The IT 'girl'

Everybody's at it, or that's how it seems to me, at any rate. And now even my granny, who's 82 and up for anything, has bought a computer. The time to worry is when she learns how to switch it on. To be truthful, the poor old biddy hasn't got a clue when it comes to information technology, etc... But she is insistent that she really, really does want to become a 'geekette', albeit a superannuated one. So she asked me to give her a crash-course in the jargon of IT. A sort of computer lexicon for idiots. So here goes:

PC: This is really the starting point for Nanna, as well as anybody else and here the letters PC, as everybody knows, stand for Polymorphic Contraption.

OK, having got that basic bit of info sorted, let's move on to some more intricate detail:

CD Rom: No, Nanna, it has nothing whatever to do with the red-light district of the Italian capital. It is actually that flat, disc-like silvery thing that tattooed youths hang from the rear-view mirror of their beat-up Ford Escorts, to create a naffer than naff ornament. Its relevance to a computer is unclear... I should just ignore it.

Floppy: And before you ask, Nanna, no it is certainly not an oblique reference to the current state of Nannu's masculinity, when he forgets to take his Viagra tablet. It is actually that card-like thing that fits into a slot in the front of the computer. What it does once it's in there... I've no idea, so I should just ignore that one too.

Megabyte: Now Nanna almost guessed correctly here. She assumed it was what she would deem an average slice of timpana... You or I would consider it enough to feed Somalia for a whole calendar year.

Which means that a megabyte is actually... a mega-slice of timpana.

Mouse: To be perfectly honest, I didn't even go there with Nanna. The merest mention of a rodent, any rodent, sends her into apoplexy, so I tell her the thing that controls the cursor (about which more anon) is called a mussel. And she's happy with that... bless her.

Cursor: Another tricky IT word, well tricky for Nanna, anyway. No Nan, it's not someone with a rather picturesque turn of phrase, it's the little black line that precedes every word you type with the word processor.

Word processor: I have to admit I failed badly with this one. However much I tried, Nanna still insists on calling it the "typewriter in the box thing".

Internet: No, Nanna, it's not what you do with the lace curtains in the front windows of your house, to ensure that you can look out... but nobody can see in. It's that wonderful computer attachment that allows you to spend all of Nannu's pension on e-Bay. And believe me, there is no need to explain e-Bay to Nanna.

Microsoft: Not yet another reference to Nannu, but the means by which you make it all happen on your PC. It's generally referred to as the software. And no... let's not go there.

Menu: This has caused my grandmother no end of problems. She just cannot understand why anyone should give the list of things that a computer does the same name as the list of dishes in her favourite restaurant. I'll admit I've given up on this one.

Modem: Nanna thinks this is an extremely apt description of her rather cerebrally challenged cousin Monica... and I tend to agree with her. Any IT applications are totally irrelevant.

Backup file: Yes, quite right, Nan, this is indeed what she carries in her handbag in case she snags a fingernail.

Oh, there's lots more we could disseminate, but why bother... the old girl is quite happy leaving her new computer switched-off, in the corner of her sitting-room, covered with a dust cloth.

Of course the cloth comes off when anyone calls on her. Well, what's the point of owning a computer if you can't show it off... eh?