WEBVTT - Invented Words, Part 2 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.720 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:12.720 welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:14.960 Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of our 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.200 discussion of invented words. So in the last episode we 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:23.640 were talking about neologisms that were deliberately invented and continuing 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:25.560 that today, I wanted to start out with a distinction 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.479 that we might find useful, and that's the difference between 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:34.040 neologisms and something we might call protologisms. So a neologism 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:36.920 is a newly coined term that's like still in the 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.800 process of coming into common use. You might use the 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.479 term because you're an early adopter of it, but it 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:45.800 might be the kind of word that people still need 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:47.800 to look up a good bit. You might need to 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.919 explain what it means if you use it in an article. Right, 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:52.840 it could be very much be one of those words 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.760 that you get the feeling that's that people in in 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.120 the culture are trying to make happen, like they're trying 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.160 to establish it, uh and and get it into it 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.880 just the the everyday lexicon. Right, that that would be 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.080 what happens if it's successful, it just becomes a regular word. 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:09.160 You no longer need to explain it. You don't need 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.280 to look it up. Most people just know what it means. Uh. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:14.600 And there are a few examples of neologisms like I 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.720 could think of that have just become regular words in 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.720 recent years. One great example, I think is selfie. You 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:24.160 know how this was once a cute new word, and 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:26.840 people would remark on the fact that it was a 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.319 cute new word, like the fact that it was a 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.080 neologism was one of the main things you know about it. 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:34.920 And now it's just sort of a word, and it's 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.959 it's weird, like selfie as a term has this kind 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.800 of like viral presence and movement in our in our culture, 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.200 but but also the act associated with it seemed to 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.360 spread with it. And I wonder to what extent are 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:51.440 you seeing the the act the practice of taking selfie. 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:55.600 Is that pulling the term with it through our culture 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.200 or is it the reverse or is it some combination 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.600 of the two. I think that certainly the first part 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.760 that you're talking. I think there are definitely technological pressures 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:08.960 that made room for this word to intercommon usage. So 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.680 the word was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:16.160 but the word has a kind of interesting history Before that, 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.400 I was looking up, but what what was the earliest 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.000 use of selfie? Because obviously the act of taking a 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:24.760 photograph of yourself goes way back. People have been doing 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:28.040 that for more than a hundred years, with various contraptions, 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.160 even just like timers on cameras and stuff. Um. But 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.360 the first documented use of the word selfie appears to 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:39.120 come from the year two thousand two, when an Australian 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:44.000 man posted the following message on an Internet forum on 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.280 a news website. Specifically, this was a thread from September 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.959 two two by a user named Hopie h O p 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:56.040 e Y, and the statement goes like this, UM drunk 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.880 at a mates twenty one, I tripped over and landed 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.880 lip first with front teeth coming a close second on 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.480 a set of steps. I had a hole about one 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.919 centimeter long right through my bottom lip and sorry about 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:14.160 the focus. It was a selfie. He attaches a photo 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.080 of his busted lip for people to look at. The 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.640 purpose of the thread was Hopie wondering whether licking his 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.160 lips would make his stitches dissolved too early, and he's 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:27.160 of course apologizing for the the the quality of the 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:31.400 photographs saying I have taken it myself. It is a selfie, right, 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.200 so this is before selfie sticks. This is even before 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.240 you know, any kind of high quality camera phone. This 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:39.040 probably would have been taken I guess with just like 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.440 a handheld digital camera pointed back at his face. But 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.040 he probably wouldn't have the ability to see the screen 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.160 while he's taking the picture, right, so he just has 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.200 to guess yeah, yeah, so yeah. Been the early days 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.440 of selfies when they were, they're even a far more chatic. 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:56.600 Though it's not clear that the author of this post 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.720 actually intended to invent a word, or even that he 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:02.560 invented a word at all. It might have been a 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.440 slang word in oral circulation before ever being written out 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.800 in this context, and it does follow a standard way 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:14.560 of inventing slang words in Australian English, which is adding 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.680 a hyphen i e suffix to a noun, So like 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.960 a barbecue becomes a barbie, you know, put another shrimp 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.960 on the barbie, or a can of beer becomes a 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:28.080 tinny from tin can. I haven't heard that one in use, 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.280 but it makes sense and by the same lexical logic, 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.359 a photograph of the self becomes a selfie, you know, 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.840 put another duck lips on the selfie. But if this 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.600 was a term in oral slang in Australian English before 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:42.760 it appeared in print, I would say it probably wasn't 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.240 being used a lot, because if it was used a lot, 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.880 you'd expect to find it written down at this point. Now, 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.360 of course, the obvious question about this is like, why 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:52.679 does it then get picked up, Why does selfie become 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:54.640 a tern, how does it create How does this journey 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:59.240 even begin into widespread usage. Yeah, so after two thousand 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:01.400 two it pop up here and there, but it didn't 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:05.040 come anywhere near common usage until around two thousand twelve 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.840 when it's suddenly got very popular. And this probably had 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.880 to do with simultaneous techno cultural trends. You had new 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:16.279 generations of camera phones and of social media a way 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.480 to take selfies and then also a place to post them. 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.240 And this I think the technology made a pre existing 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.960 word suddenly very useful. And it may also, I think 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:31.479 have played an important psycho social role, like does having 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:37.120 a word like selfie help defuse potential doubts or worries 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:41.120 people have that they are engaging in narcissistic behavior does 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.840 the word take an act that you might worry is 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.560 unsavory and make it cute? Like that? There? I was 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:50.960 reading something where the editorial director of the Oxford Dictionaries 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:55.000 in said, specifically of the word, the use of the 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.560 diminutive I e. Suffix is notable as it helps to 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:03.280 turn and essentially narcissistic enterprise into something rather more endearing. 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.320 But then again, maybe that's overly harsh. You could look 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.240 at it the other way, like, does having a word 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:12.040 like selfie make it easier to disparage an activity that 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.840 most people do? You know, it's not like you have 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.000 to be some raging narcissists to take a selfie? Does 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:23.240 it just like make it easier to mock people like this? Well? Yeah, yeah, 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.400 I can certainly see both sides of the coin there. 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.280 And now, another thing about the about adding I e 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:31.560 to to something is it comes from the the the 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:35.839 parental sphere of things and uh and observing how children 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.880 will frequently add that to a word to say, name 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:41.320 is stuffed animal. So if it's a bear, you might 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.600 just make it it's Barry Buries the name of the bear. Um, 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.120 you know, it's it's a cute. See addition to any 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.839 word uh. And then that lines up with this idea 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.080 that it makes something that could be viewed as being 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.760 you know, egotistical or not narcissistic, as being something that 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.839 is ultimately cute and harmless. Well, if you say, ah ha, 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:06.200 I took a selfie, it almost is self deprecating in 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.440 a way that defuses the potential for someone to criticize 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:11.960 you as narcissistic for doing it right, because it is 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.440 it has this feeling of being silly as well as 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.200 you know, silly, harmless, but also maybe a little bit narcissistic. 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:25.440 But but but but it is acknowledging the inherent narcissism 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.920 of the act, you know, and and dismissing it with 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.760 this air of silliness to it. Like if we instead 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.320 of having picking up the words selfie, if we'd gone 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:37.560 with ego bonk, you know, like that would probably be 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.240 that's a little bit silly too. But I can see 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:42.960 where people would be a little less inclined to use 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.960 that terminology if they were like, well, i'm early for 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.720 my meeting. Here's a quick ego bonk. Uh. You know, 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.720 quick selfie works a lot better, and it's a little 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.000 a little catchier. Yeah, or if we'd called it like 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.960 self porn or something. Not going to take that back, Sorry, 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:00.360 you know I just said, and then try to take 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.920 it back, But you convince me we should go down 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:04.840 this road. I was saying, another alternative, what would you 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.280 call it? You call it something like mirror porn or 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:11.000 something like. That's you know, self porn, because this is 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.200 now a common suffix. Actually, absolutely, you hear people talking 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.040 about what food porn or food porn? I think was 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.400 the big one that caught hold the idea that of 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:25.400 of saying that generally photography of food and a picture 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.240 of some sort of a very delicious looking dish or 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.800 or a beverage or something, uh is therefore therefore should 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.840 be compared to pornography, which is a weird pairing because 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:40.840 pornography is incredibly divisive in in culture. There it is 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:43.079 it is, you know, no matter what your personal take 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.000 on it. There's a lot of problematic area to consider 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.600 when thinking about pornography. Why do we drag it then 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:55.920 in to our consideration of say a very inviting looking lasagna, Well, yeah, 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.240 it could be just what we're talking about with this 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.080 possibility for selfie that it's like self deprecating and ironic 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.199 in a way that diffuses other people's ability to criticize 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.840 you for engaging in it, because it's like you're already 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.080 sort of criticizing yourself, right, and I guess you're also 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.760 leaning into the idea that into the the excess of 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:21.319 pornography and and therefore diffusing this like food styling, uh 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:25.439 you know, high art photography, food photography interpretations that might 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:29.280 otherwise be uh applied to it. So like if you 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.760 were to say, hey, I'm trying to out some food photography, 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.040 then people would have it would be able to say, well, actually, 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.560 i've seen professional food photography, and you know that the 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.280 lighting looks weird here. Um, you know, the the phizz 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.920 isn't right. It's said right. You know, we've all I 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.840 think picked up on some of the various tips, tricks 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.080 and and uh and illusions that are involved in that. 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:51.920 But if you just say, oh, it's just food porn, 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.800 that kind of implies that that it's it's less about 0:09:55.800 --> 0:10:00.480 the art and more about invoking a visceral bonds to 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.040 the stimuli. Yeah, I think I think you're right there. 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.920 So obviously words like this are are great examples of 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.800 powerful lexical success stories like a selfie, of course is 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.520 though probably a much greater number of newly coined words 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:16.840 just fall by the wayside, right, you know, Instead, they 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.760 become little blips in literary history that you can find 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.800 in articles from a certain time period, but they just 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.000 don't catch on. They don't become common, right Like I'm imagining, um, 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.920 drunk injured Australian dudes say a lot of interesting things, 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:36.120 but they don't all become parts of the global lexicon, right. 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.640 And I think with these examples, the things that fall 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.040 by the wayside, it might be useful to think of 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.839 them as sort of failed protologisms or protologism. Oh man, 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.000 I think I'm going back and forth on whether that 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.560 that g is hard or soft. We'll we'll just plow 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:54.360 right through um. But the idea of a protologism is 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:59.160 a term introduced by the Russian American UH literary theorist 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.240 Mikhail in Epstein, who I believe is still a professor 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.960 at Emory University here in Atlanta. Quick question, is the 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:09.400 word protologism a protologism or a neologism? I would say 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.719 at this point it is a neologism. It was originally 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.280 a protology well, I guess I have to define them. 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:20.000 So a protologism in Mikhail Epstein's definition is that it's 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:22.920 a word that is freshly coined and hasn't yet been 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:26.080 accepted by many speakers at all. And the evidence of 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.560 this would be that it has not yet been published 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.840 by anyone other than the person or group that coined it. 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:34.680 And I imagine they're using the term published here in 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.360 the broader sense, so not merely the printed word, but 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.360 any kind of media publication in the same way, in 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.200 the same way you might treat publishing in publication and 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:47.319 say both libel and slander law. Right, So if you 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.040 are trying to make fetch happen but nobody else is 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.560 saying fetch, then it's still a protologism for you. Maybe 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.120 if you get a few other people saying fetch, you're 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.920 starting to make fetch happen, then it's becoming a neologism. 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.880 And if it keeps going and then everybody starts using it, 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.760 then it's common use. Not to say it's immortal, not 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.040 to say it cannot then die, fall out of fashion, 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.720 and die again, but it has at least gained a foothold. Yeah, 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.839 So by these standards, I would say protologism was once 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.559 a protologism, but it is no longer a protologism, given 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.840 that you can find articles out there that are not 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.680 written by Michael Epstein himself that are using this term 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.120 and talking about it, so it has probably legitimately graduated 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.160 to being a fledgling neologism. It's, you know, still sort 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.680 of a young word, a word that not everybody knows, 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.120 but it has use outside the the original you know, 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.280 like the room where it was created or the person 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.520 who tried to coin it. So under this model, the 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.040 progression goes like that you've a person or a group 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.280 coins a new term or usage this is a protologism, 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.960 and then an expanded subset of the population sort of 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.319 tries out the new term for a period of time, 0:12:57.600 --> 0:12:59.920 but it still often needs to be defined or look 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:01.760 to up. At this point you would say it's probably 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.000 a neologism. And then eventually the term just becomes a 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.760 word of common use. It doesn't need to be looked 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.280 up or defined in the context in which it is 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.080 normally used. I mean, people still have to look up 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.160 all kinds of words, but like there there at least 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.120 will be contexts in which the word is regularly used, 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:21.520 and and the people within those contexts all know what 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.160 it means. I'd say a good indicator here is when 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:29.320 people mostly stop googling the word for a definition. Imagine 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.000 there's a new word. Let's say it is schmirf plex, 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.440 like in the first time you hear it as someone says, Hey, 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.200 come to my house at eight and bring your smurf 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.280 smirt plex. Well, I don't know what a smirt plex is, 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.360 and that sentence gives me no context. I have no 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:44.240 idea what I'm supposed to bring. All I know is 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.720 that smirt plex can be brought. But smirt plex could 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.800 be it could be an attitude, it could be it 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.920 could it could be a physical thing. I don't know. 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.120 Or someone might say pizza cutter, Yeah, there's no way 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.480 to tell. Someone might say, Gosh, I really like Dylan, 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.880 I just wish he wasn't so smirt plexy. Again, no idea. 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.600 That's depending on how it said. You might be able 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:10.360 to lean into positive or negative interpretations, but beyond that 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.360 hard to say. Now, if someone says I can't wait 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:16.199 to smirt plex that slice of pizza, or do do 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.360 you smirt plex that slice of pizza? In one goal. 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.320 Both of these examples give you far more context for 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:23.800 not only how it is being used, but then how 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.760 it can be reused appropriately yea, or at least semi appropriately, 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.440 And then with some course correction, you can wind up 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.200 in a place where you were finally using this new 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.200 term correctly and passing it viraly onto those around you. Well, 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:38.800 this example brings up a great question, which is why 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:42.520 would you bother inventing a new word for something? The 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.240 side of course, to illustrate a point in a podcast, right, yes, 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:48.120 now it's clear why you do it there, But what 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.560 like what if you were actually trying to make smirt 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:54.680 plex happen? Is there a reason you would be doing this? 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:56.360 Maybe we should take a break and then when we 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:03.920 come back we can talk about that. Alright, we're back, 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:08.080 all right. We were asking the question of why protologisms 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.160 are coined. When somebody comes up with a new word 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:15.160 for something on purpose, Why does that happen? One pretty 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.160 important reason for coining into a new term, obviously, I 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.320 think it comes about often in science, and that's discovering 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.440 a new process or proposing a new theory. You're essentially 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.160 saying we have new new content in the world. Now, 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.760 and we need a word to describe it. It's not 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:34.080 something that you're already familiar with that we just wanted 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.080 a different word for right. So I found a short 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.400 article from two thousand eleven by Andrew Moore, who's the 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.840 editor in chief of a journal called bio Essays, and 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.080 in this article he talks about the importance of neologisms 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:51.160 and the sciences, and he writes the following. Neologisms or 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:57.240 protologisms quote may be considered seductive in two senses. Firstly, 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.280 because their creators are seduced by the ability need to 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.400 express a potentially new scientific concept in language, a creative 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.400 act that might stake their claim as the first to 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:12.120 discover something. Secondly, because they often find favor in the 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:17.040 rest of the scientific community for their conciseness. So here 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.720 more argues that in the science is protologisms play multiple roles. 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.960 The first, of course, is the straightforward utility, being that 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.760 they are concise. So like once Charles Barnes invented the 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.760 word photosynthesis, it was much more convenient to just say 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:37.200 photosynthesis than to say the process by which autotrophic organisms 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.400 like plants use energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:44.080 and water into sugars, rolls off the tongue much better, 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.040 right You. You don't want to have to explain that 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.240 process every time you talk about it. You can just 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.920 use the one new word now. And new terms appear 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.160 in the sciences all the time because they're indisputably useful. 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.120 They save time, they save space, and now now you 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.600 all have the same word you can refer to when 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.280 you're talking about something, so you know you're talking about 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.359 the same thing. In addition to that, though that this 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.200 thing more is drawing attention to, is that they may 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.080 play a psychological and social role within their use in 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.560 the sciences because the neologism number one, it helps its 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:20.280 coiner secure credit for having identified or proposed the thing 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.800 or the hypothesis in question. And I think this is 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.840 really truly the case. I think how often on this 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:32.520 very show, historical priority for discoveries and inventions is in 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.880 fact a disputed, but we generally end up trying to 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.399 give recognition to the first person to use the same 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:43.320 word that everybody still uses for the thing. Right. Yeah, Well, 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.720 when when someone is calling the particular invention by a 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.320 different term, it's sort of implied that they didn't have 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.280 it figured out all the way, right even maybe even 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.639 if that person was more important in the in the 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:00.800 technological discoveries that led to the to the invention, right right, Yeah, 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:03.080 because ultimately, yeah, that the spread of the name is 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.159 tied with the spread of the idea. I feel like 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.240 we have repeatedly run into this in invention history, where 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:12.040 you know, somebody else's work was more pivotal, but ultimately 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.000 credit goes to the person who came up with the word. 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.760 But then, the other point is that the new word 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:22.800 also makes other scientists more likely to remember and discuss 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.520 your hypothesis or discovery, because it's easier to talk about 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:28.280 when it has a name, especially if it has a 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.560 catchy name. Uh So more rights. He gives an example quote. 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.320 It is said that kur at All, in their landmark 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.720 nineteen seventy two paper, coined the term apoptosis, and of 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.560 course that means um, you know, programmed cell death within 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:46.840 the body uh from the Greek apo meaning from and 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:52.120 potosis meaning falling uh to sound similar to necrosis, it's 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.920 biological counterpart. Though at the time more than a few 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.919 scientists doubted that the new word was anything more than 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:03.880 an impostor disguising a specific case of necrosis. It's certainly 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.560 helped to catapult the concept into new realms of attention 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:12.000 and hence testability. So this is interesting. It's like if 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:14.879 you're a scientist, you've got a new phenomenon you you 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.840 think you've discovered, or a hypothesis you want more people 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.960 to investigate. If you come up with a good word 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.480 for it, other scientists are more likely to pay attention 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.320 and start putting your idea to the test. In a 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.720 weird way. To come back to the invention parallels, it's 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:34.359 very much like branding and marketing. Yeah, I think evolution 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:36.760 is another great example of this. You know, like the 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:42.280 term uh so nicely sums up what is otherwise a 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.560 fairly complicated process that might not roll off the tongue 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.520 as easily. Oh and this was huge at the time, 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:53.080 with you know, Darwin agonizing over what was the best 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.960 terminology to use to explain in a simple way his 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.520 complex ideas, Like there was the competition within the theory 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.400 for you know, was it better to call it natural 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.679 selection or survival of the fittest. We have an episode 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:08.440 of stuff to blow your mind where we talk about 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:11.400 just like the fight back and forth between those two 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.400 terms which sort of described the same thing, but they 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:18.679 have different marketing appeals. Now, the other side of the 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:20.640 coin and all of this is is that why while 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.359 the use of words like this can certainly make it 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.800 easier to communicate about topics within the sciences, there's there 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.600 is evidence to indicate that it can in some cases 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.879 make it harder for those outside the field to understand 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.639 what's being discussed. Uh. And then this can often result 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:39.320 in a in a lack of interest in science or 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.439 politics is another example that's brought up or a feeling 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.840 that one is not good at science or politics, you 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:48.080 know and so so not not an idea that you 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.440 don't understand it and maybe you can't understand it. Um. 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.760 This according to a fairly recent study from Hilary Shulman, 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.360 Assistant Professor of Communication at the Ohio State University. UM, 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.880 you just came out in a patst couple of months. Basically, 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.199 the idea is that the the specialized terms they're looking at, 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.600 we're proving to be a stumbling block to interest. And 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.240 this of course just drives home the importance of science 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:15.200 communication and journalism in the fields of science and politics, 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:20.040 because obviously you need those specialized terms within science, within 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:25.399 the sciences, within like you know, academic discussion of politics, etcetera. 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:27.720 But then if you were going to convey those ideas 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.760 to the to the world outside of that in group, 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:33.680 you have to have more generalized terminology. You have to 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:35.480 find to have a way of reaching him, at least 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.280 until those terms become so widely used that you don't 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:41.280 have to worry about it, right, I mean, yeah, I 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.520 mean there are different considerations in play in these different 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:48.480 types of communication. I mean in scientific publications. Yeah, you 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.440 would waste a lot of space if you couldn't use 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.119 technical jargon. It just like allows you to say a 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:56.520 lot more in a lot less words, right, And a 0:21:56.560 --> 0:22:00.600 lot of this also comes down to intended audience as well, Like, uh, 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.080 you know, the average person on the street is not 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:08.520 the intended reader for an academic neuroscience paper. Likewise, I 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.639 am not the the intended listener for a you know, 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:17.640 a very specific nineties dance hall uh reggae tune. You know. Um, 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.199 I have to come to it as an outsider. And 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:22.280 now it's possible that you know, years or decades down 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.520 the road, some of those terminal terms become part of 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.359 the general lexicon in either example. But it's not necessarily 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:32.400 going to be the case. Now there are examples, clearly, 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:35.720 I think where what you're talking about, though, where technical 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:41.480 language is just purely counterproductive, or at least counterproductive given 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.560 what somebody might state their their aims are, maybe not 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.000 to what their actual aims are. Joe, are you saying 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.920 that it's time to synergize backwards overflow? I think it's 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:54.040 time to talk a little bit about corporate speak. Yeah. 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:56.280 Uh so, of course one of my favorite sources of 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.880 everyday comedy and shame is corporate speak, this vast, shallow 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:03.919 cool of business neologisms that I sometimes imagine us just 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:07.080 sort of spending our days ladling over one another, like 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:10.199 so much stagnant pond water. We have to swim through 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:12.560 it from time to time. Yeah, And there was recently 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.879 a really excellent article I thought on corporate speak in 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:18.440 New York Magazine. It was from February of this year, 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:24.040 so by Molly Young called garbage language. Why do corporations 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:27.119 speak the way they do? Uh? In my opinion, this 0:23:27.200 --> 0:23:30.119 was a very funny and insightful article on on the 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:34.080 phenomena of business buzzwords, which she calls garbage language, taking 0:23:34.080 --> 0:23:36.760 the term from a novelist, and by that you might 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:38.880 guess where she stands on the subject. And of course 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:41.800 this kind of language is easy to hate, but that 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:45.119 doesn't make her wrong. She begins with an example of 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:47.840 a corporate word that she encountered at a startup where 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:53.040 she recently worked. Quote. The term was parallel path. And 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:56.159 I first heard it in this sentence, we're waiting on 0:23:56.240 --> 0:24:00.280 specs from the San Francisco installation. Can you pari well 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:05.280 path two versions? Translated, this means we're waiting on specs 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:09.919 from the San Francisco installation? Can you make two versions? 0:24:09.960 --> 0:24:13.000 So she summarizes, in other words, to parallel path is 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:16.520 to do two things at once. That's all. But it 0:24:16.560 --> 0:24:18.399 gives it this kind of It almost has like a 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:22.520 Buddhist air to it. Right, there's a middle path, parallel paths. 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:26.439 It sounds far more peaceful than can you do twice 0:24:26.440 --> 0:24:30.119 as much work as we originally talked about. I'm sure 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:32.119 you know you've probably heard me complain about this on 0:24:32.119 --> 0:24:34.159 one of our shows before. This kind of thing is 0:24:34.200 --> 0:24:36.200 so annoying to me, and I want to be clear, 0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:40.080 I understand the creation of new technical terms in business 0:24:40.200 --> 0:24:43.040 when they function the way that words normally do, right 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:46.600 by putting a concise name to something that would otherwise 0:24:46.640 --> 0:24:49.439 require more explanation. And I think there are plenty of 0:24:49.600 --> 0:24:53.640 perfectly legitimate business terms that are actually useful, and they 0:24:53.640 --> 0:24:57.080 could be compared to specific technical jargon, and like medicine 0:24:57.119 --> 0:25:00.040 or the science is one example. Here might be the 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:04.280 original use of disruption or disruptive. Like originally this referred 0:25:04.280 --> 0:25:06.879 to a specific thing. It wasn't a new word, but 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:08.960 it was a word that gained a new usage in 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:12.600 a business context. And uh, this was coined by a 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:16.080 guy named Clayton Christensen in the nineties, and it referred 0:25:16.080 --> 0:25:19.719 to like an innovation that creates a new market and 0:25:19.760 --> 0:25:23.800 a new type of value, displacing old markets and old values. 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:27.000 So an example might be the mass production of automobiles 0:25:27.040 --> 0:25:29.480 with the Model T, which isn't just a new competitor 0:25:29.480 --> 0:25:33.000 and entering a market, but it completely kind of disrupts 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:35.679 the transportation market. It, you know, upsets the old like 0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:39.520 traditional horse and buggy market. Uh. But even with this word, 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:42.600 which originally I think has a specific meaning and is useful, 0:25:42.880 --> 0:25:45.520 I think there's a kind of semantic creep, right, whereover 0:25:45.640 --> 0:25:50.080 time its meaning becomes less specific and people start using 0:25:50.119 --> 0:25:54.080 the word disruption or disruptive to just refer to any 0:25:54.119 --> 0:25:57.480 business innovation or maneuver that they want to be seen 0:25:57.520 --> 0:26:00.760 as new and dynamic. It's like it's like using the 0:26:00.760 --> 0:26:05.520 word like powerful or strong. You see people describing business 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:09.680 things as disruptive that are in no way really changing markets, 0:26:09.680 --> 0:26:13.000 are creating new markets. They're just like they're just saying, like, 0:26:13.080 --> 0:26:15.800 you know, we're gonna be big, We're gonna spend a 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:18.560 lot of money on this and enter the market. So 0:26:18.640 --> 0:26:20.920 some words really have a meaning, But at the same time, 0:26:20.920 --> 0:26:23.960 a lot of corporate speak just feels like replacing one 0:26:24.080 --> 0:26:28.000 number of normal, understandable words with an equal number or 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:33.639 more of confusing, buzzy technical words. There's no efficiency advantage 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:38.120 in the communication. The communication becomes understandable by a smaller 0:26:38.240 --> 0:26:42.360 number of people. Why does this happen well? With regard 0:26:42.400 --> 0:26:45.600 to the idea of a parallel path, Young continues quote, 0:26:46.000 --> 0:26:49.480 I thought there was something gorgeously and inadvertently candid about 0:26:49.480 --> 0:26:52.600 the phrases assumption that a person would ever not be 0:26:52.720 --> 0:26:55.240 doing more than one thing at a time in an office. 0:26:55.920 --> 0:26:58.399 It's denial that the whole point of having an office 0:26:58.480 --> 0:27:03.040 job is to multitask in effectively instead of single tasking effectively. 0:27:03.640 --> 0:27:06.399 Why invent a term for what people were already forced 0:27:06.400 --> 0:27:09.560 to do? It was, and it's fakery and puffery and 0:27:09.640 --> 0:27:13.240 lack of a reason to exist. The perfect corporate neologism 0:27:13.359 --> 0:27:17.000 now hold on. One can multitask and effectively at home 0:27:17.119 --> 0:27:19.760 as well as in the office. That's quite true. I 0:27:20.880 --> 0:27:22.600 think we can all attest to that. But but no, 0:27:22.720 --> 0:27:25.040 I get their point here. As she discusses a bunch 0:27:25.080 --> 0:27:27.080 more examples, I think I'd say the article is very 0:27:27.119 --> 0:27:30.560 worth reading. And of course she's fairly merciless and hypothesizing 0:27:30.720 --> 0:27:34.040 the reasons these terms are often used. For example, she 0:27:34.040 --> 0:27:37.439 says that you know, some corporate speak simply reflects a 0:27:37.560 --> 0:27:41.399 desire to reimagine exactly what type of work it is 0:27:41.480 --> 0:27:45.439 you're doing and what that work means. She says, quote, 0:27:45.480 --> 0:27:48.840 our attraction to certain words surely reflects an inner yearning. 0:27:49.200 --> 0:27:52.760 Computer metaphors appeal to us because they imply futurism and 0:27:52.840 --> 0:27:56.399 hyper efficiency, while the language of self empowerment hides a 0:27:56.440 --> 0:27:59.879 deeper anxiety about our relationship to work, a sense that 0:28:00.040 --> 0:28:03.480 what we're doing may actually be trivial, that the reward 0:28:03.520 --> 0:28:07.400 of free snacks for cultural fealty is not an exchange 0:28:07.400 --> 0:28:10.320 that benefits us, that none of this was worth going 0:28:10.320 --> 0:28:12.720 into student debt for, and that we could be fired 0:28:12.760 --> 0:28:16.280 instantly for complaining on Slack about it. And she ends 0:28:16.320 --> 0:28:19.600 this uh string of thoughts by saying, empowerment language is 0:28:19.640 --> 0:28:23.320 a self marketing asset as much as anything else, a 0:28:23.400 --> 0:28:27.879 way of selling our jobs back to ourselves. I think 0:28:27.960 --> 0:28:31.080 there's a lot of truth to that. Yeah, yeah, And 0:28:31.160 --> 0:28:33.679 a lot of times it does seem very you know, 0:28:33.720 --> 0:28:38.880 intentionally euphemistic, you know, to try to having to explain 0:28:39.240 --> 0:28:44.080 describe something in terms that are less damaging or more positive. 0:28:44.800 --> 0:28:47.600 Like one example that comes to mind is is something 0:28:47.600 --> 0:28:50.680 that's used a lot in business speaking, that's pivoting, you know, 0:28:51.000 --> 0:28:54.520 pivoting to video, for example, which sounds a lot better 0:28:54.560 --> 0:28:58.840 than you know, drastically or recklessly changing course or being 0:28:58.960 --> 0:29:02.440 thrown in the throne off course by you know, the 0:29:02.640 --> 0:29:06.479 slightest change and the winds of of of public demand 0:29:06.520 --> 0:29:09.360 and business. That sort of thing, Uh, pivot sounds like 0:29:09.560 --> 0:29:15.520 very geometric, you know, it sounds very precise and premeditated. 0:29:15.560 --> 0:29:17.560 It's what your office chair does when you turn to 0:29:17.600 --> 0:29:21.600 look at your other monitor, an obvious one about obvious. 0:29:21.600 --> 0:29:23.840 One of these euphemisms is just trying to cover up 0:29:23.840 --> 0:29:26.720 hard truths. Is like when I don't know all of 0:29:26.760 --> 0:29:31.440 the buzzy corporate words for basically firing people. Oh yeah, like, 0:29:31.440 --> 0:29:33.840 are you gonna fire people? Are you going to terminate people? 0:29:33.880 --> 0:29:37.440 Are you going to engage in a strategic head count reduction? 0:29:38.080 --> 0:29:40.120 Or a new one? This was one that only came 0:29:40.160 --> 0:29:44.520 out recently to my knowledge, employment dislocation, which when I 0:29:44.560 --> 0:29:46.360 first read it, I had no idea what it meant. 0:29:46.400 --> 0:29:48.360 I was like, oh, I guess they moved their jobs 0:29:48.360 --> 0:29:52.560 to another city, like there's there's a geographic change, and 0:29:52.600 --> 0:29:55.400 maybe it wasn't that bad. And I think, now what 0:29:55.440 --> 0:29:58.560 we're talking about is just people being terminated. I mean, 0:29:58.800 --> 0:30:00.840 but but then again, you know, look at it from 0:30:00.960 --> 0:30:04.800 a business's standpoint and like, no, what business is going 0:30:04.880 --> 0:30:07.800 to you know, send out a corporate email and begin 0:30:07.960 --> 0:30:11.280 by saying, who, we just really had a blood bath. Everybody. 0:30:11.960 --> 0:30:15.080 If you're reading this, you're all right, but you know, no, no, 0:30:15.080 --> 0:30:17.640 nobody's gonna engage in that kind of uh, you know, 0:30:18.720 --> 0:30:22.160 intercommunication about what has happened or out of communication you're 0:30:22.360 --> 0:30:24.520 you're you're gonna want to put a positive spin on 0:30:24.560 --> 0:30:30.040 it and leave the negative interpretations to other folks to do. 0:30:30.640 --> 0:30:32.800 What do you know? One of the worst things about 0:30:32.840 --> 0:30:35.400 this type of language is as much as I hate it, 0:30:35.600 --> 0:30:39.840 I sometimes find myself unconsciously using it in work emails 0:30:39.840 --> 0:30:42.600 and stuff I don't mean to, but it infects you. 0:30:43.280 --> 0:30:45.280 Here's the Well, here's one that we've I've seen used 0:30:45.320 --> 0:30:48.000 to hear at work from time to time. What happens 0:30:48.000 --> 0:30:51.720 when a new podcast or even an older podcast UH 0:30:51.840 --> 0:30:55.680 is not living up to expectations? Well, do you just 0:30:56.240 --> 0:30:59.440 cancel it? Do you terminate it? Or do you son 0:30:59.520 --> 0:31:03.320 set it? That's one of those great examples. Yeah. Well, 0:31:03.400 --> 0:31:05.240 one of the things that Young talks about a lot 0:31:05.240 --> 0:31:09.120 in the article is the recent explosion of new ag 0:31:09.480 --> 0:31:13.320 language in UH in business, you know, corporate speak, Like 0:31:13.360 --> 0:31:16.600 there are these phases where corporate speak in the eighties 0:31:16.680 --> 0:31:20.640 was infected with all these Wall Street style terms, and 0:31:20.720 --> 0:31:22.840 in the nineties there was a lot of there was 0:31:22.880 --> 0:31:26.120 a lot of like war and battle type language in 0:31:26.200 --> 0:31:28.840 corporate speak. And for some reason, now we're in an 0:31:28.840 --> 0:31:33.240 age of new age kind of mystical corporate speak. Are 0:31:33.240 --> 0:31:35.800 they saying things like, alright, it's time to really open 0:31:35.880 --> 0:31:38.440 up the chakras on this new ad campaign. I think 0:31:38.440 --> 0:31:40.040 there are some things like that. I think a lot 0:31:40.080 --> 0:31:42.440 of it probably comes from the tech world actually, where 0:31:42.440 --> 0:31:43.680 they're you know, there are a ton of people in 0:31:43.720 --> 0:31:46.200 the tech world who are also plugged into like Eastern 0:31:46.240 --> 0:31:48.800 religion and stuff, so so I guess you could say 0:31:48.800 --> 0:31:51.320 a lot of it is is tied to in these 0:31:51.320 --> 0:31:55.320 cases to putting a new spin on something that is familiar. Uh, 0:31:55.720 --> 0:31:59.600 Like taking something that may seem even exotic and using 0:31:59.640 --> 0:32:02.880 that is a way to recast something that is for 0:32:03.080 --> 0:32:05.280 far more ordinary. Yeah, I think there there are several 0:32:05.320 --> 0:32:07.520 reasons we can come away with here why we often 0:32:07.560 --> 0:32:11.000 see the introduction of neologisms in the corporate world. One 0:32:11.160 --> 0:32:14.360 is to sort of reimagine or put a new psychological 0:32:14.400 --> 0:32:16.479 spin on what it is you're doing that you know, 0:32:17.200 --> 0:32:20.120 makes it feel maybe more spiritual, or makes it feel 0:32:20.160 --> 0:32:22.520 more combative or something whatever it is that gets you 0:32:22.600 --> 0:32:26.640 amped up. Another is to be euphemistic, to like to 0:32:26.840 --> 0:32:30.080 take hard truths and make them sound like something different 0:32:30.080 --> 0:32:32.400 than they are. And then I would say there is 0:32:32.440 --> 0:32:37.800 another one, which is just a desire to sound professional, 0:32:38.720 --> 0:32:41.760 like there's this idea that okay, where are people definitely 0:32:41.880 --> 0:32:44.720 doing real work. One place you know that they're doing 0:32:44.760 --> 0:32:48.719 that is like in the sciences and in engineering and stuff, 0:32:48.840 --> 0:32:51.920 and they have lots of technical jargon, you know. But 0:32:52.120 --> 0:32:54.520 in the sciences and engineering you probably need a lot 0:32:54.560 --> 0:32:58.520 of technical jargon that is not actually there's nothing equivalent 0:32:58.520 --> 0:33:01.920 to it that's necessary in a normal office. But you 0:33:02.000 --> 0:33:05.480 have this desire to feel like you are accomplishing things 0:33:05.520 --> 0:33:08.360 at the same level as the sciences are in engineering. 0:33:09.640 --> 0:33:11.240 And then of course to come back to politics, and 0:33:11.320 --> 0:33:14.440 politics is very much an example of of of of 0:33:14.480 --> 0:33:18.120 a situation where you're needing to continually spin things, uh, 0:33:18.560 --> 0:33:21.440 either in one direction or the other and uh, and 0:33:21.480 --> 0:33:25.600 in doing so you come up with different different terminologies 0:33:25.880 --> 0:33:29.719 to different descriptions of of what of things that are 0:33:29.760 --> 0:33:32.880 essentially the same. Yes, I think that fits more in 0:33:33.040 --> 0:33:36.000 with the the one about you know, wanting to reimagine 0:33:36.040 --> 0:33:38.440 your job or sell your job back to yourself with 0:33:38.640 --> 0:33:42.160 you know, new uh corporate neologisms because they help you 0:33:42.360 --> 0:33:45.440 feel a certain way. You know, in politics, obviously you're 0:33:45.480 --> 0:33:47.840 trying to make other people feel a certain way about 0:33:47.840 --> 0:33:51.040 a concept by using pushy terminology about it all right, 0:33:51.040 --> 0:33:53.000 we're gonna take one more break, but when we come back, 0:33:53.280 --> 0:33:55.520 you know, we're gonna get into a little bit of 0:33:55.560 --> 0:33:59.560 science fiction e territory here as we look at a 0:33:59.600 --> 0:34:03.680 couple of examples of of new words that came up 0:34:03.720 --> 0:34:07.480 on us and and some of their their their fictional origins, 0:34:07.520 --> 0:34:11.000 but also some of the fictional engines that help them 0:34:11.040 --> 0:34:20.200 reach their place in our lexicon. Alright, we're back, So 0:34:20.400 --> 0:34:23.560 we're going to talk about a couple more interesting examples 0:34:23.600 --> 0:34:25.840 of invented words and what they tell us about the 0:34:25.960 --> 0:34:28.240 you know, the the process by which words are coined. 0:34:28.800 --> 0:34:31.680 The next one I think is interesting because it's common 0:34:31.800 --> 0:34:36.320 usage is so uh intention with the spirit of its coinage. 0:34:36.800 --> 0:34:40.719 And that word is robot, right and boy, And this 0:34:40.800 --> 0:34:44.280 is one that is um. Robot is so broadly used 0:34:44.320 --> 0:34:47.920 these days to things that are perhaps not technically robots 0:34:47.920 --> 0:34:52.080 get called robots um, and the things that sometimes things 0:34:52.160 --> 0:34:55.560 that are for all intents and purposes robots don't get 0:34:55.600 --> 0:34:59.640 called robot. It's uh, it's it's a weird one. So 0:35:00.040 --> 0:35:03.040 will be a wonderful journey. So you could be forgiven 0:35:03.080 --> 0:35:06.719 for assuming that the word robot was coined by an inventor, right, 0:35:06.800 --> 0:35:10.719 somebody who maybe somebody who made automata or somebody who 0:35:10.760 --> 0:35:14.200 created an early autonomous machine. But no, not at all. 0:35:14.680 --> 0:35:17.360 This invented word, like so many others we have discussed, 0:35:17.360 --> 0:35:20.640 actually comes from a work of fiction. That work was 0:35:20.719 --> 0:35:24.600 a play called are You Are, which stood for Rossom's 0:35:24.760 --> 0:35:28.120 Universal Robots. And this was a play written by the 0:35:28.320 --> 0:35:33.919 check writer and intellectual Karl Choppeck. It premiered in nineteen one, 0:35:34.120 --> 0:35:37.240 and it's basic plot was that an inventor named Rossum 0:35:37.760 --> 0:35:41.719 creates a series of artificial humans to serve as slaves 0:35:41.719 --> 0:35:45.920 for regular humans. But these slaves ultimately revolt against their 0:35:46.000 --> 0:35:49.480 human creators and they basically kill all the humans and 0:35:49.600 --> 0:35:52.000 they take over, and then they find out, oh no, 0:35:52.160 --> 0:35:55.440 we don't know how to make more of ourselves. But 0:35:55.520 --> 0:35:58.719 these slaves in the play are known as robots. And 0:35:58.800 --> 0:36:01.680 this word is not invented out of whole cloth. It's 0:36:01.719 --> 0:36:04.399 adapted from a check word. I think that comes from 0:36:04.400 --> 0:36:07.600 an old Slavonic term. Uh. The word is robot to 0:36:08.000 --> 0:36:11.520 r O b O t a, which means forced labor 0:36:11.760 --> 0:36:14.879 or servitude. It is the kind of labor that would 0:36:14.880 --> 0:36:18.719 have been done by surfs under feudalism. Now, of course, 0:36:18.840 --> 0:36:21.040 this idea of a robot is somewhat different from what 0:36:21.080 --> 0:36:25.319 it usually means today. Today, a robot is generally some 0:36:25.440 --> 0:36:29.920 kind of machine that operates with some degree of independence 0:36:30.120 --> 0:36:34.040 and moves with some degree of freedom, mimicking human or 0:36:34.120 --> 0:36:37.080 animal movement. You can tell from what I just said, 0:36:37.080 --> 0:36:39.360 of course, that the concept is actually a little bit hazy, 0:36:39.400 --> 0:36:42.600 even though it is so widely used. But the robots 0:36:42.600 --> 0:36:46.839 in Shopics Play, while they are manufactured products, are not 0:36:46.960 --> 0:36:51.240 depicted as being mechanical machines made out of metal. They're closer, 0:36:51.280 --> 0:36:54.239 I think, to the replicants of Blade Runner. They are 0:36:54.280 --> 0:36:58.400 sort of like basically humans in every respect, except they 0:36:58.400 --> 0:37:02.560 are manufactured instead born, And the comparison to Blade Runner 0:37:02.640 --> 0:37:04.680 is very close when you look at some of the 0:37:04.719 --> 0:37:07.359 texts in the play. For example, there's this part where 0:37:07.400 --> 0:37:11.239 there's a triumphal speech given by a robot named Radius 0:37:11.280 --> 0:37:14.879 after he and the other robot rebels sees power from 0:37:14.880 --> 0:37:18.239 the humans. Roddy As says, quote, the power of man 0:37:18.360 --> 0:37:21.680 has fallen. By gaining possession of the factory, we have 0:37:21.800 --> 0:37:26.160 become masters of everything. The period of mankind has passed away. 0:37:26.560 --> 0:37:30.719 A new world has arisen. Mankind is no more mankind 0:37:30.800 --> 0:37:35.120 gave us two little life. We wanted more life. Oh man, 0:37:35.320 --> 0:37:37.880 that's Roy Batty, right, yeah, you can just you can 0:37:38.000 --> 0:37:40.600 envision him giving that speech. And so it makes me 0:37:40.640 --> 0:37:45.200 think that Are you Are must have directly inspired Blade Runner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:37:45.239 --> 0:37:49.839 certainly really Scott's adaptation of the original Philip K. Dick, 0:37:50.400 --> 0:37:53.239 Uh do Android's stream of Electric Sheep. But I don't 0:37:53.239 --> 0:37:55.719 think that line is in the Philip K. Dick. I don't. 0:37:55.800 --> 0:37:57.640 It's when a long time, so they're reddit, but I don't. 0:37:57.680 --> 0:37:59.880 I don't remember that as being parted. Like I remember 0:38:00.480 --> 0:38:03.239 picking up that is. I think that was the first 0:38:03.239 --> 0:38:05.799 phil K Dick book I read, and my experience was 0:38:05.840 --> 0:38:07.319 probably like a lot of people would pick it up 0:38:07.320 --> 0:38:10.440 expecting Blade Runner at the film and it's you get 0:38:10.480 --> 0:38:12.400 something different. Is there are a lot of differences between 0:38:12.400 --> 0:38:14.760 the novel and the book is great, but oh it's wonderful. 0:38:14.760 --> 0:38:18.160 It's very different. It's very different. The book is wonderful 0:38:18.320 --> 0:38:21.360 for the kind of state of unreality that it conjures 0:38:21.520 --> 0:38:24.920 because of like the moments where the main character starts 0:38:24.960 --> 0:38:27.279 to wonder if he is real or not. It's very 0:38:27.320 --> 0:38:30.120 Philip K. Dick I was. I would remember being so 0:38:30.600 --> 0:38:33.560 excited to read Blade Runner that I even read another 0:38:33.680 --> 0:38:36.960 another novel that was called Blade Runner. There was like 0:38:37.360 --> 0:38:40.400 a futuristic sci fi world about. It had to do 0:38:40.440 --> 0:38:44.080 with like a medical um, a medical black market, like 0:38:44.160 --> 0:38:47.759 generally somebody who's running like surgical blades. Did this come 0:38:47.800 --> 0:38:50.640 out after the movie? This was like, I'm not sure 0:38:50.760 --> 0:38:53.160 when it came out. I just remember finding a what 0:38:53.280 --> 0:38:57.239 felt like an old book in my school library and 0:38:57.239 --> 0:38:59.359 I was like, all right, it's close enough, I'll read 0:38:59.440 --> 0:39:02.400 the whole thing. So I remember being entertaining, but it 0:39:02.520 --> 0:39:06.080 also not Late Runner. Well, anyway, I was reading a 0:39:06.120 --> 0:39:08.440 good article about this in the m I. T Press 0:39:08.480 --> 0:39:11.520 by a Penn State professor named John im Jordan's uh. 0:39:11.560 --> 0:39:14.680 And Jordan lays out some interesting context for are you 0:39:14.719 --> 0:39:18.239 are uh? He writes of Choppe quote. Like many of 0:39:18.280 --> 0:39:21.319 his peers, he was appalled by the carnage wrought by 0:39:21.320 --> 0:39:24.319 the mechanical and chemical weapons that marked World War One 0:39:24.680 --> 0:39:27.960 as a departure from previous combat. He was also deeply 0:39:28.000 --> 0:39:31.839 skeptical of the utopian notions of science and technology. And 0:39:31.960 --> 0:39:34.240 you should remember that this was a time of great 0:39:34.360 --> 0:39:38.040 technological utopianism. You know, remember our episodes on the invention 0:39:38.480 --> 0:39:42.080 of the supposed death ray in this period, which despite 0:39:42.120 --> 0:39:46.440 the name, was actually pitched as something beautiful and humane. 0:39:46.600 --> 0:39:49.680 It was a technology that would end all possibility of war, 0:39:49.760 --> 0:39:52.200 It would bring about an era of peace and harmony. 0:39:52.560 --> 0:39:54.719 And the death ray was by far, you know, not 0:39:54.760 --> 0:39:56.600 the only example. This was the time of you know, 0:39:56.680 --> 0:39:59.880 Tesla and Marconi in so many others fielding the idea 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:03.760 that coming technologies would eliminate war and disease and want. 0:40:04.560 --> 0:40:07.040 But of course there were many others like Chopek who 0:40:07.480 --> 0:40:10.640 reacted to the technological horrors of World War One with 0:40:10.680 --> 0:40:14.880 skepticism about the promises of of new science and technology. 0:40:15.200 --> 0:40:17.839 Uh and so, yeah, he's criticizing this idea of of 0:40:17.880 --> 0:40:21.080 science that is that is not concerned with big questions, 0:40:21.200 --> 0:40:24.360 or with ethics, or or even the the ultimate purpose 0:40:24.440 --> 0:40:27.200 of its own endeavor, That is just concerned with like 0:40:27.320 --> 0:40:30.680 what sort of leverage it can have over the physical world, 0:40:30.760 --> 0:40:35.200 what can you produce? But Jordan's characterizes chop x opinion 0:40:35.440 --> 0:40:40.680 on mechanization by saying, quote, when mechanization overtakes basic human traits, 0:40:40.719 --> 0:40:46.080 people lose the ability to reproduce, as robots increase in capability, vitality, 0:40:46.080 --> 0:40:50.240 and self awareness, humans become more like their machines. Humans 0:40:50.280 --> 0:40:53.440 and robots, in chop x critique are essentially one and 0:40:53.480 --> 0:40:57.560 the same. The measure of worth industrial productivity is one 0:40:57.680 --> 0:40:59.799 by the robots that can do the work of two 0:40:59.800 --> 0:41:03.799 and half men. Such a contest implicitly critiques the efficiency 0:41:03.880 --> 0:41:07.280 movement that emerged just before World War One, which ignored 0:41:07.400 --> 0:41:10.879 many essential human traits. Of course, this makes me think 0:41:10.880 --> 0:41:14.640 about Dune, right, the implications of the past but lerry 0:41:14.680 --> 0:41:18.080 a jihad, that's right, hey, when which humans rise up 0:41:18.120 --> 0:41:22.840 against the rule of machines. But it's implied, it's certainly 0:41:22.840 --> 0:41:26.040 in the original books that it's not just a it's 0:41:26.160 --> 0:41:29.520 not simply a matter of rising up against machine overlords 0:41:29.520 --> 0:41:33.280 in the physical totalitarian sense, but in a philosophical sense, 0:41:33.320 --> 0:41:36.520 the idea that the machine way of life, the machine 0:41:36.560 --> 0:41:39.160 way of thinking, has corrupted what it is to be 0:41:39.239 --> 0:41:42.560 human exactly. Yes, it's not just that they're like, you know, 0:41:42.680 --> 0:41:45.160 enemies that are trying to rule us. They've changed our 0:41:45.280 --> 0:41:48.600 nature and we don't want that. Yeah. But anyway, given 0:41:48.640 --> 0:41:51.840 the views of the play, there's just some intense irony 0:41:51.960 --> 0:41:54.960 that this is actually the terminology that was adopted by 0:41:54.960 --> 0:41:57.920 people who would end up wanting to make autonomous machines 0:41:57.960 --> 0:42:00.279 for a living, like you know. And of course I 0:42:00.280 --> 0:42:02.680 don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to go into robotics. 0:42:02.719 --> 0:42:05.840 I think robots canna have a lot of wonderful uses. Yes, certainly. 0:42:06.000 --> 0:42:08.359 But the term you're using is saying like I want 0:42:08.360 --> 0:42:11.520 to go into robotics, is like literally like I want 0:42:11.520 --> 0:42:15.240 to go into creating slaves that will destroy our spirit 0:42:15.280 --> 0:42:19.239 and render us useless. Yeah, that's fascinating. One last thing 0:42:19.239 --> 0:42:22.200 about the word robot. It's pronunciation also appears to have 0:42:22.320 --> 0:42:24.920 changed over time. At various times it might have been 0:42:24.960 --> 0:42:28.000 pronounced more like a robot robot? Is it ever bot? 0:42:28.080 --> 0:42:32.000 Was it ever pronounced robot like Zoidberg does its futurama? 0:42:32.080 --> 0:42:34.040 I think maybe at some point it was there. There 0:42:34.040 --> 0:42:37.200 have been multiple different ways of saying now speaking of 0:42:37.360 --> 0:42:41.759 technological fear and apprehension. Um, the next word we're going 0:42:41.800 --> 0:42:44.040 to consider here is is a perfect extension of this 0:42:44.160 --> 0:42:45.840 and ties into some of these same themes, and that 0:42:45.960 --> 0:42:51.319 is of course clone. So clone was apparently first recorded, 0:42:51.680 --> 0:42:55.920 uh to have been used somewhere between nineteen and nineteen 0:42:55.920 --> 0:43:00.360 o five, and it's from the Greek word clone, a 0:43:00.480 --> 0:43:07.040 slip a twig with clear botanical roots. Here. Plant physiologist 0:43:07.120 --> 0:43:09.880 Herbert J. Webber coined the term in reference to the 0:43:09.920 --> 0:43:15.480 technique for propagating new plants UH through the use of cuttings, bulbs, 0:43:15.520 --> 0:43:18.920 and buds. And I was reading about this, UH in 0:43:18.960 --> 0:43:22.880 an interview that Science Friday in their Science Diction series 0:43:23.280 --> 0:43:26.840 UH conducted with Harold Marco, professor of History of Medicine 0:43:27.640 --> 0:43:30.560 at the University of Michigan, and Ann Arbor UH. And 0:43:30.880 --> 0:43:35.160 one thing that Marco pointed out is that Webber was 0:43:35.239 --> 0:43:37.200 kind of trying to decide what term to use, Like 0:43:37.200 --> 0:43:39.440 you didn't just fire from the hip here and think, 0:43:39.440 --> 0:43:41.439 all right, what is the what? What? What words should 0:43:41.440 --> 0:43:43.959 I use? Maybe with some of those considerations we talked 0:43:43.960 --> 0:43:47.520 about earlier exactly. Yeah. So one of the other, like 0:43:47.640 --> 0:43:51.000 major contender that he came up with is actually pretty great. Uh. 0:43:51.000 --> 0:43:56.400 It is the word strength, a combination of strain and wraith. Wow. 0:43:57.080 --> 0:44:00.319 But he, you know, decided it was too clumsy. But 0:44:00.400 --> 0:44:01.880 that being said, I want there's got to be a 0:44:01.880 --> 0:44:05.120 sci fi treatment out there, UM, somewhere where someone has 0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:09.480 decided to abandon the word clone and just talk about streiths. UH. 0:44:09.520 --> 0:44:13.480 Like that that just changes the whole situation. Imagine, if 0:44:13.520 --> 0:44:17.239 you will, if throughout the Star Wars universe, instead of 0:44:17.239 --> 0:44:20.640 saying clone, they said straight yeah, like that would have 0:44:20.680 --> 0:44:22.759 had it would have made it feel it would have 0:44:22.800 --> 0:44:26.360 been rooted in the actual origin of our usage of clone, 0:44:26.719 --> 0:44:29.160 but it would have given it this slightly different feel 0:44:29.600 --> 0:44:33.279 and indeed strength with its Wraith connotation. It feels a 0:44:33.320 --> 0:44:36.359 little weird or like it's more in line with well, 0:44:36.480 --> 0:44:39.360 it's good to come back to Herbert. The use of 0:44:39.400 --> 0:44:42.000 the golas in Dune, you know where you know, it 0:44:42.040 --> 0:44:44.360 doesn't it doesn't call them clones, It call you know, 0:44:44.440 --> 0:44:47.759 calls them goulas, creates this new word that drags in 0:44:47.920 --> 0:44:53.040 other um, other you know, feelings, other words, other connotations. 0:44:53.080 --> 0:44:57.360 So um and anyway, Marco, you know, as this concept 0:44:57.400 --> 0:45:00.680 steadily took off, you saw it u a lot in 0:45:01.080 --> 0:45:03.960 the agricultural world world because that's of course where it 0:45:03.960 --> 0:45:09.480 was originally utilized. But then it bleeds over into science fiction. However, 0:45:09.680 --> 0:45:12.319 there are cases where you could have seen someone use 0:45:12.400 --> 0:45:14.640 clone a lot more of where they did. In for instance, 0:45:14.840 --> 0:45:18.680 Huxley in Brave New World doesn't refer to it as cloning, 0:45:18.719 --> 0:45:24.080 refers to instead as the Bakonovsky process. But uh, but 0:45:24.200 --> 0:45:27.480 Market points to two specific uses of clone in the 0:45:27.560 --> 0:45:30.279 nineteen seventies that really helped to push it into the 0:45:30.280 --> 0:45:34.880 popular lexicon, the first of which is Alvin and Heidi 0:45:34.960 --> 0:45:38.800 Toffler's best seller Future Shock from the year nineteen seventy. 0:45:39.000 --> 0:45:43.359 I know you like this and the Weird Orson Welles documentary. Yeah, 0:45:43.360 --> 0:45:46.719 the weird the weird Horson Weil documentary, which I recommend 0:45:46.800 --> 0:45:49.560 looking up on YouTube, is great and a little bit cheesy. 0:45:49.840 --> 0:45:52.160 The work of the Tofflers throughout their career, they wrote 0:45:52.239 --> 0:45:56.040 various texts of futurism, texts where they're talking about, you know, 0:45:56.080 --> 0:46:00.640 trends and how we how we um anticipate and receive 0:46:00.760 --> 0:46:03.719 new technologies, and generally the idea of future shock is 0:46:04.080 --> 0:46:07.680 the idea that the world is changing so rapidly, there's 0:46:07.760 --> 0:46:10.920 all these new technologies coming online that it overwhelms us 0:46:10.960 --> 0:46:13.520 and we feel the sense of future shock. Uh And 0:46:13.520 --> 0:46:15.560 and even today it's a you know, it's it's a 0:46:15.600 --> 0:46:17.799 work that is to a certain extent dated by their 0:46:17.880 --> 0:46:20.960 later works. You know that they spent their their lives, 0:46:20.960 --> 0:46:24.400 they spent their careers covering this, uh, this area of 0:46:24.440 --> 0:46:27.640 consideration but it's still a very readable text, and I 0:46:27.680 --> 0:46:29.439 recommend it that this is a This is a line 0:46:29.480 --> 0:46:31.960 from Future This is a paragraph from Future Shock, where 0:46:32.000 --> 0:46:35.279 the Tofflers discuss this quote. One of the more fascinating 0:46:35.320 --> 0:46:38.120 possibilities is that man will be able to make biological 0:46:38.160 --> 0:46:41.840 carbon copies of himself through a process known as cloning. 0:46:41.880 --> 0:46:44.080 It will be possible to grow from the nucleus of 0:46:44.080 --> 0:46:47.200 an adult sell a new organism that has the same 0:46:47.239 --> 0:46:51.200 genetic characteristics of the person contributing the cell nucleus. The 0:46:51.280 --> 0:46:54.960 resultant human copy would start life with a genetic endowment 0:46:55.040 --> 0:46:58.799 identical to that of the donor, although cultural differences might 0:46:58.920 --> 0:47:03.799 thereafter alter personality or physical development of the clone. And 0:47:04.000 --> 0:47:08.200 uh Interestingly enough, in that Science Friday interview, Howard Marcle 0:47:08.680 --> 0:47:11.080 pointed to another work from the seventies, this time of 0:47:11.120 --> 0:47:15.800 fictional work venties six novel by Ira Levin, The Boys 0:47:15.880 --> 0:47:18.799 from Brazil. Oh, the one about don't they want to 0:47:18.800 --> 0:47:22.239 clone Another Hitler? Yeah, it's a It concerns a a 0:47:22.360 --> 0:47:26.640 fictional plot where you have uh not Nazi ex pats 0:47:26.719 --> 0:47:29.400 living in South America who are hatching a scheme to 0:47:29.520 --> 0:47:32.800 clone at off Hitler. Uh, you know, using cloning technology 0:47:32.840 --> 0:47:36.920 to create all of these uh the these these male children, 0:47:37.000 --> 0:47:39.160 and then trying to figure out how to raise them 0:47:39.200 --> 0:47:43.279 so that you can nurture their genetic legacy into you know, 0:47:43.320 --> 0:47:46.520 I guess the ideal form of the fere um, which 0:47:46.960 --> 0:47:49.160 I know. There are a lot of problems with this plot, 0:47:49.400 --> 0:47:51.560 a lot of holes in this plot, but it was 0:47:51.560 --> 0:47:55.680 a very popular work and they made a pretty uh 0:47:55.719 --> 0:47:58.960 I remember being a pretty entertaining film version of this 0:47:59.000 --> 0:48:02.479 as well, and which Greg Repact plays uh uh Dr 0:48:02.600 --> 0:48:05.759 Joseph Mangela, but also Laurence Olivier is the good guy, 0:48:05.840 --> 0:48:09.799 right hunter um yeah, And so I I have very 0:48:10.080 --> 0:48:11.880 vague memories of this film. I think I saw it 0:48:11.920 --> 0:48:13.960 on American movie Classics back in the day, but I 0:48:13.960 --> 0:48:17.760 remember it. I remember it being disturbing and effective in places. 0:48:18.080 --> 0:48:20.520 I never read the book myself, but I was leafing. 0:48:20.560 --> 0:48:22.160 I picked up grabbed a copy of it and leaf 0:48:22.239 --> 0:48:26.000 through it before we were we recorded this with this episode, 0:48:26.360 --> 0:48:29.600 and I did run across the passage where one character 0:48:29.680 --> 0:48:32.600 is telling another about the origin of the word clone 0:48:32.719 --> 0:48:35.640 and referring to the uh you know, the Greek and 0:48:35.760 --> 0:48:39.799 the uh and the the the botanical origins of the term. 0:48:40.320 --> 0:48:42.239 Uh So, anyway, I guess the idea here is that, 0:48:42.320 --> 0:48:44.239 you know, you have two popular works that are using 0:48:44.800 --> 0:48:47.720 the word clone, and they helped to sort of boost 0:48:47.760 --> 0:48:51.480 the signal throughout uh, you know, the fictional world and 0:48:51.560 --> 0:48:54.880 just the the the popular conceptions of the science itself. 0:48:55.200 --> 0:48:57.600 One of the funny things though, in this selection you 0:48:57.680 --> 0:49:01.320 pulled out is that one character says that the old 0:49:01.360 --> 0:49:05.160 word for cloning was mono nuclear reproduction, and then complains, 0:49:05.200 --> 0:49:07.440 why would you coin a new word like clone when 0:49:07.480 --> 0:49:10.880 the old ones convey more? The other character says, cloning 0:49:10.960 --> 0:49:14.960 is shorter. Oh, yes, how true coloss Uh yeah, and uh. 0:49:15.000 --> 0:49:17.000 I was going to actually read this this uh this 0:49:17.080 --> 0:49:20.360 bit from the Boys from Brazil, but I thought it 0:49:20.400 --> 0:49:23.759 might be a little confusing because the the character that 0:49:23.880 --> 0:49:28.800 is explaining it mentions a different biologists and mentions in 0:49:28.840 --> 0:49:32.120 English biologists by the name of Haldane, which I thought 0:49:32.200 --> 0:49:35.920 might confuse people who were listening to the origin story 0:49:35.920 --> 0:49:38.759 that we've presented thus far. Okay, well, I hope I 0:49:38.800 --> 0:49:41.960 didn't confuse anybody. But I like how they reproduced the 0:49:42.000 --> 0:49:47.160 same conversation. It's interesting and it is again worth I think, 0:49:47.160 --> 0:49:51.279 stressing the importance of science fiction especially with scientific terminology, 0:49:51.280 --> 0:49:55.040 because there are plenty of other examples where a bit 0:49:55.200 --> 0:49:58.440 uh like an idea is presented first in science fiction 0:49:58.520 --> 0:50:02.319 and then gets picked up as a possibility within the sciences. Yeah, 0:50:02.440 --> 0:50:05.480 you might think that somebody created a robot and then 0:50:05.640 --> 0:50:08.680 came up with the name robot, but no, yeah goodness. 0:50:08.680 --> 0:50:11.439 And this is without even getting into the situation where 0:50:11.440 --> 0:50:15.879 you have fictional worlds that in which the creator comes 0:50:15.960 --> 0:50:19.280 up with their own lexicon for like a an alternate 0:50:19.320 --> 0:50:22.200 reality or futuristic reality like one of them. Think the 0:50:22.200 --> 0:50:26.000 more jarring examples of this would be a clockwork orange 0:50:26.680 --> 0:50:29.640 or inn In Banks wrote a book called Fearsome Engine 0:50:30.360 --> 0:50:35.560 that is totally a totally um worthwhile read. But it 0:50:35.640 --> 0:50:37.759 has like I think, three different perspectives in it, and 0:50:37.880 --> 0:50:41.680 one of them is a is is is written in 0:50:41.719 --> 0:50:45.680 this futuristic slang, and it's really really takes a little 0:50:45.680 --> 0:50:47.839 bit of getting used to before you're rolling with it 0:50:47.880 --> 0:50:51.160 and understanding what the character is saying. Um now, I 0:50:51.160 --> 0:50:53.560 don't know. I mean, it's arguable to what extent those 0:50:53.600 --> 0:50:57.600 kind of exercises ever actually produced new words, but there's 0:50:57.600 --> 0:51:01.640 certainly the potentiality is there, um, you know, any time 0:51:02.320 --> 0:51:04.880 any time a new word is presented, you're you're putting 0:51:04.880 --> 0:51:08.200 out the possibility that it could, uh, it could become 0:51:08.239 --> 0:51:10.520 a part of language itself. Yeah, I guess, so, I 0:51:10.520 --> 0:51:13.920 guess you can't know what uh, you can't know when 0:51:13.960 --> 0:51:17.040 you're making a word happen? Right? Can you introduce something 0:51:17.120 --> 0:51:19.120 and it's like, I don't know, it's it's in their 0:51:19.160 --> 0:51:22.520 hands now? Yeah? All right, Well, you know, hopefully this 0:51:22.920 --> 0:51:25.360 we received a lot of great feedback from our previous 0:51:25.400 --> 0:51:28.080 episode on invented words, so hopefully we'll hear a lot 0:51:28.120 --> 0:51:31.000 of great feedback on this episode as well. We would 0:51:31.000 --> 0:51:35.680 obviously love to hear everyone's thoughts on on new words 0:51:35.680 --> 0:51:38.600 that they've picked up, new words that you've rejected, or 0:51:38.719 --> 0:51:42.040 are there words from science fiction specifically that you find 0:51:42.080 --> 0:51:45.040 yourself using within a particular in group or a fandom. 0:51:45.280 --> 0:51:47.319 Are there are there some that you wish would be 0:51:47.320 --> 0:51:50.600 picked up by the by the wider world at large? 0:51:50.840 --> 0:51:54.880 What are the worst business neologisms you've to deal with 0:51:54.920 --> 0:51:57.800 on a regular basis? Please share those with us for sure? 0:51:58.040 --> 0:52:00.040 Or the best you know? Again, I don't want to 0:52:00.120 --> 0:52:03.000 deny sometimes they might be useful. Sometimes they're very useful, 0:52:03.600 --> 0:52:08.759 all right, you say with utter despair. No all right. 0:52:08.840 --> 0:52:11.160 In the meantime, if you want to check out other 0:52:11.200 --> 0:52:14.480 episodes of Invention, you will find this show anywhere you 0:52:14.520 --> 0:52:17.200 get your podcasts, wherever that happens to be. Just make 0:52:17.239 --> 0:52:19.840 sure you rate, review and subscribe. If you go to 0:52:19.880 --> 0:52:22.000 invention pod dot com, that will also shoot you over 0:52:22.000 --> 0:52:24.720 to the I heart listing for this show. Huge thanks 0:52:24.760 --> 0:52:27.920 as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. 0:52:28.000 --> 0:52:29.560 If you would like to get in touch with us 0:52:29.600 --> 0:52:32.320 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 0:52:32.320 --> 0:52:34.319 a topic for the future, or just to say hi, 0:52:34.440 --> 0:52:41.800 you can email us at contact at invention pod dot com. 0:52:41.800 --> 0:52:44.920 Invention is production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts 0:52:44.960 --> 0:52:47.800 from my heart Radio because the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:52:47.880 --> 0:52:49.480 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.