On Sat, 11 Jan 1997, Anny Middon wrote:
> Boy, what I wouldn't give for a brain that worked better. My memory storage
> system is a mess. I read something I think is cool that I'll want to
> remember, and some time later when I want to refer to it I realize that I've
> forgotten the most important bits. If I only had some clue as to when and
> where I'd read it, I'd have a chance at looking it up, but of course I don't.
I think we can all sympathize with this...
[deletions]
> 1) What the heck do you call terms that weren't needed until new tech came
> along?
Don't know of a specifically technical term, but I'd suggest two
words. "Neologism," in the sense of a new word (usually deprecated
_because_ of its novelty) works for me. For example, "cyberspace," coined
by William Gibson in _Neuromancer_, 1984 (as far as I know; corrections
invited). Or "hypnopaedia," which I am certain Aldous Huxley coined
in _Brave New World_, 1932.
Suzette Haden Elgin, who has been professionally trained as a
linguist and also writes science fiction, suggests the term "Encoding" in
her novel _Native Tongue_ (Women's Press Ltd., 1984). These are not
standard lexical encodings in the linguistic sense, by which objects or
concepts are given names, which in turn become words; an Encoding, to the
women of the Lines, represents "a word for a perception that had never had
a word of its own before" (158).
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