{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/477",
    "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": 477,
    "subject": "Derivation of talus",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 3,
    "first": "1998-05-19T12:47:44+00:00",
    "last": "1998-05-26T09:38:11+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0008-0644@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Brownes3",
        "address": "brownes3 at aol.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-19T13:28:59+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Derivation of talus",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I don't recall anyone posting a possible derivation of the term of talus on\nthis, list,although I remember at one point several posts saying \"talus\" was\nstill a mystery.\n\nHere's my try:\n\nI'm re-reading Nightside and came to the passage that describes the painting\nof Pas creating the Whorl. The message mentions two taluses of a particularly\nlovely shade of butter yellow. Obviously, they are bulldozers, but a certain\nkind -- yellow is the brand color of Caterpillar Tractors. So I went looking\nfor associations with caterpillars or butterliesa and such.\n\nI needn't have been so devious.  According to Webster's, a talus is:\n\n\"a slope formed by an accumulation  of rock debris.\"\n\nSo a talus is named after the thing it makes:  the slope the bulldozer blade\nleaves in the rubbled after it pulls back.\n\nWhat do y'all think?\n\nRich Browne"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0008-0645@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Westlake",
        "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-19T12:47:44+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) Derivation of talus",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0008-0644@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 09:28 1998-05-19 EDT, Brownes3 wrote:\nI don't recall anyone posting a possible derivation of the term of talus on\nthis, list,although I remember at one point several posts saying \"talus\" was\nstill a mystery."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "See <http://www.gbso.net/zuki/GREEK.HTM#TALOS>, which says \"In Greek\nmythology, Talos was a bronze man given to Europa by Zeus to guard\nCrete. He would clutch people to his breast and jump into a fire so\nthat they were burnt alive.\"\n\n\nSpectacled bear."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0008-0649@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David_Lebling",
        "address": "david_lebling at avid.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-26T09:38:11+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Derivation of Talus",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0008-0645@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The nice thing about \"talus\" as a term for the bulldozer-guard-robots is\nthat the word also fits nicely within Wolfe's naming scheme, in that\ntalus is rock debris, or a pile of such debris making up a slope.\n\nSo, we have the resonance with the Talos of mythical Crete (which Wolfe\nhas written about in terms that suggest he \"believes\" it to have been a\nrobot), and the nice fit with the Whorl's naming scheme, and the\ndefinitional parallel that the taluses of the Whorl are, compared to the\nsoldiers, \"debris,\" in that they are somewhat inferior jury-rigged\ncopies of the real thing.\n\n     -- viz"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}