SUNFUN VIRTUAL DICTIONARY

Hello again, All!
     So, what is a "virtual dictionary?"  Over the past year or
so, one popular feature of The Sunday Funnies has been a
continuing list of new words and phrases just entering the
language.  Some of these are highly specialized jargon and some
just silly.  And some are new definitions of otherwise common
words.  One great thing about English is that anyone can invent
new words that might be included in future dictionaries.  There's
no government commission or official group that rules on whether
this particular word is a "real" word.  The only qualification is
whether the word is useful enough to survive.  The rapid growth
in communications and science means that new words are being
invented at an ever increasing rate.
     Legend has it that "quiz" was an invented word - and that it
was invented for a pretty trivial reason.  In the late 1700's, an
Irish theater manager named Daly bet one of his friends that he
could invent a word and have it become the talk of the town in
only a day.  He did - by paying street children to chalk the word 
QUIZ  all over Dublin one night.  The next day, everyone in the
city was talking about this mysterious new word that was on every
building and sidewalk.  In a short time, the word took on its
current meaning.  (The Oxford English Dictionary says that quiz
is perhaps a decade older than this story would indicate, which
might mean that Daly only popularized the word - same as we're
doing with this edition of Funnies.)
     The words "Hello" and "Thanks" go out this week to our
supporters and friends: Eva Yuhwa Lu, Sachiko Sumida, Sue Yan,
Jerry Taff, Laura Hong Li, Timothy McChain, Dick Ginkowski, Akiko
Ogino, Dale Frederickson, Kerry Miller, Bruce Gonzo, Meredith &
Yasmin Leischer, Bob Martens, Fumiko Umino, Beth Butler, Caterina
Sukup, Peter Adler, Carol Becwar and Sadie.   I think we need a
word for this group of fine folks who help us every week...  But
that word hasn't been invented yet.  Well, maybe next time.
     Have a Great Week!

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PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF THE SUNFUN VIRTUAL DICTIONARY:
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BRAVE NEW WORDS (02/22/1998)

WORD BY WORD! (08/23/1998)

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 - ADVERTISERS - Car salesman's term for the cheap, stripped-
     down, featureless cars in the Sunday newspaper ads.  The
     advertised price is low enough to get you into the
     dealership, where maybe they can talk you into a car that
     actually has four wheels and, with a little luck, might be
     able to move under it's own power.

 - ADVERTORIAL - An advertisement designed and placed to look
     like a news story - the newspaper and magazine version of an
     infomercial.  You have to look closely to see the small type
     on the edge of the page where it says "Advertisement."

 - ANGRY FRUIT SALAD - A web site or screen design that uses too
     many colors.  Flashy and attention-getting, but irritating 
     when you have to stare at the screen while using it.

 - ATTOPARSEC - A humorous - and silly - unit of measurement used
     by engineers and other tech types in joking.  An attoparsec
     is 3.26 light-years x 10 to the -18th power.  This
     microscopic fraction of a monster measure works out to about
     3.1 CM - just over an inch.

 - AUTOMAGICALLY - Something that happens automatically, but in
     an extremely complex or poorly understood way, like the way
     the ATM system updates your bank balance.

 - ARACHNOLEPTIC FIT - The frantic dance performed just after
     you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

 - BIT ROT - Computer disease that affects rarely used programs. 
     Users often find that older programs that once worked
     perfectly stop working when they haven't been used for a
     while.

 - BOTT'S DOTS - Those glued-on reflectors placed as lane markers
     on modern superhighways.  Named after their inventor, Dr.
     Elbert Bott.  Also known as "idiot buttons."

 - BOZONE - The invisible substance that surrounds stupid people
     and stops good, sensible ideas from penetrating.  Unlike the
     ozone layer, the bozone layer shows little sign of breaking
     down in the near future.

 - CATERPALLOR - The pale color you turn after finding half a
     worm in the fruit you're eating.

 - CHROME - Product features that serve no useful purpose, but
     sound wonderful in the description on the box.  ("Gee, this
     computer program even has moving, 3D icons!")

 - COPCYCLES - Bicycle police.  In the past few years, many
     American cities have experimented with police riding
     bicycles, and they've proved surprisingly successful.  Of
     course - no self-respecting criminal wants to be arrested by
     cops wearing Speedo shorts.

 - COUCH COMMANDO - A person who always wrestles away the TV
     remote control to watch their own programs.

 - CREATIONISM - A nearly religious belief among company managers
     that innovative programs or computer systems can be 
     designed and specified completely at the start of a project. 
     Good programs and systems really come into being through
     slow and organic growth, but that doesn't fit into the
     scheduling models that management loves so much.

 - DAU - A useful term from German computer programmers,
     abbreviated from "Dummster Anzunehmender User" meaning the
     stupidest possible user.  Useful in programming for the very
     worst case.  (Thanks to German FidoNet.)

 - DOPE SLAP - Smacking your hand against your forehead when you
     do something REALLY stupid.

 - DOPELAR EFFECT - The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter
     when you approach them quickly enough.

 - DOT COMMUNISTS - Merchants trying to corner a particular part
     of web commerce while shutting out competition.  Sometimes
     used for companies that refuse to be listed on other's web
     links.  (Thanks to David Zach at www.zachronyms.com/)

 - EMAIL - Electronic mail.  May be spelled email, Email, E-mail
     or e-mail.  Curiously, the Oxford English Dictionary also
     defines 'emailed' as "embossed (with a raised pattern) or
     perh[aps] arranged in a net or open work".  Citations of
     this usage exist from as early as 1480.

 - ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY - The same old products, except in a
     green container and priced a little higher.

 - EXTRATERRESTAURANT - An overly exotic eating place with really
     strange dishes.  Makes you feel like you're eating in the
     McDonald's on Rigel 5.

 - FEATURE SHOCK - A high tech device with so many features that
     the user's eyes glaze over.  Usually has an all-inclusive,
     three-page instruction manual that shows all 728 possible
     modes in printing that has to be read with a microscope (See
     Flyspeck 3).

 - FIELD CIRCUS - Derogatory term for field service technicians,
     especially those who lack training and imagination ("service
     droids").
          Q:   How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer
               with a flat tire?
          A:   He's changing one tire at a time to see which one
               is flat.

          Q:   How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer
               who is out of gas?
          A:   He's changing one tire at a time to see which one
               is flat.

 - FLYSPECK 3 - Standard name for any font that is so tiny as to
     be unreadable.  Often used in legal descriptions and
     software licenses.

 - GONE CATATONIC - A computer that has stopped responding to the
     user.  It may be just momentarily confused, but more likely
     it has crashed and gone stupid.

 - GORILLA ARM EFFECT - An unexpected problem that prevents a
     promising technology from becoming popular.  Named after the
     problems people had using touch-screen technology.  In the
     early 1980's, it seemed likely that touch screens would show
     up everywhere.  The promoters of touch screen systems
     ignored the fact that humans aren't able to hold their arms
     out at eye level while making small motions all day.  Only
     the banana-eating part of the population could use these
     systems without cramped arm muscles.

 - HEISENBUG - A problem that changes or disappears as soon as
     you try to test for it.  An explanation of why your car
     quits making that funny noise just when you take it to a
     garage.  From 'Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle' in
     quantum physics, which states that looking at a process
     changes it enough that you can never see what's really
     happening.

 - INTAXICATION - Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts
     until you realize it was your money to start with.

 - KICKING DEAD WHALES DOWN THE BEACH - Any slow, difficult and
     disgusting process, such as when you are the one who has to
     announce to management that there is a serious problem with
     some newly-introduced product.

 - KINSTIRPATION - A painful inability to move relatives who come
     to visit.

 - LASER CHICKEN - A standard, computer programmer's late-night
     meal.  This is most commonly 'Kung Pao' Chicken, a common
     Chinese dish containing chicken, peanuts and hot red peppers
     in a pepper-oil sauce.  Provides enough indigestion to keep
     the programmer awake for days at a stretch.

 - LULLABUOY - An idea that keeps floating into your head and
     prevents you from falling asleep.

 - MAXIMUM MAYTAG MODE - A device that is thrashing and moving by
     itself, like an out-of-balance washing machine.  Some
     old-time computer operators discovered they could write
     programs to make the huge, early computer disk drives move
     across the floor by using certain read patterns.

 - MEGO FACTOR - [`My Eyes Glaze Over'] Used to describe what
     happens at business meetings when the sales people start
     talking numbers or the technical people start talking
     obscure specifications.

 - MONGOLIAN HORDES TECHNIQUE - Management's favorite method of
     solving problems.  Managers always seem to believe that a
     large number of inexperienced, minimum wage people can
     replace a few expensive and experienced ones.

 - MR. SMARMY - That game-show-host voice that says, "You've got
     mail!" in AOL's 'Nyetscape' web browser.

 - MUGGLE - Someone who lacks the magic.  A person who can never
     get things to work right.   From the children's book "Harry
     Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J. K. Rowling.

 - PAPERWEIGHT - A car salesperson's term for an unpopular model
     that is nearly impossible to sell.

 - PRIESTHOOD - The select group of computer specialists who are
     allowed to work in a computer room.  Less common now, in the
     old days these were the all-powerful systems operators who
     would take your program on punched cards and deliver back
     the results days (sometimes weeks) later - the computer
     version of playing chess by mail.

 - PROGRAMMER'S CHEER - An old joke based on computer
     instructions:  "Shift to the left!  Shift to the right!  Pop
     up, push down!  Byte!  Byte!  Byte!"

 - RAIN DANCE - A purely ceremonial action taken by a service
     person in fixing a broken piece of equipment.  These are
     done just for customer relations purposes, when all hope of
     ever making the device work has been lost.  They involve
     randomly pushing or pulling on things, adjusting
     connections, or repeatedly reloading software.

 - RIDING THE TURTLES - Truck driver's slang for driving on the
     corrugated "chatter-strip" edge markers along the highway to
     stay awake.

 - SAGGING - Teenage male fashion fad of the early 1990's, where
     young males wear extremely loose-fitting pants so their
     underwear shows.  Further proof of one of the great laws of
     the universe: no one will take you seriously when you
     underwear is showing.

 - SEATTLE TUXEDO - A clean flannel shirt; because the residents
     of Seattle are so comfortably casual.

 - SCRAM SWITCH - An emergency power-off switch.  This term comes
     from the original research on atomic energy, where a
     graduate student was stationed on top of the reactor with an
     ax, ready to cut the cables to stop the reaction in case the
     reactor ran wild.  Thus: _S_afety _C_ontrol _R_od _A_x
     _M_an.

 - SORCERER'S APPRENTICE MODE - When every problem you solve
     causes two more problems to appear.

 - TENURED GRADUATE STUDENT - A long-term graduate student,
     usually one who has been there for more than ten years -
     longer than many of the professors.  Stay out of the way of
     these people; they know where all of the bodies are buried.

 - THINKO - A momentary mental slip equivalent to a printed
     "typo."  Also called a "brain fart."

 - VIRTUAL FRIDAY - The last working day before an extended
     weekend, that is, a holiday that falls on a Friday.  There
     are also Virtual Mondays, for example, when a holiday falls
     on a Monday and the first working day is actually Tuesday.

 - WALL FOLLOWER - An uncreative person that simulates
     intelligence by following a set of very simple rules, even
     if the rules are ultimately stupid.  Named after the famous
     "Harvey Wallbanger," winning robot in an early contest of
     artificial intelligence machines.  While the other, more
     intelligent robots used complex mapping and simulation
     programming to map and solve a maze problem, Harvey won by
     simply moving along one wall of the maze.  In the same way,
     uncreative and foolish people can sometimes look smart in
     the short run.

 - WOK-ON-THE-WALL - A small microwave dish, commonly used for
     satellite TV or local building-to-building communications. 
     Named after the amazing resemblance of these small dishes to
     Chinese cooking pots.

 - WRAPS - A pre-millennium food fad where burrito-like flat
     breads are used to wrap some fairly unlikely meat or
     vegetable fillings.  Further proof that Americans will eat
     nearly anything if it's wrapped in bread.


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© 1998 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.