Re: THEORY: lexical shift [was Re: Time machine]

In a message dated 07/12/2002 08.40.35 PM, Thomas Wier writes:

>Quoting Christopher B Wright <faceloran@...>:
>
>> ObLanguage: There are (almost) no new words in any language. To get a
>> specialized vocabulary for time travel or space travel, what would a
>> language do?
>
>What?
    ::blink-blink:: Yeah... WHA- 0_o??!!!

>There are always new words being added to every language in active use.
    And I more than imagine even a few that are not "active" ("live and
kickin' ") but specialized "Classical/religious/academic" languages (i.e.
Greek, Sanskrit, Pali and Latin) - also - those not in widely known/accepted
active use (thinkin' of some Auxlangs... and, of course, Conlangs).

>  These arise spontaneously, and constantly. In the
>case of new technology, there are many ways to describe something:
>morphologically (e.g. railroad); polysemy (e.g. computer); sheer
>coining (e.g. googol);  borrowing, calquing, etc. etc.
    ... blending, combining forms, Classical compounding (i.e. International
Techno-Scientific Vocabulary... "mongrel dog Greek"), acronym, vogue,
agglomerese, computerese, technobabel/technobabble, etc.
    ... in quantum physics, scientists use technical terminology delightfully
appropriated from everyday English like "charm," colour," "flavour,"
"strangeness" as well as words like "quark" snagged by Murray Gell-Mann in
1964 from "Three quarks for Muster Mark!" from lingua-mangler-par-excellence
James Joyce's _Finnegans Wake_!!!!
    And don't even get me started on terms in fractal and chaos sciences...
:)
    More of my favourite lingua-manglers are scientists and technologists
than writers and poets... (a very few are in both science and the liberal
art/humanities).

    - just some items related to this issue from "The technology theme"
cross-reference in _The Oxford Companion to the English Language_, edited by
Tom McArthur, 1992, we get:

    algorithm, alphanumeric, artificial intelligence, ASCII, audiobook,
broadcasting, byte, catchword, communicative shift, computational
linguistics, computerate, computer literacy, desktop publishing, electronic
mail, electronic publishing, fax, laser, machine language, machine-readable
text, machine translation, machine word, mimeograph, mouse, multimedia,
network, photocopying, photo-offset printing, printer, printout, QWERTY,
scroll, spelling checker, style checker, technobabble, technospeak,
telecommunications, telegraphese, telephone, teleprinter, television, word
processor, WYSIWYG, xerography

    (the above reads like a "list poem")

    BTW, "googol" according to the OED is an "arbitrary formation" ... and
the AHD-NCE (American Heritage Dict.-New College Ed.) says it was "coined by
Edward Kasner (1878-1955), American mathematician."
    IIRC it was Mr. Kasner's son who - in a moment to rival almost anything
coined by Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll or James Joyce - actually came up with
"googol."
    Evidently googol does not seem to be in standard or "formal usage." (IMHO
highly unfortunate this...)
    In any case, it is a very well-made evocative word IMVMHO - what with its
short compactness that packs a "Concrete Poetry"-like symbolism with all
those 'o's so much like the zeroes that must be the numerical
conceptualization of this surreal monster number - 10 raised to the 100th
power... the "Sound Poetry" of the word "goo"...  suggestin' to me that
theory that numbers are possibly the only human means to "seeing" the real
underlying goo-ey-googol-music-ness of the Cosmic Spheres ;)
    _aum googol nada brahma aum_

    "Everything but mathematics must come to an end." - Paul Erd'o's

    :: in utterly brain-stunned state of linguistic bliss ::

Hanuman Zhang, 3-Toed-Sloth-Style Typist... humble, slow, methodical & a
survivor

"the sloth is a chinese poet upsidedown" --- jack kerouac {1922-69}
--------------------------------------------------
    "There is no reason for the poet to be limited to words, and in fact the
poet is most poetic when inventing languages. Hence the concept of the poet
as 'language designer'."  --- O. B. Hardison, Jr.

"La poésie date d' aujour d'hui."   (Poetry dates from today)
"La poésie est en jeu."             (Poetry is in play)         --- Blaise
Cendrars