The Sword and Laser discussion

So as you're reading this book, you're noticing that there is a ton a geology and surrounding vocabulary. If you're like me, it's been *mumble*30*mumble years since you took Rocks for Jocks in college and you forgot a thing or three.

That's OK - I scanned a few pages from Science Made Stupid: How to Discomprehend the World Around Us to help out.

Here's a page on the make-up of the Earth's crust and types of rock (including metaphoric, ignominious and sedentary):


Here's a page on tides and volcanoes:


And here's a very important topic, "Earthquakes: Whose Fault?", which explains the actual cause of earthquakes.

okay, that's wonderful.

Wow, thanks.

When I listened to the audiobook I didn't really notice the geospeak as much as when I read the e-book.

Is sess a real word, by the way?

Silvana wrote: "Is sess a real word, by the way?"

It's a made up word by NKJ.

The Oregenes have a pair of organs at the base of their brain stem called the sessapinae.
They are what they use when they sess.

The graphic artist had a very good time with this. I particularly like what's going on with the "molten magda" on the second page. Also the types of rocks "appearance" row was very reassuring. They look like that to me as well.

Robert Rich & Ian Boddy have an ambient album called Lithosphere. Here's the track names:

1. Threshold 02:07
2. Vent 05:20
3. Chamber 06:28
4. Glass 03:40
5. Subduction 05:34
6. Geode 06:32
7. Stone 03:51
8. Metamorphic 07:25
9. Lithospere 06:29
10. Melt 05:15

I was watching one of the recent episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (I find it soothing; please don't judge). One of the characters is obsessed with rocks. She mentions seeing traces of syenite in a crack in the pavement and I was like "I know where I've heard that before."

Tassie Dave wrote: "Silvana wrote: "Is sess a real word, by the way?"

It's a made up word by NKJ.

The Oregenes have a pair of organs at the base of their brain stem called the sessapinae.
They are what they use wh..."

Thanks.

I'm totally gonna adopt 'sess' into my daily vocab.

It feels very real to me, probably because it sounds so much like "suss" in my head and that's a real word.

Oh, that could work. At first I thought it was a shortened version of 'assess'.

I find lots of other interesting words for professions ending with - mest : Geomest, biomest, archaeomest, astronomest.
Is mest a derivation of a real word (master?) or another word invented by NKJ?

Then there were the lorists, e.g. Metalorist. What is the difference between metallorist and (just) lorist? A specialty in metal? Like the metalbender in Avatar?

Silvana wrote: "Oh, that could work. At first I thought it was a shortened version of 'assess'.

I find lots of other interesting words for professions ending with - mest : Geomest, biomest, archaeomest, astronom..."

I don't know how she made up the word, but it's pretty clearly a straight up replacement for -ologist.

She did some really clever things with language and world building. Some of it appears to be entirely new but with its own logic. Some of it can be teased out. I was almost done with the books before it dawned on me that the region names are abbreviations of geographic descriptions.

Midlatter - A person from the Mid Latitudes

Somidlats - South Mid Latitudes

The most important city and seat of government is at the equator and all other areas are thought of in their relationship to that.

Joanna wrote: "Silvana wrote: "Oh, that could work. At first I thought it was a shortened version of 'assess'.

I find lots of other interesting words for professions ending with - mest : Geomest, biomest, archaeomest, astronomest. "

I don't know how she made up the word, but it's pretty clearly a straight up replacement for -ologist."

Well apart from the last one ;-)
Their astronomest, would be our astronomer

Astrologist has nothing to do with science. It's someone who makes up BS ;-)

As a former reporter, I enjoyed that Rictus Scale.

I meant to look up some of the types of rock used in the book and never did. The beginning of the Wikipedia article is not particularly comprehensible. I might get lost forever following the links.

E.J. Xavier wrote: "I was almost done with the books before it dawned on me that the region names are abbreviations of geographic descriptions.

Midlatter - A person from the Mid Latitudes

Somidlats - South Mid Latitudes "

Secondary World Hipsters.

Reminds me of How I Met Your Mother's DoWiSeTrePla neighborhood.

Eh, here in Metro-Vancouver we have areas called Surdel (Surrey-Delta), Nordel (North Delta), Burquitlam (Burnaby-Coquitlam) and Poco (Port Coquitlam).

These are called portmanteau, by the way.

Steve wrote: "These are called portmanteau, by the way."

The definition being, "Cynical attempt by real estate agents at making your neighborhood seem hip by giving it a goofy name and then charging you five times as much money for the same sad little apartment."

99% Invisible just did an episode about these pseudo-portmanteau. They are hilarious in their ridiculousness.

http://99percentinvisible.org/episode...

Alright. True story:

I was listening to that exact podcast around the time I read this book, and I think it was responsible for the lightbulb going of and my finally figuring out what those names meant. They kept bothering me because so many other names were so methodical and obviously descriptive. That's some slightly freaky cultural full circle right there.

Also Helen Salzman's "The Allusionist" is fantastic and produced by these people. If you like linguistic humor she's the best there is.

http://www.theallusionist.org/allusio...

Yep.

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