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1/09/2003
From: Albert L. Weeks
To: info@d902.iki.rssi.ru
Date: Tuesday, September 2, 2003, 8:42:37 PM
Subject: Coinage of "sputnik"
Dear Sirs:
I thought this firsthand narrative
might interest you.
Curiously, it was not the Russians, it was Newsweek
magazine that coined "sputnik."
In their first dispatches about their space achievement--
which we saw on the "A-wire" at Newsweek when I worked
on the Science Desk--they referred to the little beeper
by its initials, ISZ (Iskusstvenniy sputnik zemlyi]--literally,
artificial Earth companion), not as "Sputnik." Since I was
the only Russian-speaking staffer around that day--Oct. 4--
when a decision had to be made as to what to call this
"thing," I was asked by the Managing Editor, Gordon
Manning, about what expression to use.
Manning: "Al, what're we going to call it?"
Weeks: "Well, we could go with `ISZ.' But that looks
rather meaningless, I think. Let's pick up on `sputnik.' "
Manning: "What does `sputnik' mean?"
Weeks: "It can mean traveling companion, or satellite.
`Poputchik' means fellow-traveler. But that's different."
Manning: "We'll go with `sputnik." He pronounced it
"sputt-nik."
So, in the Oct. 14th, 1957 number of Newsweek with
the big cover story on the space feat, the writers, including
myself, used simply "sputnik." Other publications and
Moscow news releases used the full form of ISZ. Later they
adopted "sputnik." Still later Sputnik became the name
of a Reader's Digest-size Moscow monthly magazine.
On the 40th anniversary of the launching of Spoutnik I,
The St.-Petersburg Times (FL) and the Sarasota Herald-
Tribune (FL), noted this coinage in their Sputnik
commemorative pieces.
Confirmation of this first use of "sputnik" may be
found in several places. Webster's International credits
Newsweek with first use. The New York Times, second.
I wrote a full description of this and the Soviet space
achievement in a long article published in a 1979 issue
of the monthly Military Science & Technology journal.
Inter alia in the piece, besides going into the technological
aspects of building and launching of the satellite, I
describe the U.S. reaction to Sputnik, the excitement
and alarm, the staff meeting at Newsweek where we--
well, myself, in fact--chose "sputnik" as the name of the
world's first artificial Earth satellite.
I have xeroxes of all the supporting material by way of
"authentication" for what I described above, including
Newsweek's masthead showing my name; the paragraph
in which "sputnik" was first used; the definition and
origin given for the term in Webster's International
Dictionary showing Newsweek's first use. I can provide
anyone with these documents.
AL
18/05/2002
30/03/2002
25/10/2001
1/09/2001
15/04/2000
1/04/2000
01/07/2000
06/06/2000
06/05/2000
05/05/2000
1/05/2000
20/01/2000
На сервере "КЦСМ" ( Московское зеркало
) начала работать информационная система,
содержащая информацию о позициях и промысловой деятельности судов. В системе
содержится как оперативная, так и ретроспективная информация.
12/1/2000
1999 and earlier
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