There has been much correspondence recently both from and about computer store staff and customers. I am fairly impartial but I think I speak for many regarding the computer twits as a menace.

This animal is found at all levels of computing. They are easily recognised by a complacent smirk on their faces and the inability to string words together in a meaningful manner. They do not meet each other, they interface and their brains are in fact filled with incorrectly programmed EPROMs.

To ordinary people, one word of advice. Challenge them. As soon as they lapse into gobbledegook, tell them to explain it. There is no term used below research level which cannot be put in simple words, often more correctly, and it is a mark of an idiot not to know when speech has ceased to be communication.

Do not worry about hurting the feelings of the twits, because they have tried to belittle you, so make them speak plain English. Particularly if you are a customer, remember they are paid by you. If you are an assistant in store, do not worry about the twit, he buys mail order and is only in your shop to further inflate his personal vanity.

I am not suggesting you are rude, though I have on occasions been very fortright with half-baked sales people, but do not be put down by them.

David Walton FCMA
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

But some computerese is acceptable if spoken between those in the know and used where a non-jargon explanation would be unacceptably verbose. Of course, to talk microspeak to the uninitiated is really rather rude and is certainly unnecessary (unless you want to belittle!) - Ed