{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/235",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 235,
    "subject": "Decoding \"Tracking Song\"",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1997-10-24T09:57:08+00:00",
    "last": "1997-10-30T01:29:27+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0005-0356@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "John Bishop",
        "address": "jbishop at ch.hp.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-10-24T09:57:08+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Decoding \"Tracking Song\"",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "  I looked up \"cim\" in the OED and the OED supplement;\n  there is a \"cime\", an alternate spelling for \"cyme\",\n  which is a technical term for a particular kind of\n  bud (\"a head of unexpanded leaves\").  This doesn't fit.\n\n  Here's the Cim name quote (p 199 of the 1980 Timescape\n  pb edition of IODDAOSAOS):\n\n      When I was born my father wished to name me\n      Seven Snows, which is a common name for girls\n      amoung our people.  But I was born while he\n      was away in his boat; and before he returned,\n      my mother had left her bed and seen the Cim\n      blowing from tree to tree like a soft star in\n      the air, and completed the naming.\n\n  Re-reading that passage I am struck by the way it\n  carries hints of meaning in all the phrases: the other\n  name, the boat, the implied customs of naming, the\n  relations between the sexes in her people.\n\n  It's also not clear what the Cim could be: is this\n  a single thing or a stuff?  The best real parallel\n  I've seen is the floating dandelion-like seeds of\n  some trees, which in the spring sometimes float in\n  clouds from their parent trees.  That's a bit star-\n  like, but not like \"a star\".\n\n  Re Nashhwonk: yes, the description of the fight makes\n  the \"chair\" sound much more like moose antlers (it\n  can cover his head) or elk antlers (many sharp points).\n  I conceed.  North America it is.\n\n  The tone of the interactions between the narrator and\n  the Nashhwonk named Mankiller (and where else have\n  we seen _that_ concept?  This too is no accident!)\n  is interesting--the moose is confident and friendly;\n  it's a surprise when he dies, as you expect him to\n  continue after such an introduction.\n\n           -John\n  "
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0005-0363@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jim Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net"
      },
      "date": "1997-10-30T01:29:27+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Decoding \"Tracking Song\"",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0005-0356@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": " Here's the Cim name quote (p 199 of the 1980 Timescape\n pb edition of IODDAOSAOS):\n\n     When I was born my father wished to name me\n     Seven Snows, which is a common name for girls\n     amoung our people.  But I was born while he\n     was away in his boat; and before he returned,\n     my mother had left her bed and seen the Cim\n     blowing from tree to tree like a soft star in\n     the air, and completed the naming."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tI have nothing to go on except the passage itself, but I figured that cim\nis snow. Notice that the naming is \"completed,\" which implies (possibly)\nthat the mother did not completely change the father's desires. \n\nNutria"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}