From: Derek Bell <dbell@maths.tcd.ie>
Subject: Re: (whorl) silk flowers, sleepers awake, whorl gazetteer
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 22:08:27 +0000


[Posted from Whorl, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

In message <199702281831.KAA03552@lists1.best.com>, Ranjit Bhatnagar writes:
>I noticed this time while scanning II-Ch4 that Crane has
>given Hy cosmetic surgery like Talos did Jolenta.  Does
>Crane remind anyone else of Dr Talos?

	Hmmm... Excellent point - both also appeared to be of higher
rank than a particular patient, but turn out to be serving that patient. 

>Just for the heck of it: What cities do we know of?  Gens
>("they got tails in Gens"), Trivigaunte ("the girls fight
>like troopers in Trivigaunte"), Palustria ("down amongst
>the pollywogs, eh?"),

	I think night-choughs were supposed to be native to the
marshes of Palustria.

>Urbs and Urbis (can't find a quote).

	Urbs and Wick are mentioned by Quetzal when he talks of his
contacts with other cities.

	As for the two Flier terms that I haven't translated yet: I
have a couple of (very uncertain) translations. "canna" could mean a
vessel or container - the dictionary I consulted also suggested it was
a variant of "caunna", which means moth. I'm not sure which of these
are correct. The former translation could be a euphemism of some sort,
just as the term "tank" was in WW1 when tanks were about to be
introduced. (I think the propulsion unit has a bell-shaped rocket
nozzle, so this could be another explanation.) Then again, "moth" is
appropriate, seeing as there are Fliers with names related to flying
animals.

	I'm even less certain about "glacaiocht": it could be a literal
translation of karate ("empty hand") as "glac" means hand. It could
also be related to the Irish for recieving, possibly denoting a soft
martial art, where the emphasis is on redirecting your opponent's
attacks. I also asked a friend about the possible meaning and he said
it sounded like the word for athletics, which could be used to cover
martial arts at a stretch. As I wasn't sure of the pronunciation I
have emailed him the spellings. (Irish uses accute accents, which are
clearly missing in some of the Flier names.) Hopefully, he will reply
soon.

	Tercel

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