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Virtual Words: Language on the Edge of Science and Technology
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.
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.
190 pages, Hardcover
First published September 21, 2010
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About the author
Jonathon Keats
18 books9 followersJonathon Keats is an American conceptual artist and experimental philosopher known for creating large-scale thought experiments. Keats was born in New York City and studied philosophy at Amherst College. He now lives in San Francisco and Italy.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 25, 2017
Disapointtingly unrelated to words.
I managed to read the entire book, albiet skipping 2 essays, for it was short and easy. I was mostly annoyed at the disconnect between what the book was summarized in the inner flap and the book itself. With Keats writing in Wired I'd figure there would be a greate focus on semantics, about the modern origin of words where technology has allowed us to share them ever more than before. Most of the essays spent there time instead discussing the history behind the words, such as the advancements made in molecular biology that lead to coining 'microbiome', instead of disecting the semantic implications and constructions the words would have.
If the book was advertised as a collection of breif essays about modern technologies I would have been more satisfied. I wanted a linguistic analysis.
Even as a collection of essays about modern technologies, the book provides nothing more than Wikipedia pages in a conversational tone.
I managed to read the entire book, albiet skipping 2 essays, for it was short and easy. I was mostly annoyed at the disconnect between what the book was summarized in the inner flap and the book itself. With Keats writing in Wired I'd figure there would be a greate focus on semantics, about the modern origin of words where technology has allowed us to share them ever more than before. Most of the essays spent there time instead discussing the history behind the words, such as the advancements made in molecular biology that lead to coining 'microbiome', instead of disecting the semantic implications and constructions the words would have.
If the book was advertised as a collection of breif essays about modern technologies I would have been more satisfied. I wanted a linguistic analysis.
Even as a collection of essays about modern technologies, the book provides nothing more than Wikipedia pages in a conversational tone.
January 17, 2011
A fun, easy read on how words get introduced into the vocabulary, with a real tech orientation befitting its origins in a Wired magazine column. Some of these were a bit obscure to me, revealing I'm sure something about my age and how little time I spend reading blogs.
May 11, 2011
I hadn't heard ' bacn ' before ~
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews