Lag - The Meaning Changed
You know how traditional languages are changing over time? Well, it turns out that internet slang can do it too. Let’s face it - who the hell uses the term lag to talk about latency any more? Lag is a term to quickly describe your computer being crappy, when you have a low FPS, not just when either the remote or local connection is playing up.
Obviously the meaning will never change for people who write games, even in the latest release of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War - Soulstorm the game uses the term “lag” to describe when someone you are playing over the internet or your LAN loses packets, which made me smile when I saw the message.
So, what i’m saying is I tolerate the word being used wrong, hell I use it myself, and so should other people. It is a slang word anyway - and how people get from latency to lag is another story.
Reader Comments
3 responses so far
1Richard Conteh 
2Alan 
3Richard Conteh
Leave a commentLatency has always been the “correct” and/or “proper” word. “Lag” is purely as you say slang. Slang is not technically important but often used to make our lives more easier.
Yeah, except my point was lag is now used to describe virtually anything that is behaving slowly. Even when you get a low in-game frame rate I know loads of people who refer to it as lag, although it totally isn’t. Latency is just sooo old school now - I bed there are people who don’t even know what it means, but use lag as if it were a technical term.
BTW: If you don’t have a website, http://n/a doesn’t resolve. Just leave the field blank. Small stuff annoys me.
Good point. The other day for the first time, I heard someone referring to being high as lagging. Was the first time I came heard it in that sense but your right. Lag is slowly becoming the new slow.