Ye Olde Rad Blog

Today's Word-of-the Day is especially interesting to computer users. I've always known what an avatar was .. [electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user, as in a computer game] .. but I never knew where the word came from:

"Avatar" started life as a word meaning "the incarnation of a Hindu deity (as Vishnu)." It derives from a Sanskrit word meaning "descent," is ultimately from a word that means "he crosses over," and referred to the descent of a deity to the earth in some earthly form.

It later came to refer to any incarnation in human form, and then to any embodiment (such as of a concept or philosophy), which may or may not be a person.

Recently, "avatar" has developed another new sense, one that is distantly related to the concept of a descending deity via the idea of "embodiment"—it can be used for the image that a person chooses as his or her "embodiment" in an electronic medium.

In the Rad forums, I use Sylvester as my avatar: He's the cartoon cat who used to say, "Sufferin' succotash". In other forums, I use an animated gif a friend made for me.