Mystery of Ascia/Agia

Jeff Wilson · 21 Jan 2011, 16:35 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 10:35:35 -0600
Subject: (urth) Mystery of Ascia/Agia
In-Reply-To: <EF947858-123A-4D95-B0C0-66C212146AF6 at butcherbaker.org>
References: <AANLkTim+1KN+6tWRkW4gqaX_d=cLP-Ap_c3KZtoJXbSW at mail.gmail.com>	<9E5DCA03-6DA3-4F4E-9B5E-D7248A637A2B at butcherbaker.org>	<8120F35037D44B77ACD8BF187CE57021@jill>	<F2EF2ABB-596B-4AB8-B10D-2A0E99191423 at butcherbaker.org>	<4D393751.1040905 at io.com>
	<EF947858-123A-4D95-B0C0-66C212146AF6 at butcherbaker.org>
Message-ID: <4D39B5D7.6040002 at io.com>

On 1/21/2011 9:03 AM, Son of Witz wrote:
> On Jan 20, 2011, at 11:35 PM, Jeff Wilson<jwilson at io.com>  wrote:
>
>> On 1/20/2011 7:33 PM, Son of Witz wrote:
>>
>>> Why would Wolfe, who does A
>>> LOT of intentional linking of phonetically similar names, use the word
>>> Ascian for what are essentially a communist metaphor?
>>
>> I think you and Lee may have caught a red herring here; Mantiss gives the pronunciation of Ascia as uh-SKI-ah, while Asia is AY-zha. This is from the post-Lexicon GURPS NEW SUN book, so while it is not received wisdom, it at least has been voiced thusly in the author's presence and recorded as not meeting objection.
>
>
> Sure. Maybe.
> I am aware of the pronunciation of Ascia in the Lexicon.
> I love the Lexicon, but there are things that clearly are wrong.
> Take the map of the Citadel. 9 towers are shown, along with the few other named structures.
> It is drawn as if that is all there is room for, but we know there have to be enough towers in the citadel to make the mind conceive if "thousands of towers" and a "glittering flock" on the hill that wows it's visitors by it's immensity.. 9 towers.  Sorry.

I don't know about the maps, but back on the old GEnie network's Wolfe 
discusstion area, Mantiss attested that the vocabulary was run past 
Wolfe personally, whom corrected him on some and waved the rest on. The 
corrections were on spelling and pronunciation rather than meaning, to 
make sure he was researching the correct word and not a typo. IIRC, 
Wolfe confirmed the non-silence of the G in "Gnab", but it was left to 
the GEnie posters to clue in Mantiss that it was "Bang" writ backwards.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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