Word of the Month: Triple Crown

1 July 2003

In June, Funny Cide, a three-year-old gelding, almost won the Belmont Stakes and the American Triple Crown. Instead he placed, or finished third. Had Funny Cide won the Belmont, he would have been the first horse to win the Triple Crown since 1978. Like Funny Cide, twelve other horses have won the first two jewels in the Triple Crown only to falter at Belmont. Only eleven horses in history have won all three races.

In honor of Funny Cide our word of the month is Triple Crown. The original Triple Crown is the English one, the winning of the three races known as the Two Thousand Guineas, the Derby, and the St. Leger. Only fifteen horses have captured the English Triple Crown.

The American Triple Crown, consists of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. The American sense of the term was coined by sportswriter Charles Hatton in 1930 after the English practice. That year Gallant Fox won the American Triple Crown. Sir Barton, who had won the three American races in 1919, was retroactively awarded the honor.

Racing Terms:
across the board, adv., pertaining to a bet on a horse to win, place and show. If the horse wins, the player wins all three bets, if second, two of the bets, and if third, one.

also-ran, n., a horse who finishes out of the money, 1896.

apprentice, n., a jockey who has not ridden a specified amount of winners within a specified period. Apprentices are given weight allowances.

baby race, n., a race for 2-year-olds.

backstretch, n., the straight section of the track on the far side from the club house, 1839.

Belmont Stakes, n., the third and, at 1½ miles, the longest of the three American Triple Crown races, first run in 1867, named for August Belmont (1816-90), financier and race horse owner, Belmont Park is on the grounds of his old estate on Long Island, New York. The race is run three weeks after the Preakness Stakes.

blanket finish, n., a finish where two or more horses are so close that one could theoretically put a single blanket across them, 1934.

blinker, n., leather screen on a bridle that restricts the horse’s vision to straight ahead, used to avoid distractions, 1789.

clubhouse turn, n., the first turn in a race, the one closest to the clubhouse.

colors, n., racing silks, the jacket and cap worn by jockeys, the design can be generic and provided by the track or specific to one owner.

daily double, n., a bet on two horses to win two specified races, usually the first or second races of the day, the two races specified by the track officials for the bet, 1932.

dead heat, n., a tie between two or more horses, 1796.

Derby, n., name for an annual horse race run at Epsom in England since 1780, from the founder, the Earl of Derby, a similar important race in other countries, e.g., the Kentucky Derby.

distance, v., to beat another horse by a specified interval, horses that are distanced in qualifying heats are eliminated from the competition, 1674.

exacta, n., a bet picking the first and second horses, in order of finish, in a single race, also perfecta, 1964.

fast track, n., a dry, hard, and even dirt track, allowing for the fastest running, 1934.

firm, adj., the optimum condition for a turf course corresponding to fast on a dirt track.

furlong, n., unit of measure equaling one-eighth of a mile, from furrow + long, originally the length of a furrow in a common field, c.1330. 

gelding, n., a castrated animal, esp. a horse, from Old Norse, 1380.

groom, n., one who tends to washing, grooming, and feeding them, 1340, ultimately of uncertain etymology, the word has an earlier Middle English sense of man-child or boy.

handicap, n., 1) a race where an umpire determines the weights to be carried by each horse, evening the odds, 1754; 2) extra weight carried by a horse deemed to be superior, 1883; v., to equalize the odds in a race, by decreeing what weights should be carried or by other means, 1852; from “hand in cap,” a method of setting odds, each player/owner would place forfeit money in a cap, an umpire would decree the odds/weights, the players would then simultaneously remove their hands from the cap. If they withdraw their forfeit money with their hands, they accept the umpire’s decision. If both players accepted or forfeited, the money went to the umpire as payment. If only one player agreed to the match, the forfeit money went to him.

in the money, adv., finishing among the winners of a race, in first, second, or third place, 1902.

jockey, n., a professional rider in horse races, 1670. From a hypocoristic form of Jock or John.

Kentucky Derby, n., the first race in the American Triple Crown, run on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs, Louisville, Kentucky and 1¼ miles long, named after the British Derby race, first run in 1875.

lock, n., a horse guaranteed to win, a certainty, also a mortal lock, 1942.

maiden, n. & v., a horse that has never run a race, a maiden race is a race open to horses that have never won, 1760.

morning glory, n., a horse that performs well in morning exercise, but runs poorly in races, 1898.

morning line, n., the odds quoted before betting begins, 1935.

mudder, n., a horse that runs well in mud and wet conditions, 1903.

neck, n., unit of measurement, equal to the length of a horse’s neck, about a quarter of a length.

nose, n., a distance of a few inches, 1908; to bet on the nose, to bet to win, 1951.

odds-on, adj., odds less than even money, 1890.

on the bit, adj., a horse either pulling at the bit (eager to run) or on a tight rein, 1928, also off the bit, a horse ridden on a loose rein.

overlay, n., odds that are unjustifiably high, 1944. Also underlay, unwarranted short odds.

paddock, n., a turf enclosure where horses are saddled and kept before post time, 1862.

photo finish, n., a race result so close that reference to finish-line photograph is required to determine order of finish, 1936.

place, v., to finish among the winners, in US usage to finish second, 1826.

pole, n., the inside fence surrounding a race track, the starting position closest to the inside fence, 1851.

post, n., a pole that marks the finish or, esp., the starting point of a race, the start or finishing point of a race, 1642. Also, to pip at/on the post, to beat by a narrow margin at the last moment, 1924.

post time, n., the scheduled time for a race to start, 1941.

Preakness Stakes, n., the second race in the American Triple Crown, run two weeks after the Kentucky Derby at Pimlico, in Baltimore, Maryland. It is 1¼ miles long and was first run in 1873. It is named after the race horse that won the inaugural race at Pimlico in 1870, the horse’s name came from a corruption of a Delaware Indian word Pra-qua-les, meaning quail woods.

scratch, v., to withdraw a horse from a race, 1859. 

short head, n., a distance less than the length of a horse’s head, Briticism from 1898.

show, v., to finish among the top three, esp. to finish third, 1903.

silk, n., a jockey’s jacket, from the material it is made from, 1884; to wear silk, to ride in a race.

sloppy, adj., wet, covered with mud, 1727.

sport of kings, c.phr., horse racing, 1918, earlier uses of the phrase equated war as the sport of kings.

stake, stakes, n., a race where the owners pay an entry fee that becomes or is added to the purse for the race.

steward, n., an official at a race, 1703.

straight, adj., a bet that a horse will win only, as opposed to finishing in the top three, 1928.

stretch, n., a straight portion of the course, esp. the straight portion leading to the finish line, the home stretch, 1895.

stretch turn, n., the turn leading into the home stretch, 1972.

tote board, n., a display on which odds, payoffs, and other race information is given, 1950, tote is a clipping of totalizator, a device for registering and displaying the number of bets on a race, 1879.

trifecta, n., a bet that picks the top three finishers in order, 1974.

turf, n., a grass track, more generally any track or the racing world as a whole, 1755.

valet, n., the person charged with caring for a jockey’s tack and silks, 1591.

Book Review: A History of Reading

1 June 2003

Few people think to distinguish reading from writing. Most generally assume that these two skills are one and the same. Stephen Roger Fischer’s A History of Reading disabuses us of that notion. Fischer’s book is the third in a trilogy, the first two volumes addressing language and writing. This third volume focuses on reading, the various types of reading, how we do it, and the social significance of it.

First, the mental process of reading is quite different from speech or writing. We do not normally read individual phonemes or letters and accomplished readers may not even read individual words. Instead we take in entire phrases with a glance and use pattern recognition to render it comprehensible. Children learning to read do sound out individual phonemes, as do adults when they encounter unfamiliar and complex words, but once reading has been ingrained as a skill, most of us do not.

We also have different modes of reading. How we read aloud differs from how we read silently. We read differently when we read for pleasure than how we do when we read for precise and detailed understanding. Proofreading differs from scanning. Most literate adults use a variety of reading modes depending on their purpose and circumstances.

One of the concepts that Fischer discusses is that of voice. The earliest writings, those of Sumerian scribes, were written in the voice of the scribe. A clay tablet when read was considered to be the voice of the person who wrote it—not the person who dictated it, but of the scribe who actually wrote it down. There were severe penalties for scribes who wrote down falsehoods or inaccuracies. Over time, the idea of an author’s voice developed. The words when read were considered to be whoever uttered them, not who wrote them down. Later, the voices of individual characters could be read.

For most of history, reading has been a public activity. Words were read aloud and to an audience. The medieval monastic scriptoriums were noisy places. When transcribing works, the monks would read them aloud. Silent reading has been common for less a millennium. St. Augustine, for example, records his surprise in A.D. 384 when he discovers his teacher St. Ambrose reading silently to himself. Silent reading did not become common until the ninth century.

Why we read has also changed and grown. There are many more purposes for reading today than in past centuries. The original purpose for reading was commerce. The earliest writings are almost exclusively contracts and inventories of goods. Historical inscriptions came next and then texts for instruction. Finally, literature developed. The first literature consisted of tablets containing queues to jog the memories of those readers who knew the story.

Fischer also discusses the concept of literacy. What constitutes literacy has changed over the centuries as well. In medieval Europe, one was not literate unless one could read Latin. The ability to read the vernacular was not socially significant. Similarly, in the Arab world, literacy was defined as the ability to read the classical Arabic of the Koran, not the vernacular Arabic dialects used in everyday life. Growth of literacy rates has also changed. Universal literacy was not achieved by any society until the 19th century.

Fischer’s organization is chronological. The first two chapters deal with reading in the ancient world. The next two address reading around the world in the pre-modern era. The fifth and sixth chapters are on printing and universal distribution of the written word and how that changed the way and what we read. The final chapter looks to the future and attempts to explain how the internet is changing reading patterns.

Fischer writes in an accessible style. He does not fall into the stiff and unreadable style of many academic texts, but it still is not an easy read. The reason is that A History of Reading is information dense, with so much information in it that it does not make easy reading. The wealth of data in the book is worth taking the time to wade through it all, but casual readers should be warned, this is not for them.

The one negative criticism of the book is that the chronological organization does not make it easy to reference the development in trends in reading. When did silent reading, for example, become arise in different cultures? To find the answer one must visit several different chapters and sections of the book. Appendices that provided timelines or otherwise tied together the various thematic elements in the book would have been helpful. Still, this is a rather minor point.

A History of Reading, by Stephen Roger Fischer, Reaktion Books, June 2003, ISBN 1-86189-160-1, Hardcover, $29.95.

Prescriptivist's Corner: Genitive Pronominal Antecedents

1 June 2003

After three months of repeated letter writing by Kevin Keegan, a Montgomery County, Maryland school teacher, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) has thrown out a question on the 2002 PSAT exam, raising the scores of some 500,000 students. The issue at hand is whether or not the question as originally written was actually wrong.

In the question the students were required to identify a grammatical error, if there was one, in a sentence. The sentence in question was as follows:

Toni Morrison’s genius enables her to create novels that arise from and express the injustice African Americans have endured.

The correct answer, as originally scored by ETS, was that there is no error in this sentence. Keegan disagreed, believing that the was an error in the pronoun her and its antecedent. According to Keegan, a pronoun cannot take a noun in the genitive case as its antecedent. Keegan cited several usage manuals backing up his claim.

Eventually, after consulting a three-person panel of “experts,” ETS reversed its position and declared the question invalid.

The problem is that despite the claims of a few grammar manuals, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a pronoun taking a genitive antecedent. This “rule” has no basis in either logic or in actual usage.

First, let’s recast the sentence so that Toni Morrison is not inflected in the genitive:

The genius of Toni Morrison enables her to create…

Here we have an identical meaning, yet use of the pronoun is acceptable. Why should there be potential confusion in the original yet not in the recast sentence? Next, let’s try an recast the sentence without using the pronoun.

Toni Morrison’s genius enables Toni Morrison to create…

Toni Morrison’s genius enables the writer to create…

Both of these are inadequate. The first is duplicative—and demonstrates that the logical antecedent is indeed Toni Morrison. The second is ambiguous—who is the writer we are talking about? There simply is no good way to write the sentence without using the pronoun.

The only possible logical explanation for the rule is that a pronoun in the objective case should not have a genitive antecedent. But this is an arbitrary rule that flies in the face of common sense. The purpose of rules about antecedents is to ensure clarity in writing. Should we abandon a clear sentence in favor of an awkward construction solely for the purpose of satisfying someone’s idea of what is logical?

Now, let’s turn to usage. While a few grammar manuals do include such a rule. The vast majority do not. Fowler found nothing wrong with the practice. Merriam-Webster specifically says that this “rule” is in error and unreasonable. Further, no professional writer appears to be aware of this rule. Open any newspaper on any day and one will find dozens of pronouns with genitive antecedents. And some of the greatest writers in history have “violated” the rule at will:

It was Mr. Squeer’s custom to call the boys together and make a sort of report, after every half-yearly visit to the metropolis, regarding the relations and friends he had seen.
—Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

…shaking Snook’s hand cordially, we rush on to the pier, waving him a farewell.
—W.M. Thackeray, The Book of Snobs

Raymond’s sobs softened, and trembled away. She held him, rocking silently and rhythmically, a long time.
—Dorothy Parker, Clothe the Naked

ETS was simply wrong in caving in to an individual, pedantic teacher like Keegan. The identity of the panel of supposed experts is unknown, but clearly they are neither expert nor capable of the most basic inquiry regarding English grammar or usage.

There is an argument to be made that the students should not be penalized for the sins of the teachers. If teachers like Keegan instruct and grade students on this “rule” (and Keegan admits that he does), then the test should not hold the students accountable. But it can also be said that the students should be evaluated against an objective standard. If an answer is wrong, then it is wrong. The test should not cater to the whims of pedants. In the words of Richard R. Hershberger, regular participant in the Wordorigins.org discussion group:

I, on the other hand, find the whole affair rather inspirational.  I still live in a country were a person can make up a rule of English and, through the sweat of his brow, get it accepted by a pseudo-authority.

Myths of Language Change, Part 2: That's Not What It Really Means

1 June 2003

The changing face of our language has created an interesting conundrum. On the one hand, people recognize and delight in the language change of the past. But on the other hand, people routinely resist current changes in the language. The language they learn as children is, for many, the only acceptable manner of speaking. Change is vehemently eschewed.

How people can revel in the changes of the past yet fiercely resist the changes of the present is just bizarre. And it is futile. The language will change whether we like it or not, and no amount of resistance will stop a change whose time has come.

This resistance usually takes one of several classic forms. In this series of articles, we well examine each of these classic errors of resistance. Here are two more:

That’s Not What It Really Means
During the Gulf War of 1991 several language commentators raised a hue and cry over the use of the verb to decimate. Journalists were broadcasting statements like, “The coalition air forces decimated the Iraqi Republican Guards, destroying some eighty percent of their combat power.” The commentators objected to the use of decimate, claiming that the original sense of the word meant to kill one in every ten. The word comes from the Latin verb decimāre, meaning to take one tenth. It was originally a form of Roman military punishment, used when soldiers committed mutiny or some other group crime.

The aggrieved language mavens concluded that if deci- means ten in Latin, the word decimate could mean nothing other than to destroy one tenth of something. What the mavens forgot was that the sense of a word is determined by how it is used, not by how the word originated. If enough people use decimate figuratively, meaning to kill in large numbers, then that is what the word comes to mean.

The meanings of words change over time. Words acquire new senses and lose old ones; they acquire connotations; they specialize and generalize and they are used metaphorically and figuratively. This is a natural and continuous process. Almost no word is used in exactly and in only the way it was when it first entered the language. This error is so common that linguists have given it a name, the etymological fallacy, or the belief that the original sense must be the correct sense.

In the case of decimate, the word has been used figuratively to mean to destroy a large proportion of something since the beginning of the 19th century. The reporters in the Persian Gulf were not using the verb in any new or strange sense.

It Means This, Not That

Pete: How did you score the tickets?
Clark: Lex hooked me up.
—Smallville, “Cool,” 2001

A similar error is to believe that a word has one and only one meaning. Some people insist that words must have precise and singular senses, that to brook multiple definitions and connotations is a recipe for confusion and disaster.

This is simply incorrect. Most words have more than one meaning or sense. Sometimes, the different senses connote minor nuances. Sometimes they are radically different, even contradictory.

I was recently involved in an online discussion on the meaning of the slang verb phrase to hook up. Some contended that the verb meant to have sexual intercourse as in, “After three months of dating, Bill and Sarah finally hooked up.” Others said that it could mean anything from a bit of necking to going all the way, so long as it was a casual encounter, “Bill and Sarah hooked up after the party.” Others disagreed and claimed that it meant to date seriously, to go steady, “Bill and Sarah have been hooked up all semester.” Others said it was even more serious; to be hooked up is to be married, as in, “Bill and Sarah have been hooked up these past 25 years.” Still others chimed in with a platonic sense, meaning simply to meet someone, “Sarah hopes to hook up with Bill while she is in New York and discuss the marketing plan.” And not mentioned in the discussion, but still out there, is the transitive sense meaning to broker a sale or deal, especially for a hard-to-find item, “Bill hooked Sarah up with the Rolling Stones tickets.”

All six are correct. Hook up can mean all these things. The penultimate sense, to meet someone, is the oldest. It dates to the turn of the 20th century America. Also, about that time, the verb came to mean to get married. In the 1980s, the verb started appearing in college campus slang in the various sexual permutations.

So does this cause confusion? Not really. The sense is usually apparent from the context. We can safely assume that Bill and Sarah didn’t get married after the fraternity party and that they did not discuss the marketing plan during pillow talk (at least for their sake we hope not). And as to whether it means sexual intercourse or something less, well there is often value in ambiguity. It allows Sarah to make her encounter with Bill seem to be more than it was when she brags about it to her sorority sisters, and it allows Bill to let the guys in the locker room know that he and Sarah had a good time without resorting to detailed description of the sexual acts. If we need precision, there are plenty of other words that will provide it.

Not only can senses be different; they can be downright contradictory. Hook up can refer to a variety of social encounters and relationships, but they differ only in degree of familiarity and length of the relationship. Other words can hold contradictory senses. These are called Janus words and the most cited example is cleave. Cleave can mean to join together or to split apart. Again, context prevents confusion.

Word of the Month: Usenet

1 June 2003

Usenet, n., is a distributed bulletin board system. The term is an abbreviation for users’ network. Usenet was originally implemented in 1979-1980 to link computers at Duke University with those of the University of North Carolina. The system consisted of numerous discussion forums called newsgroups. Computers that functioned as newsservers would pass messages to one another. Usenet was originally conceived to carry local news and information, hence the names. By 1996, Usenet had over 10,000 newsgroups and an average of over 500 megabytes of information posted to it daily.

Usenet was not originally part of the Internet. Instead it was originally carried by the UUCPNET network of Unix computers. By the early 1990s, however, most of Usenet was being transferred over the Internet.

Usenet newsgroups are organized into categories based on the content of the group. The first part of a newsgroup’s name designates its category:

• alt.*, alternative, popular topics

• comp.*, computer topics

• humanities.*, humanities topics

• misc.*, miscellaneous topics

• news.*, Usenet meta-discussion

• rec.*, recreational topics

• sci.*, science and technology topics

• soc.*, social and cultural topics

• talk.*, debate and controversial topics

If you want information about computer firewalls, for example, you can go to the comp.security.firewalls group. Or if you are planning a trip to Brazil, you might check out rec.travel.latin-america. Old movie aficionados can be found on alt.movies.silent.

In addition, there may be local hierarchies carried by some newsservers. For example, the ucb.* hierarchy is for the University of California at Berkeley. There are also many other hierarchies, such as biz.*, that addresses business topics.

There are also old hierarchies that are no longer used, but one may encounter them when searching archives of Usenet posts. The first hierarchy was net.*. This was supposed to contain discussions about Usenet itself. But shortly after the hierarchy was created, the groups net.jokes and net.rumor appeared. When ARPANET was linked to Usenet in 1980, the hierarchy fa.*, for “from ARPANET,” was created. There is also the old mod.* hierarchy, which consisted of moderated newsgroups. Nowadays, the designation *.moderated is tacked on to the end of a newsgroup name to show that it is a moderated group.

For the major Usenet categories there is a formal process for proposing and approving new newsgroups. This process is waived for the alt.* hierarchy of groups where people may start groups on a whim and the rules may be different for local hierarchies. Originally, newsservers carried all the groups in the major hierarchies, with the exception of the alt.* hierarchy, which many system administrators limited. Beginning in 1987, however, the growth of the system was such that system administrators began to choose which groups in the primary hierarchies they would carry. Most newsservers give access to at least 10,000 groups.

The following are jargon terms associated with Usenet. The parenthetical information is the newsgroup and date the term first appears in the Google Groups archive of Usenet posts. This is not necessarily the earliest use of the term—often, the terms come from sources other than Usenet or the earliest posts that use them are not in the archives:

^H^H^H^H^H, jocular expression, stands for an erasure or backspace. Unix systems generate ^H symbols when the backspace key is pressed. Usenet posters type these into their messages to pretend that they are clueless Unix users attempting to delete something they just wrote. An example might be, “you are a real pain in the ass^H^H^H neck.”

AFAIK, abbrev., for As Far As I Know. (comp.sys.sun, 9 Dec 1988)

Binary, n. & adj., a digital file, often a picture or computer program. Most Usenet groups forbid the posting of binary files, limiting them to specific groups with binaries in the title. Most binaries groups are pornographic. (net.v7bugs, 25 May 1981)

BITNET, abbrev., for Because It’s There NETwork. A messaging network very similar to Usenet. Created in 1981 at the City College of New York. Very successful among universities, it did not survive transition to the Internet. Support for BITNET was ended in 1996, but some of its groups still survive. They can be recognized by their bit.* hierarchy.

BOA, abbrev., for Ban On Acronyms, Many Usenet groups frown upon acronyms and abbreviations because they are confusing to people who do not understand what they mean. The acronym BOA is, of course, facetious. (alt.folklore.urban, 10 Nov 1994)

BOP, abbrev., for Ban On Politics. Many Usenet groups have a rule against discussing political topics. (soc.culture.lebanon, 4 Feb 1995)

BTW, abbrev., for By The Way. (fa.sf-lovers, 13 May 1981)

Cancelbot, n., a program that deletes Usenet messages after they have been posted. The term is from cancel + [ro]bot. Cancelbots are usually used to delete spam. (alt.magick, 4 Oct 1993)

Cascade, n., an automated chain of responses to a Usenet message, each one making a trivial change from the previous message. Cf. DoS attack.

Cow orker, n., a misspelling of coworker, usually deliberate. The intent is to humorously intimate that there is some illicit activity known as orking cows. (alt.sca, 8 Aug 1989)

Cross post, n. & v., a post that is sent to more than one newsgroup at the same time. While judicious use of cross posting can sometimes enhance a discussion by bringing in different perspectives, it is generally discouraged. Newsgroups tend to have their own internal conventions and practices and cross posting often results in conflicts and flames. Cross posting between obviously incompatible groups (e.g., alt.sex.bondage and soc.religion.christian.promisekeepers) is a form of trolling. (net.women & net.med, 24 Mar 1984)

DoS attack, n., is an abbreviation for Denial-of-Service attack. It is an attempt to shut down a newsgroup with large a number of spam or frivolous posts. The term is also used to denote an attack on a computer network aimed at overloading the network with large quantities of data. (alt.politics.org.covert, 13 Jun 1996)

Emoticon, n., a smiley (or other emotion) face drawn with ASCII characters, e.g., ;-). The term is from emot[ion] + icon. Emoticons are used in text-only communication to replicate tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language that would be present in face-to-face communication. Certain Usenet groups :-( upon use of emoticons. (comp.sys.amiga, 31 Jan 1987)

FAQ, abbrev., for Frequently Asked Question. Most Usenet groups have lists of FAQs and common topics of conversation so that newbies can have their questions answered without bothering the old hats. (comp.lang.c, 25 May 1989)

Flame, n. & v., is a deliberately insulting email or Usenet post. The term is from the “inflammatory” nature of the message. Its earliest appearance on Usenet is in fa.arms-d, 26 May 1981, but it is claimed to have been in existence in email usage from the 1960s.

Froup, n., is a jocular misspelling of group. Sometimes it is seen as newsfroup. (talk.bizarre, 24 Feb 1988)

Furrfu!, interj., is the exclamation sheesh! encrypted in Rot13. It is used as a general exclamation in Usenet. Furrfu first appears as an exclamation in the midst of unencrypted text in alt.folklore.urban, 18 Apr 1992, although there are instances of sheesh appearing in the midst of longer passages of Rot13 encrypted text as far back as 1986.

FWIW, abbrev., for For What It’s Worth. (net.unix, 27 Aug 1986)

Godwin’s Law, n., states that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. Many Usenet groups hold that once a comparison with Nazis has been made, further intelligent conversation on that thread is impossible. The law was formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The earliest reference in the Gooja archives is in rec.arts.books, 22 Aug 1991.

Gooja, n. & v., is the Google Groups archive of Usenet posts or to search those archives. The term is a combination of Goo[gle] + [De]ja, Deja News being an older archive that was bought by Google. (uk.games.video.dreamcast, 21 Feb 2001)

Great Renaming, The, n., the establishment of the current hierarchy of Usenet groups and the elimination of the old one. It occurred in 1986-87.

IANAL, abbrev., for I Am Not A Lawyer. The term is commonly used on Usenet as a disclaimer immediately prior to dispensing legal advice. (comp.virus, 18 Jan 1990)

IIRC, abbrev., for If I Recall Correctly. (rec.bicycles, 10 May 1990)

Killfile, n. & v., is a list of individuals or topics that will not be displayed by a newsreader. Individuals can tailor the killfiles in their newsreaders to suppress messages from particular individuals or that relate to particular topics. The term is also used as a verb meaning to place an individual or topic into one’s killfile. (news.software.b, 19 Aug 1987)

Lasnerian, adj., refers to vaguely defined period. Usenetters will often say such things as “1992 (Lasnerian)” or “1992 L.” to refer to dates that they are not certain of. The term is after Charles Lasner, who on 21 Aug 1993 posted a message to alt.folklore.urban where he contended that the period known as the “sixties” was not 1960-69, but rather started with the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 and ended with the American withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. Use of the term is heavily localized to alt.folklore.urban, but you will occasionally see it cropping up in other groups.

Line noise, n., is the presence of spurious characters in a Usenet post created by electrical noise in the network connections. People in groups that frown upon use of emoticons often refer to them as line noise. (fa.info-cpm, 1 Jun 1981)

Lurker, n., is a person who reads a Usenet group without posting to it. (net.movies.sw, 13 May 1984).

MOTSS, abbrev., for Member Of The Same Sex. The abbreviation was taken from a 1970 US Census term and used in Usenet newsgroups back when many system administrators refused to carry gay-themed newsgroups. The group net.motss was proposed in Sep 1983 to avoid using gay in the name of the group. (net.singles, 7 Jan 1983)

Netiquette, n., is the system of rules of social engagement on the Internet, etiquette for the net. (net.jokes, 15 Nov 1982)

Newbie, n., is a newcomer to a newsgroup. The term is originally from Vietnam-era US military slang, but nowadays is almost exclusively used in Internet contexts. (comp.sys.mac, 31 May 1988)

NNTP, abbrev., for Network News Transfer Protocol, a system created in 1984 that allowed Usenet to be transferred over TCP/IP connections. This freed the system from UUCP and allowed the Internet to carry Usenet.

Ob-, comb. form, stands for obligatory. The prefix is usually combined with the name of the newsgroup and used in off-topic posts. Text following the Ob-[newsgroup] is then some non-sequitur but on-topic comment. It can also be combined with other words to note an obligatory comment, e.g., ob-joke, ob-disclaimer. (comp.sys.ibm.pc, 4 Feb 1988)

Off-topic, adj., designates a posting that is outside the bounds of discussion for that particular group. Netiquette dictates starting the subject line with OT: when making an off-topic post so that those not interested can easily ignore it. (net.followup, 17 Nov 1982)

Old hat, n., is the opposite of a newbie, someone who has been a participant in a newsgroup for a long time. It is a jocular variant on the adjective old hat meaning tired or out of date. (net.astro, 15 Nov 1985)

OTOH, abbrev., for On The Other Hand. (net.nlang, 12 Aug 1983)

Plonk, interj., is an echoic term for the imaginary sound of someone being dropped into a killfile. Tradition dictates that when you killfile someone, you reply to their message with Plonk! to let them know they have been killfiled. (alt.flame, 11 Nov 1989)

Rot13, n. & v., is a simple cipher system where a letter is replaced by the letter 13 places away from it, A becomes N, B become O, etc. For example, “Qnegu Inqre vf Yhxr’f sngure” is “Darth Vader is Luke’s father.” Rot13 is used on Usenet to encode offensive jokes, pornographic passages, spoilers to movies and TV shows, or anything that someone might not want to stumble upon inadvertently. Most newsreaders include a Rot13 encode/decode feature. (net.jokes, 4 Dec 1982)

ROTFL, abbrev., for Rolling On The Floor Laughing. It is used to respond to jokes and humorous comments that one finds very funny. Also seen is ROTFLMAO, which adds My Ass Off to the phrase. (rec.humor, 29 Oct 1990)

September That Never Ended, The, catch phr., is September 1993. There was a time when the Internet and Usenet were the exclusive provinces of government and educational institutions. There was no public access to Usenet; you had to be affiliated with an institution to gain access. Old time Usenetters always dreaded Septembers. That was the month when thousands of new college freshmen would gain access to Usenet for the first time. The influx of newbies in September was almost overwhelming. In 1993, however, the general public could gain access to Usenet for the first time through Internet Service Providers. After September 1993, there was a constant stream of newbies on Usenet and that month came to be known as the September that never ended. (alt.folklore.computers, 26 Jan 1994)

Sig block, n., meaning signature block. It is also often sig file. Many Usenetters have standard blocks of text that are added to the end of their posts. These signature blocks often contain quotes, poems, bits of ASCII art, etc. (net.news, 16 Aug 1983)

Signal to noise ratio, n., the amount of intelligent, original commentary in a newsgroup, compared to spam, pointless chatter, etc. It is often abbreviated to S/N ratio. It is an adaptation of an electronics term. (net.suicide, 19 Feb 1983)

Sock puppet, n., is one who mindlessly parrots the ideas of another, as if one were a sock puppet. On Usenet, people sometimes create avatars to make it seem as if more people are agreeing with them. These are also known as sock-puppets. (chi.media, 15 May 1995)

Spoiler space, n., are blank lines inserted at the top of posts that contain spoilers, forcing someone to scroll down in order to read the spoilers. The intent is to prevent inadvertent viewing of spoilers. (rec.games.misc, 11 Apr 1992)

Spoiler, n., is information that gives away the end of a movie, TV show, book, video game, etc. and spoils it for anyone else. On Usenet, it is considered polite to clearly mark posts that contain spoilers. (fa.sf-lovers, 13 May 1981)

Thread drift, n., is the gradual changing of the subject matter in a thread. Long-lasting threads on Usenet almost invariably change topics multiple times. (rec.games.frp, 13 Jan 1991)

Troll, n. & v., a deliberately inflammatory message designed to rile up and provoke members of newsgroup. The term is from the method of fishing. (alt.folklore.urban, 7 Feb 1993)

YMMV, abbrev., for Your Mileage May Vary. It is used to mean that the results one gets may not match the results reported in the post. The term is from a standard disclaimer that automobile manufacturers give. (rec.music.classical, 27 Feb 1990)