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Title: Words of the Wasteland Author: Clare Follmann Date: 2020 Language: en Topics: language, words, poetry, history, critique, science, anti-civ, semiotics, ecology, nature, 1907, Oak Journal Notes: originally published in Oak Journal #2, October 2020
Speech is a spell, and words, once ejected into the air, warp the weave
of worlds.
âHo Tzu Nyen.
Language is world-warping, world-making. This is an old understanding of
the weight of a word. Mythology, folklore, origin stories across the
world tell of the power of the word, of how speaking words can birth the
world and its occupants. Language is powerful. Words paint the world
with color, culture, history, and context. It is through language and
through words that people interpret their worlds.
As we accept and acknowledge the world warping ways of language, we
would do well to expose those places in which those with power wield
language gatedlyâinaccessible in a selective way. These places, these
worlds are woven for only a select few to know and understand, and when
these places critically affect, mutilate, and yet generally exclude our
world, that we must pay close attention, and ask: Why is this so? How
does this continue to be? And, what can be done?
Today, in many ways, it is the language of science that wants to paint
our perspective of the world. It likes to tell us who we are, why we are
here, and what might happen next. But it also conceals much from us.
Scientific language can be impenetrable and inaccessible to a general
public, and this inaccessibility can be traced back to the foundational
birthing of modern science. Some of the earliest scientific
institutions, for example (circa 1560-1700) shared scientific findings
using highly technical vocabularyâa shared language among scientists of
the day, but to anyone else, incomprehensible[1]. This exclusionary
language served as an early form of scientific jargon, which created a
dissonance between scientist and layperson that was often intentional.
Aside from this scientific jargon, Latin was the original language of
science. Botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is widely known for carving
up the world he observed around him using Binomial Nomenclature, which
gave animals and plants specific Latin names. Scientists also published
in Latin. At a glance, this use of Latin appears to be a way to write
about science objectively. Latin was a dead language. There was no one
and no culture alive to claim Latin as their own tongue. Because Latin
belonged to no one, it could theoretically belong to everyone equally.
However, this only makes sense if Latin were understood equally by
everyone. Instead, it was only the colleges and schools that taught
Latin, meaning that the uneducated masses would largely not be able to
understand anything written in this tongue. Historian George Sarton
notes that Latin âwas the esoteric language used to prevent the
dissemination of learning to people who were deemed unworthy of it, or
who might make a bad use of itâ[2]. Giambattista Dealla Porta, who
created one of the earlier and more experimental institutions of science
in the 1560s, âwrote in Latin, and not for the peopleâ[3]. Francis
Bacon, the first philosopher of modern science and the father of
empiricism, may have insisted that the study of science was to better
mankind, yet his agenda would also appear to have included using science
to reinforce the dominance and power of elites. He is quoted as saying,
âI do not like the word Peopleâ whom he regarded as âthe commonalityâ or
âthe meaner sortâ[4]. Among many of the scientific elite, there was
distrust of uneducated people, and a desire to keep them in the dark
from scientific pursuits.
Today, we can find contemporary examples of this foundational
inaccessibility of science when we consider the academic journals and
articles that are only accessible to students or academics, or those who
pay for membership and access.
It is truly the word of science that now dominates our language and that
paints our world. Lexicographers have found science and technology to be
responsible for nearly half of the new words added to the English
language in the 20th century. A linguistic study reveals that 45% of new
words created between 1960 and 1985 were born on behalf of science and
technology[5]. When scientists write about their findings, they create
highly specific new words that will be almost exclusively used only by
those of specific disciplinesâscientific jargon.
Outside of compartmentalized disciplines, and for everyone else, this
jargon confuses. It distracts. It complicates and frustrates. It serves
to subtly reinforce the specialization of divided labor. This
compartmentalization of language says to us, âLeave it to the expertsâ.
It makes the discourse of science largely inaccessible, and therefore
unassailable, because readers struggle to grasp concepts when they are
several layers removedâabstractedâfrom their original context. Such
barriers to understanding are measurable. It is estimated that in
general academic texts, there is 5% jargon, 80% high frequency or
commonly used familiar words and somewhere between 8-10% academic
vocabulary. In scientific academic texts, however, jargon is around 22%.
When the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) testâa test which measures a textâs
readability from 0 (unreadable) to 100 (understandable)âwas applied to
Summaries for Policymakers from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), the document scored below 20, a dishearteningly low score
for an organization that is chiefly charged with the task of monitoring
research in global climate change and effectively sharing that
information with the general public[6].
Concepts rendered in unfamiliar, idiosyncratic grammar and syntax
becomes, in effect, a foreign languageâunreadable and unspeakable by
those for whom the language nonetheless bears upon. This creates a form
of illiteracy that defends science against comprehension, contestation,
and resistance.
Creating new words is a fundamental component of language that keeps it
alive and relevant as our values, beliefs, and ways of communicating
with one another and within the world that shifts and changes around us.
However, scientific jargon is dehumanizing in its abstraction. It
diminishes the scientistâs ability to communicate appropriately and
effectively with other people. There are times when this gap in
understanding can have distressing consequences. For example, when a
genetic counselor discusses with a pregnant woman the risks that her
unborn child may pose, there is a tangible, if not provable dissonance
between the words and concepts that need to be relayed to the pregnant
woman and her own understanding of her baby. Silya Samerski relays such
a scene in which a genetic counselor seeks to advise a pregnant woman:
1. The geneticist talks to a laywoman. He has to spell out his knowledge
in such a way that normal people can follow him. To do so, he has to
find everyday words for notions like chromosomal aberration,
DNA-mutation and probability model.
2. Once talked to, the client is urged to make a decision. This decision
is, in some way, a decision about life and death, about delivering a
child or terminating a pregnancy. Facing the counselorâs genetic mumbo
jumbo the client inevitably asks herself: What does all this say about
me? What does all this mean to me? Genetic counseling is a glaring
example of the clash between scientific concepts and everyday meaning
(Samerski, 2002, p. 6).
This is an example of a delicate situation in which both parties would
greatly benefit from sensitivity to and skillfulness in translating
between specialized jargon and the ordinary vernaculars of lay people.
We can see here how the âmumbo jumboâ of jargon aggravates confusion,
dissonance, and distance between the pregnant woman and the genetic
counselor.
Intentional, objective abstraction from human emotion and bias carried
into this sort of situation is emotionally devastating. To the would-be
mother, her could-be child has been transformed before her very eyes
into a frightening, dangerous risk. Dehumanizing, indeed. But it is not
only dehumanizing, it is also disempowering. In this case, the mother is
rendered powerless at the hands of the genetic counselorâher knowledge
of her body, her womb, and her baby is inconsequential next to the
knowledge of the scientific expert: The Genetic Counselor.
While a certain technicality of scientific language may be inevitable, a
censored, inaccessible, and disempowering dissemination of information
is not.
Science plays host to another class of inaccessible terms, which,
compared to scientific jargon, are largely unknown and unrecognized for
what they are. In 1988, linguist and philosopher Uwe Poerksen wrote a
book called Plastic Words: The Tyranny of a Modular Language which
discusses âplastic wordsâ, named for their plasticity and malleability.
Plastic words stem from the vernacular, migrate into scientific
discourse, and then return to the common tongue[7]. In this migration,
meaning is lost, but in the absence of meaning, these words bear a new
and more dangerous burden: a hollow, powerful aura evoking a sense of
correctness that invites a breathless silence. Poerksenâs plastic words
are imprecise and vague, often interchangeable. For example,
âcommunicationâ can be used to describe many different things: a person
talking to another person, a cat meowing, a smartphone receiving data
from a satellite, etc. More specifically descriptive and contextualized
terms, like talk, meow, or transmit data are eschewed in favor of a
generalizing, less communicative term: communication.
Here are Uwe Poerksenâs plastic words:
accomplishment, basic needs, capitalization, care, center,
communication, consumption, contact, decision, development, education,
energy, exchange, factor, function, future, growth, health, identity,
information, living standard, management, modernization, model, partner,
planning, problem, process, production, productivity, progress, project,
quality, raw material, relationship, resource, role, service, sexuality,
solution, strategy, structure, substance, system, value, work,
workplace[8].
Sound familiar? Iâm certain they do. But what do these words mean?
Resourcesâbe they plant, animal, or mineral? Are they human (resources)
or natural (resources)? Are they growing or shrinking? Are we supposed
to put money into them, or are they our money, already?
Letâs take the plastic word âmanagementâ and unpack it in more depth to
illustrate the ingenious and nefarious characteristics of these sorts of
words. Management is a marriage of the prefix manage and the suffix
ment. Manage originally comes from the Italian maneggiare, from mano
which meant hand, and which comes from the Latin manus. Maneggiare, when
used in the mid-16th century, originally meant: to handle, specifically,
to handle or train a horse. Related is the Spanish manejar, meaning to
use or manipulate. Other early uses of the word management implied
manipulation or trickery[9]. Today, the meaning of management is up for
interpretation. The management of workers is a role that can be hard to
understand, and is far removed from these original definitions. A
managerâs job description will very rarely include the handling of
horses, and while manipulative managers are certainly not unheard of,
most managers will assure you that such practices are as far from their
list of duties as horse training and handling are. In the ecological
realm of invasive species management, management more often than not
refers to the massacre of certain plant or animal species. However,
several usages are not so clear. In Executive Order 13751: Safeguarding
the Nation from the Impacts of Invasive Species, a Management Plan is
revealed, but this plan encompasses many different ideas, including:
(1) provide institutional leadership and priority setting; (2) achieve
effective interagency coordination and cost-efficiency; (3) raise
awareness and motivate action, including through the promotion of
appropriate transparency, community-level consultation, and stakeholder
outreach concerning the benefits and risks to human, animal, or plant
health when controlling or eradicating an invasive species; (4) remove
institutional and policy barriers; (5) assess and strengthen capacities;
and (6) foster scientific, technical, and programmatic innovation[10].
While some ideas of what management refers to in this context can be
discerned through the haze (ie: control of, minimization of, eradication
of, education of, etc), when we reach to grasp for a concrete meaning,
it is as if the word jumps away to signify something else altogether. It
serves as a placeholder for whatever the management will be at any
moment. We see also in these soundbites a handful of other plastic words
(plan, information, health, etc) with obscure intonations that
contribute to a generally vague intention for invasive species
management.
Further, one need only look into another sub-discipline of science to be
made clearly aware that management (as like any other plastic word) is a
master of disguise, with multiple diverse personalities. In the realm of
economics, for example, management will rarely, if ever, refer to
eradication or minimization. We can see different implications for the
word management in the Federal Trade Commission Draft Strategic Plan:
Major Management Priorities and Objectives: The FTCâs management
objectives are incorporated into Strategic Goal 3, Advance the FTCâs
performance through excellence in managing resources, human capital, and
information technology. This Strategic Plan addresses priorities in
areas of human capital management, information technology management and
planning, financial and acquisition management, staff emergency
preparedness, records management and ethics[11].
Here, the meaning of manage or management generally refers to
stimulation, advancement, and encouraged growth, rather than
minimization or eradication. In this comparison, these meanings of
management contradict each other, deflating each antonymic meaning.
So, from these two examples, what could we conclude for a definition of
management? Here, management means: More money; less plants.
Plastic words are siblings of scientific jargon, but not twins. Adoptees
of science, they carry a weighted power of science, but are in fact
weightless in meaning and signification. Weightlessly, they can be
easily transported across radically different concepts, realms, or
disciplines, and still promenade a sense of scientific power. Therefore,
they neatly bridge the pseudo-objective world of science with the
everyday, but they do so covertly and discreetly. They are single words
with countless applications, eradicating or making obsolete their
kindred synonym words or phrases. They erase history and context,
because they replace more precise and accurate explanation with a
solitary empty wordâcollapsing vast histories into definitive words. The
way the words feel and sound, and the power they radiate are far more
important than anything they might mean or suggest. This species of
language, bloated with scientific authority, is yet hollow. Their effect
is a camouflaged confusion; these words sound familiar, but can be so
varied in meaning from context to context, that one cannot truly know
what these words will mean at any given time. Because they lack
consistent meaning, and are simultaneously used by experts or officials
to describe, they make it so that one relies upon those experts in power
to know and understand what is being said. They serve to evoke the taste
of power rather than to clarify or explain.
Plastic words simplify, reduce, and homogenize language, decreasing its
precision and contextual efficacy. These words have intruded into the
common tongue, but do differ from that vernacular lexicon. While
vernacular words similarly can have obscure, difficult-to-grasp
meanings, the context surrounding any vernacular word will ground it.
Plastic words can be slung repeatedly in a single context, and have
varied meanings throughout.
What these plastic words mean is everything and nothing at the same
time. What they mean is science. They mean authority. They mean good.
They mean believe this. Using these words is to seem smart, elite,
powerful, and correct. These words generate silence among recipients of
the messageâthey do not offer room for contestation, conversation,
disagreement, or alternatives, as they are all encompassing in their
vapidity. The audience to this plastic tongue can do nothing but
receive, absorb, and obey. Already alarmed by this silencing tendency of
bureaucratic language in 1966, Situationist Mustapha Khayati describes,
â[âŠ] people no longer even need to talk to each other: their first duty
is to play their role as receivers in the network of informationist
communication to which the whole society is reduced, receivers of orders
they must carry outâ[12]. This silence is a symptom of industrial
language that is certainly not new, and things have only gotten worse.
In sum, plastic words are a species of tyrannical and omnipresent
vocabulary that serve to establish a disguised discord between speaker,
intention, and audience.
Development, for example, is a plastic word, and it bleeds easily into
many disciplines, contexts, and realms. In psychology, there are
step-by-step levels a parent is supposed to track to ensure that their
child achieves the reassuring status of normal child development. A
fetus physically develops in similar step-by-step levels. Building a
building of apartment complexes is also considered development. Film
develops. We can know and recognize the truth in these definitions.
Development is the movement, growth, or act of becoming something
bigger, better, something desirable. And yet, the original definition of
develop comes from the French developer circa the 12th century, and it
means: âto free (a person from something), to unwrap (something), to
unfurl, open out (something)â[13]. Language itself is an amorphous
entity. Like a river, it moves and changes, and routinely rewrites its
course in increments. The development of the word development from its
12th century meaning to a modern understanding of the term itself is not
to be scrutinized or critiqued, at least not by me. What makes this
word, and all plastic words, so treacherous is their camouflage, and
their chameleon application.
Development has many definitions, but above all it has a taste of
something good that is becoming, for the general public or the casual
observer. When something develops, we are made to believe it becomes
better, more valuable, more usable. But this generally positive
understanding of development neglects a darker history, a darker truth
behind the word. We would do well to remember to ask: What is the fate
of the un-developed, the under-developed?
On January 20th, 1945, Harry S. Truman created the word âunderdevelopedâ
when referring to certain areas that make up more than half the world in
his inaugural presidential speech[14]. In this seminal instant, a new
way of seeing the world was born: the worldâs population was set
suddenly on course towards the ultimate goal of becoming developed.
Today, under the banner of development, the United States legitimizes
invasion and intervention of other countries and cultures under the
guise, the euphemism, of development. For an example, we can refer to
George W. Bushâs military campaign of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which
deployed âsome 140,000 U.S. troops deployed in Iraq, in addition to
civilian experts and U.S. contractors, who provide substantial support
to their Iraqi counterparts in the fields of security, governance, and
developmentâ[15]. Total number of Iraqi civilian deaths by violence from
the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom through 2020 is 184,776 â
207,645[16]. As Poerksen writes: âWith a word such as development, one
can ruin an entire regionâ[17]. With a word such as development, the
United States continues its massacre.
Their vernacular origins would seem to make plastic words the inverse of
scientific jargon. Scientific jargon emerges from scientific language
and rarely mingles with the vernacular, whereas plastic words emerge
from the vernacular and comfortably infect both the vernacular and
scientific tongue. Plastic words are general and vague, while scientific
jargon is highly technical and specific. Terms in scientific jargon
retain their meanings consistently in their context, while plastic words
are malleable, morphable, and, well, plastic. However, while they appear
dichotomous in these respects, their exclusionary effects are similar.
They both abstract and distance. Plastic words and scientific jargon
both describe terms that are hard to translate broadly and meaningfully.
However, when we hear scientific jargon, we do not presume to understand
it unless we are well oriented in the sub-discipline of that brand of
scientific jargon. Compared to scientific jargon, plastic words are a
much trickier lexicon, largely because of their widespread use. We tend
to think we know what plastic words mean. They hide in plain sight.
Plastic words act as the abstracting language of that which rules the
world. Scientific language is made intelligible by both a scientific
technical tongue of jargon, whose history is steeped in intentional
obfuscation, and these imprecise, interchangeable, progressive plastic
words.
Plastic words are an amorphous chameleon zombie language, promenading a
promise of something that is correct. They are the writing on the walls
of the tower of Babel, the language of the leviathan, and the native
tongue of the machine. But they are not only omnipresent gibberish.
Plastic words also serve as industrial capitalismâs armor, and are used
to justify almost any action, even as it results in the abuse of people
and planet.
Different languages offer alternative ways of seeing the world. There is
a vast system of meaning, interpreting, and perceiving that exist
uniquely within each culture and language. Each distinct language gives
a wholly unique perspective. As we have already touched upon,
historically Latin was the preferred language of science. Today, English
is the dominant tongue by which the story of science is told. English is
so common in other countries that academic papers written in English
will largely outnumber academic papers written in other countryâs own
languages. A Research Trends study from 2012 has found that 80% of over
21,000 articles coming from 239 different countries were written in
English[18]. Today, not only is there less room for other languages in
the sciences, but also they are fading away, dying off altogether. They
are going extinct. There are approximately 6500 languages spoken today,
but most are tucked away in little distant corners of the world. About
2,000 of extant languages are spoken by less than 1,000 people. It is
believed that within one hundred or two hundred years, global language
count will decrease to just a few hundred[19]. Can it be determined that
the English language dominates and colonizes, as it sweeps across the
world? Poerksen tells us that âFive languages cover almost half the
earth, a hundred languages almost all of it. The universalist
orientation to the nation state destroys the diversity of living
languages. But even these triumphant languages are not the peak of the
linguistic pyramidâ[20]. It is not just English sitting atop this
linguistic pyramid, Poerksen warns us. âThe peak is comprised of that
small and spreading international vocabulary of a hundred, or fifty, or
fifteen wordsâŠâ[21]. He is speaking, of course, of the tyrannical
plastic words, the lexicon of industrial civilization which sit atop,
dominate, and infect languages, across borders and cultures[22].
Industrial civilization seeks to replace the myriad tongues and words of
the world with one globalized machine language that says âI amâ. A
machine language that says nothing and means everything. Wiping out
other words, other cultures, making them obsolete under the banner of
development allows but a single narrative of development to flourish.
The road to scientific knowledge is littered with wide-eyed
corpsesâother ways of seeing. This machine language would have us
synonymize an indigenous way of knowing with obsolete belief systems in
order to negate and destroy the ontological competition. And in this, we
are made to forget that the knowledge of industrial civilization was
itself born from a âlocal system, with its social basis in a particular
culture, class and gender. It is not universal in an epistemological
sense. It is merely the globalized version of a very local and parochial
traditionâ [23]. It is this misappropriation of knowledge whereby we are
made to believe this globalized western thinking is, has been, and
always will be universal. But let us remember, it has not been, and will
not remain!
Scientific knowledge replaces the names of places, plants, and animals
with GPS coordinates, nonsense abbreviations, and dead Latin words.
Global capital puts forward words like sustainable development, and
scientific progress as it genocides the language of the indigenous
community, as well as its people.
It is out of an elitist desire for hegemony that scientific language was
born. Its origins and foundations sought to exclude the commonality, and
the commonality is, as it has always been, left vaguely wondering: What
is it that is being said here? What is it that is being done?
But these are not the questions that we should asking. The questions we
should be asking are, and have always been: Why is this so? How does
this continue to be? And, what else can be done?
We have touched on and tasted the answers to why this is so, and how
this continues to be. What remains is what can be done.
What can be done?
In the end, this is a problem of culture. Unlike jargon, these words are
not exclusive to the scientists. Plastic language is not just another
tool for the geneticists, the chemists, the ecologists, the biologists.
The plastic tongue is rooted in the mouths of politicians, of lawyers,
of journalists, of teachers, of students, of baristas, and retail
workers, and nannies, and dish washers. Of children and of adults. These
words are perilous, omnipresent, and they are often found even on the
tip of your own tongue.
To discourse, argue, or converse in these terms is to concede to
something you may not be consciously conceding to. When there is concern
over normal and abnormal sexuality, we concede that our bodies must have
a sexuality. When we debate about what is good or bad development, we
concede to the development of the world. When we explore good or bad
management techniques, we concede to be managed. When we talk about
dignified or undignified work, we concede that we have to work. Plastic
words are logical fallacies, tautological linguistic riddles with a lost
beginning and no end in sight. They do not invite an answer, because
they are the answer.
These words are the ontology of industrial society which paint a picture
of the world that is to be stripped of its natural resources, to be
dominated by human beings and by poison, and to project us into a
technocratic and capitalist hellscape of an armored, onward, forward
barreling progressive development, one that is commonly referred to as
universally desirable economic growth. This lexicon paints a picture of
the world that seeks to carve us into digestible, interpretable data,
that wants to police our bodies, our minds, and our spirit.
These words are the names of concepts not to be questioned, but to be
categorized, compartmentalized, studied, and praised, and when these
words so smoothly slip off our tongues, we are made to play our part in
a linguistic concession of these ideals of industrial civilization. The
world we are made to see is painted by these words. At every level,
these words and what they stand for are taken for granted as how the
world really is. When something is this unquestionable, it becomes a
cultural truth.
What can be done?
This essay offers the preliminary tear into the veils of this dead
machine language that massacres us and renders us blind and subject.
This essay isnât an answer, but it should serve to remind us that this
is a linguistic pandemic. The language it uses, the narratives it speaks
to us, and the world these words weave is surreptitiously infectious,
and is an illness that we would do well to heal from. This essay reminds
us that these words paint just a single picture, weave just a single
world, tell just a single story that is but one way of seeing, and it is
a way that is false, forged, and temporary. This is the lexicon of
industrial civilizationâs story, a story of its own importance and
infallibility. And this is a story that can be rewritten.
What can be done?
We can challenge that story of industrial capitalism, and we can
challenge its favorite words, cast them aside, contest their
incontestability. To challenge that story is to begin to rewrite it.
What can be done?
What we can do is begin to ask other questions. We can ask: What other
words are possible? We can ask: What other worlds are possible? What we
can do, in response to these questions, is to begin to come up with
answers.
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20-20. doi:10.1002/cind.801_7.x.
Conners, C. (2005). A Peopleâs History of Science. New York: Nation.
Daston, L. and Galison, P. (1992). The Image of Objectivity.
Representations, 0(40), pp.81-128.
Dale, Catherine. 2009. Operation Iraqi Freedom: Strategies, Approaches,
Results, And Issues for Congress. Ebook.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34387.pdf.
Executive Office of the President. 2016. Safeguarding The Nation From
The Impacts Of Invasive Species.
Federal Trade Commission. 2018. Federal Trade Commission Strategic Plan
For Fiscal Years 2018 To 2022.
Gilbert, J. and Stocklmayer, S. (2013). Communication and Engagement
with Science and
Technology. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, p.viii-x.
Huttner-Koros, A. (2015). The Hidden Bias of Scienceâs Universal
Language: The Vast Majority
of Scientific Papers Today are Published in English. What Gets Lost When
Other Languages Get Left Out?. The Atlantic.
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https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/.
Knabb, Ken. 2006. Situationist International Anthology. Berkley, CA:
Bureau of Public Secrets.
Poerksen, U. (2004). Plastic Words (David, C. and Jutta, M. Trans.)
University Park:
Pennsylvania State Univ.
Rakedzon, T., Segev, E., Chapnik, N., Yosef, R., & Baram-Tsabari, A.
(2017). Automatic Jargon
Identifier for Scientists Engaging with the Public and Science
Communication Educators. PloS one, 12(8), e0181742.
Rosenberg, J. (2012). Scientific Jargon. Durham: Duke University.
Sachs, W. (1999). Planet Dialectics. New York: Zed Books.
Shiva, V. (1993). Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity
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Stivers, R. (2006). Technology as Magic. New York: Continuum.
[1] Gilbert & Stocklmayer 2012 and Daston & Galison 2009
[2] Conners 2005: 306
[3] Conners 2005: 362
[4] Conners 2005: 362
[5] Stivers 2006
[6] Rakedzon et al. 2017
[7] By vernacular, I mean the common, colloquial language used by people
in everyday conversation.
[8] Poerksen 2004: 62
[9] Poerksen 2004: 62
[10] Poerksen 2004: 62
[11] Poerksen 2004: 62
[12] Khayati 1966: 222
[13] OED 2019
[14] Sachs 1999
[15] Dale 2009: I (italics mine)
[16] âIraq Body Countâ 2020
[17] Poerksen 2004: 7
[18] Poerksen 2004: 2
[19] Sachs, 1999
[20] Poerksen 2004: 2
[21] Poerksen 2004: 2
[22] It is interesting to note that Uwe Poerksenâs Plastic Words was
written originally in German, and his âdiscoveryâ of these words
occurred when he attended a talk on the necessity of development in
Latin American countries. The talk was in Spanish. These words seem to
bleed into both a wide variety of disciplines as well as other languages
with colonialist intention and unsettling ease (not to mention common
conversation!).
[23] Poerksen 2004: 7