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Virtual Words
Language from the Edge of Science and Technology
Jonathon Keats
240 pages
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210x140mm
978-0-19-539854-0
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Hardback
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11 November 2010
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- Offers a sampling of the new language of technology.
- Puts words in context by exploring, in short essays, how they were coined and how likely they are to enter the general lexicon.
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), sock puppet (an illicit online alternate identity), or in vitro meat (chicken and beef grown in a laboratory) enter our language?
In Virtual Words: Language from 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 45 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 euphemism, polemic, jargon, and slang, in addition to scientific and technological neologisms—chapters each consider one exemplary word, its definition, origin, context, and significance. Examples range from cybrid (a human-animal hybrid embryo) and unparticle (a form of matter lacking definite mass) to gene foundry (a laboratory where microbes are built) and blackhawk (a combative helicopter parent). 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, and 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.Readership: Virtual Words will appeal to general readers interested in the interplay between words and ideas in our fast-paced, tech-driven, use-it-or-lose-it society.
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"Keat's survey of the ways in which science and technology shape language is clever and humorous." - Samantha Murphy, New Scientist
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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