Lingo

Post slugs, trackbacks, excerpts, blogrolls, tag surfers, bookmarklets. All these terms people just take for granted. I’ll learn them all, but meanwhile, I’d like to describe my first thoughts on them.

Post slugs. Now that sounds like something that could really do damage to a gardening blog. What, do they come in the night and leave a clear sticky trail all over your blog? Trackbacks: is this an elegant way to describe the goo left by these slugs?
Excerpts I can understand. They’re probably snippets from some larger, more important blog. Someday, bloggers will come here to get their excerpts, I’m sure. But isn’t this just a vaunted way of saying copy & paste? Who does this to your blog, and what do they get out of it?

Tag surfers may be the answer. These are those young whippersnappers you see at parks or anywhere there’s a bit of pavement. They’ve got skating on the brain and little else. Get in their way and you’ll learn what tag means in a hurry. They eat blogrolls for breakfast!

Bookmarklets seem rather innocuous after all that. They’re just little widgets trying to make a name for themselves in this big world.

And you thought I probably didn’t even know what a widget was.