Unsettling

andy

With all this facebooking and linkedining going on, you realise how few degrees of separation there are between us.

For example, I've just noticed that someone I'm connected to on linkedin has just added someone from this site as a friend. From facebook, I've noticed that our occasional posting Councillor is friends with a bunch of people I know and someone else is friends on facebook with a person I manage.

We think we're strangers in a big anonymous city.....but we're not......

Ewan

it's a small world....it really is...

Liz

It's like a virus. I sit near the kitchen at work and frequently overhear conversations between members of staff (in a relatively small company) about how they've just realised that they both know the same people. Also, members of my team poke each other all the time. Whilst at work. And sitting about 10 feet away from each other. Is that odd or is it just me?

SimonB

@Liz - nothing has changed that much really - people sitting next to each other have been MSN'ing for years.

Liz

OK, it's just me then. I just think it's weird. Why can't they just talk to each other?

tosscat

I think it's perfectly normal. Did you never used to pass notes in class? Surely it's the same thing.

Liz

But you passed notes because you weren't allowed to talk to each other, no? It really is just me.

matt

I generally dislike social sites, and I refuse to use instant messaging. So, whilst Facebook has been something of a revelation for me - simply because I snagged a rare demo CD by one of my favourite bands, and it let me track down more old friends than I had been able to with both Friends Reunited and LinkedIn combined - I'm worried by users propensity to subsitute it's messaging service as a replacement for email. Anyway...

tosscat

@Liz You were allowed to talk just only about certain things - it's all to do with context surely? Similar things have been going on for yonks - http://www.ideco.com/fans/language.htm and in a more modern way - http://www.barcodesigns.com/ Your not going to shout across the bar/ballroom "I want to shag you" and equally you don't want to shout across the office how much x is pissing you off.

andy

Which leads us to polari, gay slang from back when there was a need for gay slang. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1391811,00.html>; <http://www.chris-d.net/polari/>; <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari>; Interesting how many of these words are now mainstream.

nat

I know I only actually come on once in a blue moon, but this immediately put Piccadilly Palare in my head and what better way of spending an afternoon than humming Morrissey - "your lovely eek and your lovely riah" Can't believe it didn't get a mention in the Guardian article.