linguistics
âThere was a pond below the window! Weâre not monsters, after all.â â First Quill SeĂŻn Ejava, Scrupulous Company of Learned Scriveners, at the Defenestration of the Descriptivists âIf weâre being scrupulous, it was a settling pond. For night soil.â â Sorel Haranye, former Learned Scrivener, two hours later, at
BelrĂĂ€ Naratyr
BelrĂĂ€ Naratyr: A minor fashion designer of the SelĂ©ne school (fl. 2300), best known for the creation of algorithms for the swarm-intelligence kinetic microbots used for clothing management in microgravity to adapt them, instead, to ensure that oneâs cloak would swirl in an appropriately dramatic, personalized, and environmentally-tailored manner
eldraeic language
darĂĂ«: (a respectful title for) one whose accomplishments are known and admired, but do not extend to those of an Excellence or Exquisite; could reasonably be glossed âlordâ or âladyâ in the nominative (rare usage), and âserâ or âseraâ in the vocative (common usage). In the modern era, with the
trope-a-day
Language Drift: Sort-of averted for Eldraeic, due in equal parts to its origins as a designed language intended to communicate precisionist-grade thought and to its ongoing tending by the logotects, et. al., of the Conclave of Linguistics and Ontology, who are prescriptivists nonpareil. Only sort of, however, since their department
death penalty
This is a note providing some background on one of the traditional Imperial methods of execution, namely, the flames of purification (as described here) for an ongoing comment thread here (relevant part quoted below): Letâs also not forget that the eldrae themselves have had a historical penchant for burning
culture
âJudge ye! And know that ye are judged in turn.â â Tectar Asamis, Second Exemplar of SaravonĂ©
meta
Among the things I am kicking around today are future possibilities for the Word-of-the-Day feature. Iâve got some interesting ones in the form of words which have distinct values implied â say, âgreedâ â which necessarily require multiple translations â âambitionâ, for example, or âcompromiseâ â or whose closest equivalent have very different
eldraeic language
ulquordaĂ«Ă€lathdar: (lit. âimpossible-knowledge-personâ, derog.) Agnostic; (Flamic) an adherent to the Agnostic Heresy; one who holds that certain or all knowledge cannot be known, i.e., is intrinsically unknowable, rather than simply unknown, or circumstantially unknowable due to lack of necessary epistemic tools or cognitive capacity. from ulquordaĂ«lin (âimpossibleâ, itself from
amnesic
Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Again, a tactic used primarily by lower-tech and lower-ethics organizations, ones which canât manage or donât bother with amnesic drugs, memory redaction, a geas, simple memetic discrediting, or if all else fails, a trip to a perfectly nice, perfectly comfortable luxury space resort
Fundamental Ledger
âThere is one thing that comes before the Fundamental Contract. That thing is the Fundamental Ledger. Before your first breath, before your first thought â even as your mind coalesces out of chaos, long before you can know your own nature as a sophont, its bindings are sewn and its pages
trope-a-day
Kill It With Water: Leaving aside such not-really-the-water examples as water knives, pressure effects, and drowning, this is rather rare, inasmuch as the universe is full of the bloody stuff and as such having much of a vulnerability to water is unlikely to let you live long enough for anyone
worldbuilding
Iâve recently been asked elsewhere, âhow far into the future is your setting?â Well, since itâs not connected causally to Earth, even fictional Earths, and technological development in the âverse didnât necessarily take place in the same order or at the same rate as it did here,