Кусочек моего диплома по хаккерскому сленгу...

[lakrecia]

Вот так вот выглядит лингвистический анализ. Это чтобы меня с филологами не путали:):)
4.1. The Hackers’ Subculture.

The word hacker is used in two different but associated ways: for some, a hacker is merely a computer enthusiast of any kind, who loves working with the beasties for their own sake, as opposed to operating them in order to enrich a company or research project—or to play games. In a more restricted sense hacking is a recreational and educational sport. It consists of attempting to make unauthorized entry into computers and to explore what is there.
The hackers’ subculture is actually a loosely networked collection of subcultures that is nevertheless conscious of some important shared experiences, shared roots, and shared values. It has its own myths, heroes, villains, folk epics, in-jokes, taboos, and dreams. Because hackers as a group are particularly creative people who define themselves partly by rejection of normal values and working habits, it has unusually rich and conscious traditions for an intentional culture less than 35 years old.

As usual with slang, the special vocabulary of hackers helps hold their culture together. It helps hackers recognize each other's places in the community and expresses shared values and experiences.

1. 2. The Structural Peculiarities of Hackers’ Slang Verbs and the Chief Patterned Ways of Their Formation.

Having analysed 200 verbs we found out that 97 (48,5%) of them are complex words (have derived or compound structure), 92 verbs (46%) are the words with simple structure and the rest 11 (5,5 %) have a peculiar structure (p. 53).

Having analysed 200 verbs in question we practically covered all the verbs listed in the Jargon File, so we can come to the conclusions that in terms of structure simple verbs prevailed in the hackers’ slang. This is different to the general tendency of the new words that appear in the vocabulary (and slang words can be regarded as new ones according to the feature of their short time life connected in a way with the creativity of slang) to be the words of derived and compound structure. The tendency can be accounted for that hackers find it convenient to use words of simple structure as they are characterized by a high degree of collocability and a complex variety of meanings in contrast with words of other structural types whose semantic structure are much poorer. [Гинзбург Р.З., 1978].

Among the analysed verbs to simplexes belong:
To bomb - to stop operating that derives from Atari ST (a single-tasking-only personal machine) and Macintosh equivalents of a panic in which icons of little black-powder bombs or mushroom clouds are displayed, indicating that the system has died;
To loop (through) - to process each element of a list of things. It derives from the computer-language notion of an iterative loop that in its turn comes from the technical term a loop that means the reiteration of set of instructions in a routine or program;
To scag - to destroy the data on a disk, either by corrupting the file system or by causing media damage. Scag is a slang name for heroin; etc.

In the sections below we will have a closer look at the verbs with complex structure - derived and compound words.

1.2.1. Affixational derivatives.

In Table 2 the results of the calculations are shown as far as the derivatives are concerned:
Table 2.
Derivatives (%) from the number of t
the derived verbs (%) from the total number of the verbs analysed
Affixes – 11 12,5% 5,5%
Prefixes - 4 4,5% 2%
Suffixes – 7 7,9% 3,5%
Conversions - 77 87,5% 38,5%
Having examined the word-structure of the verbs in question it turned out that 11 (5,5 %) of them are derivatives built up by means of affixation.
Seven (7) of them (7,9 % from the number of the derived verbs and 3,5 % from the total number of the verbs analysed) are suffixal derivatives. Among them:
to bogotify (to make or become non-functional) which is built according to the DP
a + -ify -> V
from the adjective bogus - non functional or false - undergone the phonetic changes, by adding the productive verb-suffix -ify; or
to flatten (to remove structural information), built according to the DP
a + -en -> V
from the adjective flat – lacking any complex structure – by adding the productive verb-suffix –en; and
to prioritize (to place smth in accordance with its priority), the DP is
n + ize -> V
It is built from the noun priority in its common sense by adding the productive verb suffix –ize; ect.
Specifying the class membership of these derivatives in general, they are built on the following structural formulas (SFs):
n + -sf -> V (to frobnic-ate (to manipulate or adjust; from frobnitz (n)- an unspecified physical object, a widget), to priorit-ize, to vector-ize (to make cycle operations vectorial); icon-ify (to be shown as an icon);
a + -sf -> V (to bogot-ify, to flatt-en);
acr. + -sf -> V (to kibo-ze - to scan the USENET news for a string, especially with the intention of posting a follow-up. It derives from the acronym’s stem KIBO - Knowledge In, Bullshit Out – a summary of what happens whenever valid data is passed through an organization (or person) that deliberately or accidentally disregards or ignores its significance.)


Four (4) verbs under analysis (4,5 % from the number of the derived verbs and 2% from the total number of the verbs analysed) are preffixal derivatives:
to dehose ( to clear a non-functional condition) and
to delint (to modify code to remove problems detected by automated analysis tools) which are built on the DP de - + v -> V;
to prepend (by analogy with append(ix) - to add a code or something to the main line of written code), built according to the DP pre + v -> V; and
to unwind (to call (load) the procedure on the screen) built on the DP
un + v -> V
by adding the reversative prefix de-, the prefix of order pre- and the negative un- to their derivational bases. They all correspond to the same SF
prf- + v -> V.
All the affixes by means of which the verbs mentioned above are build up function as their part-of-speech classifiers.

So, affixation is proved to be non-productive way of word-formation as far as the hackers’ slang verbs are concerned which is very unusual compared to the general tendency in the language.

1.2.2. Conversion.

According to Prof. A.I. Smirnitskiy and R.Z. Ginsburg conversion is defined as the formation of a new word though changes in its paradigm. Conversion is characterized by the use of the paradigm as a word-building means as well as by the formation of a new word solely by means of changing its paradigm. As a paradigm is a morphological category conversion can be described as a morphological way of forming words.
The essential difference between affixation and conversion is that affixation is characterized by both semantic and structural derivation whereas conversion displays only semantic derivation. So, the difference between the two classes of words in conversion is marked only by paradigmatic forms [Гинзбург Р.З., 1978].
Among the verbs under consideration 77 are derived by means of conversion, which is 87,5 % from the number of the derivatives and 38,5 % from the total number of the verbs analysed.
We can trace the following semantic relations between verbs and nouns related through conversion:
1) Action characteristic of the object - 50 unites (54,3 % from the number of the converted verbs):
To snail - to send a paper by mail (opposite to e-mail) that derives from earlier coinage USnail (from `U.S. Mail'), for which there have even been parody posters and stamps made in the 70th;
To toast - to cause a system to crash accidentally, especially in a manner that requires manual rebooting. It derives from the noun toast that in the hackers’ slang means any completely inoperable system or component, esp. one that has just crashed and burned; or
To trap - to cause a program interrupt – that is converted from the technical term a trap that is a program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by some exceptional situation in the user program.
2) Instrumental use of the object – 12 words (13 % from the number of the converted verbs). Among the most interesting examples the verbs like:
to kluge - to insert a kluge (a clever programming trick) into a program, intending to solve a particular nasty case; and
to huff - to compress data using a huff (shortened for a Haffman code);
3) Acquisition or addition of the object – 6 unites (6,5 % from the number of the converted verbs):
To cons - to add a new element to a specified list, esp. at the top. It comes from the noun cons. In LISP (LISt Processing language) cons is the most fundamental operation for building structures. Hackers think of it as a sort of universal constructor, and that is where the meanings spring from.
Or to spooge - to add spooge – is converted from the noun that means an inexplicable or arcane code, or random and probably incorrect output from a computer program.
So, we can see that the semantic relations between the conversional pairs of the verbs and nouns used in the hacker’s slang are the same that we have in common cases.
What is characteristic of the converted verbs in the hackers’ slang is that many of them are derived from shortened nouns (acronyms, substantivized or clipped nouns) as in:
to awk - to process data using awk – that comes from the acronym awk (an interpreted language for massaging text data developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan (the name derives from their initials), or in
to trash - to destroy the contents of (said of a data structure) - that derives from the substantivized programmers’ term a trash (from a trash bin);
to ques - to ask – clipped from the ASCI name of the question mark character `?'.

In the Introduction to the Jargon Files we can read that "All nouns can be verbed: "I'll mouse it up", "Hang on while I clipboard it over", "I'm grepping the files". English as a whole is already heading in this direction (pure-positional grammar like Chinese); hackers are simply a bit ahead of the curve” and more: “Similarly, all verbs can be nouned” [The Jargon File, ed. 3.0.0, 1993; the Jargon File, ed. 3.1.1, 1996]. This statement is quite important because in it hackers themselves single out conversion as one of the principal ways of their slang-formation and partially answer to the question why – they stick to the “pure-positional grammar”.
Another feature, typical of the hackers’ slang converted verbs, which is stressed by hackers in the Jargon Files as well is that “hackers avoid the unimaginative verb-making techniques characteristic of marketroids (a member of a company's marketing department, esp. one who promises users that the next version of a product will have features that are not actually scheduled for inclusion, are extremely difficult to implement, and/or are in violation of the laws of physics), bean-counters, and the Pentagon” [The Jargon File, ed. 3.0.0, 1993; the Jargon File, ed. 3.1.1, 1996]. The analysis of the verbs proves this statement to be the truth as well. In 14 cases (20 % from the number of conversions) the analysed verbs are derived by means of conversion from the nouns which first underwent the semantic change (the transfer of senses or names according to their similarity or contiguity). The rhetorical categories of ‘metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole, litotes, irony, euphemism’, etc., examined at great length by semanticists, are only indirectly relevant to a semantic inquiry proper, although they have contributed useful clues to the understanding of the mental processes involved. Later in the paper we will study the problem of Semantic Change more thoroughly, but here we just give some interesting examples of the converted verbs in question to illustrate the mentioned above. The examples below show the cases of the so called emotive similarity, entirely depends on the analogues impact and affective resemblance of the two senses. In the functional theory on semantic change introduced by S.Ullmann, in his classification, this phenomenon is generally attributed to Metaphor (§ 2.2. “The Nature of Semantic Change” of Theoretical Survey, p. 19-22).
The verbs to toast and to trap mentioned above are derived from the nouns a toast (a completely inoperable system or component) and a trap (an interrupt caused by some exceptional situation in the user program) correspondingly, in their turn they were adopted into the hackers’ slag from the common vocabulary because hackers may be found it exciting to trace some kind of similarity between their senses, emotional one. Generally putting, here we can observe the cases of metaphorical, emotional, transfer of the meanings resulting in their specialization as the cause of these semantic changes is social.
Summing it up, conversion proves to be the most productive type of word-formation for the hackers’ slang verbs. From the structural point of view, what is characteristic of these converted verbs is that in many cases acronyms or other shortened forms are used as their derivational bases. In many cases the verbs are converted from the nouns with a high degree of imagery in them reached mostly by means of metaphorical, emotional, transfer of senses.

1.2.3. Compound verbs.

After examining the verbs in question, we have found out that nine (9) words (4,5% from the total number) are derivational compounds formed by means of conversion from the stems of compound nouns. According to the types of free word groups the derivational bases of these compounds correlate with, they can be divided into:
1) The verbs converted from the verbal-nominal compound nouns following the SF [(n +conversion) +V] -> V, like
to handwave - to gloss over a complex point; to distract a listener; to support a point with blatantly faulty logic. This compound word comes from gestures characteristic of stage magicians. It correlates with the phrase of the type
V + (with) + N - to wave with hands.
To mailbomb - to send, or urge others to send, massive amounts of e-mail. It follows the same pattern as the first one and correlates with the free phrase of
V + (with) + N type - to bomb with e-mails.
The compound to bagbite that means to fail in some manner correlates with the phrase to bite the bag (V + N) which may be derived from the phrase to bite the dust – to be killed in common slang.
2) The verbs derived by means of conversion from the adjectival – nominal compounds. The SF [(a + n) + conversion] -> V gives rise to the verbs:
to prettyprint - to generate `pretty' human-readable output from a hairy internal representation - and to silly-walk (from Monty Python's Flying Circus) that means a ridiculous procedure required to accomplish a task. They correspond to the A + N free word groups a pretty print and a silly walk correspondingly.
3) There are some verb-adverb compounds that composed according to the SF adv + v -> V. For example, to upload - to transfer programs or data over a digital communications link from a smaller or peripheral client system to a larger or central host one, - correlates with the free word group to load up (V + Adv).
4) There is the compound verb to dogpile. It was derived from the nominal compound according to the SF [(n + n) + conversion] -> V. When many people post unfriendly responses in short order to a single posting, they are sometimes said to dogpil or dogpile on the person to whom they're responding. It corresponds to the phrase of the N + N type a dog pile.
Analysed the verbs mentioned above, we have found out that these compound verbs are built according to the same types of correlating free phrases that are productive for the word formation of common vocabulary words, but compounding as a process of word formation is proved to be non-productive in our case which is also against the general tendency of the English language.

Summing up all mentioned above, we can come to the conclusions that in terms of word-structure there is no great difference between the verbs (derived and compound) created and used by hackers and in common usage - they follow the same structural formulas or patterns, the derivatives are built with the help of productive derivational affixes.
Among all patterned ways of word formation, as far as the verbs in question are concerned, conversion proves to be the chief process of it. Being one of the principal ways of forming words in modern English conversion seems to be easily adopted by hackers to form new words into their slang for its simplicity (no visual markers) and a great number of variations it gives. A characteristic feature of these converted verbs is that in many cases acronyms (to PDL – from a Program Design Language - to design using a Program Design Language) or other shortened forms (to rot13 – to write with rot13 - from `Rotate alphabet 13 places' - the simple Caesar-cypher encryption that replaces each English letter with the one 13 places forward or back along the alphabet, so that "The butler did it!" becomes "Gur ohgyre qvq vg!") or even compound nouns (to special-case - to write unique code to handle input to or situations arising in a program that are somehow distinguished from normal processing) are used as their derivational bases which is very inventive and unusual and looks more like playing with words’ elements than traditional word formation.

1.3. The Principle (Non-Patterned) Ways of Hackers’ Slang Verb Creation.

According to R.Z. Ginsburg, the following linguistic phenomena can be attributed to minor (non-patterned) ways of word creation: back-formation, lexicolization, sound interchange, distinctive stress, sound imitation and different types of shortening (substantivization, acronymy, letter-abbreviation, blending and clipping) [Гинзбург Р.З., Хидекель С.С., Князева Г.Ю., Санкин А.А., 1978]. Some linguists also understand semantic change as a form of word-building or word-creation. This is a debatable point which is too complicated to be studied in the present paper. But the process of semantic change appears to be very important for hackers’ slang verb creation and will be closer look at in a separate paragraph later - § 2 (p. 55).

Among the verbs analysed there is a great number of shortened words – 51 items, which is 25,5 % of the total number and most of them (30 unites – 60 %) are acronyms. Acronymy is transformation of a word group into a word. Below the most interesting cases in terms of structure are listed:
to vdiff - to find visual differences between two files - comes from Visual difference - the operation of finding differences between two files – it is composed of the first letter of the attribute and three first letters of the head noun;
to LERP is a quasi-acronym for Linear Interpolation, used as a verb for the operation; here also the first letter of the attribute is taken as the beginning but then three middle letters are used; a different organization of the word components we can trace in the following verbs as well:
to ping - to verify the presence of smb; to get the attention of smb – springs from the TCP/IP acronym Packet INternet Groper; and
to plokta - to press random keys in an attempt to get some response from the system – came from`Press Lots Of Keys To Abort'.
So, it seems that in many cases the way how the shortened word sounds or looks is very important for hackers. More the word looks or sounds like another one the better. This can be explained by hackers’ joyfulness, on the one hand, and their vanity, on the other, because misunderstanding of the words leads to confusion of a person who does not belong to their community.
The tendency can be traced in the verbs like:
to snail - to send a paper by mail - from USnail (from `U.S. Mail'), and may be this acronym carries the hint that e-mail is much faster than common mail (which as fast as a snail) ;
to MUD - to play a MUD, a User Dungeon (a computer game); from Multi-User Dimension that is a class of virtual reality experiments accessible via the Internet; or
to SOS - to decrease the amount of something - from the PDP-10 (PROGRAMMED DATA PROCESSOR MODEL 10) instruction set - SOS is a descendant (Son of Stopgap) of that editor; etc.
These are some cases of blendings registered in the Jargon File:
to gensym - to invent a new name for something temporary, in such a way that the name is almost certainly not in conflict with one already in use (from generated symbol) and
to retcon - to write a story about a character or fictitious object. It derives from the noun retcon (short for retroactive continuity) that describes the common situation in fiction (esp. comics or soap operas) where a new story `reveals' things about events in previous stories, usually leaving the `facts' the same (thus preserving continuity) while completely changing their interpretation.
There is a number of clipped words there, for instance, to exec is for the command of execute, to frob is short for to frobnicate, or to gen is short for to generate etc.
So, the non-patterned ways of word formation, minor for the common language, are proved to be productive as far as the hackers’ slang is concerned. Acronymy plays a very important part in word-creation in the hackers’ community. This can be explained by the fact that hackers borrow a lot from the lexicon of programmers - the most interesting cases - and in programming the names of tasks, programmes, codes etc are mainly shortened forms (abbreviations, acronyms, substantivized and clipped words), in a way, this is the language of shortened forms. Programmers’ abbreviations in hackers slang become acronyms as they act as different parts of speech, for example, like verbs in our case, or even they are used as derivational bases for new coinages (to kibo-ze to scan the USENET news for a string, especially with the intention of posting a follow-up - from - Knowledge In, Bullshit Out – a summary of what happens whenever valid data is passed through an organization (or person) that deliberately or accidentally disregards or ignores its significance.)
The tendency of wide usage of shorted words speaks of hackers’ rationalism and pragmatism as well as about their inventiveness and creativity. In a way, the tendency is derived from and opens up the contents of hackers’ culture, the culture of creative and joyful pragmatics and proves the opinion of the early semanticist M. Breal that “professional or other communities with a well-developed and specialized sphere of common interests, and an appropriate jargon, are the ideal setting for such shortenings” [Breal M., 1981].
In the next section we will dwell upon the process of semantic change that is so important for word coinage. The hackers’ slang is not the exception.

§ 2. The Important Role of Semantic Change as Specific Means of Replenishing the Hackers’ Vocabulary.

2.1. The Viewpoint on Semantic Change as Specific Means of Replenishing the Vocabulary.

In his book on English Lexicology A.I. Smirnitsky noted that the understanding of word-formation excludes semantic word-building which traditionally referred to minor ways of word-formation. But the majority of modern linguists, however, understand this process only as a change in the meaning of a word that may result in the appearance of homonyms. In Prof. Smirnitsky opinion, the application of the term word-formation to the process of semantic change seems to be debatable for some reasons.
As the semantic change does not, as a rule, lead to the introduction of a new word into the vocabulary, it can scarcely be regarded as a word-building means. Neither can we consider the process a word-building means even when as actual enlargement of the vocabulary does come about through the appearance of a pair of homonyms. Actually, the appearance of homonyms is not a means of creating new words, but it is the final result of a long and labourious process of sense-development. Furthermore, there are no patterns after which homonyms can be made in the language. Finally, diverging sense-development results in a semantic isolation of two or more meanings of a word, whereas the process of word-formation proper is characterized by a certain semantic connection between the new word and the source lexical unit. For these reasons diverging sense-development leading to the appearance of two or more homonyms should be regarded as a specific channel through which the vocabulary of a language is replenished with new words and should not be treated on a par with the processes of word-formation, such as affixation, conversion and composition [Смирницкий А.И., 1996].
In the present paper we will share Prof. A.I. Smirnitsky’s point of view on semantic change and stick to the scheme of classification introduced in § 2. (p. 58), because there are three closely bound up, but essentially different aspects of one and the same notion of semantic change: the causes of semantic change, the nature of the process of change of meaning and the results of it.

Under the causes of semantic change we understand the factors bringing about this change and the attempts to find out why the word changed its meaning. Analysing the nature of semantic change we seek to clarify the process of this change and describe how various changes of meaning were brought about. Our aim in investigating the results of semantic change is to find out what was changed.


2.2. The Causes of Semantic Change of the Hackers’ Slang Verbs.

The factors accounting for semantic changes may be roughly subdivided into two groups: a) linguistic and b) extra-linguistic causes.
Some changes of meaning are due to what may be described as purely linguistic causes, i.e. factors acting within the language system. The commonest form which this influence takes is the so-called ellipsis (in a phrase made up of two words one of these is omitted and its meaning is transferred to its partner).
The extra-linguistic causes seem prevail as far as the hackers’ slang verbs are concerned. First of all we speak about social and psychological causes. Among 200 verbs under analysis 75 units (about 38 %) appeared in the hackers’ slang after their meaning have been specialized or generalized. Later we will have a closer look at the notion of specialization and generalization of meaning in the part “The Consequence of Semantic Change”.
Psychological causes, an emotive factor in particular, are of great importance for hackers’ slang creation because their language is highly motivated – if one has particularly strong feelings on a certain subject, one quite naturally tends to talk about it, since there are obvious limits to the possibilities of so doing, a partial outlet can be found in transferring into other contexts the words belonging to these emotionally overcharged themes – and hackers are actually creasy about computers and programming. This overwhelming passion gave rise to the following verbs:
To block - to delay or sit idle while waiting for something - it derives from the process scheduling terminology in OS theory (OS, operating system, is the foundation software of a machine which schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user between applications); or
to flush – one of its meaning is to leave at the end of a day's work. Flush was standard ITS (INCOMPATIBLE TIME-SHARING SYSTEM) terminology for aborting an output operation; and
to shift (left or right) - from any of various machines' instruction sets - to move oneself to the left (right); to move out of the way, etc.
The need to find a new name as a case of semantic change is also quite an important factor for hackers’ slang. A great many of new things (programmes, actions, processes, functions etc) have been introduced into a human life since a computer was constructed and more and more are appearing - for each a new name is needed. And as it was mentioned above hackers are very rational people and to alter the meaning of an old word seems the simplest way out for them. For example, hackers use a verb to beam for “to transfer a file electronically”, most often in combining forms such as beam me a copy or beam that over to his site. The origin of it is quite unusual but typical for hackers. It derives from the Star Trek Classic's expression Beam me up, Scotty! In this fantastic serial people and things were teleported. While the process the beams appeared and disappeared. It looked like people and things were moved by those beams.

So, as regards the hackers’ slang verbs, the extra-linguistic causes of semantic change (social, psychological and the need for a new name) are prevailed under pure linguistic ones. This partially proves that the slang of a group (modern lingo-cultural approach to the notion of slang) is not only a linguistic phenomenon but it is motivated by psychological demands of a group which in its turn springs from their group culture (habits, hobbies, heritage etc).

2.2. The Nature of Semantic Change of the Hackers’ Slang Verbs
(metaphor, metonymy, popular etymology and ellipses).

Analysing the nature of semantic change we seek to clarify the process of this change and describe how various changes of meaning were brought about. All the theoretical aspects concerning the nature of semantic change are given in the theoretical part § 2.2. “The Nature of Semantic Change” (p. 18).
So, according to S. Ullmann there are two kinds of association involved as a rule in various semantic changes: similarity and contiguity, which can be broken down into further subdivisions: similarity of senses (metaphor), contiguity of senses (metonymy), similarity of names (popular etymology) and contiguity of names (ellipses) [Ullmann S., 1970].
But in the present paper we do not aim at pure calculation how many cases of metaphor or metonymy or ellipses we have come across analysing the verbs in question. For us it is more important to determine the main tendency in hackers’ slang creation. There is another reason why we cannot use the calculations in our case. As it was not once mentioned above in the paper we stick to S.Ullmann’s functional classification of the types of semantic change which proves to go current and supported by many semanticists. But as S.Ullmann admitted himself there are many borderline cases which could be assigned with equal justification to two or more different categories; and owing to its rather clear-cut lines of division, the functional theory was exposed to such difficulties. So, the setting up of a separate class for ‘composite transfers’ was designed to meet this deficiency. In which it is assumed that instead of acquiescing in the existence of alternative solutions, more than one kind of association may have been responsible for bringing about one semantic change by their converging pressure. Even so there will be borderline cases and margins of error: it will sometimes be a matter of opinion whether a subsidiary influence was strong enough to warrant the assumption of a composite process [Ullmann S., 1987].
Having analysed the verbs in matter we have found a number of very interesting cases which can be attributed to Composite Transfers. For example:
To beam - to transfer a file electronically - was adopted into the hackers’ slang from the Star Trek Classic's expression Beam me up, Scotty! (In this fantastic serial people and things all the time were teleported to somewhere. While the process the beams appeared and disappeared. It looked like people and things were moved by those beams.) It is obvious that this case of a genuine metonymy could not but attract hackers’ attention to the word - the transfer of the senses was held according to their contiguity (the beams of the teleport seemed to transfer people and things – the name of the visual affect of the action stands for the result of the action – teleportation (transfer) of objects). Then the noun meaning teleportation was converted into the verb. Hackers borrowed the verb into their vocabulary and adopted it to their needs by changing its meaning.
So, after the analysis we have found out that the nature of the semantic change in the case is metaphor, as it is responsible for the latest modification of the verb. This is a formal approach to the problem. But from psychological point of view, the original metonymy is so vivid and genuine that the question, which of the process is more important, is actually open. In our opinion, the first one produces a genuine imagery of the word – metonymical nature of semantic change makes it vivid. The second process of semantic is responsible for the adaptation of the sense to the needs of a social (cultural) group – the word received a new more general meaning which is suitable for hackers’ common usage. It seems logical to attribute this verb to the category of composite transfer of senses.

In the part where the problem of conversion was studied we mentioned that in many cases the nouns from which the verbs were derived are undergone the semantic change as well. Among them there is an example which attracts the attention as it brilliantly illustrates the phenomenon of Composite Transfer:
The verb to biff - to notify someone of incoming mail derives by means of conversion from the name of the utility programme Biff(1) which notifies the user of incoming mail by a special signal (the action characteristic the object). The origin of the name of the utility is the finest example of Composite Transfer of the senses. It was named after a friendly golden Labrador who used to chase bees in the halls at UCB (the University of California at Berkeley) around 1980 when the distributional pack of utilities was being developed in the laboratory. It had a well-known habit of barking whenever the mailman came. So, on the one hand, the programme notifying of incoming mail was named after the dog living in the University in those days that used to bark when the postman came which is the case of metonymy – the two meanings were related through their contiguity in time and space (if the dog had not lived there in 1980 the programme would have got a different name). One the other hand, the objects were related to each other because of the similarity of their functions: the mail delivered - the dog barked, the email delivered – the programme beeped. It is impossible to single out which of the processes is more important in terms of word creation. Both of them are of equal importance and they do not mutually exclusive.
So, as for the nature of semantic change, alongside numerous borderline cases in the hackers slang, like the category of Composite Transfer, there are a lot of clear-cut cases.

a) Metaphor (similarity of senses).

Metaphor is proved to have the paramount significance as a creative force for the hackers’ slang.
The main sources for metaphorical transfers are mostly the technical vocabulary of computing and programming:
To block means to delay or sit idle while waiting for something. It derives from the process scheduling terminology in OS (operating system) theory (OS - is the foundation software of a machine which schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user between applications); or
To page (out) - to become unaware of one's surroundings temporarily, due to daydreaming or preoccupation; and to page (in) - to become aware of one's surroundings again after having paged out.
to mouse around - to explore public portions of a large system, esp. a network such as Internet via TELNET, looking for interesting stuff to fetch (information to get).
Hackers seem to like their cars and find some similarity between a car and computer functioning, which gave rise to the following verbs:
To fuel up is to eat or drink hurriedly in order to get back to hacking;
To tweak means to optimize a program (= to tune). It derives from the motor-racing slang that means to tune a car or an engine for peak performance; etc.
A lot of the verbs are adopted into the hackers’ slang from the common vocabulary, like the verbs:
To hang –1. to wait for an event that will never occur (about a programme): The system is hanging because it can't read from the crashed drive. 2. to wait for some event to occur; to hang around until something happens;
To flood - to dump large amounts of text onto an IRC (Interten Relay Chart) channel. This is especially rude when the text is uninteresting and the other users are trying to carry on a serious conversation; or
To monkey up - to assemble together a hardware for a particular task, especially a one-shot job; and
To munch - to transform information in a serial fashion, often requiring large amounts of computation; to trace down a data structure.


b) Metonymy (contiguity of senses).

During the analysis we have come across the only clear-cut case of this phenomenon:
To tool - to work (=to hack); or to study – the name of the action stands for its result.

c) Popular etymology (similarity of names).

According to S.Ullman, similarity of names can change both the form and the meaning of a word by wrongly connecting it with another term to which it is similar in sound:
To depeditate (by analogy with decapitate) humorously, to cut off the feet of. When one is using some computer-aided typesetting tools, careless placement of text blocks within a page or above a rule can result in chopped-off letter descenders. Such letters are said to have been depeditated.
To twiddle - to change something in a small way. It comes from the name of a tilde `~'.
To filk (from folk) - to sing a popular or folk song with lyrics revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous effect when read. There is a flourishing sub-genre of these called `computer filks', written by hackers and often containing rather sophisticated technical humor.
To snail - to send a paper by mail - from USnail (from `U.S. Mail').

d) Ellipsis (contiguity of names).
According to S. Ullmann words which often occur side by side are apt to have a semantic influence on each other. The commonest form which this influence takes is ellipsis. We have registered the following elliptical verbs in The Jargon File:
To trash - to destroy the contents of (said of a data structure). It derives from the programmers’ term a trash bin; or
To toggle - to change a unit of information (a bit) from whatever state it is in to the other state; to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1. This comes from toggle switches, such as standard light switches, though the word toggle actually refers to the mechanism that keeps the switch in the position to which it is flipped rather than to the fact that the switch has two positions.

Thus, it becomes clear that the four cardinal types of the nature of semantic change (similarity of senses (metaphor), contiguity of senses (metonymy), similarity of names (popular etymology) and contiguity of names (ellipses), and composed transfers) are very different in scope. Metaphor is by far the most important of the five, and though the cases of metonymy are not so common, concerning the hackers’ slang verbs, they are very original. Ellipses are of limited importance alongside with the cases of popular etymology.

2.4. The Consequences of Semantic Change of the Hackers’ Slang Verbs.

According to S.Ullmann’s functional theory, among the innumerable consequences which may result from semantic changes two problems have received particular attention: the range and the emotive overtones (evaluation) of the new meaning as compared to the old. The changes in range can be of two types: widening (extension) of meaning and narrowing (restriction) of meaning. The changes in evaluation are subdivided into pejorative and ameliorative developments [Ullmann S., 1987].

1. Changes in Range: Extension and Restriction of Meaning.

Among the verbs under analysis we have registered 18 cases when the semantic change results in extension of meaning and 56 cases when the semantic change results in restriction of meaning. The results of the analysis prove the opinion of some linguists on this account that extension is a less common process than restriction. Nevertheless, cases of semantic widening are fairly frequent. Bellow there are some examples when the meanings of the verbs in question were widened:
Thus, undergone the semantic change through the metaphorical transfer of the meaning, the verb to block, “to stop a process” in the technical vocabulary of computing and programming, widened its mean to “to delay or sit idle while waiting for something”;
To page (out) in the hackers’ slang is “to become unaware of one's surroundings temporarily, due to daydreaming or preoccupation”, but in the user’s language it means “to go through pages while reading some information on the monitor”; the meaning of the verb was extended on the account of the similarity of the state of mind while performing the process (metaphorical transfer) - while reading a user is usually completely preoccupied with the process so that he can notice nothing around him.
The most frequent cases of range restriction and extension are specialization and generalization of meaning in a particular social group. If the word with the new meaning comes to be used in the specialized vocabulary of some limited group within the speech community it is usual to speak of specialization of meaning. If the word with the extended meaning passes from the specialized vocabulary into common use, we describe the result of the semantic change as the generalization of meaning.
All the cases of range extension and restriction of meanings as far as the analysed hackers’ slang verbs are concerned can be attributed to specialization and generalization as hackers adopted them for their social (cultural) group needs, thus the semantic change is due to a social factor in all the cases. That’s why the examples above are the cases of generalization of meaning as well.
The following specialized verbs are borrowed from the common vocabulary:
To blow away - to remove files and directories from permanent storage, generally by accident;
To crunch - to squeeze program source into a minimum-size representation that will still compile or execute – in the common vocabulary to crunch is to tighten or squeeze financially;
To hang - to wait for an event that will never occur (about a programme): The system is hanging because it can't read from the crashed drive.
To poll - to repeatedly call or check with someone; and
To barf (the interjection meaning ‘vomit’) - to fail to work because of unacceptable input - is borrowed from the common slang; etc.

2. Changes in Evaluation: Pejorative Developments.

According to M.Breal’s opinion, one of the sources of pejorative developments is human prejudice in its various forms. Every culture or sub-cultural group has a number of hot, unpleasant, themes which is not “decent” to mention. These hot points give rise to many euphemisms or pseudo-euphemisms which are the motive force behind many pejorative developments. If a euphemistic substitute ceases to be felt as such, if it becomes directly associated with the idea it was designed to veil, this will result in a permanent depreciation of its meaning [Breal M., 1981]. So, euphemisms and pseudo-euphemisms appear to be the most frequent cases of pejorative developments in language.
Among the analysed verbs we have come across 12 cases of euphemisms. All of them are used for the verbs denoting a computer damage or corruption (both software and hardware). If a computer cannot work properly because the hardware is destroyed, a hacker will use the following verbs for this:
To fry - to fail, especially of smoke-producing hardware failures; more generally, to become non-working about hardware: She (a computer) has fried; or
To smoke (used for both hardware (where it often describes an actual physical event), and software (where it's merely colourful) - to crash or fail, usually spectacularly: The new version smoked, just like the last one; and
To toast - to cause a system to crash accidentally, especially in a manner that requires manual rebooting.
For mistakes, corruption or termination of software, a hacker will use the verbs like:
To scrog (ascribed to the comic strip "The Wizard of Odd") - to damage or corrupt a data structure: The list header got scrogged;
To mangle (from the common vocabulary to mangle – to ruin, spoil or mar) - to destroy a programme irrevocably.
To scribble (from to scribble – to make meaningless or illegible marks) - to modify a data structure in a random and unintentionally destructive way.
To scag (a slang name for heroin) - to destroy the data on a disk, either by corrupting the file system or by causing media damage;
To gun (from the ITS (INCOMPATIBLE TIME-SHARING SYSTEM) `GUN' command) - to forcibly terminate a program or job (computer, not career): Some idiot left a background process running soaking up half the cycles, so I gunned it;
To glork (from the interjection Glork!, the term of mild surprise) - to commit a sudden interruption in electric service, sanity, continuity, or program function: My program just glorked itself;
To glitch (from German `glitschen' to slip, via Yiddish `glitshen', to slide or skid) - to commit a sudden interruption in electric service, sanity, continuity, or program function;
To blow out (of software) to fail spectacularly; almost as serious as crash and burn.
Thus we have detected the subject which is lively important, even crucial, for hackers, the number of euphemisms speaks of it, – figuratively putting, it is a computer or proggramme “death”. By the way, hackers are not innovators in this respect. According to S.Ullmann, the theme of death originates a lot of euphemisms in many cultures and in the field of literature as well [Ullmann. S., 1970].
Summing up all mentioned above, we have come to the conclusions that semantic change is one of the most powerful sources the hackers’ slang drains from as far as the process of verb-creation is concerned. The words appearing in the hackers’ vocabulary through semantic change are original and vivid as the main tools of the process, metaphor and metonymy, allow to make the most unusual transfers of word meanings. As usual with slang, the special vocabulary of hackers needs the replenishments that could meet the group demands on bright and genuine words and expressions, because their slang helps to hold their culture together.

2.5. Conclusions.

Chosen computer slang as the subject of our linguistic survey, in the practical part of the qualification paper we aimed at studying the structural peculiarities of hackers’ slang verbs and investigating into the problem of the principle ways of their formation and creation.
Having analysed 200 units of the verbs selected form The Jargon File (version 3.0.0 1993 and 3.3.1 1996) – an electronic dictionary of the hackers’ slang that is, in a way, a common heritage of the hacker’s culture, collected and compiled for the last 28 years - we have come to the conclusions:
1. In terms of structure there is no difference between the verbs formed and used by hackers and common verbs: they follow the same structural formulas or derivational patterns, built with the help of the same productive derivational affixes;
2. Conversion is proved to be one of the principal ways of the hackers’ slang verb-formation. Hackers prefer to stick to the ‘pure-positional grammar’. The traditionally productive ways of word-formation such as affixation and compounding have appeared to be non-productive as far as the hackers’ slang verbs are concerned.
3. In regard to the non-patterned ways of word-creation, shortened forms (acronyms, clipped and substantivized words) are widely used by hackers not only as separate words but also as derivational bases for new coinages. In a way, the tendency is derived from and opens up the contents of hackers’ culture, the culture of creative pragmatics.
4. According to the results of our investigation, semantic change appears to be the main process by which the word-stock of the hacker’s slang verbs is enriched. In the present paper we stick to Prof. A.I. Smirnitsky’s point of view on semantic change as specific means of replenishing the vocabulary and S.Ullmann’s classification of the types of semantic changes based on the functional approach to this notion, who distinguished between the causes of semantic change, the nature of the process of change of meaning and the results of it.
5. The extra-linguistic causes of semantic change (social, psychological and the need for a new name) are prevailed under pure linguistic ones. This tendency partially proves that the slang of a group (modern linguo-cultural approach to the notion of slang) is not only a pure linguistic phenomenon but it is highly motivated by psychological demands of a group (the psychology of a group) which in its turn springs from their group culture (habits, hobbies, heritage etc).
6. As far as the nature of semantic change of the hackers’ slang verbs is concerned, metaphor by far plays a more important role in the change of meaning than metonymy, popular etymology and ellipses. But what is characteristic of the hackers’ slang is the existence of comparatively many cases of composite transfers when more than one kind of association have been responsible for bringing about one semantic change. In all the cases one of “the vehicles” to transfer the meaning comes to be either a genuine metaphor or metonymy. These processes are responsible for a vivid imagery of the hackers’ slang verbs. The tendency speaks of hackers’ affection for bright and original coinages to produce a due impression on their interlocutors.
7. Most of the cases of semantic change in hackers’ slang verbs result in specialization or generalization of their meaning as they are due to a social factor. Specialization proves to be a frequent process for the hackers’ slang verb-creation which is not against the general tendency in linguistics. There is a number of euphemisms registered among the verbs that undergone the semantic change. They all are used by hackers to substitute the idea of a hardware or software corruption or damage, to put it figuratively, a computer’s death. The theme seems to be a sore point for all the hackers and corresponds to the general tendency in many cultures to avoid speaking about this subject.
So, semantic change is proved to be one of the most powerful sources the hackers’ slang drains from.


The electronic age has changed our lives as communication human beings. The new subculture of computer users, engineers, programmers emerged not long ago, in the 1970s, but with the Internet inventing, just thirty years after, almost every person who has a computer and the Internet access, thus being actively involved into the cyberspace communication, has the right to say that he belongs to the computer subculture. This person has to learn new conventions of communication – new techniques of accessing or asking, new techniques of reading and assimilating – because a cyberspace interaction is a very specific genre of communication with its peculiar style and language. That is why some knowledge of the hackers’ language, especially of their slang, as well as of their subculture, could be of great interest from both linguistic and cultural point of view.