A.Word.A.Day--luddite

[Dave Monroe]

A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

luddite

PRONUNCIATION:
(LUHD-yt)

MEANING:
noun: One who opposes or avoids the use of new technology.

ETYMOLOGY:
After the Luddites, name taken by textile workers in England during
1811-1816 who destroyed machinery that was displacing them. They took
the name after one Ned Ludd, whose identity is not clear. Ned Ludd is
said to have destroyed, in a fit of insanity, a knitting frame in
1779. In response to the Luddites, the British parliament passed the
Frame Breaking Act which made the destroying of knitting frames
punishable by death.

USAGE:
"But I'm not a luddite. I'll keep my automatic coffee-maker, my
computer, and my automatic dishwasher, thank you!"
Richard Packham; Elaborate Appliances Don't Justify the Cost or the
Space; The News-Review (Roseburg, Oregon); Mar 21, 2010.

Explore "luddite" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the
shelves. -Gilbert Highet, writer (1906-1978)

http://wordsmith.org/words/luddite.html

October 28, 1984
Is It O.K. To Be A Luddite?
By THOMAS PYNCHON

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html
...
http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/luddite.html

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html