In June1992, Jean Armour Polly a librarian and magazine author coined the phrase "Surfing the internet." She was writing a paper about the internet and needed a tag line that would catch the readers eye. She envisioned and avalanche or huge wave of information coming toward the user and the metaphor stuck.
The article was an immediate success soon thereafter many magazine and newspaper started using the phrase. I would have giving the credit to Vinton Gray Cerf as he was the "father of the internet" and creator TCP/IP the technology that allows computers to communicate.
Everyone thinks that geeks are those who bury themselves in computer minutia. But I think that 50 years ago, pre-computers, the engineers who walked around campus with slide rules for math book markers were accorded that same label, for probably the same reasons.
ReplyDelete...and then along came a complete Internet geek dictionary. From the advent of the surfing phrase, 'geek squads' from around the world begin developing all sorts of Internet phrases, slang, "puns", or whatever you want to call it. And all of these are in some way practiced and used regularly in casual online communication.
ReplyDeleteWho knew Earl??? I never would've guessed that's where the term "Surfing the Net" originated. I guess we don't think much about where catchy phrases come from...we just use them. I suppose being creatures of habit it's just natural for terms to stick with us.
ReplyDeleteThere's always a different meaning for a word, one that you may never have expected. This is one of those! It is really cool to date back and see how things started.
ReplyDeleteSO that's were it came from. I find it funny when we see movies that try to make the data that a user has access to more entertaining than just the 0's and 1's that it is. (Hackers) To envision it as being "bombarded" with information, rather than "trying to find the right needle in a huge room full of needles" is interesting. I kinda see it more like that warehouse the government has in last Indiana Jones movie. Holy crap where do I begin.
ReplyDeleteWhen a computer is acting funny it is said that it has a "bug." That phrase actually came form moths eat cloth cables inside a computer and cause weird results.
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