrong, now they're saying, "Yes, but this is how it should *really* be done, coining a few bob without really contributing anything other than their own agenda.
iCunts, the lot of them
Would ROFLMAO if they all just disappeared up their own rectards and got PWNED.
iJobs, cuz there's no fucking thumbnail for O'ReillyTards.
Surely the term "edutainment" predates the popular internet by a good decade or two. Why, I keenly remember such classic "edutainment" titles as Europress's "Fun School" series, first launched in the 1980s. Should have been banned by Trading Standards, that. Fun my ar<NO CARRIER>
So many abominations to choose from... why do we have to only choose one? Wouldn't the survey still produce interesting results if everyone was allowed to vote for as many or as few of the words as they felt like? Perhaps even /more/ interesting or accurate results, because people wouldn't be forced to choose artificially between things they hate equally, which might lead to 'tactical voting' or other distortions? You can still declare the one with the most votes the winner, but the placing of the runners-up would be much more realistic.
No. You get one vote for one candidate. Suck it up.
I am having an Evil Friday. Meheh.
For those of us too old to bother with Facebook and too lazy to do our own research can we have translations for the following please?
Blook
LOLZ
Plix
pwn/pwnage/pwned
ROFLCOPTER
ZOMFG
for all of them?
The terms listed are often used by uncool, self congratulatory 2hats with little or no understanding of what is actually behind the said terms/acronyms. They are usually used to give the impression that the person using them is savvy in that area when the opposite is so often the case.
lol is the only term/acronym listed that I actually use and I would quite happily forfeit the use of this if all the others were eradicated. And why is the misspelling of "the" not there? The usage of "teh" does not make one seem elite, sorry L337, it just makes one appear to be an abject tosser.
And what about the word "ghey", why is that not there?
Yes languages develop and change overtime, but it seems to me these acronyms/terms are just dumbing down the English language for the amusement of the lowest common denominator.
Of course being an old git with at least a rudimentary grasp of English could explain my Luddite approach to the bastardisation of the English language.
Being only able to cast a vote for one of those listed items I chose *tard. For the simple reason that to me it has never been a retarded action to obtain something for free. Paytard works, freetard doesn't.
Oh, dear. Did you have to release this vile pile onto Reg readers' screens at *lunchtime*? My grub almost headed for the sick bucket as rapidly as *most* of this lot ought to be consigned to the bit bucket (hence 'All hands man the pumps'). We should indeed have multiple votes.
I note that (at the time of writing) there are only two of us who detest "LOL". Let me remind you that it's the (I hesitate to grace it with this term) "word" used by humourless cretins in place of a large sign stating "Please laugh, that was a pathetic and feeble attempt to say something humorous".
Paris, because I could make her LOL just by dropping my kecks.
O
Usually a jargon word loses when the Great Unwashed gets its chops around it, neither knowing nor caring what it means. Not this one - it just gets tastier.
Stop your whining about multiple votes or I shall smite you all.
Looks like I'm not alone in my hatred for "2.0"
Mix friends reunited and a BBS (are they both 1.0, or 0.6 BETA RC7?) and you have Web 2.0? Right? Or am I wrong? Is 2.0 every site you can contribute to (and therefore is the Reg 2.0?).
I don't know.
I barely care.
All I know is I will LMAOTISMS when the term 2.0 gets pwned
As far as I can recall the term "Edutainment" dated back to the 1980's.
If so, I'd have thought it was a long established term, rather than a neologism ;)
That's a wonderful sounding word that just rolls off the tongue. It also brings back memories of my children trying to eat ice creams before their hand to mouth coordination was sufficiently developed to reliably get the latter inside the former. The videos/pics of which are now probably illegal.
*2.0 is annoying definitely
But blook makes me want to claw the faces off people. So it wins.
Isn't *the word* on the original jargon-1.txt from the MIT AI Lab? Would it be discounted as a net neologism? Yep! It's there…
http://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html
Christ I'm a geek...
Oh, 2.0 sucks balls the most.
Brazilians use the term "internaut" -> internet + astronaut to describe any one who uses the Internet.
Whenever I read this I imagine editors of pop magazines and computer columns in newspapers giggling like preteens.
Ted Kaczynski, wherever you are, I understand you a little bit better.
…or /bhoy/boi/bwoi ad nausem. Can I propose those? Mactard, Wintard and Freetard are so much better...
and that's another thing (apart from the 1 vote thingy that is)....why isn't 'meh' on the list?
Oh, I know. You were thinking of adding it and then....meh.
:P
The one that has been most irritating me recently is 'lulz' meaning lols meaning laughs. Usage: "I did it for the lulz."
LOL was useful shorthand, the written version of a common verbal signal.
LOLs is annoying because it doesn't work - you can't laugh out louds at somethings.
LULZ is even worse! It just makes no sense.
Because you need a title, you goof.
Anyhoo. Lulz is more of a troll thing, as I understand it - it's the specific joys you get when you've provoked someone into getting angry or upset. It's almost like a sort of online emotional scalp. Really nice.
Of the other words on your list:-
Fail is not really a *net* neologism and can be used in a completely technology free context. It's just a harmless insult - fine.
Interweb is a form of mocking/parodying the less technically knowledgable, who originally misused the phrase accidentally rather than deliberately - fine.
pwn is, again, used to mock the original typo - fine.
Edutainment and Mashup are not really net related, but they are doubtless the result of idiots trying to be clever, so probably do deserve their place in the list.
LOL, ROFL, and OMFG are hardly neologisms - most of them have been in use for 20+ years - as long as they are used strictly for typing efficiency or where data fields are limited in size, they are completely out of place in this vote.
What I really have a problem with is people (mostly lesser educated hacks than your good selves, and marketing people) who make up words (or copy made-up words) that at least try to sound 'cool' or clever to try and impress people - i.e. blaggers. But the bottom line is that new words/phrases are useful, when meaningfully constructed; memory-stick (a stick with memory in it), electronic-mail (mail sent electronically), filesharing (sharing files), lap-top computer (a computer that sits on top of your lap*) are all words/phrases which bear some relation to the meaning. OTOH the word "podcast" bears no relation to its meaning "digital audio clip/stream" which is why it's creators should probably be made to suffer.^
* unlike notebook or netbook, neither of which, to the best of my knowledge, are books.
^ along with all the other neolotards (Sorry, I claim parody on that one! Readers: please never type/utter that word again - I mean it!).
LOLOLOLOLOLOL
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
You get the idea.
Okay, I found Urban dictionary and got definitions for all the ones I didn't know apart from ROFLCOPTER. There WAS a definition for it, but I only understood about one word in three of the definition so I'm still none the wiser.
Something to do with a computer game was about as much as I could comprehend.
Quoth the moderatrix:
"Stop your whining about multiple votes or I shall smite you all."
Sounds good to me.
Coat, door.
"Fail is not really a *net* neologism" - as a net term (eg http://failblog.org/) I think it is relatively new. I came across it online for the first time about a week ago. Today I overheard it in conversation. I reckon it will pass into oblivion on its own.
Can we please shoot everyone who insists on chopping the ends of words, laptop=lappy, address=addy, etc? While we're at it how about some collateral damage to take out also those who insist on "firing up" bits of software?
Can we add "anyhoo" to the list? Just for the lulz? :)
Lulz is a useful designator. You know that when someone seriously uses it in a sentance, you're free to disregard anything and everything they say and do. You may do this for three reasons:
1) They frequent 4chan
2) The frequent the most retarded part of 4chan.
3) They're 12.
vote for anything other than "webinar" for fuck's sake? The most stupid "word" invented in the last century by miles, used only by irredeemable cockbags.
Ah, 2.0-2.0 retrospect... I forgot to suggest "action item". I shall perform an action, which is recorded as an item on a list held by a project management type. How new, and exciting! How about I do THIS, they do THAT, and you shaddup with your action-item-call-to-action-lookit-me-I-manage-meetings crap? Ah, purged until my next meeting...
Maybe when El Reg determines the winning phrase, alternatives can be proposed. OED-esque rules must be followed, whereby the explanation cannot use words that are more 'complex' than the word being defined, must be concise, and use as many of the other candidate net neologism as possible. Yes, the last two are at odds; welcome to the English language.
Paris... known for action, not quite an item...but on many a list.
... smite us, would you? Don't make us get our TOR clients out - for teh lulz!
I can't believe I'm of only two people who voted for pwn.
It was pretty tough not voting for 2.0 though.
Where's "* over 9000!!"?
I think if you put that one on the list it would get... *fights to restrain self* "a large number of" votes.
Mine's the one with a Scouter in the pocket!
It was hard work making a single choice, but then I remembered some classics like:
"...*2.0 will expand our big-box, bluesky, multi-tiered, user-centric thinking and be an enabler of..."
Urgh! I am no good (thankfully!) at spouting that marketing drivel but a guy I worked with (developer) could just come out with it to the point it actually sounded like real marketing speak and got marketing people excited. It's enough to make you cry.
And don't forget it's two point oooooooooooooo ... because 'zero' is too harsh and sounds of first generation and we are a progressive, dynamic ... *baulk* *grrr*
The reason people people hate "2.0" is because it was invented by neolot^H^H^H^H^H^Hblaggers who were trying to be clever. I believe it is trying to suggest that the 'net has been re-invented in a second generation, which is total crap. The 'net has been evoloving steadily over more than 40 years, and there's been no single change that could suggest that it has been completely re-invented.
There are people who suggest that "2.0" refers to a web where content is "user generated" (and that *that* is the revolutionary change worthy of a new major revision number) which again, is total crap. Although prior to "2.0" and the popularity of 'blogs' and 'social networking' there was a period where the 'net was to some extent dominated by corporate content, before that, it was always generated by the people who use it
Even prior to the web, there was USENET, which was populated by "user generated content," which like todays so called "blogs" and forums was largely comprised of people talking shit, interspersed with the occasional gem of wisdom. The only two things that have changed on the 'net in the last 25 years are that there are more people using it, and that the UI has become easier to use - the latter largely accounts for the former - (okay, so maybe there's some more bandwidth too). The underlying use of the 'net hasn't really changed.
A much more accurate, although still nonsensical, term would be 1.297.43.8739 (I don't care if that number's wrong, I made it up)
There is nothing "Accurate" or "Properly used" about "2.0"
"Netizen" is hardly a neologism either. To my certain knowledge, it was in common usage on usenet at a minimum of 14 years ago (along with it's evil twin "Netiquette") and is mentioned in Howard Rheingold's vomit inducingly saccharine tome "The Virtual Community", whose frontispiece bears the copyright date of 1994.
And many of the other terms in the list pre date even that, esp w/r/t LOL, ROFL, *tard, and even "pwn/pwnage/pwned", which despite what modern ganers think, is a fine example of the typo wordplay typical of usenet, which predates the web by approximately a decade.
And while I'm pedantically pontificating, "Mashup", while a genuine neologism, is not a 'net' neologism, rather it is a word that was born in the music industry (or some subculture thereof) and subsequently repurposed.
Of the remaining candidates, while there are a few that really boil my piss, esp. the particularly vile "webinar", which is not just a gut wrenchingly web cheerleader-y portmanteau of the lowest order, but also stunningly inaccurate given the commonly received meaning of the word "seminar", the only one in sufficiently common parlance and increasingly threatening to burst free of the net and infect everyday usage (at least where I can see it), is the bastard son of a thousand screaming maniac postfixes "2.0".
The bastard.
I have reconsidered. I see that "action item" is neither net, nor neo, nor a l'gism (as the French would spout).
Paris, as she is net, neo, and chock-ful of l'gism's.
http://professionalsuperhero.com/
How can you not love him?
The cape please.
So many and stupid. The tide of burgeoning illiteracy seems irresistable.
P.S. Why isn't "hell" capitalized? As the late Ralph de Toledano pointed out, "It's a place. You know, like Scarsdale."
I CALL SHENANIGANS ON YOU SARAH.
My vote is for JesusPhone funny as it is why isnt it on the list?
If I can vote JesusPhone I vote for all of the above.....and I have enough computers here at work to do it too :)
/Mines the one with the ballot stuffing going on inside
I picked 2.0. It's a pointless term, challenge anyone to come up with an example of what it means and, like Steve Sutton says a few posts above, if you challenge several people to agree what it means they can't come up with anything. Some claim "2.0" involves social networking somehow, despite networks being used for "social" networking for over 40 years (see PLATO for instance). Others claim AJAX or the like, then having to come up with convoluted arguments on why the advanced web stuff in the 1990s was not 2.0 despite having every feature they list. In short, @Ian "I mean, it's certainly the most accurate and properly used of the terms given."... no it's not.
blook and plix sound pretty annoying, but I've never heard anyone use either term so much as once, so they therefore don't trouble me.
freetard is not too great without a counteracting commercialtard term for riaa backers etc., or microsofttard term for people who back microsoft's every mistake over free software. But, meh, it's just too entertaining to watch the word "freetard" bait the real rabid, well, freetards.
Podslurping sounds disgusting, but, I don't pod-anything or i-anything so I don't get exposed to this term enough to bother me.
I understand why everyone wants 2.0 removed, but consider that it's a term that allows us to release a software/service at version 1.0 and then release a better one later, rather than having to call the first one "Beta".
Of course, to make that work we'll still have to convince people to stop releasing their new stuff in beta.
