A sniglet is a word that should be in the dictionary but isn't. Sniglets are the brainchild of comedian Rich Hall who, with a little help from his friends, wrote a series of books containing sniglets in the mid-eighties. With a little help from Rich Hall and our readers, here are some IT-related sniglets we think should be in the dictionary but aren't:
adminisphere - the rarified organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inapropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.
administrivia - unnecessary and voluminous paperwork and processes required and often dictated by the 'adminisphere'.
alpha geek - the most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group.
animousity - vigorously clicking your pointer device because a page is loading too slowly.
assmosis - the process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
backronym - an IT term whose letters once had no meaning, but have since come to stand for something-or-other.
blamestorming - sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
cellphonic appraisal - the activity that occurs when a ringing cell phone causes everyone in the room to check and see if it's theirs.
chainsaw consultant - an outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the brass with clean hands.
crapplet - a poorly written or totally useless Java applet.
cube farm - an office filled with cubicles.
dopeler effect- the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
dot gone - last year's e-commerce hopeful.
faxcess - having access to a fax machine.
faxcination - staring intently at the fax machine because you're waiting for a fax to come through.
fonesia - the affliction that strikes when you dial a phone number and forget whom you were calling just as they answer.
fUtility - a 3rd party utility that won't install no matter how closely one follows the instructions.
gadaboutag - the orphan HTML tag that's messing up your page.
execuglide - to maneuver oneself around the room while seated in a wheeled office chair.
Macrimination - the automatic assumption that whatever is wrong is caused by the Mac on the network.
negabytes per second (NBps) - a measure of data transfer that seems so slow it can only be assumed to be flowing backwards.
ohnosecond - that very short moment in time during which you realize that you have pressed the wrong key and deleted hours, days, or weeks of work.
oh yes nine - the sensation of relief and familiarity you get when you switch back to OS 9 to do something you can't figure out in OS X.
oxoxomoron - a person who includes symbolic "hugs and kisses" at the end of their e-mail.
percussive maintenance - the fine art of whacking the crap of of an electronic device to get it to work again.
prairiedogged - the feeling of helplessness that overtakes you when co-workers in neighboring cubicles constantly pop their heads up to ask you stupid questions.
random excess memory - memory you were talked into buying in order to solve some problem that never did get resolved.
screen spasm - pages that try to load simultaneously on your computer screen as a direct result of your animousity.
screenager - an intern in the IT department.
seagull manager - a manager that flies in and makes a lot of noise, dumps on everyone, and flies out again, still squawking.
stress puppy - a co-worker who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiney.
tacitician - a remote worker who excels at performing non-work related tasks while on a conference call.
WAPathy - lack of interest in wireless technology.
zen mail - an e-mail message that arrives without text in the message body.
