Can you have engineering with no engine?
A few weeks ago this column noted a new usage of editing. First it meant the work of publishers. Later it meant the work of those who prepare materials for publishing. Now editing has come to mean the work of change agents of all types, including those modifying human genes. It鈥檚 a usage adopted by a range of news media but not widely reflected 鈥� yet 鈥� in dictionaries.
At dinner recently, a fellow wordsmith who had seen the column gently pointed out another aspect of this usage: People say 鈥済ene editing鈥� as an alternative to speaking of 鈥済enetic engineering.鈥� And that, she said, makes people more comfortable with the idea.
And it made her, I sensed, a little less comfortable with it 鈥� whatever it鈥檚 called. She鈥檚 not the only one. , US director of national intelligence, last month added gene editing to a list of threats posed by 鈥渨eapons of mass destruction and proliferation.鈥�
That takes this particular kind of editing, or engineering, into a military context of a sort 鈥� which is where engineering began, etymologically speaking.
Engine came into English around 1300, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, to mean a 鈥� 鈥榤echanical device,鈥� especially one used in war.鈥� The word also covered a range of abstract meanings from positive to negative: 鈥渟kill, craft, innate ability; deceitfulness, trickery.鈥�
Engineer came into the language around 1350 to mean a 鈥渃onstructor of military engines,鈥� which in those days meant things like battering rams. (Think of asking the Duke of Milan for a job as a military engineer. Even for a universal genius, government work sometimes pays more than art.)
The Latin root here is ingenium, meaning 鈥渋nborn qualities, talent.鈥� I鈥檓 not altogether happy, Dear Reader, drawing a straight line from the genial spark this suggests to the construction of battering rams and torture devices, but that鈥檚 where the sources lead.
During the 19th century, engineer caught on to mean a constructor of great public works. Think of the , builders of the Brooklyn Bridge and other mighty spans, or the in Britain, building bridges of their own and tunneling under the Thames. In the sense of 鈥渓ocomotive driver,鈥� an American usage, engineer goes back to 1832.
as a verb meaning to 鈥渁ct as an engineer鈥� emerged in the 19th century. By midcentury it had acquired a figurative sense of arranging, contriving, guiding, or managing, by ingenuity or tact, originally in a political context, the Online Etymology Dictionary reports.
But that figurative meaning has its dark side. Sometimes it鈥檚 more 鈥渃onniving鈥� than 鈥渃ontriving.鈥� for instance, can refer to public officials or others who try to change people鈥檚 behavior, or to who trick their targets into volunteering private data.
Not all engineering involves actual engines, but it sometimes involves some nefarious activities. And that, I think, is what troubled my wordsmith friend.
