[TUHS] Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Nelson H. F. Beebe]

Paul Winalski and Bakul Shah commented on bit addressable machines
on the TUHS list recently.  From Blaauw and Brooks' excellent
Computer Architecture book

	http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/master.html#Blaauw:1997:CAC

on page 98, I find

>> ...
>> The earliest computer with bit resolution is the [IBM 7030] Stretch.
>> The Burroughs B1700 (1972) and CDC STAR100 (1973) are later examples.
>>
>> Bit resolution is costly in format space, since it uses a maximum
>> number of bits for address and length specification.  Sharpening
>> resolution from the byte to the bit costs the same as increasing
>> address-space size eight-fold.
>>
>> Since almost all storage realizations are organized as matrices,
>> bit resolution is also expensive in time or equipment.
>> ...

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