Tron

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:48 AM -0500 1/26/01, D. Ezra Johnson wrote:
>I had a teacher in elementary school  (late '80's) who, somewhat jokingly,
>used "Walktron" to avoid the gender implications of "Walkman".
>
>How did this morpheme "Tron" acquire the approximate meaning of
>"gender-neutral, not to say robotic, agent"?
>
>If it originates in "automaton" we need to explain the "r".
>
>I think the origin of the form is "electron" (and "neutron") -- from there
>we got other formations like "positron" and of course "electronic".
>
I realized after I sent my earlier message linking "waitron" to
"electron", "neutron", and "automatron" [sic] that I had blended
these other -trons with "automaton".  But a quick check of google
turns up 42 other hits on "automatron", so I'm not alone.  For those
in the rhotic dialect of "automat(r)on", there's no -r- (in
"waitron") to explain.

larry

P.S.  for me, but not for all those responsible for the google hits,
an automatron is more like a robot, or at least a concrete
reification of the idea.  I would never refer to a "finite state
automatron" or to the theory of "automatra".