Between Wall St. and Silicon Valley, Babble Abounds

        By JOSEPH KAHN

            For linguistic purists, the world at the dawn of the
            21st century is, well, a mess. Management
        consultants, marketing experts, lawyers and, especially
        in recent years, techno-geeks have cluttered American
        English with shorthand indecipherable to all but
        insiders.

        At the Pentagon, acronyms are so popular they are often
        recycled. Slam, for example, can mean Sea Launch Air
        Missile, Strategic Low Altitude Missile, Selectable
        Lightweight Attack Munition, or 10 other things.
        President Clinton issued an executive order for Federal
        agencies to use common, everyday words. This
        promptly became PEI, for Plain English Initiative.

        But the prize clearly goes to businesses, especially
        those in technology. Companies like eBay and CNET
        use an alphabet soup of official names, thinking more of
        Internet call signs than linguistic elegance.

        Trying to keep abreast of new terminology might seem,
        to use Silicon Valley lingo, to be WOMBAT duty -- a
        waste of money, brains and time. But those who have
        never heard of HTML are probably condemned to
        spend their lives offline, and investors who don't
        understand EBITDAM might think profits still move
        stock prices. And if any of that sounds like
        techno-babble, read on.

        The following is a crib sheet of basic business,
        technology and financial terms that any layman might
        encounter when shopping at Circuit City, researching a
        stock on the Internet, sorting through e-mail or reading
        about global business:

        BANDWIDTH The data transfer rate of an electronic
        communications system. Figuratively, brainpower. As
        in, he doesn't have the bandwidth for the job.

        BIOINFORMATICS Using computer databases to help
        unravel the genetic code and develop new drugs.

        BLUETOOTH A computer chip that will start
        appearing in mobile phones and other devices that will
        allow you, theoretically, to call your Palm Pilot while
        riding in a taxi, if you can think of a reason to do so.

        BROADBAND A communications network that has the
        capacity to receive different kinds of signals, like
        voice, data or video, at high speeds.

        B.T.W. By the way. Often used as shorthand in e-mail.

        CAFETERIA OFFICING When an employer gives a
        worker the choice of setting up an office (desk, chair,
        computer) at home or at a central office.

        CLOB Central Limit Order Book. If stock market
        regulators in the United States have their way, stock
        prices will eventually be listed in one place, though
        they might still be traded on multiple exchanges.

        DIGERATI The elite of the Internet and the digital age.

        D.J. A "Dear John" note. What online stock traders call
        a notification that they did not get any shares of an
        initial public offering.

        DOWNTIME Refers to time that a system is not
        functioning properly, but has come to mean a siesta for
        people, too.

        D.S.L. Digital Subscriber Line. It changes your regular
        phone line into a high-bandwidth communications
        network.

        EBITDAM Earnings Before Interest, Taxes,
        Depreciation, Amortization and (for the Internet age)
        Marketing expenses. Updates EBITDA, a standard
        Wall Street measure.

        E.C.N. Electronic Communications Networks. As the
        New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq well know,
        these new trading networks are stealing trading activity
        in many of the hottest stocks.

        FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE Since emerging
        markets took a plunge and scared the rest of the world
        two years ago, finance ministers have been trying to
        come up with a new global early warning system to
        make sure it never happens again.

        GB Gigabyte, or approximately a billion bytes, or
        characters. Many new hard drives have at least one
        gigabyte of storage capacity. Say goodbye to MB, or
        megabytes.

        G.M. Not the car company, but genetically modified
        goods, as in corn or beef. The European Union, in
        particular, is uncomfortable with GM foods.

        HOTELING The practice of moving workers from one
        office (or cubicle) to the next, depending on the day. It
        prevents a company from having to keep lots of empty
        offices when so many people work at home or on
        flexible schedules.

        HTML Hypertext Markup Language. A formatting
        language used to create Web pages; some say it is now
        being edged out by XML, or eXtensible Markup
        Language.

        HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Rules that govern
        how Web pages, including pictures, text and sounds,
        are transferred over the Internet.

        INCUBATOR A company or organization that nurtures
        start-up companies by providing them with office
        space, managerial support and financing.

        JAVA A programming language for software that can
        run on your computer through the Internet, without
        loading the program onto the computer hard drive.

        LEGACY As in legacy system, legacy media, legacy
        bank: The pre-Internet way of doing things.

        LEO Low-Earth Orbiting satellites. They are supposed
        to change communications by taking geography out of
        the equation, though early versions have had technical
        and marketing difficulties.

        LINUX A computer operating system that is free or low
        cost and constantly evolving, because its underlying
        source code is available to programmers everywhere.

        LOCKUP The period of time in which insiders cannot
        sell their shares in a company, especially right after an
        initial public offering. Frequently leads to nail biting.

        MULTITASKING A computer, or a person, doing more
        than one thing at once. Frequently leads to crashes.

        MP3 A standard format for compressing sound into
        small files to be sent over the Internet without losing
        quality.

        NANO The prefix for a billionth of something, like
        nano-second or nano-meter. Someday, nano may be a
        standalone noun to describe microscopic machines that
        do great things.

        ONLINE On the Internet. When you sign off, you are
        offline. When you are out of touch, you are offline, too.

        P.C.S. Personal Communications Services. A wireless
        phone service somewhat similar to cellular telephone
        service but emphasizing light weight and extended
        mobility.

        PHARMACOGENOMICS The new science of trying to
        tailor drugs to patients based on their genetic profiles.

        P.K.I. Public Key Infrastructure. The online version of
        a signature, this is a step forward in allowing secure
        transfer of data through the Internet.

        PRICE-TO-FANTASY A way to measure a company's
        current stock price against its greatest potential in the
        future and thereby justify paying stratospheric prices
        for shares.

        SCALABILITY A measure of whether a system can be
        adapted to changing situations, like
        higher-than-expected use or a new mission.

        SERVER Either hardware or software that provides a
        service to clients. Most often used when bad things
        happen, as in, "Our server is down, try again later."

        S.M.S. Short Message Service. Forget pagers.
        Europeans, who have relied on digital cell phones for
        years, prefer to send short text messages by tapping on
        their telephone dialing pads. A distraction for kids in
        class.

        SNP Single Nucleotide Polymorphism, pronounced
        snip. It refers to a difference of a single unit in the
        three-billion-unit genetic code. Such a difference can
        account for differences in eye color or cause a
        hereditary disease. Used to tailor drugs for patients.

        SUNLIGHTING When telecommuters take on outside
        projects while working at home for their own
        employer.

        T-1 A leased telephone line for connecting to the
        Internet, often used in offices, that is many times as fast
        as a traditional modem. But it is nowhere near as fast
        as T-3, which is needed to transmit full-motion video in
        real time.

        TED Turtle Excluder Device. Fishermen who use nets
        that do not have TED's are unpopular with
        environmentalists. Turtles were the leading symbol of
        environmentalists protesting trade rules in Seattle
        recently.

        TRANSPARENCY The more open, the simpler, the
        less secretive, the better. Everybody talks about this
        approach as a way of improving things, from stock
        trading to financial and computer systems.

        TWAIN Technology Without An Interesting Name. A
        standard protocol for communication between software
        and devices like scanners.

        U.R.L. Uniform Resource Locator, or an Internet
        address. You can't get to a Web site without one.

        USB Universal Serial Bus. It goes on a computer and
        allows the user to plug in digital cameras, joysticks,
        printers and scanners with ease, or so they promise.

        VAPORWARE Software and hardware that is
        advertised long before it's available, if it's ever
        available.

        WAP Wireless Application Protocol. Web pages
        designed for browsing by mobile phone users. Already
        in use in some parts of Europe.

        WEBISODE A short entertainment program, usually
        less than 10 minutes, delivered on the Web. Sitcoms for
        people with really short attention spans.

        WORM A virus that works its way into a computer
        network. People can also worm.

        W.T.O. World Trade Organization. It's been around
        since 1995, but many people first heard of the
        Geneva-based trade body when the trade talks it
        sponsored in Seattle late last year collapsed. Now it's
        the scapegoat for people who hate globalization.