Anorak In The English Language

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1. a. anorak The word originated from the Greenlandic word ‘anoraq’. It was first used in the English language in 1924 to describe the western imitations of an “anoraq” (OED Online, 2011). It is possible that the ‘q’ in the original word was replaced with ‘k’ as there is very few English words that end with ‘q’ so it was anglicised instead. Later in 1984, it also became British slang for a boring, studious or socially inept person (OED Online, 2014). According to Cresswell (2010), this is because “anoraks were traditionally worn by trainspotters and others with unfashionable preoccupations, which led to such people being known as ‘anoraks’” (pg. 17). b. astronaut ‘Astronaut’ is a combination of the Greek words ‘astro’ (star) and ‘nautes’ (sailor).…show more content…
It has become Internet slang for deliberately making an offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting a hostile response from them (Oxford Dictionaries, n.d.). It can be used in a form of a noun to refer to the person who made the post as well. Also, it could be a double entendre - a ‘troll’ who waits to pop up and ‘attack you’ and the action of ‘trolling’, like fishing for a reaction (Daw, 2012).Therefore, a ‘troll’ is a person who fishes around the Internet looking for provocations by posting antagonistic comments. The concept of ‘trolling’ (which is the act of being a ‘troll’) is a modern menace as it is basically the Internet equivalent of harassment. Recently, it has also adopted the less negative connotation of carefully searching an area (usually the Internet) for something or to prank someone. According to the OED Online (2012), the earliest known mention of the word “troll” on record can be found in a post on the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban from 1992. The term must have been popularized by its users and then spread across the

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