Virtual Words : Language on the Edge of Science and Technology.
Title:
Virtual Words : Language on the Edge of Science and Technology.
Author:
Keats, Jonathon.
ISBN:
9780199750931
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (157 pages)
Contents:
Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Part I Discovery -- Copernicium -- Microbiome -- Unparticle -- Anthropocene -- Part II Innovation -- The Cloud -- In Vitro Meat -- Qubit -- Gene Foundry -- Memristor -- Part III Commentary -- Bacn -- Copyleft -- Great Firewall -- Flog -- Crowdsourcing -- Part IV Promotion -- Conficker -- Steampunk -- Tweet -- Lifehacker -- Part V Slang -- Mashup -- k -- w00t -- (-///-) -- Plutoed -- Part VI Neologism -- Singularity -- Quid -- Spime -- Exopolitics -- Panglish -- Index -- Footnotes -- Chapter 2 -- Note 01 -- Chapter 4 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Chapter 7 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Note 03 -- Chapter 8 -- Note 01 -- Chapter 10 -- Note 01 -- Chapter 12 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Chapter 15 -- Note 01 -- Chapter 17 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Note 03 -- Note 04 -- Note 05 -- Note 06 -- Chapter 20 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Note 03 -- Chapter 21 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Chapter 22 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Note 03 -- Chapter 23 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Chapter 24 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Note 03 -- Note 04 -- Chapter 26 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Note 03 -- Chapter 28 -- Note 01 -- Note 02 -- Note 03.
Abstract:
The technological realm provides an unusually active laboratory not only for new ideas and products but also for the remarkable linguistic innovations that accompany and describe them. How else would words like qubit (a unit of quantum information), crowdsourcing (outsourcing to the masses), or in vitro meat (chicken and beef grown in an industrial vat) enter our language? In Virtual Words: Language on the Edge of Science and Technology, Jonathon Keats, author of Wired Magazine's monthly Jargon Watch column, investigates the interplay between words and ideas in our fast-paced tech-driven use-it-or-lose-it society. In 28 illuminating short essays, Keats examines how such words get coined, what relationship they have to their subject matter, and why some, like blog, succeed while others, like flog, fail. Divided into broad categories--such as commentary, promotion, and slang, in addition to scientific and technological neologisms--chapters each consider one exemplary word, its definition, origin, context, and significance. Examples range from microbiome (the collective genome of all microbes hosted by the human body) and unparticle (a form of matter lacking definite mass) to gene foundry (a laboratory where artificial life forms are assembled) and singularity (a hypothetical future moment when technology transforms the whole universe into a sentient supercomputer). Together these words provide not only a survey of technological invention and its consequences, but also a fascinating glimpse of novel language as it comes into being. No one knows this emerging lexical terrain better than Jonathon Keats. In writing that is as inventive and engaging as the language it describes, Virtual Words offers endless delights for word-lovers, technophiles, and anyone intrigued by the essential human obsession with naming.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
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