A Requiem for the Bookmark: Refresh That, Favor This
From time to time, when teaching students about the Internet, I catch myself telling students to “hit reload” or suggesting that they “bookmark that.”
These are Netscape-era terms, and while Internet Explorer is dominant now, I can’t seem to unlearn those terms.
It’s a simple matter to correct myself and say, “Sorry, I meant, ‘hit refresh,'” but saying ‘Add it to My Favorites” is clunky, and telling them to “favor it” is meaningless.
Microsoft uses “bookmark” to refer to something completely different.
Similar:
What have my students learned about creative nonfiction writing? During class they are col...
There’s No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing Is Powering AI
Sesame Street had a big plot twist in November 1986
I can’t fix this broken world but I guess I did okay using #blender3d to model this wedge-...
I’ve been teaching with this handout for over 25 years, updating it regularly. I just remo...
Despite its impressive output, generative AI doesn’t have a coherent understanding of the ...
My students who never used Netscape respond with blank stares when I say “bookmark.” I do think it’s a better term than. Favoritize?
For some reason, “bookmark” has stuck as the term for saving the url of a page, perhaps partially because saying it’s a “favorite” is to vague, and “Add it to your favorites” is to clunky and to vague (favorites? what does that have to do with a web page?) Perhaps you should just always use “bookmark” – everyone seems to know what that means. :-)