Rise of the robot age
QUESTION Was the word robot coined by a science fiction writer? What other words have been introduced into the language via sci-fi?
Many people attribute the word ‘robot’to the famous sci-fi author Isaac asimov. His 1941 story Liar! contains the first recorded use of the word robotics.
However, the first time ‘robot’ was used was in the play R. U. R ( Rossum’s Universal Robots), written by the Czech author and dramatist Karel Capec in 1920, but set in a future 1950. The word comes from the Czech robota, meaning slave or forced labour.
The play was produced in English in 1923 and tells the story of a remote island where the robots were made. They are indistinguishable from humans, but only do the more menial tasks.
Eventually they gain intelligence and human emotions and, fed up with their servile existence, rebel and destroy their masters. However, the robots can’t reproduce and only exist for 20 years, so you can imagine the result.
I remember hearing R.U.R as a boy on BBC radio on Saturday night Theatre in the Forties.
Graham Lench, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs. Many terms have been introduced by the fertile minds of sci-fi writers.
The term ‘parallel universe’ was coined by one of the pioneers of science fiction, War Of The Worlds author H. G. Wells. In his 1923 novel Men Like Gods, a man is transported to Utopia and told: ‘We conceive ourselves to be living in a parallel universe to yours, on a planet the very brother of your own.’
Cyberspace, meaning the online world of computer networks and especially the internet, is one of those words that has quickly travelled from science fiction into the mainstream. It was coined by the author William Gibson in his 1982 short story Burning Chrome. The concept of Robotic acting: An early staging of R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots) the computer virus is a clever verbal analogy between biological viruses and self-replicating computer programs. It was first used by David Gerrold in his 1972 story When Harlie Was One.
a worm — a self-replicating computer program — was named by John Brunner in his 1975 novel Shockwave Rider.
Charlotte Walker, Ely, Cambs.
QUESTION Was there once a fad for eating Egyptian mummies?
THE eating of mummies has a long tradition as a medicinal remedy. Its popularity appears to have stemmed from the belief that only a miracle could have preserved mummies in such a lifelike state for thousands of years.
Egyptian mummies were particularly prized. In 1549, the chaplain to Queen Catherine de Medici of France, along with a group of physicians, plundered tombs around Sakkara in a quest for mummies to use in various medicines.
If an ancient Egyptian mummy was not available, local arabs would pass off the corpses of executed criminals or those who had died from disease.
The 16th- century French surgeon ambroise Pare condemned the practice of eating mummies, stating: ‘It causes great pain in their stomachs, gives them evil- smelling breath and brings about serious vomiting.’
William Harvey, Folkestone, Kent.
QUESTION Why is an elephant’s ‘trunk’ so called?
TRUNK came to English via the Old French from Latin truncus, meaning the main stem of a tree. The trunk of a human body, and other uses of the word with the notion of a central connection, such as trunk road, are derived from this meaning. Trunk used for a large furniture chest comes from the fact that early boxes were made out of tree trunks.
The circular shape of a tree trunk prompted the idea of cylindrical hollow objects such as a pipe, speaking tube or ear trumpet becoming known as trunks.
The 1546 John Bale work The acts Of English Voltaries states: ‘The roode spake these wordes, or else a knaue monke behynde hym in a truncke through the wall.’
This idea of a hollow tube explains its use, from the late 16th century, to describe an elephant’s trunk.
The first documented instance appears in The Principal navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries Of The English nation, a 1589 work by Richard Hakluyt: The elephant . . . with water fils his troonke right hie and blowes it on the rest.’
another related sense gave rise to the use of trunk for clothing. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, men wore trunk hose, which were breeches extending to the upper thighs that were sometimes padded and worn over tights.
In late 19th century america, the name was adopted for men’s swimming shorts.
Richard Lester, Alton, Hants.
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