What is Mortimer?
Mortimer is a person you don't have to want to meet on the Internet, especially if you're a newcomer. The name comes from the ventrilquist doll or dummy called Mortimer Snerd, which was the glory of ventrilquist and voice art, Edgar John Bergren. Bergren's character was the opposite of how Mortimer would be defined today because he wasn't very intelligent. The character was also briefly listed in the 1939 comic book written and drawn by Bergren and called Mortimer & Charlie . Yet the modern type is intelligent, just is not a great communicator. The surname of the dummy "Snerd" referred to the combination of Snoot and Nerd. Today it translates to a person who is really "up" on "in the know" under technical conditions, but looks down at anyone who is not.
In a modern context, as the Internet, it has gained a term of population between fans and contributors to the Internet, radio and television highawarding called Nettallive!. A person marked about Mortimer would constantly speak in Geek Speak, Tech Speak or Nerdic, or "his tongue" would not "tall" the less technically tilted. In fact, he would use such a language as something as a secret code that could decode only other technically inclined people. Being Mortimer is an undesirable thing because you only play with an audience that already knows what you are talking about.
Snoot part comes because such a language deliberately discriminates out people who seek to understand new technological development. Even the term "newcomer" has some connotations similar to Mortimer, and some people have little patience with new users on the Internet, especially if they ask questions that can be found with a little search. For example, you should read frequently (FAQ) carefully when you connect to any type of Internet group to be sure that your question has not been asked and answered. Asking a question to which it is answered at FAQ, probableThey will make unpleasant comments from Mortimers.
Fortunately, the world is not only composed of Mortimer types. If that were the case, new Internet users or those who were just interested in different gadgets or new technologies would never understand anything, because no one would answer their questions. Instead, a lot of useful people who lend people new technologies and decompose complex conditions, shortcuts or abbreviations to real people who speak, gave us all a fair chance to understand them.