Twenty-five Years of Cyberspace
Technology Terms Introduced to the Mainstream Vocabulary
Sep 12, 2009
Cyberspace is a metaphor for the non-physical place created by computer systems. It was introduced by William Gibson in his cyberpunk novel Neuromancer in 1984. More specifically it usually refers to online environments where people communicate with each other and travel the various pathways of the Internet. It’s just one of many such computer terms that have worked their way into everyday speech.
Some of these words have come to us from old, familiar words that now have new meaning. Others arrived seemingly out of the void. What follows is just a sampling of some of these terms.
Cyber Everything
The prefix of cyber comes from the Greek word for steer kybernan. MIT professor, Norbert Weiner, coined the word cybernetics back in 1948 to refer to controlling systems and machines. Then in 1984 we had cyberspace and whenever any real world term had a similar computer equivalent, the prefix cyber was added. Hence we have such words as
- Cyber crime:Criminal acts that are performed with the aid of a computer. Crimes that fit this category are identity theft, mischievous hacking, theft, and more.
- Cybrary: A collection of references brought together in an online site.
- Cybrarian: Someone who helps others find information in cyberspace.
- Cyberpunk: The category of science fiction that defines William Gibson’s Neuromancer and books like it.
- Cyborg: A cyber organism—part mechanical, part organic.
The MacIntosh is Not for Baking Pies
In January of 1984, Steve Jobs introduced the world to a new Apple called the Macintosh (the Mac.) Since the Mac represented an entirely new technology, the company wanted to maintain the Apple identity but get away from the numbering system used at the time with Apple II, Apple IIc, Apple IIe, and Apple III.
It still referenced the Apple identity but now had a unique model name. Isaac Newton, who discovered gravity when an apple fell out of a tree, is the source of the name for Apple’s first hand held device, the Apple Newton
Old Words with Updated Definitions
Many terms have been around for years but the meanings have been updated. In some cases a word with negative connotations has become a badge of honor or respect.
- The original spelling was KnurdIt’s rumored that in the 1940s, students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute were of two varieties—the party people called “drunks” and their exact opposites, those students who seemed to be studying all the time. Since they were the opposite of the drunks they were called “knurds,” that’s “drunk” spelled backward. Eventually the spelling changed to nerd and so did the feelings for these folk. Today, nerds are the go to people in the work place when the computer starts acting up. More respected than ridiculed.
- The same can be said of geekThis was a word describing certain members of circus freak shows. They performed gruesome acts for the entertainment of circus goers. Now the word geek refers to a knowledgeable, frequently tech savvy person in the IT department. Nothing demonstrates the change in rank more than Best Buys technology repair staff, referred to as the Geek Squad.
- Spam is seldom thought of as a meat product anymore (a fact that doesn’t exactly thrill Armour) but as a reference to junk email. The term became popular from its use in an old Monty Python skit.
- Trojan horse may still refer to the Greek myth about a giant wooden horse offered as a gift—filled with enemy soldiers. It also refers to destructive software that rides in on the coattails of what appears to be an email attachment or a great new piece of software. Sometime after loading it into her computer the user finds her files scrambled or erased or damaged in some other way.
Science Fiction Got There First
Jules Verne was perhaps the first modern day visionary seeing the future. More recently the original Star Trek television series has led the way with communicators (cell phones), Blue Tooth (Uhuru's communication ear piece), and others. The science fiction writers of today have also made their contributions to the vocabulary.
- Cyberspace came from the science fiction novel Neuromancer by William Gibson. Other words also came from this genre.
- In 1972 David Gerrold, best known for writing "The Trouble With Tribbles" Star Trek episode, wrote a novel titled When H.A.R.L.I.E Was One. In this book he discusses the creation of a computer program called VIRUS that would methodically destroy the data in a computer.
- John Brunner wrote Shockwave Rider in 1975. The protagonist discovers that a “tapeworm” is travelling through the net damaging his credit and his life. Today the term we use for this type of program is a worm.
New Words Enter the Mix
Then there are the new words that entered out of thin air. In a little over ten years, no word epitomizes this more than Google. Not only a mainstay in the Internet search arsenal, it has also become a part of the non tech universe.
Television police programs have detectives googling information about criminals.
It’s not unusual to hear people talk about googling a prospective partner before the first date.
People even use the word to refer to their own personal memories. He said he would remember in a second but just had to google his mind and the answer would come to him.
New words and terms come from the ever changing technology. What will the next new hot word be? No one knows. But there’s certain to be more of them. Look and listen for them.
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