It started when Daffy Duck introduced Porky Pig to Hymie, his invisible kangaroo pal, in the classic short Daffy Duck Slept Here.
Porky’s response (or so I thought): “You’re pixelated. There’s no kangaroo here.”
Wait a minute. I though pixelate was one of those new, techie words – like debug, Firewire and gigaflop. Yet here’s Porky uttering the word back in 1948, before many of the folks who refined digital imagery pixels were in diapers.
After a bit of research, I realized I was wrong. Porky’s was the older version: pixilated.
Notice the small spelling difference. Pixelate, is derived from pixel, a portmanteau blend of picture (pix) and element coined in 1969 to describe the individual elements of a TV picture. In 1948, pixilate had one meaning and one spelling, with an i. It’s derived from the root word pixie and is used to describe somebody acting drunk or goofy.
The thing I love about this little bit of language trivia is that a digital image can be described as pixelated when low resolution lets the individual pixels show through for a blocky, blurry effect.
Not unlike what you might see when pixilated.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment