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That's incredibly interesting. You can look at usages of "sentient" as an adjective, or usages of "sentient" as a noun. It includes usages from reviews and cr
by dkarl 6y ago
That's incredibly interesting. You can look at usages of "sentient" as an adjective, or usages of "sentient" as a noun. It includes usages from reviews and criticism of SF works as well. Fabulous idea, but missing a lot as of yet -- checking some of my old favorites and more recent ones, it has "psychohistory" from Foundation, but it doesn't have "eptification" or "mucker" from Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, "dark forest" from Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem trilogy, or "orogene" or "orogeny" from N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.
Looks like what they want in terms of support is labor: https://sfdictionary.com/how_to_help https://sfdictionary.com/how_to_help
- eesmith 6y agoI contributed a few words to the previous project, roughly 20 years ago. One of the requirements was that the word not be a one-off use. Is 'eptification' used in other stories by other authors, for example? "Spindizzy", as I recall, was in the earlier effort, though not here. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindizzy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindizzy for background.
- dkarl 6y agoI just realized you saw "spindizzy" before I edited it out -- I didn't know if Cities in Flight was something anybody else remembered. Stand on Zanzibar was full of made-up slang, but eptification and mucker stand out in my memory, because eptification was so similar to the automated learning in the Matrix, and mass shootings (and knifings in other parts of the world) are now a normal part of life. I don't think any other writers picked them up and used them in their work, though.
- eesmith 6y agoActually, I didn't see it in an earlier version of your comment. It really was an independent memory from 20 years ago when I contributed a few word and citations to the original project.
- dkarl 6y agoThat's a crazy coincidence. Glad somebody else remembers. Cheers!
- eesmith 6y agoIt is a self-selected audience of HN readers who care enough to read comments on a historical dictionary of SF. ;) FWIW, I have a copy of the 2006 reprint of Blish's 1970 omnibus edition. As I recall, I bought it because I read the term "spindizzy" in the OED effort from 20 years ago, which made me curious.