alan moore on the origin of "taser"

Monday, June 22, 2009

do you know the tasers that originated in America that are now standard issue for the police over here? Do you know what Taser stand for? You’d think it’d stood for something like a laser, which stood for Light and Stimulated Emission of Radiation, but it doesn’t. What TASER stands for is Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle. It was the idea of having some kind of generator built into a gun or a battery, and having a kind of harpoon with a way of trailing behind it, originated in a story about young inventor Tom Swift.

A fictional device that is now part of everyday urban living.

Moore...er more here.