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Post Office unearths obscure slang terms to punt its broadband

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text_message.jpgWe
must be completely 404 about a lot of slang entering the English
language. If we weren’t we’d write a book about them so we
weren’t so Code 35 all the time.

According to lexicographer
Johnathon Green, the advance of technology into our daily lives has
meant more and more technospeak is entering our mother tongue.

The
term "404" means clueless and comes from the website error page that
tells you you have not found the page you was looking for. Code 35
comes from the code used on Oyster card on the London Underground to
denote that the card has no credit left on it.. In slang terms that
means broke.

Code 11 on the Oyster card means that it is
out-of-date, or slang parlance "behind the times" – which is something
we feel as we read this press release about new slang from the Post Office.

RAB means that you have done something a bit out of order coming from "Ross and Brand" – which is surprisingly absent from this BBC news story about the same thing.

"we
realise it’s not always easy for everyone to keep up with new lingo
that these new technologies have brought about," said Stewart
Fox-Mills, Post Office. head of telecoms.

"That’s why we’ve produced a glossary of ‘tech chat’, which addresses
commonly used abbreviations, from old familiars to the brand new. It is
designed as a tool for anyone confused by the sort of language
‘Generation Text’ is using, to help them feel part of the digital
revolution."

The guide was commissioned by the Post Office on
the pretext that its new broadband packages are simple to understand by
anyone, presumably older people befuddled and somewhat horrified by the
younger generations demise into grunting text-speak.