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Word up! Explore the lexicon of tech
Don't be a newb. Get to know the neologisms of IT...

By Natasha Lomas

Published: Friday 24 November 2006

Do you know any CrackBerry addicts who relax at the weekend with a spot of sordid toothing? Do they worry what might happen if word reaches the blogosphere or are they confident all the citizen journalists will either show too much netiquette or be too busy flamebaiting to name and shame them? More to the point, will you ROFL when they get caught?

If little or none of that makes sense to you then don't worry, you're not alone.

Language and culture go hand in glove. And when it comes to minting new words, nothing gets lexicographers scribbling into their notebooks as quickly as science and technology.

New word order

Want to own your fellow techies? Then get your teeth into our essential guide to IT neologisms by clicking on the links below…

A to E: Adware to Exploit
F to N: Fat pipes to Nipples
O to S: Owned to Supercomputer
T to Z: Tag cloud to Zombie

Disruptive technologies aren't in the habit of politely waiting for words to be invented to describe their activities - so there's an inevitable flowering of on-the-fly jargon. This recent silicon.com feature - the A to Z of security - got us thinking in earnest about neologisms and technology - and indeed the security space is positively swarming with new words. But security can't take all the linguistic credit - there are rich pickings to be found all over tech.

Take 'podcasting', for instance. It's a toddler in linguistic terms. But it's already a monster in terms of usage and acceptance. A simple Google search for 'podcast' returns around 122,000,000 results. (By contrast, 'butter' - a substance that's been around since humans got into the whole milking business - returns a mere 63,800,000.)

So we've trolled the silicon archives and Googled feverishly. We've picked the brains of leading techies and we've come up with a lexicon of our favourite tech-flavoured neologisms. Click on the links in the grey box above to make your way from A to Z.

But of course this list is still far from complete and we'd love to have your input - email any suggestions not covered below to editorial@silicon.com.

Enjoy.

Next page: A to E: Adware to Exploit