Grandma’s Tales

July 6, 2007

Grammar – 35 Do you know the following words?

Filed under: Language — Geeta Padmanabhan @ 1:14 am

Are you familiar with these tech words spawned by the internet? Take the quiz:
netiquette, cookie, wiki, folksonomy, blook (that’s right!), me-media, godcast, blogoshere.
And here are the answers:
[1] netiquette: internet etiquette (ex: writing in upper case alone is a big no-no. It amounts to screaming).
[2] cookie: a file sent to a user’s computer after they visit a website
[3] wiki: a colloborative website edited by the users and contributors
[4] folksonomy: a word used for a web classification system
[5] blook: a book based on a blog or blogs
[6] me-media: a collective term used for personal content websites such as “Facebook”
[7] godcast: a religious service that has been converted into an MP3 format
People use these words all the time. Still, in a recent survey, a lot of internet users voted many of these words as extremely annoying. They found the word “folksonomy” particularly irritating. “I wince, shudder and want to bang my head on the keyboard when I come across the word,” one respondent wrote.
I can’t understand why people take this instant dislike to words. Words are letters strung together till you use them and give them meaning, right?
Do we associate some words with unpleasant memories and then every time we read it or hear it feel a shudder pass through us?
Do you have such “I hate it” words?

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