Words for worlds (2) - getting on top of falling stars; tabletop curvature, troid warfare and the sphericrawl

Back in November I made a suggestion regarding the classification of celestial bodies, coining the term troid to group the many terms for objects of lower mass than the newly-minted dwarf planet.

Beyond the pressing and practical concerns, the meteor that broke up over Russia last week poses a supplementary question in this context: can the related terms 'meteoroid', 'meteor' and 'meteorite' be rolled into an expanded solution? We know they can be confusing, and the past few days have been a reminder.

So how about this then - a possible 1d3 table to go with the two 1d4s in the earlier post.

1. troid     2. introid     3. postintroid

It's fairly clear I imagine. The first is the term for a troid outside of an atmosphere, the second while inside but still in motion and the third when in contact with the other body or an immediately adjacent entity, e.g. held by one of us, or on a display cabinet shelf.

Forget the 'stalactite' / 'stalgamite' trouble of 'meteor' / 'meteorite': it's now 'in-', or 'in-' and 'post-'. The Greek-derived root for the whole is altered by the Latin prefixes. Seems apt.

It also leaves an opening for the preintroid, as well as the intriguing idea of an extroid...

You could see this is a form of Newspeak of course, but it needn't be. If science wants all of our minds, and if English is a lingua franca for scientific discourse which non-native speakers have to learn, and if clarity of construction helps young minds comprehend, and if these terms supplement existing terms in the language rather than replace them, enriching the language rather as borrowings from other languages do, we only gain by it.

Titillation red and pink

If your mind is still out on the red planet, Secure Immaturity has a review today of Total Recall. He's revisiting the work of Paul Verhoeven, and also covered Robocop recently. Yep, that means more nudity, and ultra-violence now too. But also sympathy for mutants. It needs mature reflection.


On the subject of nudity, I've been reflecting as maturely as I can. What follows some may find uncomfortable or even offensive - if so, skip this and the next eight paragraphs.

Discussing terms (1) - Beer and pretzels

Since I started keeping up with the hobby online, I've come across plenty of terms and trends in language use I'd never seen before. Many of the regional differences and the markers of a different approach are a source of interest and pleasure. Unfortunately not all of them. The language of violence sometimes gets a bit out of hand for example.

I'm not especially thin-skinned or prudish, but I do think that we underestimate the power of words. I'll mention George Orwell here yet again, for his Newspeak. If you haven't already thought about it, I'd say take a good look and consider how the concept applies to us. For argument's sake, I'm going to play devil's advocate occasionally and be a pedant about hobbyspeak. Those who know Porky know this side of him well.

Field of dreams

I saw something a day or so ago in moving from blog to friendly blog even more haunting than usual. Here it is, at Fire Broadside! in the fuller spectrum, a very fine gaming blog.

How do you feel about that picture? It's not there by accident - games designers are smart people, whatever we might sometimes imagine. Games Workshop are UK-based, a land with an identity still rooted very much in the rural and a liberal approach to land access. If you've ever hiked over farmland, you might feel a field is a funny place, especially when blood sugar level is low, muscles ache and higher functions yield to lower. Do we sense in such moments echoes of the wonder and fear of the savannah?

Humans have cultivated the land for 10,000 years or more. That kind of acquaintance gets under the skin. We've had a lot of adventures in among the crops or bound up with them, from rolling in the hay to struggling with 'pests', 'outsiders' and 'landowners', all of which terms are wide of the mark. Remember this Fighting Fantasy gamebook? Is that a scarecrow? Scarecrows are uncanny, and a fantastical setting doesn't help. Or maybe not so fantastical after all - national identity is often bound up with an understanding of land, and the landscape in that last clip does look familiar. Then again, national feeling can be just as powerful even when freed of the land, as George Orwell shows us here.

Sting presents a sunnier side, or does he? Here's a better version in my view - Sting liked it plenty - by Eva Cassidy. The shadows are definitely there if the sun is shining...

It gets into wargaming too of course. A while back the guys at Tales from the Maelstrom ran a battle at an agricultural facility in the 41st millennium. That's over 50,000 years.