James Baquet

    Mark is chatting with his classmate Ming in the common room of their dorm.

    Mark: Hi, Ming. What are you studying this time?

    Ming: Computer jargon. Isn’t “jargon” a weird word?

    Mark: Yes, it is. As you know, it means “special words used by members of a group, especially a profession.”

    Ming: So there’s legal jargon, medical jargon, teen jargon, gaming jargon, and so on.

    Mark: That’s right. It probably comes from a Latin word meaning “to chatter” — perhaps like the birds — because to people who are not part of the group, it might sound like nonsense.

    Ming: Got it. Anyway, some of these words are new to me.

    Mark: Which ones?

    Ming: First, there’s “back-end software.”

    Mark: Okay, you know what a GUI is?

    Ming: “Graphic User Interface.” That’s what I see on the screen: buttons to click, blanks to type in, and so on.

    Mark: Yes. So that’s “the front end.” Things that operate in “the back-end” are processes that you don’t see.

    Ming: I get it. If I type Ctrl - Alt - Del on my PC, and click the second tab, I can see a ton of processes running, most of which I don’t usually see. These are all “back-end?”

    Mark: Exactly! What else did you learn?

    Ming: There are some abbreviations I often use, but I never knew what they stood for, or where they came from.

    Mark: For example?

    Ming: “MP3.” I say it a lot, but I didn’t know it stood for “Moving Picture Experts Group”—

    Mark: Oh yeah, “MPEG,” a group that sets digital standards for movies.

    Ming: Right, but then the “3” means “the third layer,” which is just audio.

    Mark: That’s right. “MP4” is audio and video together.

    Ming: Uh-huh. Another one where I didn’t know the full story: I knew a “Trojan” was a virus hiding in your computer, but I didn’t know it was from Virgil!

    Mark: That’s right. In Virgil’s “Aeneid,” he tells about the Trojan Horse, a wooden contraption that looked like a horse but was really a hiding place for soldiers.

    Ming: Then, at a certain time they went into action and destroyed the city — just like the virus does to your computer!

    Mark: Yeah, that’s a good one.

    Ming: Or a bad one! Here’s another term new to me: “geotag.”

    Mark: Ah, yes. GPS information embedded in, say, a picture, or a post on social media.

    Ming: It’s really handy for remembering where I took a picture.

    Mark: I know! It’s just one of the many benefits of the GPS, or “Global Positioning System,” used for navigation.

    Ming: Yeah. My dad has one in his car, and it tells him exactly where to make turns.