Tom doesn’t like the term “3D printer”. He’s not the only one.

I’ve been writing and commissioning stories about fabrication and rapid prototyping for more years than I care to think about, and honestly: the biggest hurdle to getting this idea into the public sphere has always, always been the name.

Yes, it says something relatively accurate about the process - it’s printing in three dimensions! - but it doesn’t really connect with people’s conceptions. Most people don’t really see “printing” as one material being squirted onto another. So taking that further is a concept that’s very hard for people to get their heads around.

Nor does it connect with people’s expectations, either. The things people that people are starting to print - houses, food and even body parts - aren’t the sort of thing that you associate with the tradition of printing.

These sort of linguistic artifacts often hang over from one generation to the next: digital video is still produced by “filming”; people often talk of “taping” a television show. But “printing” has such a long history as a technology that meant one thing — applying a layer of ink onto a piece of material — that I think it’s actually severely limited in the public imagination.

Does it make a difference? Yes.

The naming of things matters. The lexicon matters. The words we use help us frame not only reality, but also our dreams.

Really, I think the term “3D printing” says more about the people who have driven it than it does about the people who use it. They see it in terms of the technologies it builds upon, not in terms of potential it has.

When I wrote about for the New Scientist’s “seven technologies to disrupt the next decade”, I was asked to come up with a few words that might enter the dictionary as a result of this disruption.

They printed this one:

FAB
-verb
To create an object using a 3D printer. Short for “fabricate”. John fabbed a pretty necklace for his wife’s birthday.

But I offered up some others, including:

REP
-verb
To copy another object using a 3D printer. Short for “replicate”. Richard like my new chair so much that I repped him one to take home.

and the rather less pleasant-sounding:

SQUIRT
-noun
A small object that can be quickly fabricated. “If you come back in five minutes, sir, we should have one of those in blue. It won’t take long - it’s only a squirt.”

Of course, they were only suggestions. We will have new words. We must have new words. Why?

Because the naming of things matters.