{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/744",
    "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": 744,
    "subject": "Horn's height and 8-legged elephants",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-12-21T21:52:24+00:00",
    "last": "1999-12-21T21:52:24+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0201@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Yves Meynard",
        "address": "ymeynard at globetrotter.qc.ca"
      },
      "date": "1999-12-21T21:52:24+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Horn's height and 8-legged elephants",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I thought I'd muddy the (too-) quiescent waters...\n\nThe hypothesis that Horn is actually in Silk's body is appealing; yet it\nseems contradicted by the very beginning of NtLS:\n\n\"With a slight shock of insight, Silk realized [...] that Horn's [...] eyes\nwere very nearly level with his.\" (p.15)\n\nHorn isn't even fully grown then (or is he?). Yet OBW states that Horn has\ngrown quite noticeably (I can't find the figure he gives -- it is in\ncubits, which confuses the issue further, but I think to recall a good 6\ninches were implied). Perhaps (gasp!) Wolfe is being inconsistent, perhaps\nthis isn't Silk's body, or perhaps I'm just hopelessly confused. Any\nthoughts?\n\nOn another matter: animals native to Blue have names that either *appear*\nmade up (what's the etymology of \"hus\"?) or that are descriptive, in which\ncase they are portmanteau words (\"felwolf\", \"breakbull\", \"leatherskin\").\nThis does not apply to cows and elephants. It is mentioned that cow embryos\nwere brought aboard the landers. Is the same true of elephants? I would\ntend to assume so, since otherwise wouldn't another name have been chosen?\n\"Olifants\", \"Mamouths\", whatever? But how come they have eight legs and\ntwin trunks? I recall Wolfe expressing credence in a form of Lamarckism,\nwhereby living beings would evolve to fit an existing environment (but not\n\"of their own will\"). Could this be an explanation?\n\nAgain, any thoughts (or contemptuous put-downs :-) are welcome.\n\nYves Meynard\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}