{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1020", "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": "whorl", "thread": { "id": 1020, "subject": "Seawrack's Real Name", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2000-09-08T12:51:10+00:00", "last": "2000-09-08T23:36:07+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2000-09-08T12:51:10+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Seawrack's Real Name", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For a long time now I have been trying to figure out Seawrack's real name.\n\nThat Seawrack isn't her real name is revealed to us very early on in BLUE,\nwhen Horn first confides, \"the truth is that her name, which was no word of\nthe Common Tongue, baffled me, and that Seawrack was near to it in sound and\nseemed to suit her very well.\"\n\nLater, Horn tells Babbie that he must not harm their new shipmate:\n\n*****\n\n \"...I tired to pronounce the name the goddess had used, and the young woman\nwho bore it laughed nervously.\n\n\"I can't say that, \"I told her. \"Is it all right if I call you Seawrack?\"\n\n*****\n\nArmed with these clues, I subsequently drew up the following parameters:\n\n1. Her name is not in the Common Tongue (i.e., English), so we're talking\nanother language here--thus recalling the various personages we've met in\nthe Long and Short Sun series with names of Arabic, Gaelic, Italian, Dutch\nor Indian extraction (among others).\n\n2. It must be incredibly difficult to pronounce. Given that Horn seems to\nhave little trouble saying Thelxiepeia and Sphigx, it's likely to be a\ngenuine tongue-twister.\n\n3. Her name must sound something like Seawrack, but not too much so or Horn\nwould be able to pronounce it more readily.\n\n4. Given the naming convention for women of the Whorl (since I believe\nSeawrack is a special talent), the name should be floral, with a possible\nnod to something in the broader seaweed family.\n\nNow even before alga's rather serendipitous discovery about the\nalgae-seawrack connection, I was operating under the assumption that\nSeawrack was almost certainly named after a member of the Cyanophyta. This\nis because of its more common name: Blue Green Algae. Unfortunately, though\nI looked through more taxonomy books and databases than I care to think\nabout, I could not find anything that resembled \"Seawrack\" in either\nLatinate binomial or common forms (seaweed has a long and pervasive history\nin the cookbooks and pharmacopeiae of the world--hence a plethora of folks\nnames for almost all varieties).\n\nDisappointed, but undaunted, I moved on to the Rhodophyta, figuring that\nperhaps since the Whorl hailed from a Red Sun system, the red algae would be\npotent hunting ground.\n\nNo such luck.\n\nOnward to the Phaeophycota, the unattractive brown algae. Then again its\nLaminara genus is cited in the OED under entry 2 of sea-wrack as a major\nform thereof. And thus I discovered Laminaria hyperborea, a seaweed with an\nextensive list of folk names, among which I list the following: sea rods,\nmayweed, sgothach, murach foghmhair, and so on and so forth--and then last,\nbut not least, screadhbhuidhe.\n\nFunny word, screadhbhuidhe.\n\nIt's Irish and pronouncing it may well give your tongue a hernia.\n\nSomething like: Shkreavwiyeh (or ...vweeyeh)\n\nAt least its vowel sounds approximate those in sea-wrack, and it has an\ninitial 's'.\n\nSo could Seawrack's real name be Screadhbhuidhe?\n\nTo review: (1) it's not in the Common Tongue; (2) it's difficult to\npronounce; (3) it sounds (sorta) like Seawrack; (4) it's floral and has the\nbonus OED association with Laminarian sea-wrack. (5) its Irishness may link\nback to Mainframe, whose fliers' names derived from similar roots.\n\nDon't know about the rest of you, but I'm satisfied.\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Westlake", "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk" }, "date": "2000-09-08T18:13:58+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Seawrack's Real Name", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:51 2000-09-08 -0500, Robert Borski wrote:\nSo could Seawrack's real name be Screadhbhuidhe?\n\nTo review: (1) it's not in the Common Tongue; (2) it's difficult to\npronounce; (3) it sounds (sorta) like Seawrack; (4) it's floral and has the\nbonus OED association with Laminarian sea-wrack. (5) its Irishness may link\nback to Mainframe, whose fliers' names derived from similar roots.\n\nDon't know about the rest of you, but I'm satisfied." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's fairly convincing - I'm certainly not going to try saying it\nout loud, especially while I'm in the office! A good piece of work.\n\nSo, does that mean the Flyers made it to Blue? One would hope they\nhad, and they would hardly have spent all this time idly watching\nthe Whorl disintegrate around them. Fascinating!\n\nSBear.\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Endymion9", "address": "endymion9 at mindspring.com" }, "date": "2000-09-08T20:39:09+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Re: Seawrack's Real Name", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert,\n\nYou're suggestion sounds much better than what I kept trying to make work\nsomehow. The Latin name for Seawrack/Bladderwrack is Fucus vesiculosus.\nDoesn't sound hard to pronounce or anything like Seawrack . I'll go\nwith your choice of screadhbhuidhe.\n\n\nDennis/Endy\nhttp://home.mindspring.com/~endymion9/index.htm\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "2000-09-08T23:36:07+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Seawrack's Real Name", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:51 PM -0500 9/8/00, Robert Borski wrote:\nSo could Seawrack's real name be Screadhbhuidhe?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert,\n\nYou make an intriguing and even convincing case. It's nice to see you \nusing your powers for goodness instead of evil. " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "William Ansley\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }