Morphing?

[AnotherPaul]

Did the term 'morphing', as in CGI effects where one filmed image melds into another, originate with cravat wearing Tony Hart's brown side-kick?

(edited to correct spelling of cravat. not surprising i got it wrong. not a word i write often)

[David Mc]

No.

[Burbage]

I agree with No.

The OED (available to anyone with insomnia and a library card through the council website) illustrates one of the nounal meanings (an object created by morphing) with a quote from T. Hart (et al) in 1982, and the verb with a snippet of similar vintage from a usenet forum relating to a computer game. Though I prefer to think that Mr Hart's Morph was named with another meaning in mind; in the early twentieth century 'morph' was shorthand for a morphine addict.

Given that computer games from the early eighties didn't have pictures in the modern sense, there's no clear link to CGI. Morphing in CGI terms is illustrated by quotes from 1990 at the earliest, and seems to have originated in the US where, I believe, the demand for shows about sticking macaroni to sackcloth has never been large.

So, the two uses of the word are related only by the Greek they come from. And 'cravat-wearing' surely justifies a hyphen.

[Huguenot]

Although interestingly, by truncating the word, the original meaning is lost.

'Morph' means form or shape as a noun, not a verb. It's only in conjuction with 'meta' (which means change) as in 'metamorphosis' that it means change shape, or transition.

[KalamityKel]

I shamefully thought this was gonna be about Power Rangers :-$

[woofmarkthedog]

I like Morphine................

yahhhhhhhh fluffffffy clouds...

*saliva pools under his toungue and his head slumps 1st to the left then slowly into the forward lolling position, drool pours onto his crutch*