{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1049",
    "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": 1049,
    "subject": "hus (onomastics)",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2000-12-02T12:54:49+00:00",
    "last": "2000-12-04T09:19:11+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0039@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at charter.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-12-02T12:54:49+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) hus (onomastics)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "After trying for the past four years to figure out the etymology of hus, but\nfailing, I decided to go to the man himself for help, and here is what he\ntold me:\n\n\"Hus is a little embarrassing. It's an old word for house. (A hussy was a\nkept woman: a house woman, like a house dog, rather than a housewife--a\nwoman who was shacking up.) When I started the book, I wanted to combine the\nhouse-pet idea with the wild-boar idea, and called Babbi a hushhog. I hadn't\ngotten very far before I realized that most readers would see the word as\nhush.og and my characters began referring to him as \"hus.\" So I left it at\nthat.\"\n\nRobert Borski (who still doesn't understand how a \"a half-grown hus\" can\nlook like \"a cluster of boys, or two men upon their hands and knees,\" but I\nguess that's me.)\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0041@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "2000-12-04T09:19:11+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) hus (onomastics)",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0012-0039@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Sat, 2 Dec 2000, Robert Borski wrote:\n\"Hus is a little embarrassing. It's an old word for house. (A hussy was a\nkept woman: a house woman, like a house dog, rather than a housewife--a\nwoman who was shacking up.) When I started the book, I wanted to combine the\nhouse-pet idea with the wild-boar idea, and called Babbi a hushhog. I hadn't\ngotten very far before I realized that most readers would see the word as\nhush.og and my characters began referring to him as \"hus.\" So I left it at\nthat.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\"hush.og\"?  Looks like a website for librarians.  I suppose that's\nsupposed to say \"hush og\"?  And I guess you mean that the orignial word\nwas 'hushog' (one 'h' in the middle) pronounced \"hus hog\"?  Took me a\nminute to figure that out - more confusing than the Matera Mint typo in\nExodus."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Robert Borski (who still doesn't understand how a \"a half-grown hus\" can\nlook like \"a cluster of boys, or two men upon their hands and knees,\" but I\nguess that's me.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think it's just trying to capture the oddity of eight legs.  Maybe our\nperceptions are so used to two/four legs that seeing eight legs would\ninitially register as more than one critter.  \n\n-Rostrum\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}