Jargon Watch: A Pocket Dictionary for the Jitterati

by Gareth Branwyn

Every era in America has its own language, every new culture its own lingo. JargonWatch documents the tortured and often hilarious new terminology that comes out of the high-pressure work environments of Silicon Valley, midtown Manhattan, and Hollywood, and captures the language of the new American culture while mocking its newness.

176 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1997

About the author

Gareth Branwyn is a writer, editor, and media critic.

He has covered technology, media, DIY, and cyberculture for Wired, Esquire, the Baltimore Sun, Details, and numerous other publications. He was an editor at Mondo 2000 and Boing Boing (when it was a print zine), founded the personal tech site, StreetTech.com, and worked for MAKE magazine for 8 years, lastly acting as their Editorial Director.

Gareth co-edited The Happy Mutant Handbook (with Boing Boing) and is the author of Jargon Watch: A Pocket Dictionary for the Jitterati, Jamming the Media, The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Building Robots, and Mosaic Quick Tour: Accessing and Navigating the World Wide Web (the first book written about the Web). His most recent book, a collection of his best work, with many new essays, is called Borg Like Me & Other Tales of Art, Eros, and Embedded Systems. The book was crowd-funded and self-published.

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sure this was a thing in 1997. Five years later it holds some surprises and wit, but isn't on my reread list.