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> The original meaning of the word computer was a person who calculates. Was that ever so? According to Google Ngrams, "computer" was not really a term until,
by yallpendantools 2y ago
> The original meaning of the word computer was a person who calculates.
Was that ever so?
According to Google Ngrams, "computer" was not really a term until, predictably, around 1950, even though the verb "compute" has been in use throughout history (it comes from the Latin "computare", apparently).
That tells me "computer" was never a person, always a machine.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=compute%2Ccomputer&year_start=1500&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=compute%2Ccomp...
- frisia 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)?useskin=...
- femto 2y agoYes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation) The first reference in the Wikipedia article is to the original definition in the Oxford English Dictionary. Dating from 1613, it refers to a person.
- nkrisc 2y agoThe first “computers” were people, who computed. And the term was used to mean as much until very recently. > From 1953 to 1958, Johnson worked as a computer,[23] analyzing topics such as gust alleviation for aircraft. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson