Subject:
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Re: Android vs. Droid vs. Automaton (Re: 4x2ReVu: 7141 Naboo Fighter)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 13 Jan 2000 21:09:24 GMT
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Viewed:
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121 times
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Anyone else see the humor in debating the semantics of words used in a
fictional account of events in "a galaxy far, far away" ? Maybe their
English has a different OED than ours. Sheesh, they don't use "parsec" right,
either, but let's not go there....
James
In lugnet.reviews, Johannes Keukelaar writes:
> "JG" == Joseph Gonzalez <hsadm2.jgonzale@email.state.ut.us> writes:
>
> JG> The problem I see with using these terms is that Webster's
> JG> Dictionary defines android as "having human features" (which the
> JG> R2 units definitely do not have). Consequently, one couldn't use
> JG> the 'droid term either because it is just a contraction of the
> JG> original term Android.
>
> According to http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/sf-words.html:
>
> android
> [first use unknown]
>
> A biological robot, esp. a cloned or synthetic human (but compare
> droid).
>
> Clute and Nicholls' Encylopedia of Science Fiction traces the
> first modern use to Jack Williamson's The Cometeers (1936, book
> version 1950). The distinction between mechanical robots and
> organic androids was popularized by Edmond Hamilton in his Captain
> Future series a few years later, and had become a feature of
> mainstream press discussion of SF by 1958.
>
> OED II says "An automaton resembling a human being", with cites
> for the older variant "androides" going back to 1727.
>
> droid
> [from the first Star Wars movie, 1977]
>
> A robot. This somewhat misapplied contraction of android is not
> much used in other SF (LucasFilms has a trademark on it!). It is
> now widely known outside SF circles but only used mythically of
> fictional characters.
>
> robot
> [From the Czech word robota meaning "involuntary worker"]
>
> An electromechanical construct with humanlike capabilities; a
> mobile, self-aware thinking machine. Interestingly, the first
> SFnal use of this word, in Karel Capek's 1920 play R.U.R.,
> referred to what today would be called an android rather than an
> electromechanical artifact.
>
> This word is ubiquitous in SF, quite well known in the mainstream,
> and seriously used to describe a large class of industrial
> machinery with some of the autonomy and intelligence ascribed to
> fictional robots.
>
> Consequently, even though droid probably is a bit odd, that's what
> LucasFilms decides to call them, so, in this context, that's probably
> the right name.
>
> JG> P.S. If this discussion keeps going we probably ought to move it to
> JG> off-topic.debate
>
> Follow-up set.
>
> Regards,
>
> Johannes.
> --
> 'If Bill Gates had a dime for every time Windows crashed...
> ... Oh wait a minute, he already does...' - Anonymous
>
> <insert funny description here>
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