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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
I often see "puter" written in cyber-space venues. Of course, I say "Mac"
(crawling back into cave...)
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
Both my sons said "puter" when learning to speak, and I've heard the term in other contexts, involving younger (high school/college) people.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393 |
I've never seen 'puter with an apostrophe, but puter is common enough among geeks, though always playfully, never as the standard term. It's just a lopping of the first syllable, not a slurring.
Now I've just consulted the Jargon File (a very good and comprehensive survey of geek terms) and it's not in there, so I'll have to guess. There is (was) a thing called a transputer, which is a kind of chip with a certain innovative architecture. My understanding was that puter was originally either a synonym of this or a generalization into a morpheme: so that a standard computer and a transputer were two different kinds of puter. But as the transputer is now dead, that generalization must have died with it.
My girlfriend says puter to me and putie to her children.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 130
member
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member
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 130 |
< I often see "puter" written in cyber-space venues. >
I think Anna's on to something here. I always assumed puter was a chat room/bulletin board abbreviation from the early day of the web, back when most queries were of the "probs w/ DOS in new puter software." Hence the aforementioned "geek" usage...
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
Doug! You're back!  Glad to see you again...
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