Saturday, May 14, 2011

75 words every Sci-fi fan should know!

I copied the following from the TechRepublic. I don't mind telling you, I don't know most of these words. I am putting the link at the end of the document. In the link, each of the words are hyperlinks to their definition in Wikipedia. BEFORE you go read it, how about you tell us how many words you know, and what they mean. ;)

"For those of us who grew up reading science fiction and/or comic books, the list reads like the margin notes of every classic supervillain’s world-domination handbook. For some actual enlightenment, I recommend a different guide, Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, the polished dead-tree version of the OED’s Science Fiction Citations Web site (found via SFSignal).
From the latter resource, with the addition of some personal selections from Wikipedia, I have gathered a list of 75 Words Every Science Fiction Fan Should Know. Because if you’re going to learn obscure words and concepts, it may as well be terms you’re actually likely to use.
  1. Alderson disk (n.)
  2. arcology (n.)
  3. areography (n.)
  4. astrogate (v.)
  5. avatar (n.)
  6. Bernal sphere (n.)
  7. chrononaut (n.)
  8. Clarke ring (n.)
  9. Clarke’s First Law (n.)
  10. Clarke’s Second Law (n.)
  11. Clarke’s Third Law (n.)
  12. computronium (n.)
  13. contraterrene (adj.)
  14. Dyson sphere (n.)
  15. elsewhen (adv.)
  16. esper (n.)
  17. Faraday cage (n.)
  18. FTL (adj.)
  19. geas (n.)
  20. grey goo (n.)
  21. grok (v.)
  22. Jovian (adj.)
  23. kiloyear (n.)
  24. light cone (n.)
  25. light sail (n.)
  26. light-second (n.)
  27. Lofstrom loop (n.)
  28. mass-driver (n.)
  29. Matrioshka brain (n.)
  30. meatspace (n.)
  31. megastructure (n.)
  32. megayear (n.)
  33. mindfood (n.)
  34. nanotech (adj.)
  35. needler (n.)
  36. neutronium (n.)
  37. Niven ring (n.)
  38. O’Neill cylinder (n.)
  39. parking orbit (n.)
  40. precog (n.)
  41. pocket universe (n.)
  42. positronic (adj.)
  43. posthuman (n.)
  44. psi (n.)
  45. psychohistory (n.)
  46. quine (n.)
  47. ramscoop (n.)
  48. replicant (n.)
  49. rimworld (n.)
  50. ringwall (n.)
  51. Santa Claus machine (n.)
  52. sapient (n.)
  53. sentience (n.)
  54. Shkadov thruster (n.)
  55. Singularity (n.)
  56. skyhook (n.)
  57. sophont (n.)
  58. space elevator (n.)
  59. space fountain (n.)
  60. Stanford torus (n.)
  61. starwisp (n.)
  62. stellar engine (n.)
  63. superluminal (adj.)
  64. TANSTAAFL (n.)
  65. Tellurian (n.)
  66. terraform (v.)
  67. topopolis (n.)
  68. transhuman (n.)
  69. universal constructor (n.)
  70. uplift (n.)
  71. Von Neumann probe (n.)
  72. waldo (n.)
  73. wetware (n.)
  74. Whuffie (n.)
TechRepublic

4 comments:

Galadriel said...

Where's "TARDIS?"

Anonymous said...

Ooooh, get me that book!
Galdriel- Indeed! Where doth be the vehicle of The Doctor?

Kyla Denae said...

And as there only seem to be 74 words on this list, I vote that we add "TARDIS" to the end, immediately.

*ahem* Anyway. I only know...probably...less than half of these.

A true scifi fan, I apparently am not...

Jake said...

I know...like, three of those words. I mostly stick to Marcher Lord Press sci-fi and C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy. <_<