Computer freaks go dingle dangle dongle:

Understanding ‘Geek’ mythology

Gaston de Rosayro

Personal-computer makers and their ‘geeks’, also known as computer freaks, are really discovering that it’s still a low-tech world out there. While they are finally having great success selling PCs (that’s Personal Computers to hopelessly ignorant non-geeks), they now have to deal with people to who monitors and disk drives are as foreign as another language. I must admit, though that I’m a technological retard in the age of Cyber Civilisation. I’m unfit to be a part of an elite sub-culture and am certain to be hounded out of the new enlightened ‘geek’ society.

For one thing this computer ‘geek’ jargon is all Greek to me but far worse to many others who are totally illiterate when it comes to comprehending the technical gobbledegook. To the uninitiated, computer parlance may sound a bewildering complexity of the most fanciful terms and phrases. It may prove mind-boggling at the beginning but comprehension soon dawns on those determined to learn its bizarre terminology.

Perhaps I could offer a few tips to the totally ignorant on the slang that certainly has nothing to do with my dear aunt Rhonda’s lingo in Bingo. Besides it is often sated with seemingly ever-so suggestive terms which sometimes abound with shades of double entendre.

To begin with the basics, the Internet is not a cafeteria where workers put their hair and a Mouse Pad has absolutely nothing to do with where Disney’s Mickey and Minnie live. One incurable moron thought that a Keyboard was some sort of rack where he was supposed to hang the keys so the wife could find them.

Be aware that a Laptop is not necessarily a place where grandkids or sexy willing secretaries are allowed to park themselves.

A poor geek found himself in a real domestic blitz situation and had to explain to his wife while back-pedalling and parrying a series of blows that the Diskette he was talking of buying was certainly not a female disco dancer. It’s quite bewildering really when you suddenly realize that all of your friends have an @ in their names.

I told a young woman writer to call the office technician when her computer crashed. She described the problem and the technician concluded that the computer needed to be brought in and serviced. He told her to unplug the power cord and bring it over to his workstation so that he could fix it. About ten minutes later she showed up at his door with the power cord in her hand. Believe it not some people can’t figure out the mouse. One story of woman computer debutante has become part of Geek mythology.

It appeared she had complained that her mouse was hard to control with the “dust cover” on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

More hilarious still was the one related by another technician that one of his customers held the mouse and pointed it at the screen, all the while clicking madly as she would a TV remote control. The customer got no response and the technician had a hard time explaining to her that that the mouse works only if it’s moved over a flat surface.

For instance I was persuaded to allow the family seamstress to gain some hands-on experience with my spanking new PC as she had been offered a job as a manageress of a swank women’s clothing shop.

I told her to go ahead and left her to it and returned a few minutes later. The exasperated woman, whose only technical experience had been confined to sewing machines, complained she couldn’t get the computer to turn on. I asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. “I’ve pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens,” she replied. “Foot pedal?” I queried.

“Yes,” she said, “this little white foot pedal with the on switch. “The ‘foot pedal,’ it turned out, was the computer’s mouse.

And a geek looked me quite pityingly when I inquired whether a ‘fatal error’ made with the e-mail I sent meant that I killed somebody. But I refused to lose my cool and decided to get even. I asked him quite innocently whether the Adam and Eve virus is one that takes a couple of bytes out of his Apple?

He got a bit suspicious when I explained to him confidently that a Freudian virus is when his computer becomes obsessed with marrying its own motherboard. He left in a huff only to return with the query: “I can’t find my dongle anywhere.

I thought I plugged the dongle direct into the back of your PC”. Revenge is sweet as I spat out at him: “Get out of here you technical pervert and take your darn dangling dongle along with you!”