Eldraeic Word of the Day: Cagál

cagál (n.): faeces; excrement; shit; solid animal biowaste.

Note for translators: This is the word you’re looking for, which serves equally for technical, medical, and casual usage. It is not considered pejorative or vulgar per se, but certain comparisons or equivalencies may be depending on context.

Variants include tracagál hanat (shit-house, an outdoor biowaste disposal facility); tracagál neth (shittery, an indoor biowaste disposal facility, as distinct from the customarily separate lavatory [washing room]); mézcagál ([metaphorical] shit, archaic term for a useless substance, no longer in common usage due to its high value in ecopoesis and closed life-support systems); and traäshíël mézcagál (starshit, colloquial term for iron, and by extension, any common and mostly useless waste product).

3 thoughts on “Eldraeic Word of the Day: Cagál

  1. So in the common curse “Shit and waste heat”, are they using cagál in root form or mézcagál? You say the latter isn’t in common usage, but the curse seems to be invoking the term in it’s useless/entropic form and stuff like curses and proverbs seems to be where obsolete words linger longest.

  2. archaic term for a useless substance, no longer in common usage due to its high value in ecopoesis and closed life-support systems

    From which I deduce that Eliéra must have had unnaturally and nearly-uniformly fecund soil if it took them this long to figure out the wonderful commercial potential for “night soil,” something that was relatively well-known to pre-industrial agrarian societies here on Earth.

    (See also: The entry from Working IX to V on “stercorarius”: https://books.google.com/books?id=G3t_zoqWLycC&pg=PT104&lpg=PT104&dq=stercorarius+working+ix+to+v&source=bl&ots=oZfnILnUZO&sig=sIozzierzX2SLCEexIX0D4wqDb4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWs4jllLTcAhWrITQIHXpnDM0Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=stercorarius%20working%20ix%20to%20v&f=false )

    On that note: Does eldraeic have a term for the local equivalent of stercorarius (“manure entrepreneur”)?

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