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From: jl3j+@andrew.cmu.edu (John Robert Leavitt)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: American words - viruses
Message-ID: <0WMDNgy00XcL49k06V@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 11 Apr 88 16:38:04 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University
Lines: 18

Actually, the perversion of language would make a pretty good parallel for
computer viruses.  It seems like a lot of the time when people hear new ex-
pressions or terms or slang, they add it to their own and then pass it on
again.  A virus does the same to software.  The spooky part is when something
equivalent to the Aldus virus occurs (such as the way the kids talked in the
TV show "Square Pegs" a few years ago, or the Frank Zappa song, "Valley Girl").
It spreads like wildfire then.  And the original language is forced to hide
out in a bomb shelter in the Sunday Times Magazine section and hope that the
virus burns itself out.  Just a thought... (convergence of topics?  dialectic
darwinism?  gaaah...:-)


                                       -John.

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