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“Rad,” “far out,” and “you’ve got mail” might have gone “buh-bye” from our everyday language, but new words are either creeping into our conversation or have been lurking around long enough to be retired.

Blogoshpere: let’s take a non-word and shove more letters onto to it so we have another non-word.  New trends and technology need gimmicky names to make them more tangible for the mass audience.  It implies that there is this connected layer of bloggers within or on top of the internet that’s shaking up the news industry and we all get to look in from the outside.  Now, everyone is blogging on MySpace and posting mobile pics and video diaries.

Web 2.0: Do you even know what that means?  Is it the resurgence of internet commerce after the dot-com era went tits up?  Is it a reference to new applications that rely on smarter programming?  Is it about all the social networks?  Probably yes to all three.  But we’re here now.  It’s not like there is an upgrade process.  Nobody’s going to pick up a copy of Web 2.0 from Office Depot and install it on the home computer.  It’s here already, so let’s go back to calling it the Interwebs.

Web 3.0: aka the semantic web.  It’s so new that we had to version it?  Adding version numbers got old when Garbage released their second album nine years ago.  The concept of Web 3.0 is the blurring between applications and data; meaning a web page can be utilized for different purposes based on its markup.  For instance, my phone can read the markup of a webpage to extract contact information.

Home Page: as in, have you seen my home page?  Nobody need ever ask this question again.  Instead, tell people you’re on [your social network here], or the addy of your web site, or the ol’ classic email address.  Short of that, have a business card.

*Blog*: any word that plays on the word “blog.” A “moblog” might be awesome for no other reason than being generated by posts made from a mobile phone’s built-in camera, but the term has got to go.  It’s no longer new or unique.  If you use it in a conversation, you have to explain its meaning.  “Bleg” is a great word for describing a blog that begs for money (see LiveJournal.com).  Simply put, most *blog words are just the combination of “blog” and other words.  So use them separately.

Cyber*: similar to *blog* but 10 years older.  I thought I heard the last of cybergames and cyberstalkers, but they are still out there cyberterrorizing my cybersenses.  And I think that as long as the FBI has a Cyber Investigation department listed on their cyberhome page (seriously), it’s a word that won’t be leaving anytime soon.

www: pronounced “w-w-w dot.” If for no other reason than to shave off 10 extra syllables, a web address shouldn’t need a “www.” in front of it.  Most sites work just fine without the prefix.  For a matter of aesthetic, I suppose, we keep using it, but it’s worth mentioning when telling someone to which website to go.  See also: forward slash.

MySpace: it’s a noun, not a verb.  Ever since Google was used successfully in a sentence as an action for looking something up, other websites have been verbified as well.  One might YouTube a Senator’s Chief of Staff, or wiki the real meaning of “macaca,” but myspacing some hot guy you just met is just plain lazy (manhunt them instead, everyone knows that).  Eventually, some nouns — even proper ones — cross over into verb country.  Let’s try and keep them to a minimum.

Honorable Mentions:

AOL: I have dial-up.  Your email address ends in aol?  It would be shameful if it weren’t for the fact that millions of people still use them.

Wiki: Wiki is getting very close to verbification. So use it sparingly and try to keep it as a noun.  NBC is making their own wiki site? Lame.  Tracing edits back to the FBI and CIA? Awesome.

Faq: Spell it or say it at your own risk.  At most, your grandfolks won’t get it.

L33t speak: from IRC chat to gamer speak to txt messaging to investigative local news reports to getting cut off at the bar if you dare utter “teh pw3d” during Monday Night football.

Chris Williams writes a weekly column for PopSyndicate.com.  He’s going to get betch-slapped if he says “shoes” one more time.

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