A cobot, or collaborative robot, is a robot intended for direct human-robot interaction within a shared space, or where humans and robots are in close proximity.  Cobot applications contrast with traditional industrial robot applications in which robots are isolated from human contact.  Cobot safety may rely on lightweight construction materials, rounded edges, and inherent limitation of speed and force, or on sensors and software that ensure safe behavior. The International Federation of Robotics (IFR), a global industry association of robot manufacturers and national robot associations, recognizes two main groups of robots:  industrial robots used in automation in an industrial environment and service robots for domestic and professional use.  Service robots could be considered to be cobots as they are intended to work alongside humans.  Industrial robots have traditionally worked separately from humans behind fences or other protective barriers, but cobots remove that separation.  Cobots can have many uses, from information robots in public spaces (an example of service robots), logistics robots that transport materials within a building, to industrial robots that help automate unergonomic tasks such as helping people moving heavy parts, or machine feeding or assembly operations.  Cobots were invented in 1996 by J. Edward Colgate and Michael Peshkin, professors at Northwestern University. Their United States patent entitled, "Cobots" describes "an apparatus and method for direct physical interaction between a person and a general purpose manipulator controlled by a computer."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobot#:~:text=A%20cobot%2C%20or%20collaborative%20robot,are%20isolated%20from%20human%20contact.   

In linguistics, the rebus principle is the use of existing symbols, such as pictograms, purely for their sounds regardless of their meaning, to represent new words.  Many ancient writing systems used what we now term 'the rebus principle' to represent abstract words, which otherwise would be hard to represent with pictograms.  An example that illustrates the Rebus principle is the representation of the sentence "I can see you" by using the pictographs of "eye—can—sea—ewe".  Some linguists believe that the Chinese developed their writing system according to the rebus principle, and Egyptian hieroglyphs sometimes used a similar system.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus#:~:text=An%20example%20that%20illustrates%20the,sometimes%20used%20a%20similar%20system.   See also https://www.etymonline.com/word/rebus  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Gelett Burgess was a Bay Area humorist and writer of nonsense verse, famous-ish for his 1895 poem “Purple Cow,” which he published in his own magazine The Lark and which goes like this:   

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.   

Fitting, perhaps, that it was this mind that invented the term “blurb”—in 1907 on a mock cover of his own book, Are You a Bromide?, which he presented at a dinner given by the American Booksellers’ Association on May 15, 1907.  Publisher’s blurbs, of course, had existed before then, but it was Burgess who put a name to them:  the name of Miss Belinda Blurb (whose image Burgess reportedly “lifted from a dental advertisement”).  Literary Hub  May 15, 2023  See also https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/a-history-of-the-blurb-every-authors-best-friend   

Blurb Your Enthusiasm, Louise Willder’s homage to the persuasive end of publishing, is studded with jewels– sales pitches raised to artistry.  Or to hilarity, as with the blurb for a campy German novel about Hitler’s return from the dead: ‘HE’S BACK.  AND HE’S FÜHRIOUS.’  A ‘tell-all’ of shameless promotion, this book examines all the paraphernalia designed to hook a reader:  title, subtitle, first sentence, jacket art, review quotes, flattering remarks from other authors, and so on.  But the star here is the in-house précis and plug known as the publisher’s blurb, usually found on the back cover or a jacket flap.  After twenty-five years in publishing, Willder figures she’s written more than five thousand.  (In the United States, a ‘blurb’ is a prepublication endorsement by a fellow author, otherwise known as a ‘puff’.)  https://literaryreview.co.uk/blowing-their-cover   

Samuel Wilberforce (1805–1873) was an English bishop in the Church of England, and the third son of William Wilberforce.  Known as "Soapy Sam", Wilberforce was one of the greatest public speakers of his day.  He is now best remembered for his opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution at a debate in 1860.  Wilberforce appears, caricatured, in Anthony Trollope's novel The Warden (1855), where he is portrayed as the third child of the Archdeacon, Dr Grantly, who is named Samuel and nicknamed Soapy, and is engaging and ingratiating but not to be trusted.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Wilberforce 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2684  June 16, 2023