hus (onomastics)
The Whorl list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 02 Dec 2000
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1049

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.

==============================================================================

Robert Borski — 02 Dec 2000, 12:54

After trying for the past four years to figure out the etymology of hus, but
failing, I decided to go to the man himself for help, and here is what he
told me:

"Hus is a little embarrassing. It's an old word for house. (A hussy was a
kept woman: a house woman, like a house dog, rather than a housewife--a
woman who was shacking up.) When I started the book, I wanted to combine the
house-pet idea with the wild-boar idea, and called Babbi a hushhog. I hadn't
gotten very far before I realized that most readers would see the word as
hush.og and my characters began referring to him as "hus." So I left it at
that."

Robert Borski (who still doesn't understand how a "a half-grown hus" can
look like "a cluster of boys, or two men upon their hands and knees," but I
guess that's me.)


*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael Straight — 04 Dec 2000, 09:19
  follows, by subject match Robert Borski

> On Sat, 2 Dec 2000, Robert Borski wrote:
> "Hus is a little embarrassing. It's an old word for house. (A hussy was a
> kept woman: a house woman, like a house dog, rather than a housewife--a
> woman who was shacking up.) When I started the book, I wanted to combine the
> house-pet idea with the wild-boar idea, and called Babbi a hushhog. I hadn't
> gotten very far before I realized that most readers would see the word as
> hush.og and my characters began referring to him as "hus." So I left it at
> that."

"hush.og"?  Looks like a website for librarians.  I suppose that's
supposed to say "hush og"?  And I guess you mean that the orignial word
was 'hushog' (one 'h' in the middle) pronounced "hus hog"?  Took me a
minute to figure that out - more confusing than the Matera Mint typo in
Exodus.

> Robert Borski (who still doesn't understand how a "a half-grown hus" can
> look like "a cluster of boys, or two men upon their hands and knees," but I
> guess that's me.)

I think it's just trying to capture the oddity of eight legs.  Maybe our
perceptions are so used to two/four legs that seeing eight legs would
initially register as more than one critter.  

-Rostrum


*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------