WHEN computer programmers needed more than bytes to denote information, two bits became a tayste, four a nybble, 16 a chawmp and 32 a dynner. Keats’s survey of the ways in which science and technology shape language is clever and humorous, but he also has a deeper point to make: there is, he says, “a remarkable symbiosis between scientific and lexical innovation, a potent co-evolution”. Whether you are among the people or the tweeple, you are sure to be educated and entertained.
Virtual Words: Language on the edge of science and technology
Oxford University Press
