papersky's Tor.com post Like swords, but awesomer: Made up words in science fiction and fantasy is very cool, and the comments are verra interesting.

But I have to say, I feel pretty sorry for poor old Sapir*. I have a sense the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has turned him into a perpetual motion machine, spinning forever in his grave.

Because the strong version, that eternal straw-man, is completely, unfixably silly. You can't think of things you don't have words for? RLY? However did you learn what the words meant in the first place, since you couldn't think of the thingy until you knew the word? According to the straw man, my nephew can put objects together and demonstrate pretty sophisticated spatial reasoning about them without being able to think of them. Because he's not talking yet, and doesn't recognize all the words.

It's as mystical as Chomsky's language module wot didn't evolve.

Pity Whorf didn't have a prelinguistic nephew, I guess. Or, shall we say, the linguistic sophistication Sapir did. His writing is actively brain-hurty, the way sensible observations and total WTF run together in gleeful abandon.

Now, the weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (where "weak" means "not ridiculous") makes a lot of sense, is useful to writers, and has at this point a great deal of empirical evidence backing it up. But it's called "weak", and that's just not sexy :) So y'can't even talk about it without starting with "No, really, I don't think unnamed eskimos have a bajillion-gajillion words that all mean the exact same thing as the English word snow, and no, really, I don't think English-speaking people who happen to ski do, either, but I do suspect both groups distinguish between powder and slush."

Fact is, you can inclue a lot about a culture, and make it resonate, by thinking about how kinship terms in a fantasy setting's language are structured (whether or not you make up funny words for 'em), or whether the speakers use relative directional terms (left, right) or only absolute ones (North, south; or more likely something like uphill, downhill, depending on setting), or which color terms are basic, or whether the language specifies whether movement crosses a boundary, or or or.

It'd be so nice to be able to talk about that without starting for the words for snow or the fact that the Hopi did, actually, understand the concept of time.


---
* Not to mention Mary Haas, I think(?) it was, who's never mentioned at all.

---

http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2009/11/07/16449

1086, and yeah, we've gone from poop to purple. Someone's been listening to the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast a little too much for his own good, because that someone opened up his work today with this:

The trees marched and the ground shook. The sky filled with butterflies, green, black and blue. The people of Balenacoil came before the forest, screaming, each throat filled with a prickly larva, each brain starved and choked. They came in numbers, lashed, panicked, desperate to die. This had to be the island, it had to be the whole island, not yet evacuated. An island filled with towns whose names I’d heard, but never seen, Whirlcross, Summerseye, Racketwater, Frogcrotch, Fireplum; each name was a battle lost before we ever set foot on the island. Knocklight was the last, as far as we knew, and the forest was coming to kill it.

Because this must have some relation to my having just reread Crown Duel/Court Duel.



Moondark Dreaming --

Blood-wet fingers
fan tips, secrets
courtly codes

and running

---

All night I dreamed about dying. Every time—I was shot once, bleeding out; another time, I had some kind of wasting illness—I woke up instead of never opening my eyes again, but whenever I fell back into the dream, there was a different death to go through. Some of the circumstances, waterspouts, unmoored islands, shell-like crusts of uninhabited buildings in the middle of cities where I've lived, might have made intriguing story material if I hadn't been distracted by the endless iterations of mortality, none of them opera-clean. Today fails auspices.

31116-something words. Don't remember ezzactly.

I exacted vengeance upon my poor protagonist by exploding a capillary in her right eyeball last night. Not that I've popped any blood vessels myself recently, but still, my eyes are QUITE PINKISH from all these late nights I've spent pouring over the computer screen. It's just that I feel a nincompoop if I DON'T finish a full chapter!!!

"Poor old Marat, in you we trust
You work til your eyes turn as red as rust."

Going to dinner with a whole bunch of BLACK GATE WRITERS this Saturday.

"That's right!" I told John O'Neill, "I'm ONE OF THEM now, aren't I?" and felt very pleased with myself. He'd called to tell me he upheld me as a shining example of writerly diligence to a writer friend of his who's been slacking.

I did not dare interject that my diligence is enforced by the MIGHTY ARMIES OF KING NANOWRIMO! And that, though I have accomplished some few things this year, I have not done nearly as much as I might have, had I regarded the annum entire as a contest with my best self.

After all, I gotta get my kudos where I can.

Open mic tonight. Laundry night tomorrow. Black Gate on Saturday.

I wanted Sunday for Samu, but we shall see if he eludes me. Regarding my suggestion that we meet up on Saturday (before I received that OTHER invitation), and well after I'd suggested it, he wrote:

"Though you may not believe me, my intention was to accept your most reasonably couched proposition. But now you got stuff goin' on, and it is my turn to say, 'Bollocks on your business,' without rancor."

WHATEVER, Sam! Maybe if he answered my TEN THOUSAND emails (and at least two phone calls) IN A MORE TIMELY MANNER! O Reticence, I called him. Bastard Boy Child. Dimpled Devil. Troll Prince of Scandinavia!

Of course (and unlike yours truly), when he says "without rancor" he means it. He'd rather practice guitar than see me (or most non-musicians) any day. He'd rather live on the moon, eating nothing but apples, than do practically anything else, ever. And why shouldn't he???

Still, I do like to engage him from time to time. Selfishly, for I never laugh so much as when I am with him. And that is saying something.

In the ongoing course of our name-calling game, he addressed me as Elmer. "And failing that," he wrote, "Etrus." Which I'm still figuring out.

Monday, I shall see Mrs. Q for breakfast. And Gillian's dress rehearsal for Carnival Nocturne.

I do not think I will finish my novel this weekend. Le sigh.

...Wrote me THIS on my Facebook status update yesterday:

Rory Cooney:

A Palatine playwright named Claire
Sought a role model for an affair,
This was her dilemma:
Straightforward, like Emma,
Or "moor" staid and pale, like Jane Eyre?

She Red Lined back home to her attic
Our neo-victorian fanatic,
"Of sigh and of thigh is
That Ninny Anais
The queen of the ball, most emphatic."

After studying Veda and rune,
And the Gesserit witches of Dune,
The fire in her belly said,
'Maybe Ms. Shelley?'
And she fell asleep, still Claire de lune.

He posted it in response to my friend Jill's limerick, wherein she blithely said of me:

There once was a tree nymph named Claire~
Who's locks of curly blond hair~
Would entangle young men~
Bring them into her den~
Then discard them after a mad affair~

***

Of the two, of course my father knows me better. I'm much more likely to be in bed dreaming of fictions than entertaining wild young lovers. 99.99% more likely, I should say.

Still! It is the thought that counts!!!

Two library workers got fired, after they canceled a patron's hold on an item because they didn't think the patron should be allowed to read it.

www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/78655.html

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/radio-books-violin-lessons-also-haircut.html

The Blue Room had in prehistoric times been added to by taking in a superfluous passage, and so not only had the advantage of two doors, but enabled us to get to the head of the stairs without passing the chamber wherein our dragon-aunt lay couched. It was rarely occupied, except when a casual uncle came down for the night. We entered in noiseless file, the room being plunged in darkness, except for a bright strip of moonlight on the floor, across which we must pass for our exit. On this our leading lady chose to pause, seizing the opportunity to study the hang of her new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied thereat, she proceeded, after the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too much for Edward's histrionic instincts, and after a moment's pause he drew his single-stick, and with flourishes meet for the occasion, strode onto the stage. A struggle ensued on approved lines, at the end of which Selina was stabbed slowly and with unction, and her corpse borne from the chamber by the ruthless cavalier. The rest of us rushed after in a clump, with capers and gesticulations of delight; the special charm of the performance lying in the necessity for its being carried out with the dumbest of dumb shows.

Once out on the dark landing, the noise of the storm without told us that we had exaggerated the necessity for silence; so, grasping the tails of each other's nightgowns even as Alpine climbers rope themselves together in perilous places, we fared stoutly down the staircase-moraine, and across the grim glacier of the hall, to where a faint glimmer from the half-open door of the drawing-room beckoned to us like friendly hostel-lights. Entering, we found that our thriftless seniors had left the sound red heart of a fire, easily coaxed into a cheerful blaze; and biscuits—a plateful—smiled at us in an encouraging sort of way, together with the halves of a lemon, already once squeezed but still suckable. The biscuits were righteously shared, the lemon segments passed from mouth to mouth; and as we squatted round the fire, its genial warmth consoling our unclad limbs, we realised that so many nocturnal perils had not been braved in vain.

"It's a funny thing," said Edward, as we chatted, "how I hate this room in the daytime. It always means having your face washed, and your hair brushed, and talking silly company talk. But to-night it's really quite jolly. Looks different, somehow."

"I never can make out," I said, "what people come here to tea for. They can have their own tea at home if they like,—they're not poor people,—with jam and things, and drink out of their saucer, and suck their fingers and enjoy themselves; but they come here from a long way off, and sit up straight with their feet off the bars of their chairs, and have one cup, and talk the same sort of stuff every time."

Selina sniffed disdainfully. "You don't know anything about it," she said. "In society you have to call on each other. It's the proper thing to do."

"Pooh! YOU'RE not in society," said Edward, politely; "and, what's more, you never will be."

"Yes, I shall, some day," retorted Selina; "but I shan't ask you to come and see me, so there!"

"Wouldn't come if you did," growled Edward.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Running up the question list for the Beeches today convinced me that I should try to redesign them a little (I have not been satisfied with the way they turned out). I did two adults and an initiate.



I wanted to give them body armor, and keep the dark, purple-black color that I associate with beech leaves, but that color is hard to work with. The scenario I have in mind for the next playtest involves them and the Comebacker Birches actually winning against the combined forces of Ash and the Traditionalist Birches, which took a little justification.



To put it simply, the Beech/Comebacker side of the war is *much* larger than the Ash/Trad, and while some of the Ashes are incredibly well trained and well armed (Fire school weapons are neat things; I imagine they have fire staves and fire spears, fighting torches and, yeah, something like the poi fire-on-a-chain apparatuses going on) Beech province has an actual army and home field advantage. Seeing as how the field includes the Twilight, that's a lot of advantage.



Something else I learned is that the Beeches actually mix Malism and Haruspicy, which should horrify the devout on both sides. I'm not sure, yet, how they justify it. I imagine it's somewhat compartmentalized.

I am also sketching out new stuff to try and expand my artistic range a bit. Here's a Kacia wood cutter with sweet mutton chops and a very ominous looking saw:

It annoys and amuses me when patrons ask to use the reference desk's office supplies, and then get mad when the supplies aren't up to their "standards." A few days ago a patron needed a highlighter. We only had a pink one, which for some reason he refused to use. And acted horribly offended that we didn't have a range of colors for him to choose from. Tonight, the same patron complained that our white-out was "too watery."

If you don't like our supplies, GO BUY YOUR OWN, YOU CHEAP MOFO! And actually, you really shouldn't expect us to provide any more than golf pencils and scrap paper, since we're not Office Depot.

Dear Late Night Library Users,

I enjoyed the six month (year?!) hiatus you took from visiting the children's department. When you first came back this week I didn't know you at first since your kids are taller and you've grown a beard. Once you opened your obnoxious mouth, your cover was blown!

In future visits, please remember: 1. You can't leave your children here unattended. That rule has been the same the whole time you've paraded your children in here and have pretended to be a good father by loudly reading to your children. 2. Pick up your own stinking books! If you have forgotten the alphabet and don't remember where you found them, don't have your children throw them on some random shelf or create a stack of books that you decide you won't check out after the closing announcement has been made. We have conveniently provided carts for books that need to be reshelved. Use them, you slob! 3. Turn off the cell phone. Yeah, it's not a "rule" here, but look around. Are any of the other parents talking at the top of their lungs on their phones trying to convince their mother that, yes, Johnny and Susie can read. Heck, you've been reading to them just now. And, yeah, I noticed that you didn't really read to them until after you hung up the phone.

I sometimes say my writing is shit, but this time, I'm talking literally.  Most of the scene takes place in an outhouse.

1085.  No sensible editor is ever going to let me keep it, unless Chuck Palanhiuk goes into editing.

So, in US History, I've just reached the beginning of WWII (no class today, because of a gas leak, so I'm actually a class behind. I should be able to catch up.). It is impossible to discuss the beginning of WWII without talking, however briefly, about Neville Chamberlain, and this often provokes mild snorts of derision from the class, "Peace in our time, ha!" sort of thing, especially when I mention that people saw him as a hero after that announcement. I then remind them of this:

And whose mother and older brother and godmother/aunt just bought whom a ticket to Mir and San Francisco for her 28th birthday next month?

WHOSE?
WHOM?

I'll tell you whose and whom and ALL THE WHOS IN WHOVILLE!

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

You know, I have been consciously, with effort, care and my whole heart full of yearning saving for this trip FOR A YEAR. A year. Yes. A year.

You want to know how much money I have in my savings account?

...

I told you, but then I erased it. 'Cause it was maybe enough for a McDonald's meal, if I order from the $1 menu. And you think I exaggerate? Well, you never know with ME, do you?

HA!

*dances to her own soundtrack of leonard cohen*

I am completely in love with my family! No one DESERVES these things. One can only ENDEAVOR to repay in kind or equal measure elsewhere. Ai! I hug myself. There is no one here to hug. I will hug my MIR in December. My MIR in SAN FRANCISCO! My MIR OF THE SEA! With whom I will spend my BIRTHDAY WEEKEND!

"DANCE ME TO THE MUSIC WITH A BURNING VIOLIN
DANCE ME THROUGH THE PANIC TIL I'M GATHERED SAFELY IN
SHOW ME SLOWLY WHAT I ONLY KNOW THE LIMITS OF
AND DANCE ME TO THE END OF LOVE..."

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

However, I suppose we'll stick it, if we don't there are still some good poets left who might write me a decent epitaph.
—Isaac Rosenberg (1917)

wouldn't it be AWESOME if i finished it this weekend???

nice, claire.
good, claire.
thou shalt not break thyself.

oh, but I COULD, couldn't I? COULDN'T I JUST???
and it wouldn't break me AT ALL!!! i am NOT so fragile.

no, really, i totally could.
it'd be sloppy but worth it.

***

OPEN MIC TOMORROW!!!
COME TO IT!!!

The Belgian said, "I will not commit yet."
"We'll feed you," I said. "Maybe even pizza."
His eyes brightened.

Yesterday, I gave him FABLES to read. I've owned it for two years and only just read it last week myself. I have the collection called MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS, so it's right in the middle.

He agrees with my Geppetto Theory.
Then, last night, he dreamed of wolves and bears.
Is anyone surprised?

Me, I dreamed disgusting things. Not cool-disgusting, just sort of quotidian-disgusting. Blech. But I AM enjoying Lord of Light, and perhaps I shall dream of Kali or the Buddha Sam or Mara or something. Soon.

***

Mack Cobb is totally different than I thought he'd be.
FUNNY HOW YOU CAN HAVE PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS OF YOUR OWN CHARACTER!!!
Out of my hands now, folks. Hee hee.