Re: OT: alien-ness portrayals; was Re: I'm new!

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Adam Walker wrote:

> >From: Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
> >
> >Unfortunately, the people on this list aren't around when I get myself
> >into trouble and need to figure something out fast!  <wry look>  The
> >whole taboo against asking a woman's age, frex.  I ran afoul of that one
> >in 5th grade though I hadn't even conceived that something that random
> >(to me) could be off-limits.
>
> That's why I take time in my ESL classes to deliberately point out odd
> things like that.  I don't want my students to be able to communicate but
> culturally bumfuzzled by Eglish speakers.
Too bad I didn't learn English from you.  :-p  I learned English from my
mom (well, reading/writing anyway), Sesame Street, and friends.  I
honestly can't recall what happened in the gap between preschool (when I
wasn't verbally fluent in English) and kindergarten (where I placed into
1st grade English).  Unfortunately, I can't recall that Sesame Street
covered a whole lot of "odd things."

> Ob Conlang:  What subjects are taboo in your conlangs?  Age, sexuality,
> wages, religion, family, the weather?
<wry g>  I haven't figured out sexuality, which is a Big Hole.  Religion
is generally casual and non-tabu--something that's personal rather than
institutionalized.  In Qenaren society the charge of "cowardice" is a
touchy one, "coward" coming from the same morpheme as "to panic/fear."
Fear isn't stigmatized, but loss-of-control due to fear (panic) *is*.
This becomes tricky in discussions of strategy/tactics since in their
history the Qenaren were guerilla fighters who often *would* retreat and
use what might be considered "cowardly" tactics by other cultures.

YHL