Netymology: From Apps to Zombies: A Linguistic Celebration of the Digital World

by Tom Chatfield

Tom Chatfield is a freelance author, consultant, game writer and theorist. His first book Fun, Inc. was published to worldwide acclaim and he has done design, writing and consultancy work for games and media companies, including Google and Intervox.
 
Composed of 100 bite-sized entries of 400 to 600 words each, Netymology weaves together stories, etymologies and analyses around digital culture’s transformation and vocabulary. Chatfield presents a kaleidoscopic, thought-provoking tour through the buried roots of the symbols, speech, and mannerisms we have inherited from the digital from the @ and Apple symbols, to HTML and Trojan horses, to the twisted histories of new forms of slang, memes, text messages and gaming terms; how language itself is being shaped by technology, how it is changing us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Computers, History, Language

352 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2013

About the author

Dr Tom Chatfield is a British writer, broadcaster and tech philosopher. Tom’s books exploring digital culture—most recently "Critical Thinking" (SAGE Publishing) and "Live This Book!" (Penguin)—have appeared in over two dozen countries and languages. He's currently writing a series of thrillers for Hodder set in the world of the dark net.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

The modern age is full of jargon, and the world of computers and the internet is no exception. In this book Chatfield gives us a reasonably comprehensive list of words, along with examples, an explanation and sometimes a little history on each word and phrase.

This is along the lines of other books that seek to clear the air and mystery behind the words that people use in their profession. But unlike, Who Touched Base in My Thought Shower, a book on office jargon, this is not written with humour or wit that makes a book like this so readable normally. It was interesting in parts, but not particularly great; which is a shame as I like language books normally.

[Mira Yunus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a special treat for the people who appreciate one good linguistic trivia after another!

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

barely there, but it's bearable. the kind of book that doesn't need any hard effort in finishing it!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative and not at all dry.

[Anetq · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of us who love languages almost as much as we love the internet, this is a lovely stroll through the lingo of the internet and the origins of the words we invented or re-appropriated to describe new phenomenon, culture and behaviours in the digital world. And for meatspace, the non-digital world where the sneakernet is sometimes faster than teh interwebs. If you ever wondered where those words came from, what makes someone hikikomori or who the patron saint of the internet is, wait no longer, the answers are in this book!
I'll end this, before it gets TL;DR - but let me just disclose that someone finally invented a word for the lazy journalism half truths that gets repeated over and over, it's Snowclones (in honour of those 100 words for snow, the Inuit allegedly have).

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn't bad, I just wish the author had decided between an A-Z list and a history of digital language! Much of what I read seemed to be puffed up encyclopaedia entries, and the rest read as introductions to long chapters on a particular topic. This made reading quite frustrating as terms were not succinctly defined and their origins were not expanded on sufficiently.

In conclusion: nice idea, liked the facts, confused execution.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linguistics is a study that I find particularly fascinating (I major in it in college) so this book is right up my alley. Unfortunately, some of the entries had less to do with etymology as the title suggested and more to do with how media was used to make a particular word popular. However it was still cool to see where a lot of our modern words come from.

[Snoakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating stuff - perfect for reading in small chunks. I've been dipping in to it for a while now and I'm quite sad it's finished.
If you are of the geeky persuasion and you like The Etymologicon, then this is for you

[Deirdre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paper version needs an index

Reminded me of a lot of my computer history.

I would love to get a lot of my co-workers to read this so they realise that I'm not making these terms up.

[Lindindin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has a lot of interesting info, but is just too bitty for me - it reads like a collection of newspaper columns rather than a coherent book.