Yentabytes and Shiksabytes

audreyl — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:26:10 +0000

From David Friend at Vanity Fair

“One petabyte is equivalent to million gigabytes. A zettabyte is a million petabytes. A yottabyte is a thousand zettabytes.”
—The New York Times, March 2, 2010

Linguists who study changes in Internet-related terminology have discovered an increasing use of ever-more-bizarre and sometimes Yiddish-sounding phrases when it comes to characterizing large quantities of digital information. As a service to Web users, VF Daily offers this handy glossary of new terms:

Yentabyte: a thousand hectoring emails

Centayentabyte: a million yentabytes

Placentabyte: an overbearing mother snooping around her child’s Facebook account

Shiksabyte: the Sports Illustrated Bathing Suit Issue online photo archives

Pitabyte: a computer chip deliberately dipped in hummus

Wonchahavabyte: an online invitation to nosh (as in: “Eat! Later, we’ll blog!”)

Cleptobyte: a gigabyte of stolen data

Peptobyte: a gigabyte of pink-hued antacid

Ovabyte: an orthodotically challenged “Say Cheese” photo on a social networking site

Gagabyte: one too many streaming videos of Lady Gaga

Yodabyte: the online Star Wars database (see also: Wookiepedia)

Ferblondjibyte: a gigabyte of lost data (usually occurs after forgetting to back up one’s hard drive)

Fermishtabyte: a gigabyte of scrambled, meaningless data

Fercocktabyte: a million fermishtabytes (also known as an ongepotchkebyte)

Shlemielabyte: the noodnik who loses a fercocktabyte

Shlemazelbyte: the guy the noodnik blames for making him lose the fercocktabyte

Shmaggeggebyte: the tech-support guy who tries to help the noodnik find his lost fercocktabyte

Megillabyte: the entire Internet

techandsoc.com » 2010 » March » 07

Yentabytes and Shiksabytes