Technology & Progress — C1 English Vocabulary

Using technology & progress words in English

Emerging-technology vocabulary is built almost entirely from compounds, and the interesting question is how English joins them: machine learning stays two words, self-driving takes a hyphen, and cryptocurrency has fused into one. This page sets out the pattern, which is more predictable than it first appears, and covers a Greek plural still alive in the field.

What to watch out for

• Compounds open, hyphenate or close by age and position

  New compounds usually start as two words, acquire a hyphen when used before a noun, and eventually close up. So machine learning is open as a noun but hyphenated as a modifier — a machine-learning model — while self-driving and fibre-optic are hyphenated because they modify, and cryptocurrency and blockchain have already fused. When in doubt, hyphenate before the noun and leave it open after.

• Countability splits this vocabulary

  Cryptocurrency is countable when you mean particular ones — several cryptocurrencies — and uncountable for the category. Blockchain, bioengineering and cybernetics are uncountable, and the last takes a singular verb like other -ics fields. Automaton keeps a Greek plural: automata, though automatons is also accepted.

• British spellings persist even in new words

  Fibre-optic keeps the British -re, where American English writes fiber-optic. Digitise, virtualise and modernise take -ise in the British forms used here. Note also that augmented reality and genetic engineering remain stubbornly open as two words despite decades of use, which shows how uneven the closing process is.

Words learners mix up

Technology writing is full of words that sound like neutral description and are actually claims — about how soon something dies, how the future will go, and what a product can do. These three clusters are where the claims hide.

Collocations that sound natural

Technical writing pairs these nouns with a very narrow set of verbs and adjectives, and most of the pairings are about quantity — how much, how fast, how little delay.

• obsolescence

  planned obsolescencebuilt-in obsolescencetechnological obsolescenceaccelerate obsolescence

  Planned and built-in are the two fixed modifiers, and both are accusations aimed at manufacturers.

• latency

  low latencyreduce latencynetwork latencylatency spikes

  Uncountable, and the desirable direction is low — never fast latency, which reverses the sense.

• iteration

  the next iterationrapid iterationeach iterationiterate on a design

  Countable. In software it means one cycle of improvement, not one copy.

• throughput

  increase throughputmaximum throughputthroughput of the system

  Uncountable, one word. It measures how much passes through per unit of time, so it is not a synonym for speed.

• implant

  a medical implantimplant a devicea cochlear implantimplant rejection

  Stress moves: the noun is IM-plant, the verb im-PLANT — the same pattern as record and export.

• propulsion

  a propulsion systemion propulsionthe means of propulsion

  Uncountable, and it names the method of producing motion rather than the motion itself.

See the full C1 collocations list →

Formal, neutral or informal?

This vocabulary divides into working technical terms, speculative words borrowed from fiction, and a set of borrowings whose confidence outruns the evidence. Mixing the three is what makes technology writing sound credulous.

• self-driving / autonomous / driverlessGraded claimsNot interchangeable. Driverless says nobody is at the wheel; self-driving is the popular term for a range of assistance levels; autonomous is the engineering word and is normally qualified by a level number. Reporting a manufacturer’s claim, use their exact term.
• cyborg / automatonFiction · datedCyborg — a being part organic, part machine — belongs to science fiction and cultural theory rather than engineering. Automaton is older still and now means a mechanical figure, or figuratively a person acting without thought.
• terraformingSpeculativeAltering a planet to make it habitable. Entirely hypothetical, and a term from fiction that has entered serious discussion — worth marking as speculative when you use it.
• singularityContestedHas a precise meaning in mathematics and physics and a speculative one in futurism. In the second sense many researchers reject it outright, so it should be attributed rather than asserted.
• gamificationJargonAdding game mechanics — points, streaks, levels — to something that is not a game. Standard in product and education writing, still jargon outside them, and British English spells it with -isation in its relatives.
• moonshotCorporate metaphorNow used for any ambitious internal project, which has thinned it considerably. In an essay, a high-risk long-term project says the same thing without the borrowed glamour.
• server farmInformal · establishedA large collection of servers in one building. Fully understood, though formal writing says data centre — note the British -re.
• futuristJob title · scepticalSomeone who forecasts long-term change professionally. British readers tend to hear it with mild scepticism, so analyst or researcher is safer where the person has a track record.

Sentences to try

Four frames from technology writing. Watch how each compound is joined.

• The company is testing a self-driving delivery vehicle.
• Machine learning now underpins most translation software.
• The network runs over fibre-optic cable throughout.
• Quantum computing remains largely experimental.

Questions about technology & progress vocabulary