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.
Post was last modified on 22 Apr 2023 11:36 am
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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. :-)