WI-FI

Wi-fi. W-I-F-I. Sometimes written with a hyphen, sometimes not. Wireless fidelity.
Technically, it’s standard ensuring that works on a wireless . It’s an
analogy with ‘hi-fi’, for high fidelity, that used to be common for recording some years
ago.
It’s an interesting because it shows the return of a word that everybody thought had
gone completely of date – ‘wireless’. I mean, ‘wireless’ was around when wireless was
invented, but it was replaced by ‘radio’. And everybody talks about radio
broadcasting not wireless broadcasting and then, suddenly it came back in again with this
internet connection. It’s used now for all sorts of – TV remotes can be talked
about as wireless, if you control your garage door, it’s a wireless control, mobile phones
are sometimes referred to as wireless and GPS, you know, satellite things in your car, you
know, wireless.
It has a lot of associated , of course. Wi-fi is just one word of many that has
come into usage in the last few years talking about the way in which we cope with the
internet. ‘Hot spot’ is another one, for instance, that’s a location which a wireless
connection to the internet - you sometimes see people outside houses with their ,
where there’s a hot spot, there’s a connection to the internet from nearby.
Incidentally, the opposite of ‘wireless’ is ‘ ’ – that is, using wires to carry the signal,
as in, say, cable television, and that’s led also to an extended use – ‘wired’. Wired, he’s
wired – that means he’s alert, he’s , he’s ready. And people who are ‘wired up’ are
like that too! I’m wired up at the moment!

Adapted from BBC Learning English