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"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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