{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3510", "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": 3510, "subject": "PEACE: oh wabe!", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2002-10-24T18:09:55+00:00", "last": "2002-10-30T17:14:26+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-10-24T18:09:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: oh wabe!", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "William Ansley's memory of PEACE is very sharp!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He wrote:\nIn the passage from _Peace_ you mention above, Weer is thinking about\nnonexistant races of men. I don't have my book with me and so can't\nremember the details, but from what you say above, it was the\norange-skinned people who worshiped sundials. The passage continues to the\neffect that, after the threat of legal action allows the \"orange tribe\"\ninto the country club, \"they out with strange oaths. What's a wabe?\" (I am\nreconstructing the quote from memory.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is right. The only additions I would make are: \"wabe\" is part of the\nstrange oath that slips out of an orange guy in an unguarded moment (an\nutterance that makes the familiar seeming become utterly alien); and that\nthe orange tribe seems to worship sundials as \"ours\" seems to worship\ntelephone poles (a play on how telephone poles have cruciform shapes due to\nutility unrelated to religion . . . another engineering joke)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "----------------------\nThe grass plot round a sundial ... because it goes a long way before it,\nand a long way behind it ... and a long way beyond it on each side.\n-----------------------\n\nThis is word play. The sound of the word \"way\" is combined with the sound\nof the common first letter of \"before,\" \"behind\" and \"beyond\" to produce\nthe word \"wabe.\" (My apologies to everyone who already understood this\nperfectly.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hey, does this mean it is pronounced \"WAY-bee,\" to rhyme with \"baby\"? I\nthought it was \"WAYB\" to rhyme with \"babe\"!\n\nWolfe-content aside, everybody should go out and see Miyazaki's new movie\n\"Spirited Away\"! Right now! Miyazaki has several fine movies and this is\none of them. Many of the people around here have seen it already (I've\nseen it twice and might see it again before it gets to video).\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\n29 copies of \"Snake's-hands\" until OP!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Josh Geller", "address": "dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net" }, "date": "2002-10-24T18:55:27+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: oh wabe!", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Thu, 24 Oct 2002, Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:\nThis is word play. The sound of the word \"way\" is combined with the\nsound of the common first letter of \"before,\" \"behind\" and \"beyond\" to\nproduce the word \"wabe.\" (My apologies to everyone who already\nunderstood this perfectly.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hey, does this mean it is pronounced \"WAY-bee,\" to rhyme with \"baby\"? I\nthought it was \"WAYB\" to rhyme with \"babe\"!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "According to Humpty-Dumpty.\n\nBut according to Carroll's original definition:\n\nWabe (derived from the verb to swab or soak). The side of a hill\n (from its being soaked by the rain).\n\nSo it looks like it is pronounced 'wob'. See\nhttp://www.math.luc.edu/~vande/jabglossary.html.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "2002-10-30T04:46:01+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: oh wabe!", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "William Ansley's memory of PEACE is very sharp!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It should be. _Peace_ is still my favorite of Wolfe's books and I \nhave read it many times." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "In the passage from _Peace_ you mention above, Weer is thinking about\nnonexistant races of men. I don't have my book with me and so can't\nremember the details, but from what you say above, it was the\norange-skinned people who worshiped sundials. The passage continues to the\neffect that, after the threat of legal action allows the \"orange tribe\"\ninto the country club, \"they out with strange oaths. What's a wabe?\" (I am\n >reconstructing the quote from memory.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is right. The only additions I would make are: \"wabe\" is part of the\nstrange oath that slips out of an orange guy in an unguarded moment (an\nutterance that makes the familiar seeming become utterly alien); and that\nthe orange tribe seems to worship sundials as \"ours\" seems to worship\ntelephone poles (a play on how telephone poles have cruciform shapes due to\nutility unrelated to religion . . . another engineering joke)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Interesting. I'm going to quote the whole passage.\n\n----------------------\n[T]he orange people with their weird religion demanding the worship \nof sundials (as our own seems to others that of telephone poles), so \nthat in friendly locker-room conversations, when we have at last and \nat the threat of certain legal pressures admitted them in Pinelawn \nand are discussing the round now past, they out with strange oaths. \nWhat is a wabe?\n----------------------\n\nI have always thought Wolfe meant that to others (although just who \nthese others might be, I'm sure I don't know) we seem to worship \ntelephone poles because we have them all over the place, so they must \nbe some kind of totem object.\n\n\nTotem! Poles! Totem poles! I made a joke, son.\n" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " >----------------------\n >The grass plot round a sundial ... because it goes a long way before it,\nand a long way behind it ... and a long way beyond it on each side." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "-----------------------\n\nThis is word play. The sound of the word \"way\" is combined with the sound\nof the common first letter of \"before,\" \"behind\" and \"beyond\" to produce\nthe word \"wabe.\" (My apologies to everyone who already understood this\nperfectly.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hey, does this mean it is pronounced \"WAY-bee,\" to rhyme with \"baby\"? I\nthought it was \"WAYB\" to rhyme with \"babe\"!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"WAYB\" is, of course, the canonical pronunciation. Considering that I \nmade a special effort to phrase my explanation above in such a way as \nto prevent anyone reading it from arriving at \"WAY-bee,\" the depth of \nmy failure is all the more humiliating. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Wolfe-content aside, everybody should go out and see Miyazaki's new movie\n\"Spirited Away\"! Right now! Miyazaki has several fine movies and this is\none of them. Many of the people around here have seen it already (I've\nseen it twice and might see it again before it gets to video)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I agree whole-heartedly with mantis here. This film is not playing in \na lot of theaters, but it is well worth going out of your way to see \nit." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "William Ansley\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-10-30T17:14:26+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) PEACE: oh wabe!", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Hey, does this mean it is pronounced \"WAY-bee,\" to rhyme \nwith \"baby\"? \nI thought it was \"WAYB\" to rhyme with \"babe\"!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"WAYB\" is, of course, the canonical pronunciation. Considering that I \nmade a special effort to phrase my explanation above in such a way as \nto prevent anyone reading it from arriving at \"WAY-bee,\" the depth of \nmy failure is all the more humiliating. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Two points in support of the estimable Ansley's prescribed \nprounciation:\n\na) \"Wabe\" needs to rhyme with \"outgrabe,\" whose origin (if it can\nbe called that - past tense of \"to outgribe\") does not in any way\nsuggest it should be pronounced \"out-GRAY-bee.\"\n\nb) Rhythmically, \"Jabberwocky\" is structured:\n baDA baDA baDA baDA\n baDA baDA baDA baDA\n baDA baDA baDA baDA\n baDA baDA baDA\nThe rhythm is _extremely_ regular. Ignoring \"wabe,\" the only \npossible exception occurs the final line of stanza 2, \"the \nfrumious Bandersnatch;\" however, as the adjective can be \npronounced \"FROOM-yuss,\" there is no real irregularity. For\n\"wabe\" to be pronounced bisyllabically, then, and especially\nwith an unstressed second syllable, would create a lone \nirregularity in a pome whose rhythm is otherwise extremely, \nalmost obsessively, regular.\n\n--The Pedantic Blattid" } ] } ] }