Re: The Melting
From: | John Cowan <cowan@...> |
Date: | Sunday, May 25, 2003, 6:36 |
Roger Mills scripsit:
> I'll do that. What an amusing concept, which had certainly occurred to me,
> and if Mr. Niven won't mind, the word will end up as Kash _riçatra_, a
> borrowing from the Galactic language (along with ktosh '(human) clone' and
> hnau 'hilf')
Very neat! The verb is "rish", at least in English, so -athra may be
some sort of abstract noun suffix. No reason the Kash have to make that
analysis, however.
There are creatures whose pheromones make you want to rish, and while
you do, they attack and devour you. In 30th-century English they are
called _vampires_. In general they are not intelligent.
There is no copyright in single words, I hasten to add.
--
John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan
"The exception proves the rule." Dimbulbs think: "Your counterexample proves
my theory." Latin students think "'Probat' means 'tests': the exception puts
the rule to the proof." But legal historians know it means "Evidence for an
exception is evidence of the existence of a rule in cases not excepted from."