I had fun writing about the history of the word”fanboy”–hey, Technologizer may never have another excuse to publish a 2800-word etymological essay. And I’ve been just as tickled to see the story spark conversation on several other Web sites.
Two posts elsewhere demand a bit of follow-up:
1) Word expert Ben Zimmer (who is, among other things, the New York Times‘ On Language columnist) was nice enough to notice my story. He blogged about something I knew about but didn’t thoroughly investigate: The use of the acronym “FANBOY” as a mnemonic device to remember the coordinating conjunctions For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, and So. As he explains, that convention dates to at least 1951–but turns out not to be very useful. He reasonably wonders if there was any “cross-pollination” between the use of FANBOYS and “fanboy.”
When HP 
Everybody knows Mario–Super Mario. And how: an oft-cited 1991 poll found that more American children recognized Nintendo’s cheerful mascot than they did Mickey Mouse. Almost two decades later, the famous cartoon plumber, forever clad in blue overalls, regularly stars in blockbuster games for the Wii and DS.
Ed Roberts died today in Georgia at the age of 68. The development of the personal computer was too collaborative for any one person to deserve the honor of being the father of the industry…but as I think about it, I can’t think of anyone with a better claim on the title than Roberts. He may not have invented the PC, but he surely invented the PC industry.
If you venture onto the Web at all today, you run the risk of being crushed to death by an 
Devilishly clever tech-related April Fools’ pranks? Sorry, we’re abstaining from pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes this year–you’ll need to look 
I promise we’ll stop commemorating the