Words from The Crone

Today I discovered something that has been around long enough for me have figured it out – I am referring to that icon RSS Feed [a small orange square with a dot and three radiating lines which I can’t seem to duplicate here] found on the left side in my Outlook® email/contact/calendar software.  RSS means ‘Really Simple Syndication” I am told.  Which means really simply, selling one story or product to multiple sources.  In other words RSS basically says what it means.  It also means that I click on the RSS feed symbol and browse for an internet link, select it, and Voila! there it sits waiting for me to open the link.  Or, use any of a variety of links I may have selected.  What a time saver – I don’t have to go back and forth between the internet and my email accounts.  I am only a click away from my favorite internet sites.

Now, I must admit that I noticed that little orange RSS square a couple years back and wondered what it did.  But, it took my youngest daughter to fill in that blank in my brain.  She is not quite a five-year old, but at least one of the more with it, younger techno brilliant generation.  I am thankful that she lives with me for “Tech Support” is now only a shout away not an interminable, button pushing, 800 number, hours away!

 But, I’ve also noted a conspiracy going on that I believe started with corporate America in the 1960’s.  Acronyms.  GE, NBC, ABC, etc.  Letters began meaning longer words and spilled over into the secular world with things like AA or AAA or SCUBA.  Well, now those acronyms are everywhere.  Here are some most commonly used in internet conversations or texting:  LOL; OMG; DD, BH, IMHO, EOD, ROTFLOL, POS, and FAQ.  There are even those techno acronyms like RSS, HTML, and CSS.  Want more?  Google “Internet Acronyms” and have a go at them.  Or go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronyms.   There are about 4,000,000.

 The conspiracy is that those of us over 70 have never heard of most of them and are left standing in the dust wondering what is going on right now (or WIGORN?).  I just learned that EOB was “End of Business Day” and there are many with the letter “F” in them that I will never use.  Some common words like “Picnic” don’t mean a party on the lawn anymore but, “Problem in chair, not in computer!”  Beware, you seniors, soon text messages, emails, FB entries, and tweets will look something like this:

          2F.  R u rotflol @ it?  WRU? CUL or CUIC! O POS GTG.

 There is even an acronym for the acronyms: CUA (Commonly Used Acronyms)!  Well, at least I have discovered the RSS feed for now, but I think I need to get myself an acronym dictionary and keep it at hand!  Or, I can always look up an acronym at www.Acronymfinder.com .  Imagine that -+!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 12:01 AM and is filed under Life in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.