All knowledge is contained somewhere
Mar. 15th, 2009 01:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
womzillaYears ago, I was reading a collection of obscure and obsolete words. It was not mine; I remember reading it in the apartment of my college roommate, Michael V. Grubb.
One of the definitions was something like "a board with the letters of the alphabet, used to facilitate communication by the deaf or mute"--that is, a board on which someone could point out letters, to spell words.
The word was, I swear, "ansible".
I have never found any confirmation of this origin of the word. Can anyone confirm or refute my memory?
One of the definitions was something like "a board with the letters of the alphabet, used to facilitate communication by the deaf or mute"--that is, a board on which someone could point out letters, to spell words.
The word was, I swear, "ansible".
I have never found any confirmation of this origin of the word. Can anyone confirm or refute my memory?
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Date: 2009-03-15 05:24 am (UTC)Wikipedia says it was coined by Le Guin in 1966, which is what I had always heard, and it makes no mention of any definition other than the FTL communication device.
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Date: 2009-03-15 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-15 12:09 pm (UTC)Perhaps they were trying to facilitate communication with the deaf or mute over interstellar distances. That would be cool.