12 expressions from the digital world have a curious origin; know

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Did you know that the first computer bug may have been a real insect crashing the machine? Or that the name Bluetooth comes from a Danish king with weird teeth? Life in the digital universe has brought a new vocabulary to people’s daily lives, with terms that now sound trivial. Each name has its motives behind it and some carry unusual origins, such as the examples above. Check out the 12-word technology-related stories below.

READ: Learn the History of Internet Domains

1 of 8 List provides explanations for famous technology titles, such as bluetooth and spam – Photo: Raissa Delphim / dnetc

List provides explanations for titles of famous technologies, such as bluetooth and spam – Photo: Raissa Delphim / dnetc

READ: Evolution of emojis: remember faces that have changed over time

The name of this wireless connection comes from a 10th century king who had a tooth so rotten that it appeared to be blue. In English, “bluetooth” means “blue tooth”. How did this happen? In 1996, Intel, Ericsson, Nokia and IBM decided to come together to create a single standard of short-range wireless technology. During the development process, two engineers from two of these companies went out for drinks one day and started talking about history. One of the men mentioned King Harold Bluetooth Gormsson of Denmark and, interested, the other researched the monarch.

2 of 8 Phone connected via Bluetooth on iPhone 6 – Photo: Ana Marques / dnetc

Phone connected via Bluetooth on iPhone 6 – Photo: Ana Marques / dnetc

Suddenly, the idea came: the king who was able to unite Denmark and Christianize his population would give a great name to the new technology. Bluetooth then became the codename used by the developers. The standard, however, would be officially launched as PAN (personal area network), but the common name soon proved bad to be found by search engines. Thus, the term Bluetooth was signed. The Bluetooth symbol we all know today is a combination of the Scandinavian runes referring to the king’s initials: ᚼ and ᛒ.

The term for audio programs that can be listened to at any time was used for the first time in 2004, in an article in The Guardian. At the time, observing the birth of a new media, journalist Ben Hammersley wrote a text about the then recent phenomenon of audio content published on the Internet. “But what do you call it? Audioblogging? Podcasting? GuerillaMedia? ”, He asked in the article. Podcast (junction of the words “iPod” and “broadcast”, to transmit in English) was the name that ended up catching on. Probably thanks to the popularity of Apple’s MP3 player.

3 of 8 Google Podcasts is one of many applications that transmit audio over the Internet – Photo: Isabela Cabral / dnetc

Google Podcasts is one of the many applications that transmit audio over the Internet – Photo: Isabela Cabral / dnetc

Originally, Spam is a popular brand of pre-cooked meat sold in a can in over 40 countries. In 1970, the British TV humor program Monty Python’s Flying Circus displayed a skit in which the word spam was repeated extensively in a restaurant by waiters, customers and even a group of Vikings. In reference to the program, in the early days of the Internet, some chat room users started using the term to indicate repetitive posts sent by certain users. The messages clogged and blocked the platforms, making people very angry. Later, the expression spam also extended to emails sent in bulk.

4 of 8 Spam is canned meat – Photo: Reproduction / OAS

Spam is canned meat – Photo: Reproduction / OAS

Many must know the trolls of fantasy stories, deformed, quarrelsome and slow-witted creatures. Present today in many books, films and games, this figure has its roots in 17th century Scandinavian folklore. The use of the term on the Internet, however, came from another meaning: the verb “trolling”, which in English is the name of a fishing technique in which the fisherman, from inside a boat, slowly pulls on a bitten bait.

The expression became an allegory for a common practice among veterans of an online discussion group on legends and fables, in the mid-1990s. . There came a point where play became a disorder and “trolling” gained its current negative connotation. Today, the word is used with a sense closer to that of the creature, a being that lives looking for a fight.

The word “hack” has been part of the English language since the year 1200, approximately. It is defined by the Oxford dictionary as the act of “cutting with heavy blows in an irregular or random way”. The association with technology, however, appeared in the 1950s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The first uses identified were related to creative solutions to problems with machines, without any bad connotations. For example, the minutes of a 1955 meeting state «Mr. Eccles requests that anyone working or hacking the electrical system turn off the power to prevent the fuse from blowing.»

5 of 8 Hacker has other meanings, in addition to the most common «PC invader» – Photo: Creative Commons / Flickr / elhombredenegro

Hacker has other meanings, in addition to the most common «PC invader» – Photo: Creative Commons / Flickr / elhombredenegro

In the following decade, the use of the term expanded for computer enthusiasts in general. A 1955 programmer glossary called The Jargon File lists eight definitions for “hacker” – seven of them positive and one negative: “a malicious meddler who tries to discover confidential information”. This meaning was the most popular in the media since the 1990s, with newspapers and films warning about dangerous technological experts capable of committing cyber crimes.

«Stream» can be translated as «stream» in reference to a stream of water, as in a river. English speakers still use the word like this, but it has taken on a new meaning in the digital age, even adopted by Brazilians. It is the transmission of content, as Netflix, Spotify or YouTube do. A continuous action, as the streaming name points out. It is believed that the term was first used in this way in the 1920s, to describe a mechanism for transferring and distributing electrical signals that would be the basis for uninterrupted music playback without the need for radio. This system was used in elevators, for example.

First of all, it is worth noting that the hashtag that dominates social networks is the union of the symbol # and one or more words – and not the name of the symbol itself, as many think today. It is called a hash sign, junk or tic-tac-toe and used to be used to indicate numbers and, in some countries, the pound weight measurement. In the United Kingdom, the sign is known as a «hash».

6 of 8 First hashtag was used on Twitter in 2007 – Photo: Reproduction / Paulo Alves

First hashtag was used on Twitter in 2007 – Photo: Reproduction / Paulo Alves

The first appearance of something similar to a hashtag on the Internet was on mIRC, a famous chat platform in the 1990s and a precursor to current messengers. The network was separated by thematic channels signaled by the hash sign. In the early days of Twitter, designer Chris Messina suggested using the same resource to help bring discussions together on the same topics. Users and then the site itself soon joined. Over time, other social networks have also adopted the artifice. Its name is self-explanatory: «hash» + «tag», «etiquette» in English.

There are two theories for the origin of the expression that denotes an error in software. One is that Thomas Edison, the inventor of the lamp, coined the term, which appears in his notes describing a defective system. In his day, however, there were no computers. The other explanation is in a story involving a pioneer programmer, Grace Hopper. In 1947, she was working on the Mark II computer when a moth got stuck in the machine’s relay and she had to stop to wait for the repair. Commenting on the incident, Hopper reportedly said they were «debugging» the system, that is, removing an insect from it. «Bug», in English, means «insect».

The creator of the emojis is the Japanese Shigetaka Kurita. He invented the concept in 1999, designating simple symbols like «:)» to show certain emotions in written messages. The name comes from the combination of three Japanese characters: 絵 (e = image) 文 (mo = written) 字 (ji = character). Later, Kurita designed the first 250 emojis in graphic form as we know them today. However, his company failed to secure the copyright for the creation and Apple stole the idea.

7 of 8 New Twitter emojis replace native faces on Android – Photo: Helito Bijora / dnetc

New Twitter emojis replace native faces on Android – Photo: Helito Bijora / dnetc

Cookies are user data transmitted between the browser and the websites, serving as a memory for the next access. For example, your login and password or products added to an online store cart automatically reappear thanks to cookies. Personalized ads too. The term, “biscuit” in English, alludes to the Chinese fortune cookie. Just as he keeps his luck within him, digital cookies contain information in his code.

The mobile images that today became a separate language in virtual conversations have existed since 1987. GIF is simply the acronym for «graphic interchange format» or, in Portuguese, «graphic interchange format». The most interesting thing about the word is the dispute over its pronunciation. While some say «guif», others say «jif». According to its inventors, however, the correct thing is to use a «J» sound, different from how most Brazilians probably pronounce the term.

Wikipedia arrived in 2001, but it is neither the first nor the only Internet wiki, a concept that refers to groups of interconnected pages built collaboratively by users. Today, we see wikis with the most diverse themes. The first, however, was a computer program created by Ward Cunningham in 1994, which a year later became a website.

8 of 8 Wikipedia is one of the most popular sites in the world – Photo: Disclosure / Wikimedia

Wikipedia is one of the most popular sites in the world – Photo: Disclosure / Wikimedia

The programmer would call his creation QuickWeb, that is, fast network, since the proposal of the novelty was to allow easy and fast access to information. Until he remembered a trip to Hawaii, where he took the Wiki Wiki Bus when leaving the airport. In the Hawaiian language, «wiki wiki» means «fast». Thus was born WikiWikiWeb, whose name would name a whole new category of websites.