Writing about conlangs the other day made me think of words which come from fiction. It turns out that quite a few have made their way into everyday speech.
Robot: Coined by Czech writer Karel Čapek in 1920, it comes from the Czech word ‘robota‘. meaning ‘forced labour‘. Little did he know that his term would inspire countless sci-fi tales of mechanical beings with their own agendas!
Cyberspace: William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer birthed this gem. Long before the internet connected us all, Gibson envisioned a virtual realm where hackers & data flowed like neon rivers.
Spacesuit: Not a product of NASA, but of imaginative literature! Sci-fi writers like E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith popularized this term, making it synonymous with astronauts floating in a most peculiar way.
Blast Off: Forget rocket science; this phrase emerged from pulp magazines & early sci-fi films. It provides a dramatic climax to a countdown.
Time Travel: H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) catapulted this concept into our lexicon.
Extraterrestrial: Sci-fi authors like Robert A. Heinlein made it a staple, conjuring up visions of green-skinned aliens.
Android: Philip K. Dick gave us humanoid robots. The term combines ‘andro-‘ (Greek for ‘man’) & ‘-oid‘ (resembling). BTW- Lucasfilm registered ‘droid‘ as a trademark in 1977.
Once again fiction leaks into the real world!
These all appear in Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction.
🤔 Do you know of any other examples?
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