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- Listen, Grandchildren, and do not Jeer
- Posted 2006-05-16
- This is, actually, being written mostly for the enlightenment of our GREAT grandbegats, but since none of them have yet cleared kindergarten, I'll rely on their begetters to pass the word when they are old enough to understand (and I, perhaps, too old to make the case understandably). It may also benefit our own children and theirs who draw blank stares from my non-technical contemporaries (obsolete geezers?) when they use cyber-buzzword technical terms which had different meanings in the "olden days." That was the kinder, gentler era when the basic word processor was a #2 Dixon Ticonderoga pencil with a leaden printer at one end and a rubber "delete" device at the other. Some of us were left behind when the beautiful simplicity of "times tables" was rudely supplanted by a mysterious "Base 8" (which I still don't get) and when "Wang" was NEVER uttered in the presence of nice girls. Mind you, it's not that my generation lacks sufficient gray matter, under as well as over the scalp, since many of my peers watch both Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly on the same night, with full comprehension and passionate skepticism. Our failure to understand some of the new jargon is more a matter of preference than a symptom of Oldtimer's Disease. Some of us simply choose to regard modern electronic toys as doodads considerably less than critical to our survival. However, so that you may empathize with the confusion of your ancestors and not mistake it for creeping senility, following is a list of words as they were taken to mean when the writer was in his barefoot days. NOTE: They are presented in alphabetical order, in the hopeful assumption that spelling will not be completely ignored during the decades to come - the sobering evidence of today's instant messages notwithstanding. AMAZON referred to that really big river in South America and a tribe of really big dames in Greek mythology; BACKUP was something you got (yours) when somebody ticked you off; BYTES (properly spelled with an "i") were wounds inflicted by mosquitos, misbehaving dogs and overzealous foreplayers; a CRASH was either an automobile collision or the natural aftermath of excess partying, particularly when alcohol-enhanced; a CURSOR (cursEr then) was someone who used offensive words which have since become acceptable on the boob-tube and in PG-13 flicks); DRAG was apparel worn by men impersonating women; DRAG-AND-DROP was a technique followed when bringing home a buddy only slightly more plastered than yourself; FLOPPY irreverently described physical consequences of aging, which gave rise (oops!) to the need for selectively stimulative drugs and supportive undergarments (in the interest of delicacy, we won't be more specific); GIG had multiple meanings which included a musician's booking, a ship captain's launch, a military demerit, a whirling thingamabob, a pronged spear for catching frogs and the two-wheeled shay to which old Dobbin was hitched in a once-popular song. (How "gig" came to mean exactly 1,024 megabytes is known to CyberGod alone - and maybe Bill Gates.); GIGAFLOP, now a measure of computing speed equal to one billion floating-point operations per second, had no meaning whatever to my generation and is mentioned here solely as a trivial snow-job; GOOGLE was the surname of a cartoon character named Barney, boon companion of Snuffy Smith; HARD DRIVE was (and still is) descriptive of commuting by auto during rush hours; MOUSE PADS were places wherein swinging mouse couples conducted trysts (alright, so I made that up, but can't I have a little fun in my own column?); SURGE SUPPRESSERS were rudimentary procedures such as cold showers and anaphrodisiacs (so, look it up!); WEB SITES were spider-woven into obscure household nooks and crannies, usually indiscernible until the arrival of mothers-in-law, prospective home buyers, or company one is attempting to impress; a YAHOO was a crude and boorish person, like the couthless brutes depicted in Gulliver's Travels - now also including those who "spam" tasteless humor with the mindless abandon of a puking dinosaur. The foregoing list, while incomplete, is intended to bridge - at least partially - the communication gap between existing generations and those to come - a chasm exacerbated by the isolation of cell phones, boom boxes, iPods, rap music and the demise of family dinners - these among other modern "improvements" which function in society like the DEL key on laptops. LAPTOPS, by the way, most often referred to convenient parking places for little kids and lovers, where generational boundaries and inhibitions happily faded away. Freelance wordworker Joe Klock, Sr. (joeklock@aol.com) is a winter Floridian and summer New Hampshireman. For more of his "Klockwork," visit www.joeklock.com.
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