2-5. Friday: Mastering In-House Jargon

2-5. Friday: Mastering In-House Jargon

 

Fay: Today is our last day together,Tom. I am going to show you how to improve your tech-speak.

 

Tom: Let me guess. That’sthe jargon that techies like us use to confuse non-techies!

 

F: Yes, but there’s more.Our company for example, is called CCC or 3-C depending on how long the persontalking has been here.

 

T: How about you?

 

F: I came tem years agowhen Seattle first set up this branch to be China’s headquarters. Anyone whocalls it CCC has likely been here as long as me.

 

T: California ComputersChina – are short forms normal in tech-speak?

 

F: Yes, in an ITenvironment – there is another one – How fast you talk or do something counts.

 

T: I think I’m reallyconfused, Ms. Chang.

 

F: Take a look at your PC,here’s 3 bookmarks.

 

T: One is The New Hacker’sDictionary. It collects words from textbooks and technical dictionary.

 

F: NetLingo will help youfind technological lingo (/'lɪŋgo/, 隐语，外语). If you hear a word oran acronym (/'ækrənɪm/, 首字母缩略词)that you don’t know, do a search.

 

T: The third one I know,the Urban (/'ɝbən/, 都市的) Dictionary. Our foreignEnglish teacher told us about this. Whenever I heard a word in a DVD I didn’tunderstand, or saw one on the Internet, I could find it here!

 

F: If you’ve already lookedup on the Net you’re not going to have any problem.

 

T: Is there any jargon hereat 3-C that will confuse me, though?

 

F: Our tech speak hasindustry standard. If you can understand the nerds (/nɝd/, 呆子) on The Big Bang Theory, you can understand us.

 

T: Thanks for spending somuch time with me this week, Ms. Chang. And I hope next time we talk it isn’tabout a problem.