Netymology: From Apps to Zombies: A Linguistic Celebration of the Digital World

266 Pages·2016·2.66 MB·English

by  Tom Chatfield

New York • London
Copyright © 2013 Tom Chatfield
Jacket design by Chris Sergio; Jacket illustration © shutterstock First published
in the United States by Quercus in 2016
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e-ISBN 978-1-62365165-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Chatfield, Tom,
1980– author.
Title: Netymology : from apps to zombies : a linguistic celebration of the digital
world / Tom Chatfield.
Description: New York : Quercus, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016021585 (print) | LCCN 2016022334 (ebook) | ISBN
9781623651640 (hardback) | ISBN 9781623651657 (ebook) | ISBN
9781681445632 (library ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Computer science—
Terminology. | Information technology—Terminology. | Computer networks
—Terminology. | BISAC: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics
Etymology. | COMPUTERS Digital Media / General.
Classification: LCC QA76.15 .C46335 2016 (print) | LCC QA76.15 (ebook) |
DDC 004—dc23
DDC 004—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021585
Distributed in the United States and Canada by Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104
www.quercus.com
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
1. Selfie Consciousness
2. #WhyDoWeDoThis?
3. Transistor (Not Iotatron)
4. Emoji and Emoticons
5. Computers
6. Signs of Our Times: @ and ⌘
7. Marking Up
8. Myths and Monsters
9. Speak, Memory
10. Why Wiki?
11. Buffed-Up Gamers
12. Very, Very Big and Very, Very Small
13. The Names of Domains
14. Rise of the Robots
15. Cyber-Everything
16. Three-Letter Words
17. Everyone’s an Avatar
18. On Memes
19. Hacking Through the Net
20. Do You Grok It?
21. Sock Puppets and Astroturf
22. Bluetooth
23. The Cupertino Effect
24. The Scunthorpe Problem
25. The Coming of the Geeks
26. Beware of the Troll
27. Bitten by Bugs
28. Bits, Bytes and Other Delights
29. Twinks, Twinked, and Twinking
30. Talking Less About Trees
31. ZOMGs, LOLZ
32. Lifehacking
33. The Multitasking Illusion
34. The Streisand Effect
35. Acute Cyberchondria
36. Casting the Media Net
37. Bionic Beings and Better
38. Technological Singularities
39. Google and Very Big Numbers
40. Status Anxiety
41. The Zombie Computing Apocalypse
42. To Pwn and Be Pwned
43. Learning to Speak l33t
44. Getting Cyber-Sexy
45. Slacktivism and the Pajamahadeen
46. Gamification and the Art of Persuasion
47. Sousveillance
48. Phishing, Phreaking and Phriends
49. Spamming for Victory
50. Gurus and Evangelists
51. CamelCase
52. The Blogosphere and Twitterverse
53. Phat Loot and In-Game Grinding
54. Meta-
55. TL;DR
56. Apps
57. Fanboys and Girls
58. Welcome to the Guild
59. Facepalms and Acting Out
60. Finding Work as a Mechanical Turk
61. Geocaching
62. The Beasts of Baidu
63. Snowclones
64. Typosquatting
65. Egosurfing and Googlegangers
66. Infovores, Digerati and Hikikomori
67. Planking, Owling and Horsemanning
68. Unfriend, Unfavorite (and Friends)
69. Sneakernets and Meatspace
70. Going Viral
71. Dyson Spheres and Digital Dreams
72. Welcome to Teh Interwebs
73. On Good Authority
74. A World of Hardware
75. Darknets, Mysterious Onions, and Bitcoins
76. Nets, Webs and Capital Letters
77. Praying to Isidore and Tweeting the Pope
78. QWERTY and Dvorak
79. Apples Are the Only Fruit
80. Eponymous Branding
81. Mice, Mouses and Grafacons
82. Meh
83. Learn Olbanian!
84. Booting and Rebooting
85. Cookie Monsters
86. Going Digitally Native
87. Netiquette and Netizens
88. The Names of the Games
89. Flash Crowds, Mobs, and the Slashdot Effect
90. Godwin’s Law
91. From Beta to Alpha to Golden Master
92. Mothers and Daughters, Masters and Slaves
93. Bit Rot
94. Nonprinting Characters
95. Wise Web Wizards
96. Disk Drives
97. Easter Eggs
98. Why Digital?
99. Filing Away Our Data
100. Artificial Intelligence and Turing Tests
. . . and Finally
Acknowledgments
Select Bibliography and Further Reading