"Computer Lingo"

[dniMretsaM]

Why do people always treat "computer lingo" as a subjective term? It seems to me that to most people "computer lingo" is any computer-related word that they don't know the meaning of. If you talk to most people, they think "Start button" is a normal, non-techy word. But if you start to talk about executables (a fairly simple term), people look at you like you're nuts (which you might be, but that's irrelevant). The only area I really notice this in is computers. Am I just missing something, or have you noticed this too. If not, what other fields are like this?

[trollolo]

people like to dismiss things that they don't understand, instead of saying "i don't know what that is, please teach me", they try to put it in a trivial light. mostly due to personal insecurities.

[racie]

people like to dismiss things that they don't understand, instead of saying "i don't know what that is, please teach me", they try to put it in a trivial light. mostly due to personal insecurities.

Which is exactly why I don't use "computer lingo" around people of this type. I don't blame people for not caring, which is why I don't care to talk to these people about technology. There are certainly many subjects I don't care about.

[jtarin]

People used to say, "Quit using those $0.50 (fifty-cent)words".

[mbarland]

what other fields are like this?

In my experiemce and off the top of my head: the military (and each branch has its own lingo), law enforcement, medical, automotive, and so on. So in other words, any specialized field.

[Copper Bezel]

Christ, someone stopped me today, as I attempted to explain a few good ways of getting her files from home around to print on campus, to say that she didn't know what I had meant when I said "hard drive." There's specialized lingo, there's vocabulary for basic survival a step after, and then a bit on down the way and past the fork, there's the general populace.

But then, I have an acquaintance who's nuts about computers and gadgets who repeatedly referred to a file manager as "the explorer" the last time he used a non-Windows system. We're all doomed and there's nothing for it.

[Paqman]

If not, what other fields are like this?

All of them. Jargon is universal. Technical fields are particularly bad (especially the ubiquitous TLA), but look into law, medicine, sports, art, etc you'll find they all have their own particular set of terms that are baffling to outsiders.