# Lupine defined *The Whorl list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 10 Jun 2001* > 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. --- ### William Ansley *10 Jun 2001, 23:09* > Pardon my ignorance, but what is "Lupine"? I just picked up a copy of There > Are Doors at the used paperback store the other day, and it is described as > "loop-the-Lupine". I've heard you guys talk about Lupine on the list before. > Thanks, > > -Steve No need to apologize. If you don't ask you can't learn. (However, if you do ask and I answer, you risk an overdose of pedantry.) I was originally going to send a private reply to your message, but then I thought there might be others reading this discussion list that had been wondering the same thing but were afraid to ask. Lupine means wolf-like, it is an adjective derived from the Latin word for wolf lupus (similar adjectival forms are ursine: bear-like, vulpine: fox-like and murine: mouse-like; the latter is used almost exclusively in scientific literature). It is a scholarly pun on Gene Wolfe's surname. (It may have been coined by John Clute; does anyone know?) On this discussion list it is used to mean writing in the style or manner of Gene Wolfe, especially something written in a particularly convoluted, elliptical, ambiguous way. It is used in combined forms such as "loop-the-Lupine" which you mention (I imagine this means "even more convoluted than Wolfe's writing usually is") and Dan'l Danehy-Oakes excellent recent coinage Lupiverse, meaning the universe of discourse of a particular work by Gene Wolfe. ``` William Ansley *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ``` --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *11 Jun 2001, 08:50 · follows William Ansley* William Ansley referred to > Dan'l Danehy-Oakes excellent recent coinage Lupiverse, Thank you! > meaning the universe of discourse of a particular work by > Gene Wolfe. Well, actually, what I had in mind was the major universe of discourse in which the BOOKS OF THE [FOO] SUN take place, but if the term is more useful the other way, who am I to stand in the way of linguistic evolution? --Dan'l *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ---