30 December 2010

The future is fidgetal

A couple of years ago an advertising hoarding along the freeway informed us that "Blackberry is here". I wondered for a while if it was the next step up from Bluetooth, but it turned out that it was something else.

As the BBC News - The future is fidgetal notes:
Technology, and the hype that surrounds it, is changing the way we speak. But we don't have to turn into drones, all spouting the latest i-word. Chris Bowlby says it's time for the techno-bullied to fight back with their own subversive speak.

With the online Oxford English Dictionary recently re-launched and on the look-out for new language, maybe it's time for a counter-revolution.


Here are some of the BBC's suggestions:

BBC News - The future is fidgetal:
High time that changed. Here, as a start, are a few of my suggestions, with definitions to try and get them into all those new dictionaries.

  • Fidgetal - modern technology whose primary purpose is to give people something to do with their fingers (closely related to the decline of smoking)
  • MisApp - something going terribly wrong due to over reliance on latest Phone gizmo
  • Wikisqueak - sound emitted by diplomat who realises she's sent confidential telegram without proper encryption
  • Dreadsheet - spreadsheet containing very bad financial news
  • Disgracebook - social networking site advertising user's embarrassing past
  • Mobile drone - lover of interminable tedious and public phone conversations
  • Sin card - alternative device to fit in mobile for immoral communication
  • Powerpointless - universal feeling in room at end of hi-tech executive presentation of negligible value
  • Skypeochondria - queasy feeling brought on by obsessive fear of being offline
  • Scroogele - search engine for people trying to find cheapest online gifts
Other contributions are welcome.

Otherwise, in the fidgetal future, any memory of pre-tech language will have been wiped or corrupted.


Any more?

2 comments:

Shane said...

Instead of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" I'd rather look backwards than forwards in an attempt to fight the information/distraction war on our attention spans. Great site I stumbled across the other day, adopt a word:
http://www.savethewords.org/

James Higham said...

it's time for the techno-bullied to fight back with their own subversive speak

Not a bad idea at that.

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