Survey reveals top annoying Internet wordage

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By Stevie Smith Jun 22, 2007, 12:32 GMT

Ranking as one of history’s most revolutionary tools of communication, the Internet has, in its brief existence, seen vast communities spring up from its technologically rich soil. With the emergence of those communities has come an extension of everyday written and spoken language, an online and Web-savvy form of language that instantly separates the technophobes from the technophiles. However, a new survey reveals that, Shakespearian similarities to one side, such inventive originality is not always welcome.More pointedly, according a reoort by the Telegraph, a poll published by UK research outfit YouGov, the likes of "blog", "wiki", and "podcast" are ranked amongst the most annoying words to have been created by the perpetually expanding influence of the Internet culture in recent years. The YouGov poll, which gathered the thoughts and reactions of some 2,091 adults, revealed that the number one Internet-spawned term that instantly compelled online browsers to "wince, shudder, or want to bang your head on the keyboard" was… "folksonomy", which is a somewhat obscure word used to describe a Web–based classification system. Next on the list was "Blogosphere", which is an all-encompassing term used to describe the online community of blogs (Web-logs) and journals. Perhaps unsurprisingly, "blog" follows close behind, with the truly grating "netiquette" grinding its way into fourth position in terms of user irritation, and "blook", sliding into fifth. YouGov’s survey was commissioned by the Lulu Blooker Prize, which exists as a literary award for books. The poll results come hot on the heels of various forms of Internet-based terminology being officially added to the pages of the ninth edition of the Collins English Dictionary. Related words admitted to the new edition include the cringe-inducing "godcast", which is similar in meaning to "podcast" but involves specific religious content converted to the MP3 media format for download.Newly relevant words considered for inclusion to the Collins English Dictionary are assessed by collating English usage information taken from a 2.5 billion-word database that consists of published books, broadcast transcripts, journals, magazines, and Web sites. The remaining five of the top ten most annoying terms plucked from the vastness of cyberspace by the YouGov poll saw "Webinar", an online seminar, come in at six, "Vlog", a video blog, at seven, "Social networking", used to describe Web 2.0-driven communities online, at eight, and at nine is "cookie", which is a text file stored on a user’s computer hardware from a visited Web site. And four howlers combine in joint tenth place to round out the online discomfort felt by the respondants, those being: "Wiki", a Web site where a multitude of authors add, remove, and edit its evolving content (i.e. Wikipedia); "podcast", a downloadable file of audio-based data; "Avatar", an image respresentation of the user in either static or animated form; and "user-generated content", which also alludes to Web 2.0 and describes Web-based content driven by the online community.

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AvenyetJun 22nd, 2007 - 16:14:47

nice to see worth while research being put into something oh and they missed out the two most annoying words in history which is lol and n00b

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col mcgJun 22nd, 2007 - 16:29:30

I always thought LOL was an abreviation not an actual word.

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AlexJun 22nd, 2007 - 20:14:14

Last time I checked, 'avatar' was a word that had been around for ages. On top of that, its modern use isn't even that far removed from its original meaning.

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BrianJun 23rd, 2007 - 08:52:23

Again, people with too much money and too much time deicde 'ooo what can we do today'

I hardly think a little of 2000 people consitutes a valid survey. I can go online and find more than that number of people who love the terms wiki etc.

The fact that this has recieved attention is terrible.

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andyJun 23rd, 2007 - 08:57:25

IMHO :-)

L.O.L. is an abreviation; lol is a word (or more precisely an acronym?)

Avatar-
An incarnation of a Hindu deity in human or animal form, especially one of the incarnations of Vishnu such as Rama and Krishna.

Is pretty far from its “online” meaning, I think (hope?).

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www.mathematics.milJun 23rd, 2007 - 11:45:54

'Browse the Lulu Marketplace
Books * Christianity (4388)'

Statistically and stochastically the survey-collection by Lulu Marketplace((Hebrew)
(it was accomplished with 2000 Jews))is representative?

'Browse the Lulu Marketplace
Books * Jewish Numbers (200+)'

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WonderingJun 23rd, 2007 - 16:30:24

People get 'annoyed' over too many simple things in life - save it for the big things!

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KimAug 6th, 2007 - 19:08:34

'reoort' must be a new term too!

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