Scratch pad – feline accessory
Cache memory used to buffer data being transferred between a fast processor and a slower device, like your disk drive. Just don’t catch a rash.

Screen grab – common activity triggered by a Blue Screen Happening
Done regularly just prior to hurling the infernal machine out of the window. Very useful way of capturing the image on your screen at any moment in time and often used to illustrate application manuals.

Search engine – creepy crawlies
Full of spiders and robots which creep out when you’re asleep to spy on your web site. Without them we’d be sunk, and the good ones are an absolute treasure trove for researchers. To be kept on side if you want the surfing community to pay you a visit.

Separation – the bit just before it starts getting really expensive
A printing term, colour separation is where the artwork is separated out into the base colours and output to printing film from which the printing plates are made, or by computer directly to the press.

Shareware – pass the cup
The meanies amongst us conveniently forget that the idea behind shareware is that you get to use an application in return for a small fee. The poor developer has to eat after all just like the rest of us. Not to be confused with public domain software were you can be as mean as mean can be.

Silicon – and chips
Fascinating to think that this base material for integrated circuits is actually grown in huge tanks and then sliced and diced into wafers before being etched. Almost makes it feel as though there is life inside that machine after all. That’ll make you feel better the next time you yell at it.

SNAFU – chaos rules OK
It takes a war and the dry wit of a senior army officer facing ever deepening problems to come up with a phrase to cover those sort of situations where even the best laid plans flounder irretrievably. “Situation Normal, all F****d Up” encompasses that base emotion denoting an incredibly complex and avoidable confusion with no one in control and no remedial action in sight. In the decades since others even more extreme have evolved including: SAPFU; CUMMFU; TUIFU. Given that we’ve not passed the watershed yet I’ll leave you to work them out. As a footnote: sadly after 130 years the Royal Navy has formally abandoned the distress call SOS leaving Mayday as the only international recognisable distress call. So the French have finally beaten our senior service. Mayday is an alliteration of m’aidez – help me! what's this all got to do with marketing and design. Nothing whatsoever.

Split test – looking after those ends
A representative sample taken from a mailing list to provide a test package or to check for homogeneity. That to you and me is simply checking for similarity.

Statement stuffer – the temptation is enormous
In direct marketing a reference to printed material detailing a customer's statement of account and inserted into an envelope.

Step up – and bang your head
Another direct marketing term referring to special premiums used to tray and get a mail order buyer to increase their order.

Streaming – hayfever symptoms
You’ll have experienced this many times especially when watching video on-line. Clever continuous transfer of data sidestepping your central processor.

Sub-woofer - scuba diving dog
Don’t worry, there’s not a dog under your desk, it’s more likely to be a loudspeaker that can produce extremely low frequency sounds. Gives your virtual world real byte.

Teaser – invariably the one with the black eye
An advertisement or promotion designed to stimulate curiosity about a forthcoming promotion.

TIFF– huff
Graphic file format widely used in design. Devised by Aldus and Microsoft and stands for Tagged Image File Format.

Till forbid – just see how far you can go
Direct marketing term describing the position of a customer who has placed an order which is to continue until he advises for it to be stopped.

Tone of the media – Anthony the journalist
An analysis tool used by PR and marketing gurus to measure the 'mood' of the press by taking into account the amount of editorial bias in any given sector.

Traffic builder – car manufacturer
A piece of direct mail used to generate customer interest.

Trial buyer – getting to the jury
A customer who has bought a product but does not have to pay for it until a clearly defined period has expired.

Thesaurus – or how to bluff your way as a wordsmith
Oft mispronounced creation of Peter Roget who in 1852 decided to publish an indexed catalogue of synonyms that he had compiled originally for his own use. Has enabled many of us to bluff our way for years. Bet you didn’t know that Roget triggered a revolution when he published a scientific paper in 1842 describing an optical illusion he had noticed while watching the wheels of a horse drawn carriage through the blinds of a window. The motion picture industry was born. Versatile chap.

TIFF – getting the hump
Tagged Image File Format developed by Aldus and Microsoft to compress and store graphic images.

TWAIN – ne’er shall meet
Developed by a consortium including HP and Aldus this clever gizmo allows applications you’re using to interface with a scanner. Probably something you don’t really need to know, but it's best that your scanner does.