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[personal profile] rolanni
The patron saint of archers. January 20 is the day set aside in his honor. That would have been yesterday, yes. I'm a little behind.

It was -18F (which is Ghodawful Cold(tm) in C) when I got up an hour ago. The weathercritters are calling for a high of 6F (a piddling -14C) and sunny, which is nice, because I'm taking the car into town to gym this morning. Late, but like I said, I'm a little behind.

More tax stuff was accomplished yesterday, along with the carnival of phone calls. In the evening, we watched "Adventures in Babysitting," which is one of my all-time favorite movies (Yes, its stupid; I like it anyway. I like the resonations, like Sara saying, "All the superheroes live in the city." and Behold! there are superheroes in the city, as well as Really Bad Guys. I like the upward-spiralling net of promises. I adore "Ain't nobody leave here 'til dey sing duh blues." I worry about what's going to happen to Joe Gipp, the car thief who couldn't break a promise. Ahem.).

Yesterday's email brought a note that I almost threw out, realizing at the last minute that "Entranzia volecta" was not a nonsense spam phrase, but High Liaden. So, an Earnest Reader writes that he has discovered our books and loves them, which is always nice to hear, and then offers an elegant dissection of High Liaden grammar that he's been able to puzzle out, using only the context of the books, which I thought very clever. He then asks for a Liaden grammar. Surely, there must be a Liaden grammar.

Except, there's not.

That's not to say that we don't have rules for making up Liaden words when we need them, but there is no comprehensive Liaden grammar or lexicon. In fact, the whole Liaden-Terran Dictionary in my notes file is only a couple pages long. We don't know anything about verb position in Liaden sentences. Our job, as storytellers, was to make the Liaden language sound alien and give a solid foundation for certain habits of Liaden thought. I'm glad we've been able to pull that off so convincingly, but -- no grammar. No lexicon. No exchange student semester at the University of Solcintra.

Gym.

Date: 2005-01-21 08:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com
I also love Adventures in Babysitting ... how everything works on two levels, like the little girl giving "Thor" his hammer so he'll remember he's really a hero. On one level, he was really Thor and really needed a magical hammer to remember who he was. On the other level, he's just a guy with gorgeous hair, who is moved by her gift of something so obviously important to her, and finds the heroism within himself. And the moviemakers let you choose which answer to believe in, a show of trust in the audience's intelligence rarely seen in major Hollywood films.

Date: 2005-01-21 08:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com
Errrrm.... except he HAD a hammer. It was the horned hat she gave him.

Sorry. Brain burp.

Hummm....

Date: 2005-01-22 11:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] alfreda89.livejournal.com
I think I need to get around to seeing this movie...

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