"Uncleftish Beholding" is a short text by Poul Anderson, first published in the Mid-December 1989 issue of the magazine Analog Science Fiction and Fact (with no indication of its fictional or factual status)[1] and included in his anthology All One Universe (1996).
With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life.It goes on to define firststuffs (chemical elements), such as waterstuff (hydrogen), sourstuff (oxygen), and ymirstuff (uranium), as well as bulkbits (molecules), bindings (compounds), and several other terms important to uncleftish worldken (atomic science).
[7] Sunstuff refers to helium, which derives from ἥλιος, the Ancient Greek word for 'sun'.
Chokestuff is inspired by chokedamp, a term for oxygenless air found in mines and other confined spaces.
The text gained increased exposure and popularity after being circulated around the Internet,[18] and has served as inspiration for some inventors of Germanic English conlangs.