Questions tagged [internet]
Questions about Internet-related English words and phrases.
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Approximately when did the term "meme" reach the tipping point into widespread popularity on the internet?
When you look up the etymology of the word "meme", you find a bunch of stuff talking about its origins in Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene of course, originally as a term to refer to an ...
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Blogosphere: what is it?
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus :
all the blogs (= records of personal thoughts and opinions) on the
internet, and the people who write or read them
Cambridge Business ...
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What is the terminology for the states of network connectivity?
When describing the connectivity of a system to a network, are there unambiguous terms for if a member of the network should/can communicate over the network?
Network Communicable
Can
Cannot
Should ...
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What are the origins of "tech" as an abbreviation for "technology?
I'm trying to trace the origins and rise in popularity of the abbreviation "tech" from "technology." From what I can tell, the term began taking off in popular culture around the ...
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Word for registering a domain name of a competitor (or known name) and redirect it to your own website
I'm in a niche hobby, and recently there's been a very disgusting trend happening: webshops registering the domain names of other shops with only minor, but very common typos; or register a domain ...
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Correct verb to go to a website - open, surf, navigate?
I work as a web developer, and often times have to instruct someone to open some page. I usually write "Navigate to https://example.com/something", but I feels a bit pretentious. On the ...
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Why is the Internet being considered a person now? [closed]
This is not an isolated case; I've been noticing quite a bit lately that news articles are referring to "people in general" or "a lot of people" as "the Internet." Here's ...
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Word Choice - "hope all is well, all things considered"
In email, and other written messaging is it appropriate (given the current state of the world) to open with something like "Hi XX, I hope you are doing well, all things considered."? I have ...
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What do you call social network accounts owned by the same person
Say there's a person who has registered more than one account on the same social network and writes from these accounts pretending they belong to different people. What would you call such accounts?
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Usage of + or ++ in emails
I have been seeing and using the symbols + or ++ whenever a new recipient is added to an existing email thread along with the original recipients in To or Cc.
Just curious about how this came into ...
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What does "drop" mean in this context?
Here is a first paragraph of a Meta SE post. It has a common word, "drop," that I don't understand in this context (the bolding is mine):
Recently, it was announced that the "Hot on Meta" ...
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What is it called when someone types a random string of characters in an online conversation? [duplicate]
We can often see in online group conversations messages composed of random letters like "fjqofudnelfi" as a response to something surprising or unexpected.
Is there a name for this kind of "behaviour"...
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Search results in results
"Term has X search results"
"A search for term has X results*
"A search for term resulted in X results"
Is anyone else confused by this? A "search" generally "results" in something, but lacking an ...
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One word for a person who sees a chat and not replies?
There are peoples on instant messenger who sees a message and don't reply. Is there a word for them ?
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What does "Potato Cat" mean when you point this to a person?
I saw this phrase many times on Twitter. But, I don't know the exact usage or meaning this phrase portrays. Can anyone please enlighten me with the definition you think is accurate! Thanks in advance!
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What word or phrase should be used to describe this website line?
This website has a line that says "David -> Labs -> Lab".
What word or phrase should be used to describe this line? A menu line? A navigation line? A page path line?
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Proper form of "user request"
The context is an Internet platform to which http requests are sent. In a sentence like this:
The system behaves differently when users' requests increase.
what is the correct usage of user request ...
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Term for "people paid to post bad reviews of a product"
There is a Chinese term 网路水军 (wǎnglù shuǐjūn) for people paid to attack a particular target on the Internet. I've seen "spammers" as the English for this expression, but to my mind a spammer usually ...
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Where did the term "flame war"/"flaming" come from?
I found this term on the history of Tanenbaum and Torvalds debate, but I couldn't find the origin of the term.
I've understood the meaning (from UrbanDictionary):
A flame war is a heated argument ...
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Is there a more general term for "googling" that doesn't imply a particular search engine?
Nowadays lots of people use the word "google" as a verb, past tense "googled", which generally means to search the web using Google's search engine. When used as a gerund the word is typically "...
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How can you tell someone you want to talk to them over a text based medium?
I use chat programs and often confuse people when I say, "I spoke to…" or "I had a conversation with…" people, when they are remote. People think that I meant that I had a face-to-face or at least a ...
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Meaning of the phrase 'under the cut'?
I came across this paragraph on Goodreads:
For this roundup, we focused on fiction titles where books play a major role in the plot. From there, we surfaced the most popular titles with at least ...
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Usage of the noun "aesthetic" to refer to a set of artistic principles and motifs
Is it non-standard to use the term "aesthetic" to refer to a set of artistic principles and motifs that define a particular artist or artistic movement? From Wiktionary's entry for aesthetic:...
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Where does the expression “spill the tea” come from? [closed]
According to Wiktionary, spill the tea (idiomatic, informal) means:
To disclose information, especially of a sensitive nature.
Apparently, the expression appears to be a recent one.
2012, Demetria ...
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How are dashes used when referring to the work of someone? [closed]
Example: [Artist] - [Song]
Is that little line supposed to be a hyphen, non-breaking hyphen, figure-/en-/em-dash, horizontal bar, minus sign or double oblique hyphen? Are there supposed to be spaces ...
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What is the shorter way of saying - "I am sharing my understanding, in a hope to get corrected"? [closed]
I am looking for a concise way of saying or writing, "I am sharing my understanding about blah, in a hope to get corrected". The phrase "IMHO" expresses part of the idea, but does not necessarily ...
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What do people say when someone posts an old meme picture [closed]
What would one say in English when someone posts a picture or meme that one has already seen? The response would be something like 'Already seen! Dissapointed!" in one word.
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What is the proper name to call "non-developer bloggers"?
I am looking for a proper name to address a group of people who is not proficient in coding a website (HTML/CSS/JS). A suitable call so not to offend anyone.
Example quotes (that I don't yet feel is ...
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is "burial of optical fibers" correct? [closed]
Would you say:
The earliest stage of network design is the burial of optical fibers.
To say that the first stage, when you design an optical network, is to put the fibers under the ground ?
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What is the meaning of "that" as an Internet slang?
I see many times in comment sections of Internet forums such comments as the following:
A: This girl is so ugly and I know nobody will date her ever.
B: That!
What does it mean?
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Use of "she" in memes
There is a certain type of memes that contain the phrase "The guy she told you not to worry about". I am confused about the use of "she" on it, since the only person who tells you something is a guy. ...
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When was the term "Web site" (or "website") first used?
I've been researching the origins of the World Wide Web, so basically sifting through CERN reports and Usenet posts from 1989-1993, but I've noticed that the terms "Web site," "website," "web-site," ...
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What is meant by the verb "ship" in this context?
Getting along with a possibly passive-aggressive coworker because of different political beliefs [closed]
Everyone in the office, including the girl, was shipping me and that
guy because we have ...
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In "download", where does the "down" direction come from?
I just realized that the directions in "UPload" and "DOWNload" seem arbitrary to me as a non-native English speaker. I took a look at a couple of dictionaries and they said that this word is a result ...
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Timeline of semantic change of the term "social justice warrior" (SJW)
We have a question about the origin of "SJW". I'm interested in how its usage has changed over time. As a rough outline:
It seems to have started out as a nonce-term of praise.
Then, it took on a ...
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Technical term for Internet-like network?
There is a computer network, similar to Internet in architecture but not connected to actual Internet, that is used by the military. What is the term to describe such network?
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Can the term "ProTip" used in a non-offensive context?
The definition for "ProTip" in Urban Dictionary states:
n. to distill important knowledge about a subject and share it with those new to said subject.
often used in internet forums to criticize ...
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Source and popularity of the recent slang word "cuck"
Recently, I started noticing the word cuck appearing in internet discussions as a pejorative. I first encountered the word after a news media discussion on the term cuckservative last year, which was ...
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Origin of "upmod"
What is the origin of the term "upmod" that is used by some people as a synonym of "upvote"? ("Downmod" also exists for the opposite action.)
I found a Reddit thread that raises the question but doesn'...
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What kind of punctuation to use when pinging someone (that is, '@Someone')? [closed]
Pinging people on chat or in comments is rather helpful. Let us leave aside the fact that strict grammar is often not necessary in such places. Rather, out of curiosity, what would be the correct way ...
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Term for Internet or Texting Acronyms, e.g. LOL, IMHO, M8
What are the acronym, internet words like lol, brb, imho, etc., called? Is there such a term beyond acronym? I was wanting to tell someone that someone else was not familiar with the meme/internet ...
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What's the origin of this vulgar internet slang term?
The word fuckboy seems to have materialized from the aether somewhat recently and I can't get a grasp on what it's supposed to mean or where it came from.
I've heard one suggestion that it originated ...
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The use of "proceed" on the web
Recently I have been puzzled why the word proceed is found on most websites when the user is going to checkout, cart or shopping cart.
Is there a reason for this in the english language that warrants ...
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Word to describe people in internet thinking very same, using same websites, reading same resources [duplicate]
Is there a term or word to describe people in internet feeling very same, like if they were doing absolutely same things using internet?
Here in the web we have too many apps and websites, but many ...
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When should I end online comments with a period?
I'm wondering what the rule is for when you post comments online. Here are some examples:
Yeah, I totally agree
Terrible
Nice picture
I wouldn't do that myself
Would I end these with a period? Or is ...
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Beginning a formal essay with a spoiler alert?
I'm writing a literary analysis piece on Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Online, such analyses are often preceded by a warning that the contents of the page contains detailed information ...
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final though-tag: That tongue at the end tho; That victory dance though
For the last few years the internet has abounded with expressions ending in a kinda of "though-tag" in final position, especially in comments to GIFs and the like, such as the following:
...
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Is there a word respective to Yahoo as googled is to Google? [closed]
The major search engine Google has a word for searching stuff on their site. (google)
Is there a word like this that would fit for Yahoo? At first I thought "Yahooed" but I don't think that would fit ...
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Is there a pre-Internet term for "gamification"?
Gamification is a relatively new term which was coined and has been made highly popular in the Internet era. From the related Wikipedia article:
Though the term "gamification" was coined in 2002 ...
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"Find in page" vs "find on page" [duplicate]
I'd like to find some thoughts and opinions related to this question.
First of all, I noticed that there are two forms used in Web browsers' menus: MS Internet Explorer uses "Find on page" meanwhile ...
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