Also a name for a Internet user who asks stupid questions with the sole intention of getting a major response. For example, the 12-year-old AOL user who goes into alt.rape.surviors and posts a message with the words "Suck my dick, and get back in the kitchen and make me some pie!" is most assuredly a troll. It is best if you not repond to them. If you are lucky, they'll turn to stone when the sun comes up.
Note the analogy with Trolling in the fishing sense. You stick a tasty morsel on a hook, and drag it through a population hoping someone will bite. For all our sakes, be smarter than a fish.
--The Roguelet's ABC
Trojan horse = T = Troll-O-Meter
troll v.,n.
1. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT. 2. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that the have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." 3. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.
Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait, that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter.
--Jargon File, autonoded by rescdsk.
EDIT ME! The Everyone Project. Log in: "everyone" Password: "everyone" First created by: rescdsk Modified by: (nobody)
Also a Michigan idiom, one that sees more use in the Upper Penensula than the Lower. Refers to those living in the Lower Penensula, because they live "below the Bridge".
Us trolls sometimes refer to those Yoopers as goats, but usually Yooper is derogatory enough.
A troll is someone who, finding that no-one likes them, decides to pretend that it's on purpose. - Found on slashdot.
The Trolls
This is the story of the Trolls.
In the beginning...was darkness...and in darkness trolls are born!!! For Millions of years Norway was covered in darkness, snow and ice. When finally, the darkness lifted and most of the snow and ice had melted away, The Trolls were there!!!
They were still there when the first Norwegian came strolling along with his belongings. He found them in different colours shapes and sizes. There were big ones, tall ones, standard sized ones and mini ones, all with tails and only 8 fingers and 8 toes. At first the Norwegians were not too particular about housing; they lived in caves. But as the trolls too preferred to live inside the mountains, they had to fight the Norwegians for it. Now and then the Norwegians won....but just as often they lost.
Fairly soon the Norwegians discovered that the trolls always rule at night with a free go at any human soul who dares to wander around in the darkness. But the Humans rule by day, and every troll caught by the sunshine is turned into stone, and bursts. The remains of unfortunate trolls can be seen all over Norway.
As time went on the Norwegians turned into Vikings. Brave people, their greatest fun drinking mead, rape, pillage, and lopping peoples heads off with big axes and swords.
The Vikings were great sea-faring people, roaming all over the oceans. The Vikings dreaded only one thing, the Sea Troll , a seacousin on the land Troll. It was a huge monster that would crush and swallow huge ships whole! Then there was his brother, Nokken , who lives in the slimy dark bottomless pools. Or his other brother, Fossegrimen , who lives in the waterfalls. He is the musical one of the bunch, and the one who teaches the fiddle players of Folklore who to play their tunes. But to do so they must offer him a goat, the fatter the better.
As time went on some very brave monks came over from England to bring Christianity to the Vikings. But knowing their reputation, they didn't believe that they could convert them with godliness, so they brought with them a rather sinister character and planned to use him to scare Christianity into the Vikings. But the Norwegians took this sinister character to their bosom, named him Old Erik , dressed hi up as an official (tax collector?) and in this way he wonder about collecting souls. He is easily recognizable, having horns and a beard like a goat, one normal foot, and one cloven hoof. He is believed to be closely related to the trolls, maybe the master of them all. The Norwegians try to cheat and fool Old Erik as often as they can. But usually Old Eric gets what he is after.
As time went on the standard of living improved, even for he trolls. Many of them moved out of the hills and into castles, far away over the mountains, east of the sun and west of the moon. But the trolls felt kind of lonely living on their own, so they took up the habit of kidnapping princesses. They hold them as hostages, until the Ashlad, or some other prince, comes along. He cuts off the Trolls 1,2,3,6,9 or even 12 heads, rescues the princess, and in due course gets her and half the kingdom as a reward.
As time went even further on, the small trolls, living in the hills and under the ground, became envious of the Norwegians and formed their own world, a copy of the human one, complete with cattle, farms, churches, etc., etc., etc. They are called The Underground People . They are small, not very beautiful themselves, but they have very beautiful daughters, called Hulder . She is very well equipped where it counts to lure any innocent farm boy underground, where he is bewitched, and must stay as her husband forever. But just as a coin has two sides, so does a hulder. She has a tail like a cow. Once in a while a hulder falls so much in love with a boy that she is willing to marry him in a Christian church. She then loses her tail, and becomes the best wife a man can have. When the Hulder grows older (some 400-500 years) she changes and becomes a Trollkjerring . She is then able to take her head off and carry it under her arm, why she does this no one knows.
Now some of the underground people installed them selves as house Gods in the Norwegians homes, they harass the homeowners quite a bit, but look after cattle well. So if you meet a very small, strange person in a Norwegian home, you may have just met a Nisse . At Christmas the Norwegians give him a bowl of porridge, he is on Christmas known as the Julenisse .
If a troll attacks you there are several thing that you can do: 1. If you are smart you can outwit him. 2. You can use your faith and the cross against him. 3.The old silver bullet trick works as well. 4. You can also throw steel over his head so he disappears. 5. If methods 1,2,3 and4 fail your only hope is to run until daybreak, the troll will either stop chasing you or burst.
Stupid tourists often ask if they still exist. Just take a trip out into the nearest wood some dark and a stormy night, and then you will make up your mind, so Beware!
Troll is a slang term for a person who's homeless. Some say it's just because sometimes a person will seek shelter under a bridge, like the imaginary monster in the fairytales. Or maybe it's because sometimes an urban overpass provides the shelter, and maybe the upright respectable citizens start to worry that their bloated real estate values and retail profits might suddenly vanish like the unwary little billy goat.
Volunteers trying to help the homeless don't like to use this term very much, partly to avoid disrespect of the homeless, and partly because it messes up their image of themselves as nice people.
After actually being homeless for awhile, it gets easier to give up illusions about people being nice, and it gets easier to call yourself a troll, too.
But here's a true story to think about:
Picture a respectable family, just getting back from some kind of wholesome family activity somewhere. Two parents heading from their little car into their little house, and two little boys chasing a terrified little cat across the street while their father laughs. They claim to own the cat, but they don't seem to do much for it, beyond leaving a little food on their porch, and letting their sons chase it around sometimes.
The cat's eyes are an almost golden color, as is the fur, still beautiful despite obvious neglect. Under the luxurious fur, it's a gaunt little body with a festering wound on one side of its neck. Seems the respectable people can't be bothered to take it to a veterinarian. Over time, its condition is deteriorating as the infection in the wound grows worse. The expression in the eyes has always been weary, and almost always afraid, but now it's often blank and distant, as if the cat somehow knows the end is coming.
Gradually things begin to change. The infection starts to slowly decline. The cat's eyes have a little more focus. And one day, the fur around the wound has been trimmed short, the wound stitched up by a real veterinarian. What happened? Did the respectable people locate a conscience somewhere? No, they had nothing to do with it.
There's a human being who's even more invisible than the half-stray cat. He passes through the neighborhood looking for discarded empty bottles and cans, because he survives partly on the nickel each he can get for returning them. For months he has set aside part of this money, using some of it to buy antibiotics for the infection, and finally saved up enough to pay a veterinarian to properly treat the cat's wound. This man lacks a home, but he is capable of compassion, determination, and a truer nobility of spirit than many respectably wealthy people.
Maybe the respectable people in the nice little house honestly believe they don't have enough money to care for the cat. Their neglect is still a failure to fulfill the moral responsibility of claiming to own any other living being.
Of course this kind of story doesn't prove anything about the great economic questions and social problems that lead to homelessness. But maybe it's enough to make you wonder, sometimes, who the monsters really are.
The man who helped the cat was not me. Just someone I happened to meet once.
The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.
Troll (?), n. [Icel. troll. Cf. Droll, Trull.] Scand. Myth.
A supernatural being, often represented as of diminutive size, but sometimes as a giant, and fabled to inhabit caves, hills, and like places; a witch.
Troll flower. Bot. Same as Globeflower (a).
© Webster 1913.
Troll (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Trolled (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Trolling.] [OE. trollen to roll, F. troler, Of. troller to drag about, to ramble; probably of Teutonic origin; cf. G. trollen to roll, ramble, sich trollen to be gone; or perhaps for trotler, fr. F. trotter to trot (cf. Trot.). Cf. Trawl.]
1.
To move circularly or volubly; to roll; to turn.
To dress and troll the tongue, and roll the eye. Milton.
2.
To send about; to circulate, as a vessel in drinking.
Then doth she troll to the bowl. Gammer Gurton's Needle.
Troll the brown bowl. Sir W. Scott.
3.
To sing the parts of in succession, as of a round, a catch, and the like; also, to sing loudly or freely.
Will you troll the catch ? Shak.
His sonnets charmed the attentive crowd, By wide-mouthed mortal trolled aloud. Hudibras.
4.
To angle for with a trolling line, or with a hook drawn along the surface of the water; hence, to allure.
5.
To fish in; to seek to catch fish from.
With patient angle trolls the finny deep. Goldsmith.
Troll, v. i.
To roll; to run abou
