A Man Who Coined the Word "Robot" Defends Himself

Re:A Man Who Coined the Word "Robot" Defends Himself by jefftk on Monday January 22, 2024 @10:49AM (#39090712)

slave (n.) c. 1300, sclave, esclave, "person who is the chattel or property of another," from Old French esclave (13c.) and directly from Medieval Latin Sclavus "slave" (source also of Italian schiavo, French esclave, Spanish esclavo), originally "Slav" (see Slav); so used in this secondary sense because of the many Slavs sold into slavery by conquering peoples.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/slave

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Re:A Man Who Coined the Word "Robot" Defends Himself by droopyEyelids on Monday January 22, 2024 @11:02AM (#39090911)

I wonder if the use of 'ottoman' as 'footrest' in English has a similar origin story.

Showing the soles of your feet to someone is extremely disrespectful in many middle eastern cultures including the Ottoman culture.

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Re:A Man Who Coined the Word "Robot" Defends Himself by saalweachter on Monday January 22, 2024 @11:16AM (#39091181)

Not really; it was more along the lines of "Ottoman-style seating" being referred to as "an ottoman", in the same way people refer to "a long chair" (chaise longue) as a "chaise".

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Re:A Man Who Coined the Word "Robot" Defends Himself by thriftwy on Monday January 22, 2024 @02:52PM (#39094473)

The first part makes sense, the second one doesn't: where would that 'c' come from? No such thing as Sclavic people, never was.

Nevertheless, I'm not sure if there is any reflection on the fact that mediterranean pirates (and nomadic tribes further east) plundered Balkans for captives and southwestern europeans then bought them. And that, perhaps, was a suboptimal way to behave.

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Re:A Man Who Coined the Word "Robot" Defends Himself by int_19h on Monday January 22, 2024 @04:27PM (#39095701)

It's not just the pirates, and not just Balkans, but also e.g. the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades

As for why there's a "k" there - Greeks would naturally adapt any foreign word to the phonotactics of their language, which does not have "σλ" as a valid syllable onset, but does have "σκλ".

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Re:A Man Who Coined the Word "Robot" Defends Himself by jefftk on Monday January 22, 2024 @03:20PM (#39094862)

> No such thing as Sclavic people, never was.

Sounds like there was to the Greeks:

Slav (n.) "one of the people who inhabit most of Eastern Europe," late 14c., Sclave, from Medieval Latin Sclavus (c. 800), from Byzantine Greek Sklabos (c. 580), from a shortening of Proto-Slavic sloveninu "a Slav"* -- https://www.etymonline.com/word/Slav

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Re:A Man Who Coined the Word "Robot" Defends Himself by lo_zamoyski on Monday January 22, 2024 @06:40PM (#39097168)

Indeed, which is interesting, because “Slav” comes from the word for “speech” or “word”. In Polish, for example, “word” is “słowo”, whereas “Slavs” is “słowianie”. Germans are “niemcy” from “niemy”, meaning “mute”. So to be a Slav meant to be intelligible and able to speak, whereas Germans were unintelligible or “mute”. Compare this to “barbarian”, from the Greek, which comes from the sound of the unintelligible speech of foreigners to the Greek ear (“barbarbar”, almost like “blah blah blah”).

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