Talk:unobtainium
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Etymology[edit]
@Three-quarter-ten: regarding your recent edit to the etymology, I just wanted to mention that OED Online specifically mentions that the entry word is modelled after uranium, even if Lexico doesn’t. On the other hand, titanium isn’t mentioned. — SGconlaw (talk) 03:45, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
- Hi, Yes, I figured that that might well be true, although I lacked paywall access to OED to confirm it. I totally understand. The core point I wanted to convey in my edit summary is that, regardless of whether any editors or contributors of the OED were or are aware of it—which they easily may not be if they don't have manufacturing and engineering background, and that's OK—the word titanium was just as much an influence on the jocular coining of the word unobtainium (and, I would bet money, slightly more proximal of an influence) as was the word uranium. When one looks at some of the earliest attestations of unobtainium in Google Books search results as of today, they are from circa the late 1950s and they come from aerospace engineering and manufacturing, and that's right at the time when titanium was beginning to be more of a thing in aerospace manufacturing but it was still an expensive and slightly exotic material. Thus you would have missile and aircraft developers of that day making decisions about whether to make a particular part from aluminum instead of titanium (i.e., when is the more expensive material truly worth it or necessary) and joking about parts being made of ridiculously expensive materials. A theme that still applies today, of course, although the instances have moved on, as titanium is not as rare commercially anymore (but other, newer materials, such as particular composites, now hold such scarce position). I just didn't want Wiktionary to omit the obvious (and most relevant) connection. I realize that it would be ideal to have written explication proving this point, to be cited, but until such proof is dug up—if it exists—there is validity in Wiktionary's acknowledging the likelihood, as countless dictionary etymologies do whenever they say that word X is "probably from Y" or "perhaps influenced by Z". I just wanted to duly explain my edit so that no one would unduly obliterate it for lack of exhaustive proof. Thanks for recognizing that it was a valid addition and should not be unduly deleted. — ¾-10 18:48, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
- @Three-quarter-ten: thanks for the explanation. Generally I tend to err on the side of caution and avoid adding information that isn't well sourced (and you will have noticed that the 1962 quotation the entry relates to an atomic energy context), but in this case it is plausible that titanium influenced the development of the word. Could you highlight some of these late-1950s quotations? We could add them to the entry. — SGconlaw (talk) 06:35, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
- Hi, Yes, I figured that that might well be true, although I lacked paywall access to OED to confirm it. I totally understand. The core point I wanted to convey in my edit summary is that, regardless of whether any editors or contributors of the OED were or are aware of it—which they easily may not be if they don't have manufacturing and engineering background, and that's OK—the word titanium was just as much an influence on the jocular coining of the word unobtainium (and, I would bet money, slightly more proximal of an influence) as was the word uranium. When one looks at some of the earliest attestations of unobtainium in Google Books search results as of today, they are from circa the late 1950s and they come from aerospace engineering and manufacturing, and that's right at the time when titanium was beginning to be more of a thing in aerospace manufacturing but it was still an expensive and slightly exotic material. Thus you would have missile and aircraft developers of that day making decisions about whether to make a particular part from aluminum instead of titanium (i.e., when is the more expensive material truly worth it or necessary) and joking about parts being made of ridiculously expensive materials. A theme that still applies today, of course, although the instances have moved on, as titanium is not as rare commercially anymore (but other, newer materials, such as particular composites, now hold such scarce position). I just didn't want Wiktionary to omit the obvious (and most relevant) connection. I realize that it would be ideal to have written explication proving this point, to be cited, but until such proof is dug up—if it exists—there is validity in Wiktionary's acknowledging the likelihood, as countless dictionary etymologies do whenever they say that word X is "probably from Y" or "perhaps influenced by Z". I just wanted to duly explain my edit so that no one would unduly obliterate it for lack of exhaustive proof. Thanks for recognizing that it was a valid addition and should not be unduly deleted. — ¾-10 18:48, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
- I added some. The same search parameters except spelling variant unobtanium instead of unobtainium also produce dozens of hits over the decades, most after 1990, but a few back to 1958. I just want to acknowledge here that the spelling of /ˈteɪ.nɪ.əm/ titanium parallels the spelling of /ˈteɪ.nɪ.əm/ in unobtanium, even more than /ˈeɪ.nɪ.əm/ alone in uranium. Not that that "proves" anything definitively about influence, but it is nonetheless something in terms of linguistic probabilities—as much probability as linguists usually get in terms of definitiveness of "proof" in etymologies. — ¾-10 19:10, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Not synonymous to handwavium[edit]
Handwavium is a fictional substance which (typically in a sci-fi story) exists and solves a problem. Unobtainium is a substance, which (in the real world) does not exist, but could solve a problem if it was available.