Glossary

Consider this section your “secret decoder ring” for the Bad Girl Good Business Bizic Book™ series.  Back in my day, we used to look up words in the dictionary.  It was tedious and we often suffered paper cuts.

Because people now demand immediate gratification, we’ve made the search easy for you.  We hope you are grateful and that paper cuts are not replaced by Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

For digital immigrants:

🙂 : smiley face

apps: short for applications, programs specifically designed to help users accomplish a single (or multiple) task(s)

BFF: best friends forever

Bing: popular search engine

Chatroulette: a website that pairs random strangers together from around the world to have webcam-based conversations

creepers: social media abusers that blur the line between social networking and serial stalking

de-friend: to remove a person from your friends list via Facebook

Flip™ Video: popular, easy-to-use video camera that can upload videos and photos directly onto your computer

follows: to receive regular tweets from someone’s Twitter account

friend: (noun) a buddy, a pal.

(verb) to add someone to your virtual circle of friends via Facebook

Google: popular search engine

IM: instant message

imho: in my humble opinion

LinkedIn: social networking site that connects users, predominantly used for business and employment purposes

LOL: laugh out loud

Match.com: online dating service that pairs users together based on common views and interests

Nano: a popular model of Apple’s audio listening device, the iPod™

OMG: oh my god

post: similar to status updates, any comment, link or other form of media that’s displayed for the online community to see

privacy controls: Facebook settings that allow the user to manage what info the user does and does not want to share with other users

sext: promiscuous text messaging

status update: a short message, sentence fragment, image or embedded video used to convey a feeling or thought via a social  media network

SWM: single white male

tag: identifying yourself or others in a picture posted on Facebook

TMI: too much information

TTYL: talk to you later

tweet: a 140 character or less status update posted via Twitter

tweet-up: a real world face-to-face meeting between two or more people who know each other through Twitter

Wi-Fi: a wireless local network

WTF: what the f*ck

wut-up dawg: translation “Hello! How are you?”

young Turk: an up-and-coming guru, rock star, or titan of an industry

YouTube: a video sharing website in which users can upload, view, and share videos

For digital natives:

answering machine: device used to record an audio message from a caller in the event the owner does not answer the phone

Dewey Decimal system: a system of book classification dating back to the 1800’s

ham radio: a service in which users, called “hams,” use various types of radio equipment to communicate with other radio amateurs

mainframe computers: powerful computers used to store data and housed in an entire room or cabinet

manual typewriter: a device with a set of keys that, when manually pressed, produces printed characters on a sheet of paper

phonograph: a device from the late 1800’s commonly used to play sound recordings

Prodigy: 1980’s online service that offered subscribers access to categories such as news, sports, fashion, and weather

punch cards: a card on which data can be recorded using punched holes, normally used as a way for employees to clock in and out of work

rotary phone: early version of the telephone that used electrical pulses to dial

Wite Out™: trademark for a line of correctional fluid originally created for use with typewriters