Technical terminology: finding new meaning in acronyms and idioms.

AuthorColby, Kent L.
PositionTELECOM & TECHNOLOGY - Reprint - Glossary

Many technical terms or idioms of today's technology have evolved from acronyms, abbreviations and even brand names to occupy every part of speech and sometimes even evoke a totally different meaning. FAX, short for facsimile is now used as a noun, verb and adjective. Originally a fax was just that, a facsimile of the original document, received electronically. Now the abbreviation refers to the facsimile machine, the transmission and the message or document. It was about 1979, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, when it was first used as a verb, as in to send a message or document. RADAR is or was an acronym of sorts for radio detecting and ranging. We currently use radar as awareness, as in under the radar.

Other common terms probably do not require updated definitions as they have worked their way into our everyday conversation. Terms and words like Internet, the ether of today's connectivity; Wi-Fi, that cloud of connectivity we all search for in every coffee shop, airport and office; LAN, local area network; WAN, a wide area network; and WLAN, a wireless local area network.

If you think an Argument is a disagreement with a family member over the remote, ATM means automatic teller machine, or a Bug is something crawling around the house to eliminate with a pesticide you need to read on. You'll also find out that Bus Speed is not a mass transit term, why DLL is somewhat of a "trust me" situation, and what makes the Trojan Horse as welcome in your computer as in the ancient city of Troy. Let's start with SSID, it's not a slurred punk rock name. Our friends Down Under at securewife.com/au explain it best.

SSID (SERVICE SET IDENTIFIER)

A name that identifies a particular 802.11 wireless LAN. A client device receives beacon messages from all access points within range advertising their SSIDs. The client device can then either manually or automatically "based on configuration" select the network with which to associate. The SSID can be up to 32 characters long. As the SSID displays to users, it normally consists of human-readable characters. However, the standard does not require this. The SSID is defined as a sequence of 2-32 octets each of which may take any value.

Say what? We've listed some terms common in today's technical world--geek speak--easily found online in the geek.com[R] Glossary of Terms.

ANSI (AMERICAN NATIONAL STANDARDS INSTITUTION)

This organization represents the United States in the International Organization for...

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