I have a huawei ascend 2.1 by cricket, what does "root" and "teather" mean?

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I want to get a link to the answers so I can find out on my own time of course, but would like to know if it is something simple to understand or if since I dont know what it means, if I should not mess with it. Thing is that im new to smart phones and want to.get its full potential. Is it something that will benefit me or is it just one of those hacker things that people do just cause they can? Lease email me a link or something that will help me out, [email protected] thank you.