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This amusing poem compares the meanings of words and expressions as they are used nowadays when speaking about computers, and in their original contexts.
Read the poem. Do vocabulary exercise (1) and vocabulary exercise (2), which test the different meanings of the words and expressions in the poem. Finally, do some writing yourself and read poems send by other readers.
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(See/print poem and do activity on paper) (pdf file - 72 KB)
A computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show of note
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of a goat.
Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bytes.
An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A curser used profanity
A keyboard was a piano.
Memory was something you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3-in. floppy
You hoped nobody found out.
Compress was something you did to the trash
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for a while.
Log on was adding wood to the fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode.
Cut you did with a pocket knife
And paste you did with glue
A web was simply a spider's home
And a virus was just the flu.
I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory that's in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they'll wish they were dead.
Author Unknown
Write a poem about technology. Send it to us.
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Are you crazy?
When I was a child, I had never heard about a computer.
We got a TV at home at that time, and wow, that was a wonderful machine!
I watched the TV as much as possible,
And I forgot my homework for school.
And my parents sometimes said: “Are you crazy?”
But now, after all these years,
I almost never watch the TV.
The computer, that is where I'm looking at.
At work and also at home.
And my husband sometimes says: “Are you crazy?”
Our children are growing up in the computer age.
Technology is growing fast at this time.
As young as they are, computers haven't any secrets for them.
MSN, E-mail and Internet, and all that sort of thing.
They will start after school, and have no time to eat.
So I say to them: “Are you crazy?”
Annie
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Untitled
You invented your own destruction
Where is your technology?
Where is your science?
Where is your god?
You thought it would last forever
You thought you were the crest of the creation
But, you already saw, you were just the illness of nature.
Eric Ramirez Rodriguez
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What am I?
I call myself a computer snail
Sitting for hours, totally engaged
In the world of the plastic box, filled with silicon chips
Separated from reality
By a screen
Sometimes visible, touchable, breakable,
Sometimes fusible, volatile, illusive.
I am an internet parasite
Devouring the information juice
Jumping from one page to another
Tracking the latest news, gears and even gossip.
Non-stop
I am safe inside my anonymous coat
Or sometimes seek shelter in nickname loads
My existence, untraceable, undeniable.
I become an IT monster
Convicted of addiction and cyber malevolence
Of health deterioration and privacy violation
A list of concerns, denials, criticism and old folks' grievances.
Never-ending
How malignant a benign cancer!
How threatening a vulnerable creature!
My future, glorious or gloomy? What am I?
You decide!
Phan Thi Nam Mai
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