Are you plugged in?

[Jon]

I have a new term we can use on these forums. It was triggered in part due to The_Doc_Man's (correct apostrophe use Bee?) comments about what logo would be good for this site. His recommendation was to have a head with a spigot in the back. I had to Google the word but essentially a spigot is a plug.

So, with this in mind, when you come to this forum you are "plugged in." Typical colloquial use could be, "Are you going to plug-in tonight at The Mind Tavern?" "I'm going to plug-in later." (Bee, correct use of dash?)

 

[Bee]

Correct and correct. Go to the top of the class.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Interesting. That image (the head literally being plugged in) has occurred in several novels and movies.

Harry Harrison's series about "Gil 'the Arm' Hamilton" (a detective of the future) in which the drug of choice is to plug in to an altered reality simulator and, if it is turned up high enough, people literally die of dehydration or hunger because they can't unplug. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Tune in, turn on, drop out" that was a "Hippies" mantra of the 1970s.

The Matrix trilogy where to enter the Matrix (simulation) the "real" people have a humongous plug in the back of the head.

Ghost in the Shell where a connector is used for a mind-link form of communications.

There have been others but those are good enough examples for the discussion.

And for the record, a spigot is what you stick in the bung hole of a keg of beer when preparing to dispense it old-style, certainly before about 1910 but possibly into the '20s (according to my late uncle Maurice, who told me stories of how he used to deliver beer by the keg when he was a teenager working part-time.) Also known as a "tap" - but "spigot" is almost purely for liquid delivery whereas "tap" is definitely used in networking electronics.