Boot To The Head. Not you, Gracious Visitor/Patient Reader. I’m talking about the goofballs (mostly spammers and strikingly unaware journalists) who continue to hang onto the annoying, outdated web-speak that clearly died a calm and quiet death in 1997. Think Ron Burgundy of the Internet.
Pretty much, nobody looks at something amazing and says, “Aw, radical!” anymore. Just sounds kind of silly, right? Well, so does the following. Please don’t say these words, or even think them.
Phrases That Belong in the Boneyard, or
If I Hear You Say These, You Get a Boot to the Head
- Prosumers – combination of “professional” and “consumers.” Bad, bad word. Because it’s dumb and lazy. And dumb.
- Webinar – this is the last time I will ever type that idiotic word.
- The ‘Net – if you say this, I will hit you.
- Surfin’ the ‘Net – see #3, except substitute “strangle” for “hit.”
- E-commerce – Actually, “E” anything should be outlawed. Bring back public floggings – that’s what I say.
- Information Superhighway – Ooo, yeah. Let’s think up something really 21st century. Meet George Jetson.
- “Cyber” anything – I mean it. I’ll pound ya.
- Blogosphere – BTTH.
- Podcast – yeah, even that one’s getting tiring. Can we just say you uploaded a sound file?
- Killer app – I say we find the woman who invented this phrase, and killer.
It’s amazing how many modern journalists still use this tripe to describe activities on the web. It makes me wish they’d spill their nonfat sugar-free double marble mocha iced macchiato all over their Blackberry earpieces (and I hate those, too – can you say “unbearably pretentious and ugly?”). Ugh.
And that’s today’s rant. I hate those ridiculous words. They’re almost as annoying as saying, “Boot to the Head” over and over.
Fink out.
OK, RF – I do have to give YOU a BTTH for listing Podcast. A podcast is SOOO much more than a simple sound file uploaded to the web. There are RSS mechanisms/wrappers in place, so when you “subscribe” to a Podcast series, you get it pushed to your computer automatically.
Think about a Podcast like the RSS feed that you use here – If I subscribe to your blog via RSS, I get an alert every time you post a new subject, and can actually read some of what you say w/out having to hit your blog site. Of course, I can click the link in my newsreader to launch my browser & take me to your blog homepage where I can read the whole thing & add my $0.17 worth.
You’re a teacher – think about how Podcasting can impact your classes. You set up an RSS feed and a Podcast page, then each week when you want to have your students hear a new song they’re going to start to learn, you just post (upload a new podcast episode). All your students have to do is use iTunes or some other “podcatcher” application to subscribe. Then whenever you have a new song for them, it gets pushed to them automatically!! Kids don’t have to keep checking back to see if there’s anything new – iTunes will automatically check your feed & begin downloading any new content.
Yeah.. I’m a propeller head – and a musician – you know that about me. I think what you REALLY mean is the **misuse** of the term Podcast.
I vote you replace #9 with “Literally”…. OMG! I think I’m going to THROW UP if I hear another person say, “I literally punched him in the gut…” or “I literally saw him picking his nose!” …like someone could figuratively pick their nose?
Since when did people start using “literally” to try & sound like they’re edjumicated, when they really are trying to say “actually” or “really”?? C’mon RF – a stickler for the language like you & this one isn’t on your radar?
BoomR OUT!