There are the fashionable French expressions we all like to use when it comes to food, fashion and travel. Bon appetit literally means good appetite and used commonly to state – enjoy your meal. A la carte (literally means ‘on the menu’ that we often see in restaurants). Café (as in coffee in French or coffee shop that we commonly refer to in English ). Tres chic (literally translates as very stylish).  It is used to express ‘stylish’ or ‘smart’ as an element of fashion and the counterpart of posh. Haute couture (literally meaning custom-fitted clothing and typically used to express trend-setting fashion). Adieu (meaning goodbye that we commonly wish each other at the time of farewell). Bon voyage (literally meaning good journey, that has been adopted to express, have a good trip!). And don’t we all know what it means when someone exclaims – c’est la vie! Meaning, such is life! It has evolved to mean things like ‘It is what it is’ and at times used as an expression to say that life is tough but that one must accept it for what it is with an optimistic demeanor.

Then ofcourse there is some of the Asian influence, borrowings from Sanskrit, one of the ancient languages from India that we see being used commonly like Guru (Sanskrit script गुरु, meaning a teacher, as someone we revere and respect for his or her knowledge and wisdom). These days, we use it to describe someone who is an ‘expert in something’ in the modern context.  Avatar (अवतार, which means manifestation, and refers to the human incarnation of God per the Hindu mythology.) In modern usage we see it as the graphical representation of a user especially in the social media context. Then ofcourse, most of you are familiar with James Cameron’s Oscar winning movie Avatar in today’s context. Cashmere (originates from Kashmir, the Himalayan region of Northern India where this fine wool is derived from the undercoat of the cashmere goat).

Karma (कर्मा, which means work or fate). We see it being used commonly as bad karma (which refers back to the philosophy of, you reap what you sow). Mantra (from Sanskrit मन्त्र mantra refers to a holy message or text typically used as ‘spiritual chanting’) whereas, in the modern context the English language borrows it to connote what is the code you live by? Such as – what is your life’s mantra? Or in a marketing jargon it could imply the mystical formula to coin their mission statement or as trendy buzzwords for eg: Nike’s mantra is ‘Just Do it’.

We are in an interesting age today where we have not only borrowed from or introduced new words but evolved to a time where we’ve started ‘verbalizing’ in interesting ways. We’ve come a long way from the Greek and Latin origins of words, and today’s influx of social media has a lot to do with the infiltration of that lexicon. We have not only started using social media terms in our daily dialogues, but have created ‘new verbs’ along the way! Highlighting a few of our common ones.

Did you google the term? The word ‘Google’ which is the name of a famous search engine, is a play on the number ‘googol‘. A googol is equivalent to a 1 followed by 100 zeros and is indeed an extremely large number. This term reflects the infinite and ever-increasing volume of information that is currently available on the Internet.

I tweeted it to my friends. Twitter (verb) originally is described as – to make high-pitched sounds, as of birds. In the social media age, Twitter today is commonly known as a social networking and microblogging site that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters.

You must unfriend him after what happened! In today’s context, it refers to our digital relationships such as our Internet friendships. Unfriending here is to remove from one’s friends list on a social networking site eg: the Facebook friend list.

I blogged about today’s news. Blog is a word that was created from two words: “web log”. It refers to today’s digital diary and serves as a shared on-line journal allowing your voice to be heard and shared with your vast online audience. It empowers users to reflect, share opinions, and discuss varied topics digitally. (E.g. of some of the current blogging platforms -Blogger,Tumblr, WordPress, SquareSpace, Posterous).

I digg it! Unlike the traditional context of digging in your garden, today social media relevancy is all about social news website made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet. You get to submit the link and users get to vote and comment on submitted links and stories ranking it in popularity!

I like it! ‘Like’ today has a whole new connotation for a Facebook user. Instead of writing a comment for a message or a status update, a Facebook user can click the “Like” button as a quick way to show approval and share the message with others.

She poked me and I poked her back. Poking as we know it typically is seen as an action of tapping and/or softly jabbing another person with the tip of one’s finger or a sharp object. A poke today is a small application on Facebook that are just little reminders or ways to say hello on Facebook.You poke someone if you just want to say a quick hello, want him/her to look at your profile or just letting them know you’re thinking of him/ her.

The list goes on! What are some of the words like this you’ve been using in your daily jargon? Let’s hear it.

Photos by jovike and GRwitters.

With the omnipresence of social media, it also brings to the forefront the critical issue of transparency. Everything is shared, liked, voted, and forwarded these days! Pictures of your wedding, video journal of your Europe trip last week, footage of your baby’s first steps, declaration of your new job and title, an aerial view of your new house and your neighborhood..the list goes on!

The point I’m trying to make is, we are living in a day and age where our entire profile and lifestyle is available with the click of a button; a Google search or a Bing away. Far flung from the days where you needed a social security number to get detailed information about a person :)!

Today, you have multiple avenues to get to know a person without even meeting him or her physically. The virtual world is packed with all kinds of data and information. It’s easy to learn about a person’s likes/ dislikes, who are his friends? Where does she live? What did he eat last night? What are their holiday plans this Christmas? What are their kids’ names? What are his New Year goals?

As a global community I believe these social media tools have made our world smaller making our connections tighter. If you think about it, we are all connected to each other with perhaps six degrees of separation. However, on the flip side it comes with the threat of great misuse of personal information and photos. We all need to be responsible and draw our own lines when it comes to the question of how much is too much? Are we overindulging with perhaps sharing way too much of our lives online? What about those who like to share every aspect of their daily lives online with others? Tweeting or perhaps wall posting about when I woke up, what appointments I have for the day, how did my meeting go with that client, what do I feel like eating for lunch, where do I plan to meet my friends over dinner. Do you think we are revealing too much of our selves without deliberating on what the implications of that might be?

As much as we enjoy the privileges of these modern tools we all need to be responsible about the usage and exercise caution and more importantly use common sense! Adjust your privacy settings on each of these platforms. Do you want your personal information and photos to be visible to everybody or would you rather give access to only your friends? In the same token, each one of us need to use good judgment when it comes to revealing and sharing parts of our private life online. Agreed, this is not a foolproof method to protect your online identity but at least you are not opening the door wide to welcome complete strangers into your house. You are using some discretion and caution.

Another important point I would like you to think about is the image you project on the different social platforms.  Just the way you’d intend to ‘position’ a product or a service based on your target audience shouldn’t a similar principle apply to your ‘social audience’? Whether you are on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or YouTube identify and recognize the purpose of that medium and segregate accordingly. As authentic and genuine you need to be across these platforms, make it a point to chalk out a line between these tools as they are meant to serve different purposes.

Remember you are the ‘same person’ but there is a subtle difference in the way you’d interact with your family, friends, co-workers, vendors, future employers or neighbors. Each of these circles may get to see a subtle shade of you, so why not use the same principle when it comes to interacting with the same folks online through these different social mediums! Wouldn’t you think?

Photos by fisserman and tanakawho