(urth) Father Inire: teratoid

[DAVID STOCKHOFF]

Thanks Mo
Someone suggested that the glyph is a Chinese character. That's plausible, if possibly racist given the "monstrous" connotation. Chinese calligraphy and type sometimes uses red, and the script can seem angry and horned, perhaps a bit demonic to the nonreader. (Lovecraft probably imagined Arabic, Chinese, and other scripts in a similar way when he wrote of books of nameless horror, which is perhaps a point in the theory's favor.) 
But because of the connection is potentially Korean, not Chinese, unfortunately I have to point out that Korean uses Chinese characters even less than Japanese does. We can imagine the glyph as Korean calligraphy, but then who would use calligraphy on an underground door to a transporter room?
I think the answer is in the word "teratoid." Teratoid means monster-like---in other words, RESEMBLING  A MONSTER.
What could this be but a"universal" symbol denoting the presence of monsters and connoting danger? Three pairs of horns and three sets of tentacles would do the trick for most people.
--- On Tue, 12/14/10, Mo Holkar <lists at ukg.co.uk> wrote:

From: Mo Holkar <lists at ukg.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (urth) Father Inire: teratoid
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Tuesday, December 14, 2010, 10:14 AM

At 14:54 14/12/2010, Son of Witz wrote:
> So, of course I'm trying to figure out what this teratoid symbol LOOKS like.
> I see that it is mostly a medical term for monstrous abnormality and tumours and such., but I don't find associated symbols with an image search.


There was a discussion about this on here a few years ago:
http://lists.urth.net/htdig.cgi/urth-urth.net/2006-July/thread.html#6578

I wondered myself if it might be the biohazard sign; but it seems to me there's no clear evidence to support any specific theory.

best wishes,

Mo


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