NAVIGATING THE FACTS

A blast from the past: Tales from the early internet!

Image: Franck

Picture yourself navigating through the city with a paper map or asking strangers for directions on the street. Today, it would be a bit unusual, right? In the old days, those were some of the everyday challenges. Staying connected with a friend was no easy task; you had to take the time to write a letter and wait days or weeks for the mail to arrive. To reduce the distance between yesterday and today, we're going to tell you these 10 fun facts about the history –and the present– of the Internet that might surprise you.

Image: Museums Victoria

Although nowadays creating a website is not so difficult, some 20 years ago it was a hard task, especially because no one had ever done it before.

http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html was the first website in the world and, of course, it was created by the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee. This site was born in 1991, when we were still very young, and was designed to share and classify information about the World Wide Web project.

The interesting fact is that you can still access the webpage. But be careful, don't expect it to be like today's sites!

Image: Merve Sehirli Nasir

In the early 70s, visionary Ray Tomlinson was working on a messaging system for ARPANET, the predecessor of our familiar Internet. His intention was to enable different computers to communicate with each other. And so he did. He is now credited with the creation of the email.

But one thing was missing: a symbol that separates the user name from the domain name in email addresses without creating confusion. This is where our @ comes in. Although the @ symbol is everywhere now, it was not very popular then, making it an unlikely choice for users to include in their email names. Smart choice, right?

Image: Alexander Shatov

Some brands achieve what every brand wants: to create unmistakable logos. Just remember the red of Coca-Cola, the bright yellow of McDonald's golden arches, or the green and white Starbucks logo.

In the world of social media, Facebook's blue stands out as one of the most recognizable colors. But there's more to this choice than marketing.

There is another reason why Mark Zuckerberg, the famous creator of Facebook, chose this color: he is colorblind to green and red hues. As he stated in a 2010 interview with the New Yorker, blue is the color he perceives most vividly.

Image: Karen Grigorean

Imagine someone from centuries ago arriving in our time and discovering that we need to click on a box to confirm that we are not robots. It would blow their minds.

This little window when entering a website prompting you to identify images, is a CAPTCHA, and it basically gives you a test to prove that you aren't a bot trying to break a site's or an account's security.

While you might recognize the name, few know what this acronym truly stands for. Well, it's a specific description of its task. CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart." With that extension, turning the name of this tool into an acronym was inevitable.

Image: Dreamlike Street

Let's bust some myths here. Unlike CAPTCHA, the word WiFi doesn't have a meaning. At least it didn't when it was invented.

Commonly, WiFi is thought to be an acronym for "wireless fidelity," as a nod to Hi-Fi (High Fidelity). Although this makes sense (you know, because it is indeed a wireless connection), its name is not an acronym.

In fact, WiFi was created as a simple, catchy word that everyone could easily remember but with no specific meaning.

Image: Sara Kurfeß

Creating content for YouTube has evolved into a full-time job nowadays. Most videos are now productions that can span hours. But the platform's beginnings were quite different.

Jawed Karim, one of YouTube's founders, uploaded the very first video in 2005, more than 18 years ago! Titled "Me at the Zoo," this piece lasts just 19 seconds and is still on the site.

The short video of Jawed speaking at the San Diego Zoo has already more than 300 million views, and that number is increasing every day!

Image: Tingey Injury Law Firm

Over the years, the Internet's explosive growth has revolutionized the way we present ourselves to the world and interact with each other. It also allows people to share their ideas and talents, unlocking opportunities for everyone.

In today's world, the Internet is extremely important. It's not just about keeping in touch; some of the crucial stuff in our everyday lives relies on it.

Those who truly got it are the Finns because, in 2010, Finland proudly became the first country to ensure every citizen has the right to access the Internet. Let's hope other countries join the party!

Image: Brett Jordan

If you've recently made a mistake or find yourself worrying about potential errors in your life, relax. We all make mistakes, even the greatest geniuses. And that's what happened to the creators of Google, or should we say the creators of Googol?

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin created the search engine, the name they thought for it was "googol," which is the term for the number 10¹⁰⁰ (1 followed by one hundred zeroes). However, due to a misspelling, the official name ended up being Google.

Image: Goran Ivos

The first webcam owes its existence to coffee. Well, that's one way to tell the story!

Most of us appreciate a good cup of coffee during working hours. Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky knew this well while working in a Cambridge University lab in 1991. But they had a problem: the coffee maker was on another floor. To solve the trouble of walking all the way to that room just to find an empty coffee pot, they came up with a great idea.

They developed a device that kept an eye on the coffee pot and transmitted the action to their lab computer. Thanks to the cam, the coffee maker became famous on the World Wide Web two years later!

Image: Firmbee.com

Being popular on the Internet has its advantages these days. The number of followers or clicks to your content can change your life. With millions of users navigating millions of websites daily, having the title of the most visited is a huge feat. You probably already know that the crown for the most popular site goes to Google, which got more than 85 billion visits just in 2023!

According to Forbes magazine, up until 2023, the G giant remained in first place, with the renowned YouTube and Facebook following, though at a bit of a distance.

Have you ever used these terms?

Can you be "ept," or just "inept"? The riddle of unpaired words

Image: Suzy Hazelwood

Do you know what "unpaired words" are? They are terms we assume should exist, based on standard linguistic rules, but don’t. For example, if "nonverbal" is the opposite of "verbal," shouldn’t "nonchalant" be the opposite of "chalant"? As it turns out, it’s not so simple. To test your knowledge and learn more about unpaired words, we’ve crafted a game where you’ll have to guess: Do these words exist, or have we played around by subtracting or replacing their prefixes and suffixes? Game on!

Image: __ drz __

If ruthless means lacking compassion, shouldn’t an empathetic person be ruthful?

Ruthful does exist. Indeed, ruth is a noun referring to sorrow or compassion, originating from Old English hrēow, meaning "pity." While ruthful was once a common word for "compassionate," it has mostly fallen out of use.

Image: Tingey Injury Law Firm

Innocent means someone is guiltless, or it can refer to their naiveté. But can someone be nocent?

Yes! The term nocent exists. Derived from Latin nocens (meaning "guilty" or "harmful"), nocent was historically used to mean "criminal" or "harmful." Granted, it is rare today. But it does appear in older legal and literary texts.

Image: Clark Young

Can the same rule of innocent apply to inept? If an inept person lacks skill, does ept mean they "enjoy aptitude"? Inept comes from the Latin ineptus (unsuited, absurd), but Latin had no standalone eptus.

Ept is recognized by some dictionaries, but you could call it a made-up word. It was only in modern texts in English that writers began jokingly playing around with ept and eptitude. So, can you use ept in a Scrabble game? That’s for you and the other players to decide!

Image: Dmitry Ulitin

One can be dissatisfied or satisfied, and one can be disgruntled. But can one be gruntled?

Surprisingly, gruntled does exist! It’s an old-fashioned word meaning "pleased, contented." It originates from the verb gruntle, meaning "to grumble". Over time, the prefix dis- took on an intensifying role rather than forming a strict opposite. The word gruntled was revived in the 20th century, mostly for humorous effect.

Image: cottonbro studio

Disheveled means messy or disordered. It comes from the Old French deschevelé ("with disordered hair"). Does that mean sheveled describes neatness?

Well, sheveled is an extinct word. It was created by aphesis, which means it was derived from disheveled by losing the first syllable. It did mean "tidy," but was extremely rare, and has long vanished from common use.

Image: Sabbir Ahasan

If ageless means that something does not age, does agefull mean that something is enriched with history and experience?

No! Agefull does not exist. While it would seem like a logical word formation, agefull has never been a standard English word. We might describe something rich with history as timeworn or venerable, but agefull never made the cut.

Image: Pixabay

If exasperate means "to annoy or frustrate", what would the opposite word mean? To calm down? To smooth things over?

Asperate does exist, but it doesn’t mean what you think. It’s an archaic word meaning "to make rough or uneven." Quite the opposite! It comes from the Latin asper, meaning "rough."

Image: Anete Lusina

To improvise means "to come up with something unpreparedly," on the spot. Nowadays, you can simply say improv and everyone will understand exactly what you mean. So, does provise mean "to plan ahead," then?

Yes! Provise is a real but rare word. It means "to foresee or provide beforehand." It comes from Latin providere, meaning "to provide."

Image: Wouter Supardi Salari

Nonchalant means "unconcerned, calm, and casual." As you may have guessed, it derives from Old French, precisely from the verb nonchaloir, which means "to disregard" or "to not be concerned." So, can you be chalant?

No, the term chalant does not exist. The adaptation of chaloir never entered English. We don’t have a perfect antonym for nonchalant; perhaps concerned, caring, or attentive come closest.

Image: Mohamed Masaau

The logical assumption would be that when you are neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed, you are whelmed. Don’t you think?

But that’s not how it works. Yes, whelmed does exist, but not as a midpoint between the other two. Whelm, from Old English hwielfan, meant "to cover over" or "submerge." Eventually, we added the prefix "over" to it, intensifying the action, but the meaning remained the same.

Image: Roger Bradshaw

If nonplussed means "unruffled," or "unbothered," is plussed another word for "baffled"? Nonplussed comes from Latin nonplus ("no more, nothing further"). Originally, it meant "at a loss," or "bewildered," but its modern usage shifted to a synonym of "untroubled."

Plussed has been jokingly used as an opposite, a backformation of the original, but was never a real word. Some people understand it to mean "shocked" or "ruffled." But we don’t think anyone would make plussed their go-to synonym for "surprised."