there are a LOT of them in this M. John Harrison book I'm reading. Here, I will open a random page and demonstrate:ki-gasgamma-ablatedtalcthree-finner
ki-gasgamma-ablatedtalcthree-finner
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 16 September 2013 20:10 (ten years ago) link
Lovecraft: gambrelAsimov: the phrase "not one but" (meaning "all")
― idembanana (abanana), Monday, 16 September 2013 20:24 (ten years ago) link
wub-fur
― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 16 September 2013 20:29 (ten years ago) link
PKD had a bunch of these actually:
homeopapeservo-motor
Wankh
― came the time he flipped his lid came the time he flipped his lid (snoball), Monday, 16 September 2013 20:33 (ten years ago) link
Words you may discover in the works of M. John Harrison
1) Geological terminology:
Smoke and snow filled them, a pearly grey light like dawn over the tottering seracs of some marine glacier in the north beyond the North. It shivered and was wrenched away-"Methvet Nian!"Fused sand, and a sky filled with mica, the rolling dunes and dry saline wadis of the sempiternal erg.
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 02:33 (ten years ago) link
2) Repurposed words given new futuristic meanings&3) Tropes/phrases he likes to reuse
They had innumerable soldiers, shadow boys in cultivars, cheap teenage punks with guns. Also, in their antique briefcases, or big, soft leather purses, they each carried a Chambers reaction pistol.
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 02:38 (ten years ago) link
2b)
And the Cray sisters appeared in the tank farm doorway, shaking their heads and reaching for the pieces in their purses.
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 02:41 (ten years ago) link
4) Dated slang, precisely used
They wore double-breasted sharkskin suits with the jackets hanging open so you could see they were heeled
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 02:47 (ten years ago) link
5) Gnostic or other mystical terminology such as "Pleroma." Don't have a copy of The Course of the Heart handy or I'd quote. But you can apparently buy a very cheap used volume called Anima containing both that and Signs of Life, which might be his two best books.
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 02:55 (ten years ago) link
Finally there is this at the beginning of the first Viriconium book, The Pastel City
He wore a dark green velvet cloak, spun about him like a cocoon against the wind, a tabard of antique leather set with iridium studs over a white kid shirt; tight mazarine velvet trousers and high, soft boots of pale blue suede. Beneath the heavy cloak, his slim and deceptively delicate hands were curled into fists, weighted, as was the custom of the time, with heavy rings of nonprecious metals intagliated with involved cyphers and sphenograms.
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 03:15 (ten years ago) link
OK, now back to Appleseed, by John Clute, which is so full of these words it will necessitate liveblogging on this thread.
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 03:22 (ten years ago) link
Hah, already got one from that book, "sophont," first used by- guess who? Poul Anderson.
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 03:42 (ten years ago) link
wadis of the sempiternal erg
Next album title to the first taker. GO!
― Tottenham Heelspur (in orbit), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 03:55 (ten years ago) link
And another, "fuligin," which he seems to have gotten from Gene Wolfe.
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 03:56 (ten years ago) link
Think that was already a Macca remix album, Laurel.
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 03:58 (ten years ago) link
homeworld (not seen in this book, yet )
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 04:04 (ten years ago) link
Old-timey words otherwise most recently used for comedic effect by such writers as P.G. Wodehouse and S.J. Perelman such as "yclept."
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 04:09 (ten years ago) link
_- terran_^^This will be hard to top
^^This will be hard to top
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 04:17 (ten years ago) link
OK, another example of archaic word just showed up in this book, "appaumy." Amusing discussion of this actual passage here: http://books.google.com/books?id=uJyXcehjHCAC&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=appaumy&source=bl&ots=eZRcBMGpSV&sig=7F64OpWZq_4r6_8VZfRZ64xiuUo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1to3Uv27A8_a4AOh5YDoAg&ved=0CG0Q6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=appaumy&f=false
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 04:32 (ten years ago) link
Same article but easier to get to without google books search: http://extropians.weidai.com/extropians/0302/2570.html
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 05:23 (ten years ago) link
more from MJH
proteomenon-Abelian
― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 15:46 (ten years ago) link
Fused sand, and a sky filled with mica, the rolling dunes and dry saline wadis of the sempiternal erg.
this is just fucking magnificent
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 15:49 (ten years ago) link
Forget it, Tracer, it's Viriconiumtown.
You never heard of non-Abelian before, Shakey? What kind of nerd are you?
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 15:56 (ten years ago) link
the kind who was bad at math
― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 16:08 (ten years ago) link
"He wore a dark green velvet cloak, spun about him like a cocoon against the wind, a tabard of antique leather set with iridium studs over a white kid shirt; tight mazarine velvet trousers and high, soft boots of pale blue suede. Beneath the heavy cloak, his slim and deceptively delicate hands were curled into fists, weighted, as was the custom of the time, with heavy rings of nonprecious metals intagliated with involved cyphers and sphenograms."
I almost didn't make it past the first page, I hadn't had to look up so many words in an unabridged dictionary since reading Blood Meridian.
This seems interesting to me in terms of ~ reading strategies ~ -- like reading that (which I have done twice, I think, and I'm pretty sure never bothered with the dictionary) I feel like the narrator or implied author doesn't care too much if you follow precisely what's going on. (Like I want to claim that that's actually a part of the effect that Harrison's going for and insisting on reducing that bit of description to something that actually visually works is cheating him a little.)
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 17:00 (ten years ago) link
Moorcock is prone to similar descriptions of clothing
― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 17:38 (ten years ago) link
The phrase "intagliated with involved cyphers and sphenograms" just trips right off the tongue, don't it?
― Aimless, Tuesday, 17 September 2013 17:51 (ten years ago) link
This seems interesting to me in terms of ~ reading strategiesWill be back later to address this
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 September 2013 18:09 (ten years ago) link
if it were a movie where, say riddick showed up in a costume that was similarly unfamiliar and semiotically dense, would it also be a tar trap to the audience's attention, where the intended focus is riddick punching people?(i'm thinking that might actually be the case, hence the simplified tank top)
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 17 September 2013 18:16 (ten years ago) link
zardoz.jpg
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Friday, 20 September 2013 20:49 (ten years ago) link
but, i mean, semiotic denseness is harrison's intended focus -- it's not a book about tegeus-Cromis stabbing ppl
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Friday, 20 September 2013 20:50 (ten years ago) link
So u r saying the rest of us are naive, literal-minded readers, thomp?
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 22 September 2013 22:39 (ten years ago) link
Another one from MJH, from "Settling the World," the first story in Things That Never Happen:
My very first glimpse of God's Own Road awaited me; the scent of my Palaeonophis mingled deliciously what the scent of the sea
in which the unfamiliar word seems to come from an H. G. Wells story called "The Flowering of the Strange Orchid."
― I Am the Cosimo Code (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 22 September 2013 22:50 (ten years ago) link
Remembered the word I was looking for because I found it here: http://www.catb.org/esr/sf-words/glossary.html#sophont
sophont[From Poul Anderson's `Polesotechnic League' stories, going back at least to 1963]An evolved biological intelligence. Implies human-level cognitive and linguistic ability but not necessarily tool use. More specific and etymologically correct than sentient. Still less common than that term, but has been used by multiple writers.
An evolved biological intelligence. Implies human-level cognitive and linguistic ability but not necessarily tool use. More specific and etymologically correct than sentient. Still less common than that term, but has been used by multiple writers.
― Sodade Stereo (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 26 October 2013 19:26 (ten years ago) link
Already posted that upthread, sorry, although not the link to the glossary.
― Sodade Stereo (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 26 October 2013 20:41 (ten years ago) link
i finally finished green mars. no more pistes and escarpments for me for awhile.
― scott seward, Saturday, 26 October 2013 20:55 (ten years ago) link
I like some of his short stories and have a copy of Red Mars -they were giving the ebook a few years ago in the hope that you would read the whole series- but never managed to get too far into it.
― Sodade Stereo (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 26 October 2013 21:13 (ten years ago) link
The fourth word in this sentence, from the beginning of Jack Vance's "Mazirian the Magician": And beyond the roqual hedge the trees of the forest made a tall wall of mystery. In fact I'm still not sure what it means, I couldn't find it in any dictionary and if I google it I only get references to this exact same passage, or the suggestion Did you mean 'rorqual'?
― Pazz & Jop 1280 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 15 November 2013 03:40 (ten years ago) link
not a word afaict (did an oed check), only thing i can think of is whether it's an invented adjectival form of 'roque':
"A form of croquet played in the United States on a court surrounded by a bank and using ten hoops and short-handled mallets."
still doesn't really make sense, but is closer than 'rorqual'. you might at a (very great) stretch replace 'the bank of a roque court' with a hedge?
Roque features heavily in Stephen King's novel The Shining. Where in the film adaptation Jack Torrance wields an axe, his weapon in the book was a roque mallet. The character Ullman tells Torrance that roque is the older, original form of the game and croquet is a "bastardized" American version. In fact, croquet is the original European game and roque is a later American variation.
but yeah, i think it's a made up word.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 15 January 2014 11:45 (ten years ago) link
http://jackvance.yuku.com/topic/3599/Nuggets-kinds-specifically-Wodehouse-Vance#.WSfCTlP1A0o
― The Pickety 33⅓ Policeman (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 26 May 2017 05:55 (six years ago) link
gloottokoma. I've only ever seen this word used by M. John Harrison, in the Viriconium books and in an introduction to Disch's 334.
― Dr. Winston ‘Merritone’ Blecch (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 January 2018 01:53 (six years ago) link
oh coolAn Unnatural Order: The Roots of Our Destruction of Naturehttps://books.google.com/books?isbn=1590560817Jim Mason - 2004 - NatureHe explains the Greek word gloottokoma, which refers to boxes used to lock up little children with the aim of shaping their growth for a lucrative career as circus dwarfs. The Roman Longinus wrote in the first century a d, of the practice of caging people in order to stunt their growth. Romans were known to have disfigured
― dow, Monday, 1 January 2018 02:03 (six years ago) link
Speaking of words, last night I sent a New Year's greeting to an olde pal, addressing him as "Richard Chivas Regal---he just now responded with this (30 years he waits to tell me):...my Kraut ancestors had nothing to do with anything royal, in fact, in German "Riegel" means "bar," not a saloon, but the bar that slides in a deadbolt...By extension from that usage, "Riegel" also came to mean "chocolate bar" in German (still not making this up.) I've been considering dubbing myself "Rich Candybar" should I need another nom de plume...
― dow, Monday, 1 January 2018 02:54 (six years ago) link
"Luna"
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 10 July 2019 22:17 (four years ago) link
words I only ever see in sf or sf criticism: “jonbar point.”
― Jazz Telemachy (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 18 December 2019 02:09 (four years ago) link
Jonbar usually capitalized, also known as a Jonbar Hinge.
― Jazz Telemachy (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 18 December 2019 02:11 (four years ago) link
ansible
― YOU CALL THIS JOURNALSIM? (dog latin), Wednesday, 18 December 2019 10:56 (four years ago) link
^excellent
― Jazz Telemachy (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 18 December 2019 11:46 (four years ago) link
words invented especially for sci-fi that describe a fictional concept, tbf(I know it from https://ansible.uk)
― insecurity bear (sic), Wednesday, 18 December 2019 12:21 (four years ago) link
i thought iris as a verb was used early in the movie industry to describe the wipe
― The Soundtrack of Burl Ives (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 30 December 2019 12:58 (four years ago) link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_shot
"iris out" and "iris in" are usually noun phrases -- "the film ends with an iris out" -- that encourage the belief in "iris" can act as a verb with "in" or "out" as its adverb: "let's end the film by irising out"
― mark s, Monday, 30 December 2019 13:07 (four years ago) link
Thanks for, um, irising in, Mark.
― The Soundtrack of Burl Ives (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 30 December 2019 13:24 (four years ago) link
offworld
― Manitobiloba (Kim), Monday, 30 December 2019 14:44 (four years ago) link
The f-stop aperture of cameras was known as an iris decades before sci-fi got hold of the term.https://tubularinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/f-stop-scale.gif
― The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool (Sanpaku), Monday, 30 December 2019 16:45 (four years ago) link
"as a verb"
― mark s, Monday, 30 December 2019 16:51 (four years ago) link
https://img.apmcdn.org/fab975fb18fd043b3007cd9d7eb8a357e712cf50/uncropped/27c825-20110402-bob-dylan-1975.jpgIris, oh, Iris, you’re a mystical child
― The Soundtrack of Burl Ives (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 30 December 2019 16:55 (four years ago) link
the element in a camera is anyway transferred from the anatomical region that surrounds the pupil in the eye, so-called (since 1525 via SOED) bcz it is rainbow coloured, iris being the greek goddess of the rainbow -- and "irised" did actually pre-exist (acc.SOED, i've never spotted it) as a poetic verb meaning "exhibited the characteristics of a rainbow"
so there's a quadruple meaning transference, which is fun: from name-of-a-god to colour quality to mechanism (purposive-muscular) to mechanism (purposive-mechanical) to mechanism (similar mechanism different purpose)
― mark s, Monday, 30 December 2019 17:01 (four years ago) link
El show de Iris Chacon to thread!
― The Soundtrack of Burl Ives (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 30 December 2019 20:53 (four years ago) link
lidar
― mookieproof, Monday, 30 December 2019 22:42 (four years ago) link
there's a lot of lidar talk in 1491! which, okay, does read a bit like science fiction in places
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 30 December 2019 23:22 (four years ago) link