The many meanings of ‘friend’
These days, the word ‘friend’ means more than simply the person you hang out with. It’s a digital acquaintance, a verb, an ‘un-verb’…
In his recent article Malfunctions, misdemeanors, metaphors, Michael Rundell describes how we’ve created a lot of computer terms by recycling familiar words (such as “window,” “virus,” “memory,” “desktop” and “folder”) and applying them metaphorically to the digital realm. He mentions “icon” as a noteworthy example, in that its computer-related sense is now the most common.
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