Technology and the Power of Words

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When the Spanish brought horses to the Americas, the indigenous peoples were stunned by these enormous animals. They were as big and fast as deer, elk, or buffalo. But they weren’t wild animals. They were domesticated. They were useful.

So naturally they called these new creatures … “dogs.”

Or rather, different indigenous peoples speaking different languages called horses some variation of whatever their word for “dog” was. There was “big dog,” “mystery dog,” “elk dog,” “sky dog,” “holy dog” and others. But in language after language, the core used to name horses was “dog.”

That may seem a little odd but it fits neatly with the history of technology right up to the present day.

Whenever some new thing comes along, people routinely give it a name that connects it to an old thing that is similar in ways that matter to those people. It’s not identical to the old thing. But it is like the old thing. The name is an analogy.

When engines were first put in carriages, making the carriages capable of moving without a horse, they weren’t called “automobiles,” much less “cars.” They were “horseless carriages.” Like carriages. But without horses.

When electric signals were first sent through the air via radio waves, the technology wasn't called “radio.” It was the “wireless telegraph.” Like the telegraph. But without wires.

For the indigenous peoples of the Americas, dogs were a unique animal in that they were domesticated and could be put to good use. When the horse came along, they saw that it, too, was domesticated and could be put to good use. So in that sense, it was like a dog. But different.

Labelling new things by analogy is common. So common, in fact, it’s tempting to say it’s universal, but I don’t actually know that. (If anyone can direct me to the relevant literature, you would have my thanks.)

It’s clear why we do it: It allows us to take an existing mental model of some old thing that we understand well (dogs ease the burden of work and make us more mobile) and apply it to the new thing we don’t understand so we can quickly boost our understanding, make decisions, take actions, and learn more: What are these strange new “sky dogs”? They ease the burden of work and make us more mobile. Obviously. Now let’s use them the way we use dogs. Tie a travois to one. When we have experience using them, that experience may suggest other uses.

It’s a smart approach. There is, however, a downside.

When we apply an existing mental model to a new thing, we see the new thing through that lens — and potentially fail to see how the new thing is quite different from the old thing and how it could be used in different ways. With experience and time we may eventually figure out new uses. But we may not see them at first because our mental model is getting in the way.

The “horseless carriage” is the most famous example of this. Early cars looked like carriages. Exactly like carriages. Why wouldn’t they? After all, they were carriages without horses. So of course they would be designed like carriages. But the forms carriages took was the product of long experience pulling carriages with horses. Remove the horses and new possibilities open up. But it took ages before people started to realize that. Calling these new things “automobiles” or “cars” helped — because that encouraged people to think of them as their own category.

Similarly, “wireless telegraphy” all but demanded that we think of radio as being a telegraph without wires. What is a telegraph? It transmits information from one point to another. So that’s what this new thing must be used for. Except “wireless telegraphy” transmitted information across a whole region and any number of people with a receiver could get that information simultaneously. Initially, technologists thought this lack of privacy was a major flaw in the new technology. It took more than a decade for people to even start to think, “hey, maybe the fact that it spreads far and wide and many people can listen at the same time isn’t a bad thing. In fact, maybe we could use that in interesting new ways.” That’s when the word “broadcasting” was born. (And what was “broadcasting”? Another analogy: It comes from agriculture. “Broadcasting” is the sowing of seeds by widely scattering many seeds, as opposed to dropping them one by one.)

There’s a term in psychology for this phenomenon. It’s “functional fixedness.” It means, in essence, that once we are told the function of an object, our perceptions of how that object could be used narrow. In lab tests, psychologists have shown that if you simply show people an object without saying what its function is, then ask them to imagine various ways they can use it, they will come up with more uses for it than if you initially say what the object’s function is and ask them to dream up more ways to use it.

As the reader may have gathered, I find this whole story fascinating and I’m collecting examples of the influence language has on how we see and use technology. Any suggestions? Please leave a comment below and help me thicken the file.