By Rosie Moore

I’m not a computer nerd. At the most, I spend perhaps an hour or two a day wrestling with my computer. We usually get along but, sometimes I am flabbergasted by innocuous words and phrases that are confusing. Such as: hashtag. What is that? If you have been on Tweeter (which I am not), you may have seen a “hashtag”. To put it simply, a hashtag is simply a way for people to search for tweeters that have a common topic to begin a conversation. For example, if you search in #LOST, you’ll get a list of tweets related to the TV show. What you won’t get are tweets that say, for instance, “I lost my wallet” because “lost” isn’t preceded by a hashtag. Well, that’s self-explanatory.

Here’s a new word which is pretty easy to comprehend: Chillax. In other words, chill out and relax, especially when you’re on the computer. “You can dance to your favorite tune, chillax, or have friends over.”

Believe it or not, there are 9,117 slang words used on the Internet. I know maybe one or two.

Then there are common everyday words that often crop up on the internet. The word “spam” brings back memories of the Depression. Remember eating spam when beef wasn’t available? On the internet it’s a slang word that refers to unsolicited commercial email, sometimes referred to as junk mail.

When I see the words “log on” I think of the old expression, “bump on a log,” I don’t know why. Log on indicates not only the action of logging in but also to make a computer system or network recognize you. I think sometimes one can feel like a bump on a log when on the computer.

In this day and age it’s amazing the new words that intersperse our English language. It’s hard to keep up with them all but, also interesting to learn. Never be too old to learn!

Thought for the day: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:9

Send comments to: rosemerrie@att.net or call 748-4717. Thank you.