Re: virus: Memohazard (?) Symbol

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@calweb.com)
Mon, 24 Mar 1997 18:42:17 -0800 (PST)


> Even the redoubtable coiner of the term would be hard-pressed to call it
> a 'hard' science.... I mean, wouldn't that mean you could _show_ me one?

Nonsense. I can't show you a gene either, but I can make mathematical
models of them, and point to their effects. I can point to the very
real effects of memes too: languages, foods, lifestyles. I could
chart the spread of a meme like, say, use of lemon grass in cooking,
exactly the way I might trace the spread of a pathogen. The science is
young, so there is little objective raw data, but it will come.

> And why _memo_ hazard? The only memo hazard I know about is getting one
> on a Friday afternoon....

By analogy to radio- and bio-. Ideo- would be OK, I guess, but I
kind of like the unobvious pronunciation of memo- (which I would
pronounce with a long e).

-- 
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com>  <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC