We've had literal years of ridicule for Bush misspeaking and saying 'the Internets' once. Is there an Internet2? Sure, but he had obviously slipped up on the common parlance. I doubt a day's gone by since then that Slashdot hasn't had a reference to it.
Same with Ted Stevens and the Internet as a series of 'tubes'. Again, while not technically that far off, and while a 'fat pipe' is often referred to for fast connections, this was grounds for endless scorn. Ted Stevens deserves scorn, but he deserves it for being a crook, not for a comment on 'tubes'.
So when Barack Obama, legendary Harvard intellect and orator without parallel says, "The same way the computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying to figure out, for defense purposes, how to communicate," will anyone even notice? Sure, maybe he slipped up. But this statement is far, far more egregious than either of the two above. Will it enter the mainstream? I doubt it.
Why not? Once again, it's never funny to criticize The One. In fact, the BBC is already painting it in the most favorable light possible. Again, the meaning is not what matters. I know what he probably thinks he meant. It's just no one notices that the guy can't speak without his prompter.
1 comment:
I know it's not how he meant it but many geeks use and consider the term internets more accurate for many reasons, for one of course there is the 'internet2' (therefore collectively internet and internet2= internets) Then there is the origin of the term, from internetwork nowadays there are many different networks that are linked together, finally there are the other networks that don't use the TCP/IP protocol so they can't really be part of the 'Internet'. Chances are anyone who is not huge into computers wouldn't know the difference but to some people it matters
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