Mysteries of vernacular: Robot, a machine capable of carrying out a series of programmable actions. The origin of the word “robot” dates back more than a thousand years to the era of serfdom in Europe when servitude was the currency for rent. At the time, the word “rabota”, in Old Church Slavonic, described the forced labor of the people. A slight change in spelling, and rabota became robota in Czech, which, in addition to defining the toil of the serfs, was also used figuratively to describe any kind of hard work or drudgery. In 1920, Czech writer Karel Capek published a science fiction play called “R.U.R.“, short for “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” The story featured automated machines with distinctly human traits that, until they revolt, catered to the whims of the earthlings. Originally, Capek had considered calling these hard-working machines labori from the Latin word for labor, but he was afraid that it would ring a little too academic. He opted, instead, to emphasize their enslaved state by naming them “roboti”, or robot in English [and in French]. “R.U.R.” was wildly successful, and when it was translated into English in 1923, the word robot was enthusiastically adopted. Although most of today’s robots look quite different than Capek imagined, they’ve become just as popular as he predicted. However, unlike R.U.R., our robots have not yet rebelled against us, and here’s hoping it stays that way!