Steven Pinker writes on language and how what it reveals about how the world works (and how we grasp how the world works). Pinker has not yet tackled tensegrity, unfortunately, so I have to try myself. In this post, the issues that I would like considered in such a linguistic study.
It would begin with the roots of the terms used in this semantic space: tension, compression, integrity, floating and weaving. It would expand outwards from there.
Tensegrity is tension integrity.
Anyone researching tensegrity either discovers fairly early on that tensegrity is the contraction of tension and integrity. Fuller coined the term to highlight the innovative deployment of tension and compression in these structures. Snelson called them floating islands of compression or weaving.
Fuller's term caught on because it works. It enables an English speaker to grasp quickly that these strange, unfamiliar structures cohere due to their unusual deployment of tension in a new kind of inter-dependent integrity.
Tension
Tension is a condition of being stretched or strained, from the Latin tensus "to stretch," sharing a common ancestor with Sanskrit *ten- "stretch".
Tension is commonly suffixed and prefixed in English as distension, extension, pretension; also via the variant spelling tention in contention (drawing on the idea of conflict) and attention, intention (drawing on the idea of consciousness as an entity, like Snelson's mesh bag, that is a tension membrane for the sensory impressions that are considered.)
Compression
Compression is the action of compressing; pressing together, squeezing; forcing into a smaller compass; condensation by pressure. It derives from the Latin com- (together) pressare "to press, hold fast, cover, crowd, compress;" the Latin shares a PIE ancestor with Sanskrit *prem-/*pres-, meaning "to strike."
Compression is commonly suffixed and prefixed in English as compressor, compressive, compressible, decompress, uncompress, compressing, compressingly, compressor.
Compression vs Tension
Compression and tension are opposites: contrary or reverse concepts. They are also co-dependent co-originating antitheses: compression and tension necessitate each other in their genesis. Compression can only be enacted if tension is increased elsewhere, and vice a versa: tension can only be enacted if compression is increased.
If these terms are opposites, why do we need two words? Why can we not suffix or prefix one word to connote the two co-dependent meanings? Un-tension or de-tension? Obviously, it doesn't work: they do not sound like compression, and vice a versa: uncompress or decompress does not mean to tense. This failure is worthy of consideration.
It is common in English connotation of antithetical co-dependent co-originating concepts for prefixing to fail to deliver its promise. Consider, for example, other antithetical pairs such as up and down, convex and concave, space and matter. You cannot un-up, un-convex, or un-space. You cannot de-down, de-concave, or de-matter.
Other terms: integrity, float, weave
Integrity is whole, entire, probably from Italian "entire, consisting of entirenesse." Italian took it from Latin integer for "whole," literally "intact, untouched." Integer did not mean a whole number at first. Its Latin root was constructed from the prefix in- (not) and tangere "to touch", connoting a beautiful sense of the limitations of the sense of touch: one touches only part of an object that is sensed--the true whole is untouchable, or in-tangere, in-tegral.
Float is to float or flow, from Teutonic root fleut-, flaut-, flot-, strongly related to fleet a boat or ship. In modern English the word sounds like "flight", though the silent "gh" in flight attests to its origina as fleug, fleugon, to fly.
Weave is a verb, to form or fabricate a material by interlacing filaments in a continuous web; it is also a noun referring to such a material. Weave also has ancient connotations of "combining into a whole" and "go by twisting and turning." From German weben to weave. Shares a root with Sanskrit *webh-/*wobh- (hence ubhnati in Sanskrit meaning, "he laces together").
Fuller's use
Fuller considered tension to be global, and compression local; thus he often writes about omni-tension.
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Sources:
Oxford English Dictionary electronic version
Douglas Harper's Online Etymology Dictionary, Etymonline.
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