1. Squashing words together to make webby sounding ones... "blogosphere", "edutainment", "e-learning", "netiquette", "blogcast", "vlog"... urgh! We don't search for stuff any more, we 'google it'. We don't send out audio files, we podcast. We can't just learn... we e-learn. Back away from the English language... slowly... that's good...
2. Jumping on the bandwagon. There was Web 2.0... now anything 'new' has to have a 2.0 shoved on the end. STOP IT! E-learning was bad enough without it becoming 'e-learning 2.0'. No people, no!
3. CamelCase = new and exciting. Or is that NewAndExciting? YouTube. MySpace. Ooooh - you left out the space between words. How spangly fresh and youth!
4. Made up words. Mashup. Throw up.
5. Spam. I don't need viagra. I don't have male genitalia. I don't need a girlfriend. I don't want an additional 6 inches. I really don't care about the benefits of cialis. I don't want to take part in the Nigerian Lottery. There's not a single bit of me wants to give you my bank details so you can fleece me of my hard earned pennies. GET OUT OF MY MAILBOX!
6. Multiple passwords and user names. I can't remember them. I just can't. It's bad enough trying to remember where you last logged in... but trying to remember the user name... and the password to go with it. Mr Internet... why don't you just know it's me? Why do I have to do all the hard work of remembering a million and one different identities? Why have you made me paranoid to write them all down so I have to merrily forget them and then tear my hair out when I want to access something again? Why? Why oh why????
7. txt spk. not gr8. if u no wot i mean m8. Vowels are your friends. Numbers are for quantities. Capital letters are a dying breed... protect them. Keep those three rules close to your heart.
Neologisms - They can't be avoided. The English language has been built on them.
ReplyDeleteI think people tend to shorten things over time though, so with a bit of luck they will eventually drop the 'e' from the front of everything. The problem is they seem to be dropping the 'e' from the middle instead of the front - txt :-(