Clueless Across the Sea

By Matt Friedlander
The British have their own way of saying just about everything, and when they do say things the way we do, they tend to pronounce them funny. But what could be weirder than the old country’s engineers not even knowing the proper Internet jargon?

The BBC reports in “Blogging v Dogging” that the vast majority (about 70%) of the general population the United Kingdom does not know what the term “Blogging” means. A greater number of people do know the unrelated term, “Dogging,” which strays (perhaps not too) far from typical computer lingo (it means having sex with strangers in public).

But even “early adopters” in the UK don’t know blogs. “Two out of three men, two out of three 16-24 year-olds, and two out of three single people hadn’t heard of them. Having internet access also appeared to make little difference: two out of three people with internet access didn’t know what they were,” reports the BBC.

I know some of us (me) think that the UK is nothing more then a major distribution facility for buck-toothed monarchs and snacks comprising mutiliated aquatic pets, but how can they justify not knowing about blogs?

Nine out of ten Britts know what “Broadband” mean, though one BBC interviewee thought that it was some kind of highly developed piece of super rubber; another suggested that it might actually be the name of a British band.

Some of you may look at this as a chance to “discover” a British blog readership. Maybe you can colonize their readers? How much fun is historical irony?