If you are anything like this journalist, you will need to brush up on your Second Life lingo, a language of its own, before passing yourself off as an experienced resident in the virtual world. Here are a few starting points.
SL: (We’ll start with the easy ones.) Second Life, the virtual life online.
RL: (Yep, you guessed it.) Real life.
Avatar/Av or Resident: Your character within Second Life.
Furry: The animal character you can choose to represent you, rather than a human character, within Second Life.
$L: Linden dollars, the currency of Second Life.
The Grid: The virtual space that is Second Life.
Gridhopper: Someone who “hops” from location to location, often changing outfits a ludicrous number of times in one evening. Similar to real-life club hoppers.
Griefer: Someone who has joined Second Life purely to cause trouble for other players. They could be anything from hackers to bullies.
Lurker: Someone you can see on Second Life but who is not moving or doing anything, making it impossible to know if the person is at their computer in real life or not.
Prim: Any content or object in the game, for example, a wall, a vehicle or clothing accessories. Only a certain number of prims are allowed for each piece of land because of bandwidth efficiency.
Bling Whore: A person who wears a spectacularly high number of accessories or clothing.
RP: Role-playing. Often residents have a totally different character in Second Life than in the real world.
Carrying out ancient rituals, fairy-tale roles and acting the part of fantastic creatures such as vampires all seem popular.
