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OED Science Fiction Database Updated
solferino writes "The Oxford English dictionary commenced a project back in 2001 (Slashdot report) to solicit reader citations of the earliest uses of science fiction words. The most recent OED newsletter covers the progress of the project, which has its own site hosted on a FreeBSD box running a MySQL database engine. An interesting graph on the site shows date of word origin by decade. Surprisingly recent words featured on the site are /avatar/ (1990 - in the VR sense) and /morph/ (1993) - unless the Slashdot readership can report earlier uses?"
This story isn't that interesting... In any regard the graph does spark some thought. What accounts for the explosion of new words in the 30's/40's (pun sort of intended). I would have guessed the 20's would have been a more popular time.
mix_master_mike
vafrous
I can remember this word (in the sense of transform into another shape) from Scientific American articles of the late 80s. I wonder if that counts.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I remember Morph being an oooold X-men villain, like late 70s or early 80s.
And his mutant ability was that he was a shapeshifter. He could morph into just about anything.
I don't think its "VR" but the 1980s Ultima series adventure games used Avatar to describe your character.
In the future, these sites will be a great tool. Imagine in 100-200 years, there will be a map of the English language that is traceable to a degree not currently possible, and we'll all understand language patterns better. I have heard that something like 10% of Shakespeare is completely lost in translation due to changes in the language, so one can only imagine what a resource like this will be able to provide for future generations -- hopefully, there won't be as much cultural reinvention (i.e. the printing press: China -> Europe)
stuff |
It wasn't the war exactly.
It was the massive spending on R&D.
There was plenty of new development involved in the trips to the moon.
Some of the best "words" developed in the 1960s probably involved personal research and LSD trips.
That is a good observation and perhaps not bizarre at all. I think it might be even more basic to say that "war stimulates technology" and that, as a consequence, "war stimulates vocabulary." This is because new technologies generate their own terms of art, buzzwords, and jargon. Think of all the words and phrases that were coined to describe each aspect of those technologies that you identified -- launch pad, blast shield, telemetry, sound barrier, ejection seat, etc.
Hahaha.
WWII was fought against a axis that used military might. The new agenda means beating up a bunch of poor people who's only weapons are terror and suicide.
A whole lot of new words to describe political manipulation of entire societies? yeah...
I don't know where I read this but:
"Morph [toonhound.com]" was a clay-mation character who appeared on UK kids tv from 1978 onwards. He was animated by Aardman Animations (who later went on to make "Wallace and Gromit" and "Chicken Run") and appeared on shows with Tony Hart
Also From the creaters of Wallace and Gromit, Morph [aardman.com]! A cheeky bit of plastercine. More a name than a word, but he could 'morph' into lots of shapes. And this was back in 1980!
It's really fascinating to do some exploritory research in to where various words in the english language are really derived. For example, the word person comes from the greek word personae, which means mask. Strange at first but once one realizes that in the greek tragedy's the actors wore "personae" to depict a certain character. The natural evolution was the adaptation of the word to represent an individual. Language has this tendency to move from concrete to abstract, some may feel this is offtopic but I think it's important to understand where our words come from. It helps you understand the memtic nature of a culture quite a bit more.
They're looking for words coined in SF, and existing words which picked up new meanings from SF.
The word 'avatar' is actually a sanskrit word defined as follows: SYLLABICATION: avatar NOUN: 1. The incarnation of a Hindu deity, especially Vishnu, in human or animal form. 2. An embodiment, as of a quality or concept; an archetype: the very avatar of cunning. 3. A temporary manifestation or aspect of a continuing entity: occultism in its present avatar. ETYMOLOGY: Sanskrit avatra, descent (of a deity from heaven), avatar : ava, down + tarati, he crosses; see ter-2 in Appendix I.
However, this is the beginning of something that will be interesting in a couple decades. I'd like to see how these numbers change over time.
Right now we have a peak of new Sci Fi words from the 40s and 50s (about 50 years ago). The slope is shallow coming up to the present, but the drop off is steep to the 20s and earlier.
Does this mean it takes about 40-50 years for new words to work their way into a more main stream usage, but then they fall out of fashion quickly? If so, the shape of the graph would change little over time, just the years along the X-axis would advance.
On the other hand, this could mean peaks in new words correspond to peaks in scientific innovation or other social factors. What we see happening to language in the 40s and 50s could correspond to the heightened anxiety of WWII and the cold war. Or it could follow the historic changes to our fundamental understanding of the universe occurring during the first couple decades of the century.
Of course, none of that can be determined from this one snap shot. Nothing to see here folks...yet.
It seems to me that they are missing "Grok." Seems rather strange that they would leave that one out. I use it on a daily basis, and so do most other people I know.
Hockey - Canada's gift to the world
Err ... nevermind. I Googled again and found it here. No "avatar".
...
Ignore the man behind the iron curtain
I believe my first recollection of Avatar was in Vernor Vinge's "True Names", published 1981. ("True Names & Other Dangers", a collection of short stories which included it, was published in 1987)
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
was '1984' an sci-fi novel?
or was it political fiction?
Orwell imagined the world 36 years into the future. he put some fictious inventions into the book (sea fortress, pr0n assembling machines, on-wall TV-sets with build-in webcams ? ).
is 'Big Brother' an sci-fi term?
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
Language affects the way you think. The only way to effectively advance a technological curve is to create new language/taxonomy... which also the affects your thinking, your culture.. I imagine once the language/tech reaches a certain point in adoption and common use (jets in your example), then the pace of change slows - as would the addition of new verbage... hmm,theres a sociology paper in that thought. (Either proving or disproving the hypothesis)
meh
For that matter, what about extending the criteria to accomodate any verifiable use of a word, not just in a broader definition of "print," but in spoken usage as well? Sound recordings didn't even exist when the OED was conceived of, but they're an indispensible resource for study of language evolution for that part of history for which they're available, and if it's known from such sources a word clearly existed at a certain time even though the earliest print citation dates from much later, isn't it misleading to think of the print source as the earliest citation?
This was easy enough to get as a google search (having seen the origin before)
The 1920 story/play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) Czech Author: Karel Capek, however his brother Josef is credited with coining the word.
I am unable to cite this correctly, not having the original publication, but am sending it off in any event.
It would seem even the simplest SciFi words should be considered for submission. So rack your brains then do a search.
(from the play, English translation, page 1):
On the right-hand wall are fastened printed placards:
"CHEAP LABOR. ROSSUM'S ROBOTS."
"ROBOTS FOR THE TROPICS. 150 DOLLARS EACH."
"EVERYONE SHOULD BUY HIS OWN ROBOT."
"DO YOU WANT TO CHEAPEN YOUR OUTPUT? ORDER ROSSUM'S ROBOTS":
Letter To Iran
In terms of computer graphics lingo, MORPH was developed by the special effects gurus at Lucasfilm in 1986/7 for the 1988 release of the Ron Howard film, Willow.
I think they even talked of how the word was developed in the making-of documentary.
One of the most interesting things the OED project has shown is that the majority of new words have come from a small number of highly innovative writers.
In the 1930's, it was authors like E.E. Smith, Jack Williamson, and C.L. Moore who were the greatest word-coiners. The even greater explosion of new terms in the 1940's is mainly due to Heinlein and Asimov, plus a few others who were trying to keep up with them.
This association between imaginative writing and the creation of new vocabulary goes way back. Lewis Carroll enriched the language greatly. And Horace Walpole, who wrote the first gothic novel in the 18th century (and is thus the grandfather of modern science fiction and fantasy), made up the word "serendipity" and is extensively cited in the OED for new or unique usages of existing words.
Also check out The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary also by Simon Winchester which chronicles the contributions of Dr. W.C. Minor, a Civil War vet and murderer who provided thousands of entries for the OED while in an asylum.