| Web Lingo: The Basics of Internet Slang | web-friend >> help >> lingo >>The Basics … |
Not even sure what a chat room is? New to the whole Internet experience? You’ve found a place that will help
Not in any particular order, other than what comes to mind, here are the very very basics of what these Internet ‘buzz’ words mean.
e-Mail: It’s very hard for me to think of anyone in this century not knowing what e-Mail is, but there are a few folks who have heard of it, but don’t know what it is – so you can either scroll down and skip this part, or bear with me for a second. email is simply a little computer program, that lets you type up a note or letter, and send it to anyone in the world. …. and even beyond. (The astronauts can actually send and receive email when they are in their space stations, or orbiting the earth in a shuttle.) The thing with email is, everyone has their own email address, just like a telephone number (if you don’t know what a telephone is – forget it, you’re beyond getting help) I might be ched@mail.com, so if you typed up a letter or note, put that in the “To:” box – clicked the send button, then I would get it (usually the server will get it within a minute or two) The next time I opened my email, I’d see a new message, I could open it, see that it was sent from the address mary@somewhere.com., and then read your message, and send you back an answer if I wanted. You can also send pictures, and other types of files with email by attaching them to your note. Enough though about email —–
Chat: Just means to talk over the Internet using the computer to type in the words instead of speaking them out-loud.
Chat Room: This is an Internet place, were people gather togeather all at the same time to talk to one another using the computer. Often it is just a web page, like any other, and everyone is using an additional program, or an enhanced program to be able to type words in a box, and have it appear on top of the web-page so that the other people there (running the same program) can see it. It happens in “real time” meaning that it takes place immediately (or within a second or two). Part of the appeal to this is that since the Internet is a global, world-wide entity, then the chat room is open 24/7 (another term meaning 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.) The web pages are available ALL the time, from any computer that is connected to the Internet. If it is a very popular chat room, then you can get on the computer, open your chat program, and go to that page, and someone will be there to talk to. Even at 3 am in the morning. Many of these people never meet each other in real life (although many do make arrangements to meet). But the bottom line is, it is a global way to meet people, make new friends, get togeather with old friends, or stay in touch with your family even if they live hundreds or thousands of miles away. You may go to a chat room, and find people who are in China, some in Russia, and you living in your little town in the mid-west USA can all “chat”. And you can all talk togeather about anything you want.
Avatar, or AV: This is a little picture, or graphical representation of a person in a chat room. You use your mouse to move it up to the top left corner of the screen, (or anywhere on the computer monitor screen) and that’s where everyone else sees it. It can be a real photo that was scanned, and turned into a computer file, or it can be a little cartoon character that someone drew.
Emoticons: The little funny characters you see typed that are supposed to indicate mood. When you see this 😉 it signifies a smiley face. When you turn your head sideways so the parenthesis is on the bottom, it become the smile, and the semi-colon becomes the eyes (one winking). There are tons of them, see more here.
IM: Instant Message. Similar in concept to chatting, and in fact it is an added feature to many chat programs. If you don’t want to sit and chat to strangers in a chat room, and still want to be able to talk to your friends or family – even if you’re doing other work on the computer, then you can get a little program (for free) and just have it running, but hidden away out of sight, until your friend ‘beeps’ you. Two of the most popular are ICQ and Yahoo Messanger by the way. When you are both on the computer at the same time, and you both have your little IM program running, then each person knows the other is there. Your friend types in a message on their computer, says “send it” – and your little program beeps, or flashes, and tells you that you have a message from that friend. You open the program, read what they said, type something back, and send it back to them. You can talk to them, as long as you like, as often as you like, and at any hour of the day or night. You can even send a message when they are not using the computer, and as soon as they start the program, they’ll see what you had to say, and when you said it.
PM: Private Message. Various chat programs, and forums allow you to type in a message to another person online, pretty much the same thing as IM in concept. I’ve also heard it refered to as Personal Messaging.
Text Messaging: Actually this refers to the new cell phones more than it does the Internet. It’s when you use the kepad on a cell phone, and the letters associated with each number to send text notes to another cell phone.
p2p: Peer to Peer. This goes back to the early days of networking. Basically meaning the type of “network” where one computer is connected to another computer directly, and they share files with one another. In todays’ world, there are programs that use the Internet, and a server as a connection point to allow 2 computers to connect directly (more or less) and share files. A couple that come to mind are ICQ, Kazaa, and WinMX.
Message Boards: A website where you can sign up as a member, and then post questions, comments, or other text. After you type what you have to say, and post it, it gets written to the page so that everyone can see it. Very often it is a good place to exchange your knowledge, or get answers to questions about that particular subject. Ex. If there is a sewing message board, and Mary types in “What type of a needle do I use to make xyz” … then another reader who knows the answer, can type in their response. Mary can come back the next day, or next week, and look up her post, and see what people had to say.
Forums: Pretty much the same thing as Message Boards.
Link: Just for the heck of it, I’ll throw this in here too. It’s the little thing on a web-page that makes your mouse pointer turn into a little hand pointing the one finger up in the air. And when you click your mouse button, you go to another page.
LOL: Means Laughing Out Loud
BRB: Means Be Right Back
ROTFLMAO: Means Rolling On The Floor, Laughing My A** Off
The Lingo: LOL (“Laughing Out Loud”). Well if you’re to the point now where you’ve been to a chat room, read an email, or IM with someone, and want to know what all these strange collection of letters means