Tell me more ×
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 3 down vote favorite

Who is the original coiner of the word 'linkrot'? Does anyone know?

share|improve this question

4 Answers

up vote 5 down vote

"link-rot" is mentioned in the book Reality Check by David Wieners and David Pescovitz (copyright 1996):

You can web-surf them right away, during the delicate instant of history before the URLs all shift, the connections fail, the files shift addresses, and the hotlinks give way to the curse of link-rot.

In the same year, 1996, there is mention of "link rot" (without the hyphen) in Laura Morgan's Child support guidelines: interpretation and application:

I learned about the transient nature of the internet from maintaining my website and its numerous links; each month, a number of states would change the location of the guidelines or the state agency, resulting in what is known as "link rot".

hope this helps! :)

share|improve this answer
So even in 1996, it was already "known as"... No one is cited as first, so far. I appreciate the links, however. Thank you very much. – shipr Apr 24 '11 at 3:52
up vote 4 down vote

Google ngrams shows the first instances (that look really like the meaning of links failing) being for the spelling 'link rot' around 1996: enter image description here

Notice that the much more popular spelling currently is as two words rather than one.

This doesn't really say that any particular person coined it (though of course some one could have).

share|improve this answer
I wonder what the alternative to "any particular person" coining linkrot would be. Maybe there were 42 people scattered around the world who simultaneously uttered "linkrot" for the first time? – mgkrebbs Apr 24 '11 at 5:50
1  
@mgkrebbs: Google nGrams uses only its (humongous) set of scanned books. It doesn't cover slashdot, newsgroups, or people's email or vocal conversations (yet). Who coined the word 'dis'? Some things are knowable, some don't have an answer.as expected. Which is all to say that the ngrams data tells me that the word was 'in the air' around 1996 and before for writers to feel comfortable using it in press. – Mitch Apr 24 '11 at 13:26
up vote 1 down vote

The earliest citation I can find is to some publication by someone named Harwood c. 2000, cited in 2002.

Online components, however, are dynamic. Hyperlinks may have a short lifespan and require continual updating. On the average, at least one out of five links on college and university web sites are inoperable, a phenomenon known as "link rot" (Harwood, 2000, p. 23).

Incidentally, COCA doesn't give any hits for "linkrot" as a single word, only "link rot".

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

The earliest instance of "link rot" that the Google version of UseNet archives shows is from 30 Oct 1996, in a humorous post by Susie Archer about "Generation X Baby BizSpeak". The list of definitions she sent out includes this:

Link Rot -- The process by which links on a web page became as obsolete as the sites they're connected to change location or die.

The post is titled "Fw: [HUMOR] Industry-related sniglets... (fwd)" so it's clear this list, and the term, was in circulation before that time.

share|improve this answer
I can beat that with groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.taiwan/msg/… :) it's "link ROT" alright but nothing to do with the "link rot" that we're discussing! ;) – Paul Amerigo Pajo Apr 24 '11 at 19:52
2  
@pageman: yes, I checked the hits for relevance. Lots of references to ROT-13 encoding. – mgkrebbs Apr 24 '11 at 23:24
I think this was ROC (Republic of China) but misspelled hahaha :) – Paul Amerigo Pajo Apr 25 '11 at 3:51

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.