In the new program of Europe 1, "Historically yours", Stéphane Bern looks at the roots of an expression or a phrase of everyday life.
Tuesday, he is interested in the origin of the word "computer", which had another meaning in the French language before being used to describe the electronic machine.
27 years ago, to the day, Google legally registered the name "google.fr"
.
On this occasion, Stéphane Bern, who every day in
Historically yours
with Matthieu Noël dissects a word that we use every day without always knowing its origin, looks at “the computer”.
“Originally 'Googol' was a mathematical term corresponding to 10 to the power of 100, which is a 1 with 100 zero behind. The two founders of the Google brand, under the age of 30, first called their engine project Search for 'back rub', which means 'back massage' ... go figure! Legend has it that when they filed 'Googol', a typo turned the name into 'Google'.
>> Find the shows of Matthieu Noël and Stéphane Bern in replay and podcast here
What is certain is that everyone today uses this search engine on their computer.
And precisely, why do we say 'computer'?
Well it is the French Jacques Perret, Latinist and philologist (the one who studies a language and its literature), who proposed this word to IBM when the company was preparing to market a new machine, the IBM 650 In the United States, this is called a 'computer' which can be translated as 'calculator'.
"Congester", "digester" and "synthesizer" have been proposed without success
Before 'computer', the professor at the Sorbonne will unsuccessfully offer 'congester', 'digester' and 'synthesizer'.
Finally, 'computer' is chosen because it has the Latin root 'ordinat' which means 'order'.
'Computer' is therefore a word that already exists.
It is, according to Littré, an adjective fallen into disuse meaning 'God who puts order in the world'.
In 1955, the word was adopted.
But have our computers succeeded in bringing order to our world?
I give everyone the freedom of their opinion. "