Wetware

Have you ever heard of “wetware”? A while back I subscribed to Merriam Webster’s “Word of the Day,” and yesterday’s word was “wetware.” It means “the human brain or a human being considered especially with respect to human logical and computational capabilities.” That’s a pretty interesting word. I’m going to have to use it sometime.

MW says, “When the computer terms ‘software’ and ‘hardware’ sprang to life in the mid-20th century, a surge of visions and inventions using the new technology immediately followed… along with a revival of the combining form ‘ware.’ An early coinage was ‘wetware,’ which began circuiting techie circles in the 1970s as a name for the software installed by Mother Nature (a.k.a. the brain).”

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