robot etymology in dispute? (not by much)

[AAllan at AOL.COM]

It's a good thing somebody wrote this book that tells the story:

_The World in So Many Words_ by Allan Metcalf (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) in the
entry for Czech:

Czech: robot

   The Frankenstein monster of 19th century science, brought to life in Mary
Shelley's novel of that name, was an English creation in a Swiss setting. The
monster of 20th century science, the robot, was a Czech creation in an
English setting.
   Like Frankenstein's humanoid, the robot was created not in a scientist's
laboratory but in the literary imagination. It was the work of Czech brothers
Josef and Karel Capek. Josef invented the robot for a short story of 1917;
Karel made the word famous in his world-famous 1921 play R.U.R. Although the
play was in Czech, the word robot was used in English in the name of the
company that manufactures robots and that gives the play its title, Rossums
Universal Robots. Capek chose English, the most international of languages,
to emphasize the world-wide effects of modern science and technology.
   Robot comes from the Czech (and Russian) word for forced labor. But
Capek's robots, who did all the work in his imagined world, weren't forced
labor. They were imitation humans, designed to want to work while humans sat
back and enjoyed life. Lacking the fulfillment of work, the humans in the
play become sterile and then victims of a world-wide robot rebellion.
Ironically, the victorious robots take on human characteristics. They learn
to love and procreate, and life goes on.
   In 1923, with the play translated into English, robots were the talk of
the English-speaking world. These first robots, creatures of the literary
imagination, were fearsome because they were nearly human. In R.U.R, a
visitor to the factory can't tell robots from humans. . . .

Sources:

Harkins, William E. Karel Capek. New York: Columbia U. Press, 1962.
The Brothers Capek. R.U.R. and The Insect Play. London: Oxford U. Press, 1961.

- Allan Metcalf