The common language of the future

[communicator]

Metafilter had a link to this list on Tech Republic, of '75 words every SF fan should know'. That is, terms that you ought to be familiar with. I'm not over-impressed by the list (below the cut). As someone on metafilter said 'Any self-purported "Words all Sci-Fi fan must know" list that doesn't include Ansible is DOA, as far as I'm concerned.' I

Comments

[drplokta]

Some of these are terribly outdated, e.g. contraterrene (which means antimatter). Neutronium is from real physics, not Peter F Hamilton -- he just used it in a title.

[communicator]

Right, so now I think about it, matter which is just neutron jammed together like a neutron star. Perhaps the electrons have squished into the protons or something.

[iainjcoleman]

Yep. The electrons and protons combine to form neutrons in a process called inverse beta decay, which is Physicist for "the electrons get squished into the protons".

[abigail_n]

Whuffie is Cory Doctorow's invention. He's used it in several short stories and the novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (which is where the IF icon comes from), and possibly other works I haven't read. It basically means respect, and in Doctorow's imagined future it replaces money as the foundation of the economy. If you do something cool - create something new, or perform some labor that benefits the community - your Whuffie points will rise, which will motivate other people to give you goods and services. Like most invented economic systems, it's really cool and not even remotely realistic.

[communicator]

Oh, right, I have heard about that idea, but I didn't know the word, thanks

No Ansible

[applez]

No "buckyballs" and completely lacking in the whole language of advanced medicine and pharmacology, such as "soma." Hell, what about "cyberpunk," "cyborg," "robot," "bionics," and "cybernetics"? Or have these fictions become too real now? ;-)

Or, come to think of it, retro terms, like "steampunk" or "Phlogiston"

Too much "sci-fi=spaceships" in that list, to my mind.

Re: No Ansible

[blue_condition]

It sounds like a pre-Sterling US Hard SF sort of list - very little from the 'New Wave' in there either - where are 'entropy', 'multiverse' etc? ;)

Re: No Ansible

[applez]

Ooo...or reliable 'shorthand' terms like 'verse or indeed -verse.

Re: No Ansible

[communicator]

bioport, 'jacked in', steam punk...

[ajr]

I managed 43, I think. It might be lower if it turns out I have misunderstood some.

As drplokta says, a lot of them seem rather outdated. "TANSTAAFL" (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch) was one that jumped out at me.

[applez]

Tellurian is the old skool name that jumped out at me.

[andrewducker]

Tellurian is one I haven't heard outside of EE Doc Smith...

[applez]

It's also a misnamed Star Trek race, as I recall.

[blue_condition]

58 here, several of them are 'real' science/engineering terms.

[communicator]

I just read up on neutronium, and the wikipedia entry says the word originated in SF. So did 'robot' too of course. I think there's quite a lot of two-way traffic.

[applez]

damn you Berkelium! ;-)