Rick: "Quantum carburetor"? Jesus Morty, you can't just add a sci-fi word to a car word and hope it means something. Huh.. looks like something's wrong with the microverse-battery.
Out of the confusing twists and turns of Techno Babble and Expo Speak come the Sci-Fi Name Buzzwords. These are short word components that can be clicked onto an existing word portmanteau style to make it sound more sciencey.
These tend to rise and fall in favor over time. Using one from a different era can give your technology a retro, period feel. Occurs frequently in Steampunk, based on the perception that it was common to name things using Latin compound words, e.g. quadro-velocipede, electro-fulminator (both from Legend). This was actually a feature of Georgian scientific culture, which is what Lovecraft was imitating.
Very common in German translations of English SF titles (astonishingly, the new fad of "The Title Which Was Overly Long And Really Pathetic" has never took off in SF, so this trope will probably stay note ).
Tack on more than two, and you're off in parody land.
A Super-Trope to Space "X", Photoprotoneutron Torpedo, SI Prefix Name. Contrast Scary Science Words.
- General
- mechano- (early 20th century)
- electro- (1910 or so)
- morpho-
- dyna-
- gravi-
- robo- (since the 1920s)
- atomic (particularly during the 1950s)
- cyber- (relatively new, since the 1960s)
- compu- (predates cyber-)
- neuro-
- cyclo-
- synchro-
- turbo-
- meta- (lit. "above", colloquially "beyond" or "about/to itself")
- -tron
- -tor
- -ite (for minerals/ores)
- -ium (for elements)
- e-
- i- (and it must always be lowercase i, then capital, eg iCarly)
- -oid (like, but not quite the same, e.g. humanoid, jokeoid)
- -izer (mostly for ray guns)
- -inator
- matrix
- fusion (possibly used in conjunction with "core" and/or "crystallic". Or if something goes wrong, the words "reactor", "self-destruct" and/or "meltdown")
- SI scale units
- macro- (big)
- mega- (millions)
- giga- (billions)
- tera- (trillions)
- peta- (quadrillions)
- micro- (small)
- nano- (even smaller, see Nanomachines)
- pico- (smaller still)
- femto- (really small)
- Particles
- atomic (in The '50s, everything was atomic)
- nuclear
- nucleo-
- quantum
- photon
- proton
- neutron
- electron
- molecular
- positron
- tachyon
- lambda
- muon
- ion
- particle (used unqualified)
- Beams
- laser
- graser (like a laser, but with gamma rays!)
- maser (like a laser, but with microwaves!note )
- uvaser (Like a laser, but it'll cause instant terminal sunburn!)
- iraser (Like a laser, but in infrared!)
- xaser (blah, blah, blah, x-rays!)
- taser
- phaser
- blazer
- stazer
- bananafanafofaser
- Gauss
- laser
- Outer Space
- space-
- -space (Hyperspace, Slipspace, Subspace...)
- star
- galactic/intergalactic
- vortex
- astro-
- cosmo-
- hyper-
- warp
- phase
- (sub)orbit(al)
- planetary/interplanetary
- stellar/interstellar
- flux
- drive (NASA spacecraft engines are called "engines." You never hear of a 747 powered by a "jet drive", do you?)
- (function or location) node
- Steampunk
- apparatus
- pneumatic
- gyro-
- aether
- magna- or magneto-
- -graph
Examples:
Non-Fiction
- Gardner Dozois: In his 1976 how-to-write-SF article "Living the future: You are what you eat!", gives a good tirade that culminated with this (cue the author's Sarcasm Mode):
"Well, after all, science fiction is pretty easy to write, isn't it? It's just a matter of using fancy names—just change the names, apply a thin layer of technologese and jargon, right? Say 'helicar' instead of car, 'helipad' instead of driveway, 'tri-vid' instead of television, 'feelies' (or 'smellies,' or 'grabbies') instead of movies. Better still, use the word 'space' as a prefix for everything: spacesuit, spacegun, spacehelmet, spacehouse, spacedog, spacecow. ... Right? Just change the names and you can write a confession-magazine love story, a cowboy story, a gothic, or a nurse novel, and sell it as science fiction. Right?"
