Do you use any of the social networking websites which are so popular these days? You know- the places where you can connect up with friends and relatives and meet people who share the same interests as you?
If you're younger you may use MySpace, young adults are more likely to be found on Facebook and busy professionals may prefer something like LinkedIn. But at least two of these sites have one thing in common: apart from being social spaces where you can meet and chat to people, share photos and other things, they've all added new verbs and nouns to the language in the past couple of years.
Let's take a look at some examples. I've just facebooked the photos from my summer holiday [uploaded them to my Facebook page]. I facebooked that guy John and it turns out he's an architect [looked him up in Facebook]. Did you facebook Susan about the party [contact Susan through her Facebook page]? Anyway, nice to meet you. Do you mind if I facebook you [add you as a Facebook friend]?
As you can see, 'facebook' is a pretty versatile word, and you could say the same about 'myspace', which you will find being used in much the same way all over the Net. LinkedIn (being a more adult, professional community) is yet to succumb to such cavalier twisting of the English language!
And while you're 'facebooking' or 'myspacing' you may also find yourself 'commenting' (writing a comment on someone's Facebook or MySpace page), as in this example: 'I commented Dawn that she should come to the pub on Saturday and she commented me that she couldn't because she was going away for the weekend'. Anyway, I must get on. I haven't facebooked yet today and there's sure to be a lot to catch up on!
Key Words
- to upload something: to add something to an Internet web page 上載
- versatile: can be used in many different ways 多功能的, 多方面適用的
- to succumb: to give in to something; to be defeated by something 屈服, 聽任
- cavalier: without respect for tradition or normal ways of doing things 目空一切的
- twisting: the act of distorting something so it seems to mean something it was not intended to mean 扭曲, 曲解
Check Your Comprehension
1.What type of Internet site did Gavin Dudeny discuss?
(A) online shopping sites (B) online gambling sites
(C) social networking sites (D) language learning sites
2.How many specific sites were mentioned by name?
(A) 2 (B) 3 (C) 4 (D) 5
3.Gavin Dudeny gave example uses of one particular word from a site. How many uses did he give?
(A) 3 (B) 4 (C) 5 (D) 6
4.Decide if the following statements are true of false according to the article.
(1) People who use MySpace are generally not as old as people who use Facebook.
(2) LinkedIn is for people with good jobs.
(3) Sites like these have given new words such as adverbs and adjectives to the language
(4) MySpace has proven to be a less versatile word than Facebook.
(5) In this Internet context, ‘to comment’ means to leave a message for someone on their page.
館藏介紹
英語宅急便 
