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YIGLO and while I'm at it, WYWYE
Dec. 17th, 2005 01:18 am(Note: I'm currently too lazy to go look up where I found this and verify my hazy memories. If you want veracity, do your own darn research.)
Once upon a time, when electricity was shiny and new, a nifty communication device was invented. It allowed very small-bandwidth signals to be sent long distances. No, no, even *slower* than an early modem. The telegraph or telegram or one in that general pay-by-the-word category.
People, being people, decided that they wanted to send long messages and in addition, that they didn't want to pay large sums of money. So they invented codes. Different industries had their own codes, so specific stock trades could be managed in 2 or 3 words, bulk goods could be bought and sold, so on and so forth. People could buy or use code-books as well, so letters to loved ones could be condensed into obscure blocks of abbreviations and jumbles of letters. What fun!
Apparently, at some point in time a telegraph/telegram/whatsit was a primary means of communication with Antarctic researchers. Naturally, standard phrasebooks wouldn't capture all of the nuances of life at the end of the world. Instead, they got their very own code, which, thanks to even more shiny technology, is now available on the internet.
(Again, as a reminder to those who didn't read carefully, the only actual research I bothered to do before posting this was refresh my memory about which pole penguins live at. The rest is just fuzzy recollection. I probably didn't make it up out of whole cloth, but maybe someone else did. The internet is like that sometimes.)
Once upon a time, when electricity was shiny and new, a nifty communication device was invented. It allowed very small-bandwidth signals to be sent long distances. No, no, even *slower* than an early modem. The telegraph or telegram or one in that general pay-by-the-word category.
People, being people, decided that they wanted to send long messages and in addition, that they didn't want to pay large sums of money. So they invented codes. Different industries had their own codes, so specific stock trades could be managed in 2 or 3 words, bulk goods could be bought and sold, so on and so forth. People could buy or use code-books as well, so letters to loved ones could be condensed into obscure blocks of abbreviations and jumbles of letters. What fun!
Apparently, at some point in time a telegraph/telegram/whatsit was a primary means of communication with Antarctic researchers. Naturally, standard phrasebooks wouldn't capture all of the nuances of life at the end of the world. Instead, they got their very own code, which, thanks to even more shiny technology, is now available on the internet.
(Again, as a reminder to those who didn't read carefully, the only actual research I bothered to do before posting this was refresh my memory about which pole penguins live at. The rest is just fuzzy recollection. I probably didn't make it up out of whole cloth, but maybe someone else did. The internet is like that sometimes.)
