NEW WORDS FOR THE 2000s

[Gareth Branwyn]

As many of you are already aware, this list is taken directly from several
consecutive installments of my Wired Jargon Watch column and has been
floating around the Net (and appearing in magazines and newspapers), under
different titles, for over three years now. I'm collecting a list of all the
titles that it has been given (Gen-X Office Slang, Silicon Valley Geekspeak,
Dilbertspeak). Now it's "New Words for the 2000s." As Mr. Spock would say:
Fascinating.


> From: James Smith <jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM>
> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 08:30:29 -0700
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: NEW WORDS FOR THE 2000s
>
> This was just sent to me.  Posting it for your
> enjoyment without further comment.
>
> ***************************************
>
> NEW WORDS FOR THE 2000s
>
> BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing
> why a deadline was missed
> or a project failed, and who was responsible.
>
> SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager who flies in, makes a lot
> of noise, craps on
> everything, and then leaves.
>
> CHAINSAW CONSULTANT: An outside expert brought in to
> reduce the
> employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean
> hands.
>
> CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.
>
> IDEA HAMSTERS: People who always seem to have their
> idea generators running.
>
> MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer
> to the couch
> potato.
>
> PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something
> loudly in a cube farm,
> and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's
> going on.
>
> SITCOMs: (Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive
> Mortgage) What
> yuppies turn into when they have children and one of
> them stops working to stay
> home with the kids.
>
> SQUIRT THE BIRD: To transmit a signal to a satellite.
>
> STARTER MARRIAGE: A short-lived first marriage that
> ends in divorce
> with no kids, no property and no regrets.
>
> STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being
> stressed out and whiny.
>
> SWIPED OUT: An ATM or credit card that has been
> rendered useless
> because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive
> use.
>
> TOURISTS: People who take training classes just to get
> a vacation from their
> jobs. "We had three serious students in the class; the
> rest were
> just tourists.
>
> TREEWARE: Hacker slang for documentation or other
> printed material.
>
> XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies
> from one's
> workplace.
>
> ALPHA GEEK: The most knowledgeable, technically
> proficient person in an office
> or work group.
>
> ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to
> absorb success and
> advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than
> working hard.
>
> CHIPS & SALSA: Chips = hardware, Salsa = software.
> "Well, first we
> gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or
> your salsa."
>
> FLIGHT RISK: Used to describe employees who are
> suspected of planning to leave a
> company or department soon.
>
> GOOD JOB: A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" Job. A well-paying job
> people take in
> order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit
> as soon as they are
> solvent again.
>
> IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that
> are annoying but you find
> yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials
> were a
> prime example. Bill Clinton's shameful video Grand
> Jury testimony is another.
>
> PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the
> heck out of an electronic
> device to get it to work again.
>
> UNINSTALLED: Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the
> voice-mail of a vice
> president at a downsizing computer firm: "You have
> reached the number of an
> Uninstalled Vice President. Please dial our main
> number and ask the operator for
> assistance. *(Syn: decruitment.)
>
> VULCAN NERVE PINCH: The taxing hand position required
> to reach all the
> appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance,
> the arm reboot for
> a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the
> Control key, the
> Command Key, the Return Key, and the Power On key.
>
> YUPPIE FOOD STAMPS: The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed
> out of ATMs
> everywhere.  Often used when trying to split the bill
> after a meal, We each owe
> $8, but all anybody's got are yuppie food stamps."
>
> SALMON DAY-The experience of spending an entire day
> swimming upstream only to
> get screwed and die in the end.
>
> CLM - Career Limiting Move - Used among microserfs to
> describe
> ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while he or
> she is within earshot is a
> serious CLM.
>
> ADMINISHPERE - The rarefied organizational layers
> beginning just above the rank
> and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere
> are often
> profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems
> they were
> designed to solve.
>
> DILBERTED - To be exploited and oppressed by your
> boss. Derived from the
> experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip
> character. "I've
> been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs
> for the fourth time this
> week."
>
> 404 - Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web
> error message "404 Not
> Found," meaning that the requested document could not
> be located.  "Don't bother
> asking him . . . he's 404, man."
>
> GENERICA - Features of the American landscape that are
> exactly the same no
> matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip
> malls,
> subdivisions.  Used as in "We were so lost in generica
> that I forgot what city
> we were in."
>
> OHNOSECOND - That minuscule fraction of time in which
> you realize that you've
> just made a BIG mistake.
>
> UMFRIEND - A sexual relation of dubious standing or a
> concealed
> intimate relationship, as in "This is Dyan, my ... um
> .... friend."
>
>
> =====
> James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
> SLC, UT                        |it is that we will be sued
> jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
> |or slowly and cautiously.
>
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