From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Mon Jun 26 2000 - 14:36:12 MDT
T0Morrow@aol.com wrote:
>With all due respect to Max (and he's due a *lot* of respect), I think that
>he bends too far backwards in crediting Brian or anyone else with exclusive
>rights to "ultrahuman." Max appears to have forgotten that years ago he and
>I made a game of combining, tinkertoy fashion, prefixes like "ultra-,"
>"alta-," "super," and "mega," with suffixes like "-human," "-man," "-ology,"
>and "-osphy." We did so in good fun, laughing at some of the ridiculous
>words that resulted; we did not credit ourselves with creative genius (at
>least not on *that* count!).
>
>No one can lay any just claim to the obvious and descriptive term
>"ultrahuman" unless and until they have, by dint of long and open use, turned
>it into a trade- or servicemark. I think that claims of ownership based on
>anything less merit either derision or condescending sympathy.
>
>Tom
I find that the word "ultra-human" has been in use for centuries.
From my Oxford English Dictionary, under the prefix "ultra-", definition 2:
With adjs., signifying 'going beyond, surpassing, or
transcending the limits of' (the specified concept) as
ultra-human,[....]
Citations of examples include:
1818 Coleridge in Lit. Rem. (1836) I.185 "All other super or
ultra-human beings."
1856 R.A.Vaughan _Mystics_ (1860) I.99 "The intellectual
refinements of an ultra-human spiritualism."
1883 Jefferies _Story of my Heart_. 63 "All things being
ultra-human and without design."
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> IBM Certified Senior Security Consultant, Legal Hacker, Engineer, Research Scientist, Author.
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