[2124] in Humor
HUMOR: Jargon Update
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Fri Jun 27 09:56:37 1997
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Cc: himawan@alum.mit.edu
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 09:53:29 EDT
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 00:04:21 -0700
From: Connie Kleinjans <connie@interserve.com>
From: Paul Farley <72253.3153@CompuServe.COM>
From: Laine Tammer, INTERNET:lainet@verilink.com
You can't be cool if you're using outdated lingo. Here's the latest from
the corporate and Silicon Valley jungles. From subscriber Mora Chartrand
(via "Jargon Watch" by Gareth Branwyn "a dictionary for the jitterati")...
"Batmobiling": v. putting up emotional shields. Refers to the retracting
armor that covers the Batmobile; as in "she started talking marriage and he
started batmobiling."
"beepilepsy": n. aflicts those with vibrating pagers characterized by
sudden spasms, goofy facial expressions and loss of speech.
"betamaxed": v. when a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior
but better marketed competition; as in "Microsoft betamaxed Apple right out
of the market."
"blowing your buffer": losing your train of thought.
"cobweb": a WWW site that never changes.
"Elvis year": n. the peak year of popularity; as in "1993 was Barney the
dinosaur's Elvis year."
"generica": n. fast food joints, strip malls, sub-divisions; as in "we were
so lost in generica that I couldn't remember what city it was."
"going postal": v. totally stressed out and losing it like postal employees
who went on shooting rampages.
"high dome": n. egghead, scientist, PhD.
"irritainment": n. annoying but you can't stop watching; e.g., the O.J. trial.
"meatspace": n. the physical world (as opposed to the virtual); also,
"carbon community", "facetime", "F2F", "RL".
"percussive maintenance": v. the fine art of whacking a device to get it
working; also, "technical tap" (stress).
"prairie dogging": v. in companies where everyone has a cubicle something
happens and everyone pops up to look.
"salmon day": n. swimming upstream all day to get screwed in the end.
"siliwood": n. the coming convergence of movies, interactive TV, and
computers; also "hollywired".
"square-headed girlfriend (or boyfriend)": n. a computer.
"treeware": n. manuals and documentation.
"umfriend": n. a person with whom you are having a sexual relationship; as
in "This is Dale, my... um... friend."
"world wide wait": syn. World-Wide-Web.
"yuppie food coupons": n. twenty dollar bills from an ATM.
