NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/misc/writing/2666

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-25 | 5.3 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Language Lists (was Re: Work in Progress: Proposal
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 25 Aug 92 17:05:19 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: I is a writur
Lines: 98

[e-mail] (Fred Welden) writes:

>I question whether clothing and utensils are clearly universal

I think so. A fork is a fork. If it's a chopstick, it's no longer a fork,
but if it looks like a fork and walks like a fork and quacks like a fork,
you don't call it a chopstick (and vice versa). So you don't take a fork and
call it something else just for effect.

Now, if what the society uses is a single stick that's sharpened on one side
and has a flat, concave bowl on the other for the soup course, it's neither
fork nor chopstick, so you have to call it something else.

> An alien culture might not class all animals together--

True, if that's how you choose to design your culture. The more alien the
culture, though, the harder to make it live and the more work it takes.

(in other words, there are very few wrong answers, and no answers at all
that are always right. It's all a series of tradeoffs and compromises that
have to be balanced together so that things fall together instead of apart.
I choose the answers that are right for me, and make no attempt to choose
for others. But I'm finding the discussion of the process of choice
fascinating. Hope others are, too).

>No, it doesn't.  Maybe you need to think about why "Egard dragged the
>unsuspecting goat from its pen, stretched it across the altar stone,
>and waited patiently for it to show the blue underside of its long
>prehensile tongue, the godsign that meant the goat had been accepted
>for sacrifice," should seem any worse.

This doesn't work, where the cloak bit does. Why?

A cloak is a generic term for a class of objects. It can be many sizes,
shapes and colors. The cloak Batman wears is much different than the cloak
Mr. Hyde wears in the cold fog of the evening. A blue cloak is much
different from a white cloak, which is different from the cloak a seaman
wears on duty, which is different from a cloak worn to the opening of the
Opera in London, 1895. If I, tell the reader that the user puts on a cloak,
they have an image of what's happening. If I then have the cloak fly him off
into the sunset, I've not changed the cloak, but given it a new attribute,
the same as if I described it as white or green. The reader can assimilate
it into his mental picture.

A goat, however, creates a specific mental picture in most readers minds.
It's not a generic term, but a specific descriptor. Goats don't have
prehensile tongues with blue undersides, any more than goats have claws or
wings. Goat-like beings might have any of those, but they're not goats.

You could create a goat with a golden coat and ruby red eyes and it'd still
be a goat (although one that you'd probably guess had been mucked with by a
god, and you'd be right), but a goat with a long prehensile tongue isn't a
goat any more, and causes cognitive dissonance in the reader because that's
not part of the reader's mental definition of goat, because it's no longer a
goat. A goat can be white or brown, a billy or nanny, but if it has
prehensile tongues and is telepathic, it's either not a goat or you have
some explaining to do. You shake the reader out of his acceptance of the
situation.

>No response is, as you suggest, an answer.  A rude one, and liable to
>misinterpretation.  I interpret your lack of response to mean that
>you think an unpublished writer is not a "real" writer, but you're aware
>that if you say that on this group you'll be toasted to a crisp.

That's nice.

No response could also be defined as:

1) I didn't have time to respond before I went on vacation for two weeks,
and it seemed silly to do so when I got back.

2) I had nothing constructive to say in the discussion, and it seemed like a
waste of time and net.bandwidth to continue the discussion.

3) I consider it silly to continue discussions with people who are
pre-disposed to make assumptions about my beliefs and carry forward a
hostile attitude, even when I'm on record as having said things that
disagree with their preconceptions of me.

4) I had better things to do than get into another meaningless argument
about trivialities, so I dropped it.

You're welcome to choose whatever answer you prefer. At least one of the
above (but no more than four) is correct. Or make up your own, since you've
obviously decided what reality is in the situation already and I'd hate to
interupt your reverie.

Thanks for the discussion. It's fascinating to see how different people see
the essentials of the naming issue.

--
Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, ESD Support & Training (DAL/AUX) =+= Member, SFWA
  [e-mail] | GEnie: MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ =+= Editor, OtherRealms
    A real SF writur with stories in ALTERNATE KENNEDYS and THE
      FURTHER ADVENTURES OF BATMAN, in better bookstores now!

          Painted emblems of a race, all accurst in days of yore,
       Each from his accustomed place steps into the world once more.