Is this even English??

She's spent some time this morning patiently explains that there's no point in tapping the screen of her laptop because it is NOT an iPad ?

I don't know if Ill ever catch up with memes, bitflips and geomojis.....

I'm with you Skweek1 - I've spent over 30 years in IT and telecoms - including all the LAN, WAN, WiFi, Broadband and even voice - but as I see it, these 'apps' - which as we all know are just shorthand for applications are just gimmicks to sell smart phones and cartoon like fun content.

The language is, as many of you have said, confusing, unintelligible etc., etc.

But it is just a fashion fad based jargon - much like hula hoops or drainpipe trousers!

What it is not, is technology. In the same way that gaming systems are not technology.

It seems a lot of the effort put into "Social Media Tools" is creating a false impression of people being busy - or as an old colleague of mine once said - what I don't want is a team of "busy fools".

Most businesses today waste far too much time and effort on the latest 'gee-whizz' apps, or buy commercially available software with all the bells and whistle they will never use, but will pay for - Government departments are pretty good at that one.

The 'newspeak' language is OK for fun, but turns into meaningless gibberish at some point. And wow, look at how you can 'doctor' pictures in Snapchat, and live-stream music as you walk around in your virtual world.

Maybe I'm just being 'bah humbug'

Mind you - did have a lovely Sunday lunch today with DW - not an emoji or geofilter in sight!

Snapchat now let's you add .....

no no no nono nnoooooo

If they must use jargon, at least combine it with correct grammar.

LET'S is what offends me.

Snapchat now let's you add bitmoji to online geofilters

Does anyone remember Stanley Unwin? "Deeply joyful with your downloaders, Madam!"

It all just goes right over my head

I can use laptop for emails & on-line shopping also facebook (friends & family spread around). I can use a mobile & text but that's my limit. Basically I don't want to learn to use anything I don't need

Still speak in lbs & ozs, feet & inches & often convert amount of petrol I'm putting into car into gallons (I don't convert price), I know how many mpg I get

We still say miles per gallon don't we? That's not gone metric has it?
Meters per litres? Don't think so, do you?
What do they say on the Continent then? I have no idea.

The UK has been going metric since the late 1960s, and at school and college we used the SI system - metre, kilogram, second.

Metric threads replaced the old BSW, BSF, BA and other measurements with their metric equivalents from the 1970s.

Petrol or diesel is proved in litres - has been for some years - although, oddly, supermarkets still insist on selling milk in 4.27 and 2.175 litre bottles (4-pints and 2-pints respectively).

Most cars can measure consumption in either litres/kilometre, or the ld style British imperial miles per gallon - the choice is yours largely.

Mind you - road signs are still in yds and miles - but we love a challenge in the UK.

I tried asking grandchildren about weights and measures recently, and they didn't understand how far a yard was - maybe they will be the generation that finally get rid of the bizarre multi-system measurements we have today.

But, please don't go back to inches, ounces, stones, chains, and furlongs - even I can't use them.

We didn't use chains and furlongs even in our younger days, railman, don't exaggerate!

Even young people still tend to announce the birth weight of their babies in pounds and ounces, I've noticed!

Do you mean that you don't buy your wheat in bushels and pecks, Ana? You modernist!

I took O level maths in 1971 and we were the first year to sit our exams with questions using decimal currency. We had to have a crash course during the last year. No more questions about how much ten items @ 4s 11d would cost. It was much easier and would have been easier still if we had had metric measurements.

It's strange isn't, it? I know my weight in kilos but my height in feet and inches.

Metric units just aren't as conveniently sized as imperial ones so will never catch on! Of course we use chains and furlongs, Ana. An acre is a chain x a furlong, a cricket pitch is a chain, and furlongs are usef in horse racing.

pass

Metric units are easy and convenient. Our generation (some of you) may not think so, but a decimal system is far more natural than a duodecimal system.
Just saying!

Both metric and imperial unirs are used simultaneously in the construction industry, although architects dimensions are in mm. A builder might say "I need 3 metres of the 3 by 2" ( timber 3 inches wide by 2 inches thick)

daphnedill, my year was the last to take O level Maths using "old money". We were so relieved that we didn't have to get to grips with the new-fangled decimal system

They still use furlongs in horse racing don't they?
Maybe in the not too distant future even bitmojis and geofilters and snapchat will be quaintly old fashioned?

Sent from my zx81 computer

I don't see anything 'natural' about the decimal system, annodomini. As I understand it the pre-decimal measuring system was based on 'natural' phenomena.

www.npl.co.uk/educate-explore/factsheets/history-of-length-measurement/

I am willing to bet that those of us who were brought up with feet and inches, and pounds, shillings and pence, are probably better at simple arithmetic than those taught boring old metric. We had to be a bit more agile in our calculations

Very possibly, Maizie. Metric calculations are easy peasy compared with working in different bases all the time, but why make life complicated? Why not turn the mental agility to something else?

MrsMopp, I read somewhere that vintage computers like the ZX81 can be worth quite a bit!

I'm not advocating making life complicated, dd. But I do quite like that I can convert backwards and forwards through both systems.

Of course, measurement of time isn't yet metric and I've worked with KS3 children who are quite baffled by it...

Being mentally agile in one area doesn't preclude mental agility in another area. Unless you subscribe to the notion that ones brain capacity is finite..(which I don't for one second believe that you do )

Daphnedill, Ha that was a joke! It was a Sinclair spectrum actually....?

Snapchat now let's you add.....
If they must use jargon, at least combine it with correct grammar

I totally agree, the words may be gobbledygook, but the apostrophe is INEXCUSABLE

Daphne, we had a ZX80. It didn't even have a decimal point.

Please let us not go back to imperial. It's hard enough teaching decimal to my grandson. If I mention anything like feet and inches, he looks so puzzled.