(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod
António Pedro Marques
entonio at gmail.com
Thu Aug 12 10:57:08 PDT 2010
DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote (12-08-2010 18:25):
> "When reading dialogue one must pay attention not only to what is said
> but to how it is expected to be said."
>
> Exactly.
>
> If the intent was "They were very like you, but with one major
> difference," then I would expect to read "They were very like you, but
> with one major difference...."
Not at all. The dialog doesn't go that way. It doesn't focus on how they are
different, that's mostly a by-product.
Sometimes you want to know if it is late and you ask what time is it,
instead of whether it's late or not. Communication is built on context; your
inner context, which leads you to ask only for the small subset of data you
think you need - it often leads to others having to ask you to say what it
is that you really want to know, instead of the specific datum you demanded
-, and the outer context, which leads you to provide only the small subset
of information that you think can't be inferred - it often leads to people
misunderstanding what you say.
I mentioned dialog because narrative is the opposite. It's meant as a full
description for an unknowing audience.
> Also, I should add that "cognate" is itself an invitation to suspect
> identity. The term denotes a word or thing of identical or shared
> origin. Recall that the narrator is part-Translator. And who knows what
> the Men of Urth actually call themselves?
>
> A race of women would by definition be cognate to a race of men; a race
> of Green Men would be the same as a race of Men: one must be derived
> from the other. A race cognate to Homo sapiens might be Homo habilis.
> But it can't be something too different.
>
> And yet it allows some doubt.
By cognate I simply read 'filling the same niche'. Homologue, if you like.
Though I also think that Briah's humans are not readily distinguishable from
ours.
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