Imaginary Science Fiction Words... Participatory Thread.

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#185889 - 07/18/09 10:39 AM Imaginary Science Fiction Words... Participatory Thread.
Fieldgunner stranger Registered: 07/16/09 Posts: 10	SF is rich with opportunities to create new phrases and words that sound really cool. I use the word- Technoloog - imagined future tech that is nothing more than a single word/ phrase that sounds cool... eg 'flux capacitor' from Back to the Future or something like 'psi-chaon particle reverberator turbines'... stuff like that... 'loog' is corruption of logos. It'd be really nice if we posted such imaginary words/phrases with a short explanation.
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#185890 - 07/18/09 10:55 AM Re: Imaginary Science Fiction Words... Participatory Thread. [Re: Fieldgunner]
zmjezhd Pooh-Bah Registered: 08/13/05 Posts: 2472 Loc: R'lyeh	You mikght want to get a hold of a copy of Brave New Words: the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, 2007, ed. Jeff Prucher. A favorite of mine is phlogiston.
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#185892 - 07/18/09 12:05 PM Re: Imaginary Science Fiction Words... Participatory Thread. [Re: zmjezhd]
tsuwm Carpal Tunnel Registered: 04/03/00 Posts: 9577 Loc: this too shall pass	re: phlogiston oh, right.. as in that wonderful sf writer Joe Priestly, "Mr. Lavoisier is well known to maintain, that there is no such thing as what has been called phlogiston." (Philos. Trans., 1785) I like Asimov's thiotimoline.. "The result was that I wrote a pseudo-dissertation [in 1948] written as stodgily as I could manage about a compound which dissolved 1.12 seconds before you added the water. I called it The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline." - Isaac Asimov, I.Asimov: A Memoir (1994) "It can only be initiated in my continuum, because the molecules of the activating substance, thiotimoline, have different properties when they're reversed." - Spider Robinson, Time Travelers Strictly Cash (1981)
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#185893 - 07/18/09 12:17 PM Re: Imaginary Science Fiction Words... Participatory Thread. [Re: zmjezhd]
Fieldgunner stranger Registered: 07/16/09 Posts: 10	"Phlogiston"...Great word. But it refers to an actual chemistry theory that was once around to explain fire/oxidation... Phlogiston Theory
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#185894 - 07/18/09 12:20 PM Re: Imaginary Science Fiction Words... Participatory Thread. [Re: tsuwm]
zmjezhd Pooh-Bah Registered: 08/13/05 Posts: 2472 Loc: R'lyeh	as in that wonderful sf writer Joe Priestly I was thinking more of that great skiffy writer, J. J. Becher (link). He was also a conlanger, viz. Character pro notitia linguarum universali. You and I have differing opinions about when science fiction began as a genre. I trace it back at least to Lucian's True History (2nd century CE, Αληθη Διηγηματα). A wee bit before Azimov's time.
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#185895 - 07/18/09 12:24 PM Re: Imaginary Science Fiction Words... Participatory Thread. [Re: Fieldgunner]
zmjezhd Pooh-Bah Registered: 08/13/05 Posts: 2472 Loc: R'lyeh	But it refers to an actual chemistry theory that was once around to explain fire/oxidation I read it used jocularly in at least one skiffy book. (I'll try to round up the citation.) But since you and tsuwm are such purists, I offer waldo from 20th century scientifiction. It's now a real word denoting a real thing.
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#185896 - 07/18/09 12:31 PM Re: Imaginary Science Fiction Words... Participatory Thread. [Re: zmjezhd]
tsuwm Carpal Tunnel Registered: 04/03/00 Posts: 9577 Loc: this too shall pass	aside, re: sf.. scifi.. skiffy.. scientifiction what do you make of the scifi channel changing their logo to SYFY? 8-P
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#185897 - 07/18/09 12:31 PM Re: Why Reka? Oy. [Re: zmjezhd]
zmjezhd Pooh-Bah Registered: 08/13/05 Posts: 2472 Loc: R'lyeh	Phlogiston features in the science fiction short story "... The World, As We Know't" by Howard Waldrop (link)
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#185898 - 07/18/09 12:34 PM Re: Imaginary Science Fiction Words... Participatory Thread. [Re: zmjezhd]
Fieldgunner stranger Registered: 07/16/09 Posts: 10	Great words have been invented, I know... One of my faves is "Sophont" which is kind of a synonym for 'sentient/sapient' referring to intelligent life forms ... link to a nice site with this wordSophont Try inventing some original Techloog... heres one from my side- Necrovault- A chamber for long term cryogenic freezing, as on spaceships performing journeys for long periods. Edit- Site for some of the best technoloog around... 75 words every sf fan should know ... waldo's on this list Edited by Fieldgunner (07/18/09 12:44 PM)
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#185899 - 07/18/09 12:50 PM Re: Imaginary Science Fiction Words... Participatory Thread. [Re: Fieldgunner]
zmjezhd Pooh-Bah Registered: 08/13/05 Posts: 2472 Loc: R'lyeh	How about stereobatic semiosis, sometimes mislabeled foundational semantogenesis? It's a term from diachronic xenolinguistics which refers to a stage in the development of language in which meaning proceeds signification. Roughly when a concept exists before a word for it does.
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