{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/3",
    "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": 3,
    "subject": "Vironese names, _talus_, and Quetzal-queztions",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1996-11-28T19:49:27+00:00",
    "last": "1996-11-28T19:49:27+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0001-0003@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Rabin",
        "address": "danrabin at a.crl.com"
      },
      "date": "1996-11-28T19:49:27+00:00",
      "subject": "Vironese names, _talus_, and Quetzal-queztions",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "About `Xiphias':  The scientific name for the swordfish is _Xiphias\ngladius_.  `Gladius' is Latin for a short sword.\n\nMore on names:  Here's a relationship that Wolfe doesn't seem to do\nanything with:  The Prolocutor's robe of office is dyed with mulberry, and\nSILKworms eat mulberry leaves."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Talus -- either an ankle bone or a sloping pile of debris.  I can't\nfigure it out.  Any ideas?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It's probably a Latinized form of `Talos', as in Dr. Talos from _The Book\nof the New Sun_.  Michael Andre-Driussi says in _Lexicon Urthus_ that\n`Talos was the miraculous bronze (or brass) man who defended Crete for King\nMinos by hurling stones or fire at strangers, or by scorching them in his\nred-hot clasp.'  This sure sounds like a _Book of the Long Sun_ talus to\nme!"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "'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?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It's probably the bird-cage-like hoist that the airship lowers to bring\npassengers and goods aboard.  I don't know whether the Trivigaunti terms\nare intended to come from some known Earth language.  There is also an\nissue of whether the word is a local Trivigaunti term used in the Common\nLanguage, or whether it comes from the local aristocratic language which is\nSiyuf's mother tongue."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Incus -- 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.))"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It's Latin for `anvil' as well.\n\nI thought it was amusing that all the members of the Ayuntamiento bear the\nnames of lower primates: Loris, Lemur, Potto, Galago, Tarsier.  Potto\ncomments on the fact that they're all related."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "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?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I want to know that, and a lot more!  What motivated an inhumu to do the\ngood deeds that Quetzal did while also satisfying his need for blood?  Why\ndid he become Prolocutor?  Why did he proscribe human sacrifice?  Why did\nhe try to prevent theophanies?\n\nThere's also the question of the correspondence of Green to St. Anne in\n_The Fifth Head of Cerberus_.  That's the planet with the shape-shifting\naboriginal race that might or might not have imitated humans.\n\nWolfe remarks in an interview that he regards _The Book of the New Sun_ as\nhappening in the remote past, but I don't know what this means for the\nrelative timing of the Whorl's arrival and the events of _Fifth Head_.\n\n  -- Dan Rabin\n\n\n\nWhorl Web: http://moonmilk.volcano.org/whorl/\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}