Check Out DriveThruFiction

Banner: Science Fiction @ DriveThruFiction.com

Featured Post

QAnon: The Q-Sort Personality Profile Builder

Gettin Billy with It QAnon is based on Q-Sort: A psychological technique of which there are many variations, resulting in 50 descript...

Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

No More "Publishing"

For years now, I've called it "hanging," as in "hanging a picture," I would "hang a page." Others have called it "publishing" for years now and it is soon to no longer be applicable to any great measure.

While Eric Schmidt was making headlines discussing the realities of living in a world that is at least part-digital, one of the first things that will change will be the nomenclature surrounding these endeavors and resources. People no longer "tunnel-in" or "ferret-through," for example (both of which are related to FTP and Gopher, of which only FTP is still in use), on the "Internet Superhighway." One of the first things that begins to change during such a shift is the language used to describe it.

Some people are many years ahead of us, technologically-speaking - they have smart homes and smart cars - but we experienced a technological explosion over the last several years to which we are just now beginning adapt. Years ago, everyone wondered how it would be handled and now we are learning first-hand, as it brings us immediate pictures of martyrs for greater causes and whatever your online "friend" is eating.

We are now in that age that will determine how this technology is used and what it is used for as well as how we adapt to these changes, as many have concerns for their rights and privacy both online and in a digital world - valid concerns that should be addressed now that we know at least some of the limitations of both our own technology, the cost to humanity, and the apparent trade-off of privacy for convenience with security.

The Internet hasn't been about publishing anything since the halcyon days of blogging in the mid-2000s; it has steadily, and rapidly, been moving to A/V sites like Funny or Die and YouTube. Short videos "go viral" as they are shared and promoted throughout social networks and IM apps like Skype allow them to share them quickly - all of which is going to fade into the background - all of these things will still be there, the mechanics behind what makes them work just won't be so omnipresent.

In the possibly near-future, the Internet will be so intertwined with our everyday life that we won't even call it that anymore; it will just be a fabric beneath us, something we interact with everydya in small ways that we don't even notice.


© Copyright 2015, The Cyberculturalist


Thursday, September 23, 2010

New Oxford American Dictionary Picks-Up Netslang

The New Oxford American Dictionary has added a slew of new terms and phrases to its upcoming edition, many of which are from Web slang. Web slang is rife with acronyms, but some point-out that several of the acronyms included in this list were in use prior to the Internet becoming a daily fixture, they have just since become more widely-used. Many of the other additions stem from more recent issues, such as environmental concerns, or the "Green" movement.

While this is not a complete list, it does contain many of the Web-inspired acronyms and language, such as big media, cloud computing, hashtag, and interweb.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

"Web 2.0" is Official

And officially the one-millionth word/phrase in the English language, according to the Global Language Monitor. The Global Language Monitor uses a formula to track the frequency of use of words online and in print. According to the US-based firm, "Web 2.0" has been used often enough in the past six months that it has become "acceptable" English, making it the one-millionth English word in use.

Linguists dismissed the idea as "nonsense." According to Global Language Monitor spokesperson and president, Paul Payack, the service is viable, as it clearly defines what constitutes an accepted word and then sets about to count the words which meet that criteria.

Payack says there are nearly 15 English words coined everyday, and few become accepted into wide use. The Global Language Monitor seeks to count those words widely-used and many linguists and related professionals consider their work important, according to Payack. Some, though, have called it "a stunt."

© C Harris Lynn, 2009