Ming and his classmate Mark continue talking about words created by authors.
Ming: Hi, Mark. Can you tell me some more of those words?
Mark: You mean the ones coined by authors?
Ming: "Coined." Does that mean they made them up?
Mark: Basically, yes. Here goes: I know you love science. Do you know what a "quark" is?
Ming: Sure. One of the tiny things that makes up protons and neutrons and stuff.
Mark: That's right. Sort of the "building blocks" of matter. Well, the scientist who named them got the word from a book by James Joyce.
Ming: Ugh, another author whose books are hard to read!
Mark: That's right, and this word came from "Finnegan's Wake," his toughest.
Ming: What's the meaning there?
Mark: Well, the line is, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!" A "quark" there might be the call of a seagull--but it could be a mispronunciation of "quart," in which case it meant a beer!
Ming: These things are so complex.
Mark: I know. But language is seldom simple and straightforward. It's filled with hidden meanings and nuances.
Ming: That makes it hard to learn.
Mark: It sure does! The next word is one we've talked about recently, "utopia."
Ming: Oh! A word for a perfect place, but it really means "nowhere." It was coined by... Sir Thomas More?
Mark: That's right!
Ming: At last--one I know!
Mark: Good for you. Here's another: "tintinnabulation."
Ming: What?
Mark: It probably comes from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe called "The Bells."
Ming: Oh, so it's the sound of a bell?
Mark: That's right.
Ming: What do you call that kind of word that sounds like what it is? Like "bang" and "beep?"
Mark: "Onomatopoeia."
Ming: Oh, yeah, I remember now. So "tintinnabulation" is onomatopoeic.
Mark: Yes, it is. Here's another word: "grok." It means to fully understand something, to grasp it so completely that you almost become a part of it.
Ming: I don't get it.
Mark: Imagine two people in love, who are so in tune with each other that they finish each others' sentences. You could say they "grok each other."
Ming: Would it have to be lovers?
Mark: No, it could be grasping an idea, or something like that. It comes from a science fiction book, "Stranger in a Strange Land," by Robert A. Heinlein.
Ming: Sounds kind of spacey.
Mark: And speaking of space: how about "cyberspace?"
Ming: Really? That was coined by an author?
Mark: Yes, it was in the science fiction works of William Gibson in the 1980s, and had the same meaning we use for it today.
Ming: The "virtual world" of the internet, right?
Mark: That's right.
Ming: Well, thanks, Mark. These are some great words!
Mark: My pleasure.
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