Space Exploration Terms

O UR SOURCES OF NEW WORDS are as varied as the people who inhabit our planet. A major wellspring for the growth of the English language is the realm of science-particularly space science. Like every new endeavor in man's history, space exploration has brought with it a new vocabulary which is being used by specialists and amateurs alike. The science fiction of the past has become the science history of today. Terms have been formed in various ways. Of the terms collected chiefly during 1965 and 1966 from newspapers, magazines, both scientific and nonscientific, publications that deal with aeronautics and those that do not, and from an occasional book, the largest number is made up of compounds, such as moonship, spaceport, spacewalk, lunar orbiter, and soarplane. Of 103 compounds 79 were nouns, as twin flight and launch pad; 23 were adjectives, illustrated by moonbound and earth-orbiting; and 3 were verbs, seen in soft-land and splash-land. The next largest group of terms consists of acronyms, such as IVMP (interplanetary monitoring platform), MOL (manned orbiting laboratory), and OAO (orbiting astronomical observatory). They are 37 in number. The third largest group (28) is that formed by affixes, 23 by means of prefixes as astromedicine and paradiver and 5 by means of suffixes, illustrated in capsuleful and spacemanship. Seven of the terms are blends, seen in Apollonaut (Apollo + astronaut) and earthscape (earth + landscape). Functional shift produced 4, shown in go as a noun and layer cake as an adjective. Some terms, 6 in number, have taken their names from people, either real or fictitious, and a bird: coriolis effect, Gulliver, and kiwi. Metaphor added 1 word: 8-ball; slang contributed drop dead as an adjective and glitches, a noun; and clipping accounted for nuke, from nuclear. Another group of 24 terms shows shifts in association of meaning. There has been an extension of meaning to the space world, as seen in capsule for any spacecraft or in the names of the unmanned space probes of Mars, Venus, and the moon by our Surveyors and Voyagers. These are only some of the terms that we now encounter as we read our newspapers and magazines or listen to the radio or television. Daily others are being added. This selected list follows

Linguistics · Space Exploration and Technology · Philosophy

• American Lexicology, 1942-1973

  James B Mcmillan•American Speech•1978

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