{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/2",
    "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": 2,
    "subject": "Long Sun Names",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1996-11-27T21:06:26+00:00",
    "last": "1996-11-27T21:06:26+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0001-0002@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Ranjit Bhatnagar",
        "address": "ranjit at best.com"
      },
      "date": "1996-11-27T21:06:26+00:00",
      "subject": "Long Sun Names",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've been trying to figure out how various characters and other things\non the Whorl got their names.  I'll make a list on the web page if you\nsend your contributions.\n\nMaster Xiphias -- he implies that Xiphias is a kind of fish (in\nExodus, he misinterprets Moly as Mollie and jokes that it could be a\nrelative).  Turns out that xiphos is Greek for sword, which fits.  A\nxiphias is probably a sword-shaped fish.\n\nAzoth -- an alchemical term for mercury.  My best guess is that it's a\npunning reference to Terminus Est, Severian's sword in the New Sun\nbooks.  (Master Gurloes translated \"terminus est\" as \"this is the line\nof division,\" but I like to imagine Arnold Schwartzeneger translating\nit as \"I am the Terminator.\"  Anyway, the azoth is certainly a line of\ndivision.)\n\nTussah - a kind of rough SILK, the word comes from Hindi for \"shuttle\"\n(as in weaving).  I wonder if, besides the obvious Silk connection,\nWolfe was thinking of the space shuttles that would carry Tussah's\nadopted son and his followers off the Whorl?  Eh, too oblique.\n\nTalus -- either an ankle bone or a sloping pile of debris.  I can't\nfigure it out.  Any ideas?\n\nCalde -- I've been told it's derived from the Spanish for \"Mayor\" (alcalde?)\n\n'ishsh -- in Exodus, after Silk & Co have been captured by the\nTrivigauntis, they're waiting to be taken up to the airship as soon as\nthey lower the \"'ishsh.\"  What's that?\n\nChough -- is pronounced \"chuff.\"  I had to look it up.  The dictionary\nsays it has red legs; Wolfe gives it a red beak too, but the cover\nartists seem to have missed that.\n\nIncus -- a bone in the inner ear.  (Patera Jerboa thought it might be\nsome kind of creature that sneaks around stealing eggs from nests.  (A\njerboa is a leaping rodent with a long tail.))\n\nQuetzal -- a brightly colored Central American bird.  How did Quetzal\nget on the Whorl, anyway?  Did he or one of his ancestors advise Pas\nback on Earth, telling them where to find a habitable planet?  \n\n\tr\n\n\n\n\nWhorl Web: http://moonmilk.volcano.org/whorl/\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}