Posted on 01/18/2017 8:24:51 PM PST by nickcarraway
You know, of course, that today would have been the birthday of Karel Capek, who introduced the word robot to the world. He was born Jan. 9, 1890, in what became the Czech Republic, and though his obituary has never crossed my desk, I assume he has passed on. Otherwise, he would be 127, which would make him, by far, the oldest person on Earth.
I’m sure that if that were the case, we would have heard of him lately because he would be at least 11 years older than the oldest person in the world at any given time.
As an aside, have you ever noticed that whenever the oldest person on Earth dies, there is always someone waiting in the wings to assume that title? There never is a vacancy.
Anyway, we haven’t heard from Capek recently, so it appears the last time he made headlines was in 1920, when he published a play called R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots. In that drama, a scientist invents humanlike machines that – wait for it – come to dominate mankind.
Capek is said to have created the word robot for that play, although he gave the credit to his brother Josef, who often collaborated with him in his writings. In any case, I suppose it would be correct to say that Capek invented the word, so long as we don’t narrow it down to a particular Capek.
Another aside: I have noticed that in old movies and television shows, people pronounce the word as ROE-but, with the same emphasis we would give to the syllables of rabbit (RABB-it). Today, though, everyone says it ROE-BOT, with near-equal emphasis on the syllables. I know this because I tested two co-workers and they both came through for me. That’s the scientific method.
As another aside, both Capeks worked at times as newspaper editors, so they made two great contributions to Planet Earth: They were journalists, and they created a term that has become a vital part of the language. Robot means “forced labor,” by the way, and a robotnik was a“forced worker.”
That brings up another aside. Years ago a sitcom featured Bob Denver, who went on to play the titular character on Gilligan’s Island.
In The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Denver played Maynard G. Krebs, a high school beatnik. Beatnik, often used disparagingly, gained favor just after the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1.
As an aside, one of my brothers is a neatnik. I, on the other hand, am what you might call a packratnik, though I don’t think my coinage will ever top robot as dictionary fodder.
That reminds me of a final aside: The first Sputnik went into orbit Oct. 4, 1957, the same day Leave It to Beaver premiered on TV. Sputnik lasted three months, and Beaver nearly six years.
Take that, Russia!
Well technically, the word preceded him, coming from “robota”, cognate with Russian “rabot”. (Anthony Burgess turned this into the Nadsat term “rabbit” in “A Clockwork Orange”.)
I pointed that out to the wife while watching some Twilight Zone episodes: it’s always ROEbut.
Remember ‘Bar-buh-ruh’? And the criminal sentenced to life alone on a desolate planet?
“Rabota” means “work” in Russian, and “rab” means slave.
I remember reading about those R.U.R. robots years ago in an old science fiction collection
The title appears garbled. Should read: "Writer Who Created Robots Was Born 127 Years Ago Today."
Or maybe: "Writer Coined Term 'Robots' 97 Years Ago Today."
Regards,
In this context, I don't see how you could omit mention of his trademark tic, which was, when anybody uttered the word "work", to convulsively expostulate, "WORK!"
What a nitwit writer. It took me less than a minute to find out that Capek died on Christmas in 1938.
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