ELEMENTS OF NERDSPEAK : NET ARGOT CREEPING INTO VERNACULAR.

Byline: P.J. Huffstutter Daily News Staff Writer

Alpha geeks know it. Bandwidth junkies get it. So do the bitniks, the jitterati and everyone in the geeksploitnation.

They understand this nerdspeak, an emerging flood of techno-slang that has crawled off the computer network and into the mass media.

As the Internet spreads its tentacles into American culture, a new wave of jargon follows. More metaphoric than meaningful, these words provide a funky glimpse into the on-line world. Think ``eyeballs'' are just in your head? Then you just don't get it, said Gareth Branwyn, author of ``Jargon Watch: A Pocket Dictionary for the Jitterati'' (HardWired).

And that's the point.

``It's so funny when you see people outside this world use the lexicon to try to be hip,'' said Branwyn, 39, an Arlington, Va.-based writer who specializes in technology and pop culture. ``If you have to force the word `goofcore' into a conversation, you are clueless.''

Technically, most of the words in ``Jargon Watch'' are actually slang, or informal vocabulary coined by a specific group. Today, dictionaries list thousands of slang examples, from ``boogie'' and ``jam'' from the jazz culture, to ``trip'' and ``freak out'' from the '60s peace movement.

Jargon, on the other hand, is the special language used within a technical profession. So ``RAM,'' or random access memory, is jargon. ``Geek,'' which originally came from the carnival world as the person who would bite off chicken heads, falls under the slang header.

``The lexicon that is coming out of the digital cultures is smudging the boundaries between jargon and slang,'' Branwyn said. ``There's so many different elements and influences, it's becoming more difficult to separate the two.''

Spawned by a column in Wired magazine with the same name, ``Jargon Watch'' offers a humorous reflection of the PC revolution and its impact on today's society. A sort of ``Sniglets'' for Silicon Valley, these descriptive terms capture the corporate quirks and management blunders found in today's American high-tech business environment.

Take ``prairie dogging,'' or when someone yells or drops something loudly in an office and everyone pops his head over the cubicle walls to see what's happening. Or try ``domainism,'' the practice of judging others on the coolness factor of their e-mail address. Anything ending with ``.net'' qualifies as hip. America Online's ``aol.com,'' however, falls into the uncool category.

Branwyn notes that much of today's techno-speak draws inspiration from the science fiction of the 1970s and the '80s. Works by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson often tossed around cool-sounding futuristic terms like ``cyberpunk'' and ``virtual reality,'' long before it was hip to sound like a propeller-head.

Around the same time, the hacker community quietly developed its own writing style, often coining jargon by overgeneralizing grammatical rules. In a world of pure text, hacker communications reflected their fondness for word play, the practical need for shorthand and the influence of computer coding: ``incorrectspa cing''; ``cixelsyd'' instead of dyslexic; typing in all capitals to indicate shouting; using UNIX editing tools, such as ``s/Erik/Eric/'' to indicate ``change Erik to Eric in the preceding.''

As PC sales proliferate and the on-line community grows, so does the language. ``It's very similar to the rush of new slang that came out of World War II, the '60s culture and the Vietnam War,'' said Ken Kirkpatrick, an English professor at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. ``When you have so many people living in a time filled with unusual or revolutionary events, you will find that people begin to develop words to describe these new experiences.''

Today, general lingo from the computer realm enters the language of the common culture at an increasing pace. Words like e-mail, Web, Net and PC commonly crop up in everyday conversations, business meetings and television commercials.

Film studios, for example, often strip their Web address across the bottom of movie previews. Los Angeles radio disc jockeys spout off the latest deal offered by Earthlink and other local Internet service providers. Recent TV spots for IBM feature Dennis Leary chastising PC users for ``surfing'' the Web, while Volkswagen Jetta ads feature young programmers escaping to the beach after spending ``18 hours writing code.''

``This cultural cross-pollination helps spread the use of certain words,'' Branwyn said. ``You use interoffice e-mail to tell someone something, they tell a few other people, someone posts it on Usenet, someone else puts it on a Web page. The next thing you know people on both coasts are talking about it.''

Few people outside the subculture, of course, understand the more esoteric terms. On line, this lingo acts as a wall between the core group and the masses who float outside, said Connie Eble, an English professor at the University of North Carolina and author of ``Slang & Sociability.'' It's the ``us vs. them'' mentality, where the choice of an informal word carries a superficial meaning and a subtle message.

Constantly changing and mutating, the speakers play a game of intellectual one-upmanship. The wittier the word, the smarter the person sounds. In the computer world, where employers bank on the cache of hipness and novelty, only the cutting-edge survive.

But the terms themselves are short-lived because of the culture's demand for innovation, said Leo Braudy, a professor of pop culture at USC.

``Cool will be around forever,'' Braudy said. ``But `jitterati'? It's too trendy. It'll be gone by next year.''

GEEKSPEAK

Alpha geek: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group.

Bandwidth junkie: One who worships brute speed when it comes to Internet connections.

Beeper sitting: To assume responsibility for recording all incoming pages and encoded messages for a vacationing friend.

Bitnik: Someone who uses a public, coin-operated computer terminal to log on to the Internet.

Chips and salsa: Chips = hardware, salsa = software.

Egosurfing: Scanning the Net, databases, print media, research papers and so on, looking for references to one's own name.

404: Someone who's clueless; from the World Wide Web error message ``404 Not Found,'' meaning that the requested document cannot be located.

Geeksploitation: Taking advantage of twentysomething digital workers flushed with pioneer enthusiasm and willing to work long hours if bolstered by junk food, flexible schedules and no dress code.

ID10T: Acronym for idiot and a way techies can call people an idiot to their face. ``The guy is such an I-D-ten-T.''

Jitterati: What the digital generation becomes after tanking up on too much coffee; or the fear and anxiety associated with not knowing the latest jargon.

Kevork: To kill something, often a project.

Keyboard plaque: The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards.

Meatspace: One of the many slang terms for the physical world.

Off the grid: Euphemism for being off of the Net.

Picasso porn: The scrambled images on adult cable channels that can sometimes be seen (and heard) by nonsubscribers.

Prairie dogging: When someone yells or drops something loudly in an office, and everyone's head pop up over their cubicle walls to see what's going on.

Shackophobia: Fear associated with entering a Radio Shack because of how much money one might spend.

Shovelware: Boring, poorly done CD-ROMs or Web sites.

Spamming: Flooding Usenet newsgroups and e-mail boxes with commercial ads.

Thumb candy: A fast-action videogame requiring lots of button pushing.

Terms and definitions taken from Gareth Branwyn's ``Jargon Watch: A Pocket Dictionary for the Jitterati'' (HardWired).

CAPTION(S):

drawing, box

BOX: Geekspeak (see text)

Drawing: no caption (computer geek in a birdcage)

Bradford Mar/Daily News