[mesmark]

I have caught myself 3 times in the past month saying delete instead of erase.

When I'm erasing the board, I've started saying, 'I'm going to delete this.'

Does anyone else have computers or other hobbies inject unnatural speech into your language?

[susan53]

There was a sketch on Italian TV a couple of days ago with someone imitating Bill Gates. Everything he said was computer language even though he was talking about other things. It was in Italian unfortunately and doesn't necessarily translate - but it was exactly what you were talking about.

Italian has however adopted a lot of the English computer words. Interestingly students use some of them every day- but this doesn't help them remember them in another context : apple, word and windows for example have to be learnt all over again to refer to everyday objects, even though the literal meaning has been clear from the start - due for example to the Apple logo. The brain seems to compartmentalise. Then there are the ones whose meaning has been misunderstood along the way - "start" is generally understood to mean "open" and the fact that a a "file" can be made of paper flummoxes everybody.