From Ars Technica (–>) via Digg (–>):
The Internet has much to answer for, but one of its chiefest sins is its relentless stupifidication of the English language. And no, I did not just make up the word “stupifidication.”1
UK pollsters YouGov have just completed a survey on the web’s most-hated words, the abominations that threaten to turn English into a long series of “plzkthxbye” utterances. At the top of the list (and rightly so) is the word “folksonomy.” It’s followed by:
- Blogosphere
- Blog
- Netiquette
- Blook (don’t ask)
- Webinar
- Vlog
- Social Networking
- Cookie
- Wiki
Now, any survey of this type isn’t designed to get at some sort of mythical objective truth about the Internet’s effects on English; it’s designed to come up with a handy top-ten list that journalists can use to pad out slow news days. As such, it’s just a measure of people’s pet peeves, so this seems as good a time as any to share a few of my own that didn’t make the official list.
- AJAXify. As in, “I’m just going to AJAXify the web site and then we’ll be all Web 2.0 and stuff.” “To AJAX” is not an English verb. Please don’t use it as one.
- Web 3.0. Web 2.0 wasn’t bad enough, huh? Shove a finger into that soft spot at the back base of your ear and you’ll know how I feel about this one.
- Podcast. Our own Peter Bright has a well-known man crush on Steve Jobs but can’t abide the term “podcast” when used to describe any recorded audio placed online in any format. He has… strong feelings about this.
- Crowdsourcing. Typing tags on other people’s photos? I want in. Wait. No I don’t.
- Flash mobs. Hipsters show up in public parks at the same time using only text messages and web sites; NO PAPER SIGNS NEEDED. This is not, it has to be said, a huge breakthrough.
So there you have it: my non-objective collection of irritants. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go blog about a webinar.
1Okay, I did. Score another blow for the Internet-based assault on English!
The ten most hated words on the Internet
My business is webinars, although I prefer the term web conferencing, some of my best clients use the term and thus by default so do I. Sigh.
Technorati Tags: English, World Wide Web, language, webinar, web conferencing
Left-handed Complement 
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