Inquiry: Jonathon Keats: VIRTUAL WORDS: LANGUAGE ON THE EDGE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

New words and concepts like “unparticles”, “Anthopocene” , “qubit”, “mashup”, and “cloud computing” seem to be generated every day and become common parlance in science, computing and technology circles. Where do these words come from? Why do some words succeed in becoming popular while others just fade away? Tonight’s guest is JONATHON KEATS, an artist and writer, who writes the Jargon Watch column for WIRED magazine. His new book, VIRTUAL WORDS: LANGUAGE ON THE EDGE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY is a series of thought-provoking explorations and meditations on the meaning and social impact of this new virtual lexicon. Tune in and learn why Hormel likes Monty Python but not certain anti-Spam filters.