Friday, February 24, 2006

Blargon (Blog Jargon)

The Language Arts folks may enjoy this the most, but I thought you all might like it. From William Safire:

Every walk of life and field of endeavor generates its own insiders' lingo. Those of us in the MSM — that's the superannuated, archaic mainstream media — have our own jargon, of which the first sentence of an article is the lede, the early edition is the bulldog and the guys working into the wee hours make up the lobster shift.

Some of our special vocabulary is being stolen from us by the denizens of the world of Web logs. Above the fold — the top half of a standard-size newspaper page, where the major stories begin — now, in "blargon," is what we see on a blog's screen before we begin to scroll down.

There's a whole new world out there with a whole new vocabulary that we have to at least be aware of to communicate in the 21st century.

Oh, in case you hadn't noticed, I've delicioused a lot lately.

1 comment:

  1. This is made clear to me on a daily basis from my 8 and 5 year old. The technology words that they use, at times, stump me. My 8 year old has a blog in his GT class and both of them know lingo from the world of Game Cube. It is hilarias to hear them talk to peers. However, I must admit that I feel left out at times. I have no idea what they are talking about!

    Also on a daily basis the media is talking about "MySpace.Com". I keep thinking of the parents who thought that it was a "safe" place to visit when in reality it wasn't at all. I wonder how long they were letting their kids get on without ever really understanding what it was? I don't want to be that parent. How do I protect them? I think the main key is to keep educated on what is out there and to remember that NOTHING is safe. Other than that, I plan on keeping my kids locked up when they hit those teenage years and never giving them anything technological. They also won't have any friends who can share their technology with them. I think this is a good plan.

    Scary stuff...

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