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Internet neologisms

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meramarina
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 Message 1 of 10
20 April 2013 at 11:43am | IP Logged 
Because language nerds, such as myself, are often awake, contemplating linguistic matters, when all the world of normal humanity is decently sleeping, I just found an interesting article on recent words that the Internet has given to the English language.

I'm assuming this happens in other languages, too, but I hope there is variation out there and all the new technological terms aren't in English. These should be familiar to anyone online, and I know you are, because you are reading this. Anyway, here's the article:

Recent English neologisms

My favorite part was the etymology of the word "geek"!

"Geek" arrived in English from Low German, in which a geck denoted a crazy person; in travelling circuses, the geek show traditionally involved a performer biting off the heads of live chickens. By 1952, the sense of a freakishly adept technology enthusiast had appeared in science fiction maestro Robert Heinlein's short story "The Year of the Jackpot" ("the poor geek!" being the phrase) – and by the 1980s it had become a common label for socially awkward children obsessed with new technological devices

Does anyone know Internet neologisms that are not in English?
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mahasiswa
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 Message 2 of 10
20 April 2013 at 2:03pm | IP Logged 
I always liked the ironic use of 'Muka buku' in Malay to talk about Facebook. But there are plenty more
that I know in English. In fact, the Walrus, a Canadian literary magazine, had a bit on it a few years back.
I can't seem to dig it up anywhere though. Words like 'bootylicious' or 'Twittersphere' are commonplace
nowadays online, especially on blogs/Tumblr and Twitter. Even old words have been recycled with new
meanings, like 'troll' for instance, which is both a noun and a verb meaning antagonization/to
antagonize (sparing no expense of vulgarity), that even Stephen Fry used in this recent interview:
http://www.upworthy.com/this-man-gives-advice-to-his-15-year -old-self-the-kid-should-listen?
c=ufb1

Other common phrases are:

'to creep' to view someone's Facebook profile (with the intent of uncovering personal information,
whether private or not)

'to stalk' a bit less colloquial than 10 years ago, but essentially, to creep a profile habitually

'duckface' / 'duckfacing' what girls do in Facebook profile photos

'selfie' / 'to take a selfie' a photo of yourself, often as habitual a method as duckfacing

'to photobomb' / 'photobombing' when you ruin a couple/group photo by appearing in the background
unbeknownst to the subjects and ruining the sincerity of the moment by making faces, or doing
something ridiculous

'[to] facepalm' usually typed alone, meaning that someone is so embarrassed of something they're
putting their palm into their face

'Google' / 'Youtube' / 'Facebook' to search a particular website, often followed by a clause (i.e. 'Google
'headache fever stomache ache' for me, I need to know what my symptoms mean!')
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Serpent
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 Message 3 of 10
20 April 2013 at 3:41pm | IP Logged 
I have to admit that in my family to google has become a synonym of to search, even offline. Like "where is ... ?" - "google it in the kitchen" (погугли на кухне).

as for something specific to Russian, we have a colloquial word for saving/sending something, usually to a memory stick or an email address (or a site like sendspace) - скинуть/скидывать (perf/imperf), literally to throw off. the most common usage is "throw this to me, please" - again, we use this one jokingly for giving something offline. some other examples are "i need to throw this to my memory stick first" or "just throw it to yourself" (instead of having to use the public computer).

oh and the terms for downloading are commonly non-English - скачать in Russian and спампаваць in Belarusian both mean to pump.
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tarvos
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 Message 4 of 10
20 April 2013 at 3:59pm | IP Logged 
Then what is the difference between загрузить and скачать?

Googlen, in Dutch, is an official word in the Van Dale and means "to look up, to google".

Edited by tarvos on 20 April 2013 at 4:02pm

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Sizen
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 Message 5 of 10
20 April 2013 at 7:47pm | IP Logged 
In the same vein, the Japanese use ググる (guguru) and ヤフる (yafuru) to mean "to google search" and "to
yahoo search" respectively. Which I've always found hilarious because they conjugate like any other verb,
therefore making it possible to say ridiculous things like ググらせられなかった (guguraserarenakatta)
meaning "(I) was not forced to google search" and ググればググるほど (gugureba guguruhodo) "the more
(you) google the more..."

There's also a lot of sound association that is used in Japanese Internet slang which produces words like 今
北産業 (ima kita sangyou) which would translate character for character as "now, north, industry" but really
means "I just found this thread (I just came). Could someone explain to me what's going on in about 3 lines
worth of text" seeing as it comes from 今来た三行 (ima kita sangyou: now, came, 3 lines).

Abbreviation is fairly common, too, like うp (up) for upload and あざす (azasu from Arigatou goZAimaSU) for
thank you.
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mahasiswa
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 Message 6 of 10
20 April 2013 at 9:00pm | IP Logged 
Sizen wrote:
There's also a lot of sound association that is used in Japanese Internet slang which
produces words like 今
北産業 (ima kita sangyou) which would translate character for character as "now, north, industry" but really
means "I just found this thread (I just came). Could someone explain to me what's going on in about 3
lines
worth of text" seeing as it comes from 今来た三行 (ima kita sangyou: now, came, 3 lines).


This is my new favourite one! That's great!
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emk
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 Message 7 of 10
20 April 2013 at 9:17pm | IP Logged 
My favorite is clavardage, which is the official term for "online chat" in French-speaking Quebec. It's a combination of clavier (keyboard) and bavarder (to talk aimlessly and without direction). Unfortunately, this word is not widely used in France.
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patrickwilken
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 Message 8 of 10
21 April 2013 at 1:30am | IP Logged 
I like the German verb 'surfen', in the sense of Internet surf, but usually sounds to me when I hear it used like someone is about to hit a few waves. It must have entered the German language when the phrase surfing the web was still popular in English, which I haven't heard anyone say in years so there is an interesting dissonance when I hear it in German.

I guess now days you might end up with a German verb like "onlinen" which would give you excellent expressions like "Ich online das Internet".

I have also seen verbs like downloaden, chatten, frenden, and I am sure there are many others. I think a lot of these originally come from advertising copy, that tends to borrow English words and generates a Denglish equivalent, which can then potentially enter everyday conversation.



Edited by patrickwilken on 21 April 2013 at 1:31am



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