Friday, January 16, 2009

Blatant Misuse of Words

Blatant misuse of words. People, you do not have a ``facebook'' or an ``internet''---these are not the correct terms for things that you are trying to convey. You do, however, can have a ``facebook group'', ``facebook account'', ``internet connection'', or even ``email''. And no, one does not ``send an internet'' because there is no such thing. And a group of ``anonymous people'' cannot have an identifiable leader.

And you do not ``MSN'' people---you send them instant messages. And there sure as hell isn't any ``texting'' going on---you are sending a text message over SMS. And once more, you do not ``facebook'' someone---you add them to your friends' list. Seeing a trend here?

You do not use ``word'' to type your documents---you use a word processor. One does not create an ``excel'' for their spreadsheets---they just create the spreadsheet. Finally, you do not ``powerpoint''---you create slides and present them.

Geez... what the heck is wrong with people these days?

2 comments:

roticv said...

I feel the same way when physicist abuse mathematics...

Danielle said...

I agree with most of your complaints about use of terminology, but I do feel like "Word" is an entirely reasonable shortening of the product name "Microsoft Word", which is something you can use to type documents. I also feel like "texting" is a reasonable term... perhaps "text messaging" is closer to the reality (even if anything in writing is a text message), because it has wide usage and is the correct part of speech.

You should talk to Owen about this - I believe it's the sort of thing that's his pet peeve.