1923, “mechanical person,” also “person whose work or activities are entirely mechanical,” from the English translation of the 1920 play “R.U.R.” (“Rossum’s Universal Robots”) by Karel Capek (1890-1938), from Czech robotnik “forced worker,” from robota “forced labor, compulsory service, drudgery,” from robotiti “to work, drudge,” from an Old Czech source akin to Old Church Slavonic rabota “servitude,” from rabu “slave” (from Old Slavic *orbu-, from PIE *orbh- “pass from one status to another;” see orphan).
TIL Clanka is less derogatory than robot. Kind of reminds me of when I googled what the slur for Irish people (cuz family) is and found out IRISH is a fucking slur.
Clanker?
I think Irish just means “of Eire” which is the name of the country. Like Danish or Swedish, or Finnish.
But Danish is a slur!
Signed: Sweden 😁
IRISH is a fucking slur
That’s something you’ll have to elaborate on.
Some Middle English forms of the word suggest influence of (or punning on) Old French irais, irois “wrathful, bad-tempered” (literally “ire-ous”) and Irais “Irish.”
That’s what I found but didn’t dig further. Seems kinda flimsy but I’m no expert
What are you, Irish?
Do you mean Irishman, along the lines of Chinaman? That’s interesting.
I recently learned this while learning about the reforms Maria Theresa made during her reign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Patent
On some estates, the landlords demanded that the peasants work up to seven days per week in tilling the nobles’ land, so that the only time available for the peasants to till their own land was at night.
She enacted a system to convert the labour contracts into leases (Raabisation), which worked well, but
The nobles also claimed that the system of forced labour had no connection with the peasants’ poverty, which was a result of the peasants’ own wastefulness and the increased royal taxes.
At one point her finance minister attempted to make the nobles also pay taxes.
This all sounds familiar.
That’s why education is so important. I know you know that, just stating the obvious
