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#8544 10/20/00 07:12 PM
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I just received an e-mail message from a chum in the Mother Country in which he used the word "computerate." From the context, I discern his intent to mean "someone who knows things about computers and who speaks the language which computer-familiar people speak." Ever heard of this? How you do like it?


#8545 10/20/00 07:45 PM
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Hiya Paw,

I think "computerate" stinks, and I hope I never do hear it outside the current context!

However, being a potentially useful compression of "computer literate", I'll bet it's with us for generations.





#8546 10/20/00 09:19 PM
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Having spent years with people who proudly deem themselves 'Computer Geeks' (most of whom have recently graduated from college and now make $50-80k in their first 'real' job) I have heard computerate often enough. Usually, though, I hear it as a verb... "He is computerating." I doubt that you'll see any less of it for a long time, wheter it is used as a verb or a noun.


#8547 10/20/00 10:53 PM
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There is a lexicon of computer hacker termionology located at http://www.science.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/ ... but it does not contain "computerate."


#8548 10/20/00 11:00 PM
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I found the following at the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education:

computerate adj. Computer literate. Greg Ulmer, an English professor at the University of Florida, says universities must "teach students to be as computerate as they are literate." His students use hypertext and multimedia elements in their writing assignments, he adds.




#8549 10/21/00 10:12 AM
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It is almost instantly recognisable, and it doesn't corrupt an existing word by giving it a new meaning, and hence losing much-loved distinction (gay, tandem etc being examples of such). Long may it live with us.


#8550 10/21/00 12:23 PM
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but, alas, the verb form will ineluctably proliferate, take the past tense, and become entwined with computer-aided (as in ~ design [CAD]).



#8551 10/21/00 12:46 PM
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And won't that teach the ruddy Americans to distinguish their ts from their ds when speaking? Huzzah for RP - we shall rule the world through accent alone (with a touch of stiff upper lippery)! ;->

cheer

the sunshine warrior



#8552 10/21/00 01:02 PM
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who are you calling rutty??


#8553 10/21/00 01:11 PM
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Day-em. An ah thote yuall'ed be pleeyuzd with thuh caampluhment.


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