Saturday, May 30, 2009

Science fiction's contributions to English language

Sam Jordison has something to say on the subject at Guardian Books, based on the book "Brave New Words, the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, edited by Jeff Prucher".

Among the tidbits: "robot" 'comes from the Czech word "robota", meaning forced labour. It was first used in a 1920 Czech play called RUR, Rossum's Universal Robots by Karel Capek and first came into English in Paul Selver's 1923 translation.'

0 comments: