計算機語言

Computer technology has become a major part of people’s lives. This technology has its own special words. One example is the word mouse. A computer mouse is not a small animal that lives in buildings and open fields. It is a small device that you move around on a flat surface in front of a computer. The mouse moves the pointer， or cursor， on the computer screen.

Computer expert Douglas Engelbart developed the idea for the mouse in the early 1960s. The first computer mouse was a carved block of wood with two metal wheels. It was called a mouse because it had a tail at one end. The tail was the wire that connected it to the computer.

Using a computer takes some training. People who are experts are sometimes called hackers. A hacker is usually a person who writes software programs in a special computer language. But the word hacker is also used to describe a person who tries to steal information from computer systems.

Another well known computer word is Google， spelled g-o-o-g-l-e. It is the name of a popular “search engine” for the Internet. People use the search engine to find information about almost any subject on the Internet. The people who started the company named it Google because in mathematics， googol， spelled g-o-o-g-o-l， is an extremely large number. It is the number one followed by one-hundred zeros.

When you “Google” a subject， you can get a large amount of information about it. Some people like to Google their friends or themselves to see how many times their name appears on the Internet.

If you Google someone， you might find that person’s name on a blog. A blog is the shortened name for a Web log. A blog is a personal Web page. It may contain stories， comments， pictures and links to other Web sites. Some people add information to their blogs every day. People who have blogs are called bloggers.

Blogs are not the same as spam. Spam is unwanted sales messages sent to your electronic mailbox. The name is based on a funny joke many years ago on a British television show， “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” Some friends are at an eating place that only serves a processed meat product from the United States called SPAM. Every time the friends try to speak， another group of people starts singing the word SPAM very loudly. This interferes with the friends’discussion—just as unwanted sales messages interfere with communication over the Internet.

鼠標是使用計算機必備的設備之一，那么鼠標和這一名稱是怎么來的呢？盡管鼠標在19世紀80年代后才得到廣泛應用，但它的歷史最早可以追溯到19世紀60年代末，其發明者是美國斯坦福研究所的道格拉斯·恩格爾巴特博士。原始鼠標是極其簡陋的，多用在與國防有關的關鍵場合。由于原始鼠標的尾部拖著一條數據連線，看起來像一只小老鼠，所以人們干脆直接稱它為“mouse”，這就是“鼠標”的得名由來。

看過電影《黑客帝國》的讀者對“hacker”一詞一定不會陌生。“hacker”是“黑客”的意思，早期在美國的電腦界是帶有褒義的，原指熱心于計算機技術、水平高超的電腦專家，尤其是程序設計人員。而時至今日，這一單詞已被用于指那些專門利用電腦網絡搞破壞或惡作劇的家伙。

相信大家對“Google”并不陌生。作為全球知名跨國IT企業，它致力于互聯網搜索、云計算、廣告技術等領域，開發并提供大量基于互聯網的產品和服務。1998年，Google由當時在斯坦福大學攻讀理工博士的拉里·佩奇和謝爾蓋·布魯姆共同創建，至今已成為全球公認的最大的搜索引擎，也是互聯網上五大最受歡迎的網站之一。關于Google名字的來歷源于一個拼寫錯誤。最初佩奇的學生肖恩·安德森想到了“Googol”一詞，指的是10的100次冪，欲指互聯網上可以獲得的海量資源，但是當安德森在互聯網域名注冊數據庫搜索的時候犯了拼寫錯誤，“Google”便誕生了。如今，google也可以作為動詞使用，例如“google某物”的意思是使用Google搜索引擎搜索某物。

如今微博盛行，但別忘了它的始祖——博客。博客的英文是“blog”，是“Web log”的縮寫，一般指網絡日志，又譯為部落格，是一種由個人管理、不定期發表新的文章的網站。“blogger”指的是擁有博客的人，即我們通常所說的“博主”。

Spam最初是一個罐裝肉的牌子，官方版本說是“Specially Processed Assorted Meat”的意思，也就是特殊加工過的混合肉。1970年，英國有一部很流行的系列喜劇短片，劇中兩位顧客試圖點一份沒有Spam的早餐，但不能如愿。許多年后，spam便被用來指互聯網上到處散布垃圾廣告消息的現象。