I have several Google alerts to keep me up to date , if that is at all possible. One was titled 'android'. The next day after I had set this one up I awoke and ran, alright, walked to my computer to see what this alert would bring. I anticipated wonderful new ideas , articles about androids, the robots made to look more or less human. Well some company has gotten hold of this term to mean something quite different. From the files I deleted I gleamed it had something to do with the modern technological curse, the cell phone.
Another annoyance was the phrase ' bot attack' Now if I am not mistaken is not the first word derived from the word ' robot ' . Now what does this mean?? Are they the programs written by those vile crackers who prowl the internet and try to infect other computers and rip off legitimate users.
Can we not think up a new word or reach into the past and liberate an obscure phrase or two. Of course this would take a little effort. I guess it is just easier to use the words already there, doing the job they were supposed to do. Sure the new meanings sound very high tech, but to do this is so low brow.
As our society and technology progresses new things will be created and it is my hope that newer and brighter words are given them. Since we only have language to express ourselves it is vital we keep it alive and robust. Centuries from now our children's children will judge us on what we have accomplished and also on what we have written.
Take care
Pius
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ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android#Korean_projects
Good point. Computers are the worst culprits for stealing words from other fields - memory, processing, logic, function, method, loop, routine, port...
ReplyDelete> reach into the past and liberate an obscure phrase or two.
I like that! All the good Latin and Greek words have been used up by now, though. How about Coptic? Or Sumerian? We might just need a few extra keyboard keys...