2_200118_Have You Google Someone Lately

HaveYou Google Someone Lately?

Now, the VOA Special English program, Words andTheir Stories.

Computer technology has become a major part ofpeople's lives. This technology has its own special words. One example is theword mouse. A computer mouse is not a small animal that lives inbuildings and open fields. It is a small device that you move around on a flatsurface in front of a computer. The mouse moves the pointer, or cursor, on thecomputer screen.

Computer expert Douglas Engellbart developedthe idea for the mouse in the early nineteen-sixties. The first computer mousewas a carved block of wood with two metal wheels. It was called a mouse becauseit had a tail at one end. The tail was the wire that connected it to thecomputer.

Using a computer takes some training. Peoplewho are experts are sometimes called hackers. A hacker is usually aperson who writes software programs in a special computer language. But theword hacker is also used to describe a person who tries to steal informationfrom computer systems.

Another well known computer word is Google,spelled g-o-o-g-l-e. It is the name of a popular "search engine" forthe Internet. People use the search engine to find information about almost anysubject on the Internet. The people who started the company named it Googlebecause in mathematics, googol, spelled g-o-o-g-o-l, is an extremely largenumber. It is the number one followed by one-hundred zeros.

When you "Google" a subject, you canget a large amount of information about it. Some people like to Google theirfriends or themselves to see how many times their name appears on the Internet.

If you Google someone, you might find thatperson's name on a blog. A blog is the shortened name for a Web log. Ablog is a personal Web page. It may contain stories, comments, pictures andlinks to other Web sites. Some people add information to their blogs every day.People who have blogs are called bloggers.

Blogs are not the same as spam. Spam isunwanted sales messages sent to your electronic mailbox. The name is based on afunny joke many years ago on a British television show, "Monty Python'sFlying Circus." Some friends are at an eating place that only serves aprocessed meat product from theUnited Statescalled SPAM. Every time the friendstry to speak, another group of people starts singing the word SPAM very loudly.This interferes with the friends' discussion – just as unwanted sales messagesinterfere with communication over the Internet.