Definition of "steropoeic"?
evilsofa
William Barton, in the collection "Armageddons", edited by Jack Dann and
Gardner Dozois, copyright 1999.
The context doesn't help me very much; here it is:
Earlier in the story, Christie offered sex to the male character of the
story to keep him from telling others about a secret. He turned her
down. Later, they have this conversation:
>> I felt my face relax in a brief smile.
>> Her eyes narrowed. "Who you going to tell?"
>> "Nobody. I guess I was... reconsidering your offer." My
>> own snicker sounded nervous.
>> Christie's face darkened and her eyes fell, clouding over
>> with anger. Then she said, "I... I'm not steropoeic."
>> Not... I suddenly realized the magnitude of her bribe,
>> what it might've cost her to make the offer.
Steropoeic is not in the dictionary I have at home, it's not at
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary search at:
<http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm>
and it isn't at any of the web search engines I've tried - Dejanews,
Alta Vista or Ask Jeeves. The context of the story leaves me guessing
just what she meant
--
The last words of General John Sedgewick, Union
commander in the American Civil War:
"They couldn't hit an elephant from this dist----"
Perchprism
>From: evilsofa evil...@emeraldnet.remove_this_part.net.invalid
>Date: 3/6/00 7:20 PM Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <evilsofa-A03D88...@news.evergo.net>
>
>I came across "steropoeic" in the short story "Down In The Dark" by
>William Barton, in the collection "Armageddons", edited by Jack Dann and
>Gardner Dozois, copyright 1999.
>
>The context doesn't help me very much; here it is:
>
>Earlier in the story, Christie offered sex to the male character of the
>story to keep him from telling others about a secret. He turned her
>down. Later, they have this conversation:
>
>>> I felt my face relax in a brief smile.
>>> Her eyes narrowed. "Who you going to tell?"
>>> "Nobody. I guess I was... reconsidering your offer." My
>>> own snicker sounded nervous.
>>> Christie's face darkened and her eyes fell, clouding over
>>> with anger. Then she said, "I... I'm not steropoeic."
>>> Not... I suddenly realized the magnitude of her bribe,
>>> what it might've cost her to make the offer.
>
>Steropoeic is not in the dictionary I have at home, it's not at
>Merriam-Webster's Dictionary search at:
>
><http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm>
>
>and it isn't at any of the web search engines I've tried - Dejanews,
>Alta Vista or Ask Jeeves. The context of the story leaves me guessing
>just what she meant
And that makes it a poor choice on the part of the writer. I can't find it
either, but I'm not in the OED club. The best I could do was to look up
"cholesterol" and "onomatopoeia" to find that it might mean "stiff-making,"
which at least makes a little sense in the context, though it doesn't explain
his astonishment.
--
Perchprism
(southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia)
Ray Heindl
<evilsofa-A03D88...@news.evergo.net>:
>I came across "steropoeic" in the short story "Down In The Dark" by
>William Barton, in the collection "Armageddons", edited by Jack Dann
>and Gardner Dozois, copyright 1999.
>
>The context doesn't help me very much; here it is:
>
>Earlier in the story, Christie offered sex to the male character of
>the story to keep him from telling others about a secret. He turned
>her down. Later, they have this conversation:
>
>>> I felt my face relax in a brief smile.
>>> Her eyes narrowed. "Who you going to tell?"
>>> "Nobody. I guess I was... reconsidering your offer." My
>>> own snicker sounded nervous.
>>> Christie's face darkened and her eyes fell, clouding over
>>> with anger. Then she said, "I... I'm not steropoeic."
>>> Not... I suddenly realized the magnitude of her bribe,
>>> what it might've cost her to make the offer.
>
>Steropoeic is not in the dictionary I have at home, it's not at
>Merriam-Webster's Dictionary search at:
>
><http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm>
>
>and it isn't at any of the web search engines I've tried - Dejanews,
>Alta Vista or Ask Jeeves. The context of the story leaves me
>guessing just what she meant
>
My guess would be that she meant she was a virgin. Sterope was one of
the Pleiades, about which The Encyclopedia Mythica
<http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles/p/pleiades.html> has this to
say:
===============================
The Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. They were
the virgin companions of Artemis. When Orion, a beautiful hunter,
pursued them and their mother, they prayed to the gods for rescue.
The gods answered they prayer and they were changed into doves, and
later into stars. Zeus placed them in the sky where they formed a
part of the constellation of Taurus.
According to another myth, they committed suicide after the death of
their sisters the Hyades.
The Pleiads are Alcyone, Electra, Celaeno, Maia, _Sterope_, Merope and
Taygete.
===============================
Another source,
<http://www.longman.awl.com/mythology/glossaries/character_s.asp>,
refers to Sterope as the mother of Hippodamia, so she is presumably no
longer a virgin. It seems reasonable to deduce that "steropoeic" means
no longer virginal.
--
Ray Heindl
evilsofa
Heindl) wrote:
Thank you! That is particularly obscure, but it sounds right. It
baffles me that 1) the writer would use such an obscure word and 2) the
male character would have the slightest idea what she meant!
Ray Heindl
<evilsofa-6697D2...@news.evergo.net>:
>> Another source,
>> <http://www.longman.awl.com/mythology/glossaries/character_s.asp>,
>> refers to Sterope as the mother of Hippodamia, so she is
>> presumably no longer a virgin. It seems reasonable to deduce that
>> "steropoeic" means no longer virginal.
>
>Thank you! That is particularly obscure, but it sounds right. It
>baffles me that 1) the writer would use such an obscure word and 2)
>the male character would have the slightest idea what she meant!
Maybe the writer was trying to make the point that both characters are
highly literate, or at least that they know obscure words. Or the
writer was just showing off his erudition.
--
Ray Heindl
Kathy K
>> <evilsofa-A03D88...@news.evergo.net>:
>>
>> >I came across "steropoeic" in the short story "Down In The Dark" by
>> >William Barton, in the collection "Armageddons", edited by Jack Dann
>> >and Gardner Dozois, copyright 1999.
>> >
>> >The context doesn't help me very much; here it is:
>> >
>> >Earlier in the story, Christie offered sex to the male character of
>> >the story to keep him from telling others about a secret. He turned
>> >her down. Later, they have this conversation:
>> >
>> >>> I felt my face relax in a brief smile.
>> >>> Her eyes narrowed. "Who you going to tell?"
>> >>> "Nobody. I guess I was... reconsidering your offer." My
>> >>> own snicker sounded nervous.
>> >>> Christie's face darkened and her eyes fell, clouding over
>> >>> with anger. Then she said, "I... I'm not steropoeic."
>> >>> Not... I suddenly realized the magnitude of her bribe,
>> >>> what it might've cost her to make the offer.
I checked every dictionary I have access to, including foreign language
dictionaries and medical dictionaries. I cannot find any such word (or any other
form of the word). My guess is that it is a made-up word. In context, I'd guess
that it comes from the latin sterilis rather than from steropes? (That question
mark signifies the rising tone...). I think that it is supposed to mean,
literally, "I have not been made sterile", or "I'm fertile". In context, I
cannot see why "I'm no longer a virgin" would be a protest, or add to the cost
of making the offer.
KathyK (guessing again)
Maria Conlon
Kathy K wrote in message
evilsofa wrote in
[I think the attributes got a bit mixed up here]
>>> >>> I felt my face relax in a brief smile.
>>> >>> Her eyes narrowed. "Who you going to tell?"
>>> >>> "Nobody. I guess I was... reconsidering your offer." My
>>> >>> own snicker sounded nervous.
>>> >>> Christie's face darkened and her eyes fell, clouding over
>>> >>> with anger. Then she said, "I... I'm not steropoeic."
>>> >>> Not... I suddenly realized the magnitude of her bribe,
>>> >>> what it might've cost her to make the offer.
>
>[...] In context, I
>cannot see why "I'm no longer a virgin" would be a protest, or add to
the cost
>of making the offer.
>
>KathyK (guessing again)
But she said "I'm not steropoec."
And the previous poster said that "steropoec" means not a virgin. So
*not* steropoec would mean she's a virgin. Thus the cost of the offer.
Maria
Etaoin Shrdlu
deeply puzzled myself. I've been trying to find out what it means for years;
I forgot about it completely recently... thank you for posting the query,
and I hope someone has an answer for us!
--Katrina
"evilsofa" <evil...@emeraldnet.remove_this_part.net.invalid> wrote in
message news:evilsofa-A03D88...@news.evergo.net...
> I came across "steropoeic" in the short story "Down In The Dark" by
> William Barton, in the collection "Armageddons", edited by Jack Dann and
> Gardner Dozois, copyright 1999.
>
> The context doesn't help me very much; here it is:
>
> Earlier in the story, Christie offered sex to the male character of the
> story to keep him from telling others about a secret. He turned her
> down. Later, they have this conversation:
>
> >> I felt my face relax in a brief smile.
> >> Her eyes narrowed. "Who you going to tell?"
> >> "Nobody. I guess I was... reconsidering your offer." My
> >> own snicker sounded nervous.
> >> Christie's face darkened and her eyes fell, clouding over
> >> with anger. Then she said, "I... I'm not steropoeic."
> >> Not... I suddenly realized the magnitude of her bribe,
> >> what it might've cost her to make the offer.
>
> Steropoeic is not in the dictionary I have at home, it's not at
> Merriam-Webster's Dictionary search at:
>
> <http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm>
>
> and it isn't at any of the web search engines I've tried - Dejanews,
> Alta Vista or Ask Jeeves. The context of the story leaves me guessing
> just what she meant
>
Alan Jones
"Etaoin Shrdlu" <cooper17...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:8a81nt$38j$2...@news1.xs4all.nl...
story, could s/he perhaps tell us what terrible secret this woman
is actually hiding? It must be stated or implicit somewhere.
One can assume that "steropoeic" is a word freshly coined, in
which the "-poeic" part is from Greek "poiein" = to make, create.
The "stero-" is baffling; the only word in my school Greek
dictionary that seems possible is "ster", said to be a compressed
version of "stear", meaning "fat". (The element "stereo-",
meaning thick or solid, seems unlikely - it would produce
"stereopoeic"; "sterops" is a lightning-flash, and that would
produce "steroptic", I suppose.)
Is this a science-fiction story, set in a world or period where
women are expected to be plump and this person can't put on
enough weight? But why would it be a bribe of such magnitude for
a unsteropoeic woman to promise sex with this man?
Over to you for more information, "evilsofa". If it matters.
Alan Jones
evilsofa
<cooper17...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Just wanted to say I found this word in this story a few years ago,
> and was deeply puzzled myself. I've been trying to find out what it
> means for years; I forgot about it completely recently... thank you
> for posting the query, and I hope someone has an answer for us!
> --Katrina
Ray Heindl replied earlier to my original post with this:
> My guess would be that she meant she was a virgin. Sterope was one of
> the Pleiades, about which The Encyclopedia Mythica
> <http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles/p/pleiades.html> has this to
> say:
> ===============================
> The Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. They were
> the virgin companions of Artemis. When Orion, a beautiful hunter,
> pursued them and their mother, they prayed to the gods for rescue.
> The gods answered they prayer and they were changed into doves, and
> later into stars. Zeus placed them in the sky where they formed a
> part of the constellation of Taurus.
>
> According to another myth, they committed suicide after the death of
> their sisters the Hyades.
>
> The Pleiads are Alcyone, Electra, Celaeno, Maia, _Sterope_, Merope and
> Taygete.
> ===============================
>
> Another source,
> <http://www.longman.awl.com/mythology/glossaries/character_s.asp>,
> refers to Sterope as the mother of Hippodamia, so she is presumably no
> longer a virgin. It seems reasonable to deduce that "steropoeic" means
> no longer virginal.
--
evilsofa
<a...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote:
> It's not in OED, either. If "evilsofa" remembers the plot of the
> story, could s/he perhaps tell us what terrible secret this woman
> is actually hiding? It must be stated or implicit somewhere.
The secret had nothing to do with the word... the context I quoted was
the entire context for the word, thus the puzzlement on my part.
Hugh Sweeney
> > <evilsofa-A03D88...@news.evergo.net>:
> >
> > >William Barton, in the collection "Armageddons", edited by Jack Dann
> > >and Gardner Dozois, copyright 1999.
> > >
> > >The context doesn't help me very much; here it is:
> > >
> > >Earlier in the story, Christie offered sex to the male character of
> > >the story to keep him from telling others about a secret. He turned
> > >her down. Later, they have this conversation:
> > >
> > >>> I felt my face relax in a brief smile.
> > >>> Her eyes narrowed. "Who you going to tell?"
> > >>> "Nobody. I guess I was... reconsidering your offer." My
> > >>> own snicker sounded nervous.
> > >>> Christie's face darkened and her eyes fell, clouding over
> > >>> with anger. Then she said, "I... I'm not steropoeic."
> > >>> Not... I suddenly realized the magnitude of her bribe,
> > >>> what it might've cost her to make the offer.
> > >
> > >Steropoeic is not in the dictionary I have at home, it's not at
> > >Merriam-Webster's Dictionary search at:
> > >
> > ><http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm>
> > >
> > >and it isn't at any of the web search engines I've tried - Dejanews,
> > >Alta Vista or Ask Jeeves. The context of the story leaves me
> > >guessing just what she meant
> > >
> >
> > the Pleiades, about which The Encyclopedia Mythica
> > <http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles/p/pleiades.html> has this to
> > say:
> > ===============================
> > The Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. They were
> > the virgin companions of Artemis. When Orion, a beautiful hunter,
> > pursued them and their mother, they prayed to the gods for rescue.
> > The gods answered they prayer and they were changed into doves, and
> > later into stars. Zeus placed them in the sky where they formed a
> > part of the constellation of Taurus.
> >
> > According to another myth, they committed suicide after the death of
> > their sisters the Hyades.
> >
> > The Pleiads are Alcyone, Electra, Celaeno, Maia, _Sterope_, Merope and
> > Taygete.
> > ===============================
> >
> > Another source,
> > <http://www.longman.awl.com/mythology/glossaries/character_s.asp>,
> > refers to Sterope as the mother of Hippodamia, so she is presumably no
> > longer a virgin. It seems reasonable to deduce that "steropoeic" means
> > no longer virginal.
>
> baffles me that 1) the writer would use such an obscure word and 2) the
> male character would have the slightest idea what she meant!
>
A search on Google turns up the text of the story at
http://www.asimovs.com/neb2000/dark.html
That contains an earlier use of the term:
<quote>
I turned to watch her, slim, pretty woman with long, curly black hair turning slowly around under a fine needle spray, maybe
showing off for me, maybe not, water streaming over her shoulders, jetting provocatively from her nipples, running down her
belly, spattering between her legs.
After a while, she looked up at me again, stretching her arms over her head, arching her back, flashing the red dot of a
steropoeic implant. "You used to be interested, Hoxha."
</quote>
<boggle>
A virginal implant?
</boggle>
Hugh
Jason W. Cowling
>> > >I came across "steropoeic" in the short story "Down In The Dark" by
>> > >William Barton, in the collection "Armageddons", edited by Jack Dann
>> > >and Gardner Dozois, copyright 1999.
>> > >
>> > >The context doesn't help me very much; here it is:
>> > >
>> > >Earlier in the story, Christie offered sex to the male character of
>> > >the story to keep him from telling others about a secret. He turned
>> > >her down. Later, they have this conversation:
>> > >
>> > >>> I felt my face relax in a brief smile.
>> > >>> Her eyes narrowed. "Who you going to tell?"
>> > >>> "Nobody. I guess I was... reconsidering your offer." My
>> > >>> own snicker sounded nervous.
>> > >>> Christie's face darkened and her eyes fell, clouding over
>> > >>> with anger. Then she said, "I... I'm not steropoeic."
>> > >>> Not... I suddenly realized the magnitude of her bribe,
>> > >>> what it might've cost her to make the offer.
sterope is an early substantive usage of stirrup. In this sense she's
commenting that she's not easy to mount. A close comparison is "Hast thou
not kist thy hand, and held my stirrop" (shaks. 2 Hen. VI, IV. 1.53).
Jason W. Cowling
Alan Jones
"Hugh Sweeney" <hswe...@pavilion.co.uk> wrote in message
news:38CB877B...@pavilion.co.uk...
| evilsofa wrote:
| >
| > In article <38c52e43$0$40...@news.en.com>, rhe...@nccw.net
(Ray
| > Heindl) wrote:
| >
| > > evil...@emeraldnet.remove_this_part.net.invalid (evilsofa)
wrote in
| > > <evilsofa-A03D88...@news.evergo.net>:
| > >
Dark" by
| > > >William Barton, in the collection "Armageddons", edited by
Jack Dann
| > > >and Gardner Dozois, copyright 1999.
| > > >
| > > >The context doesn't help me very much; here it is:
| > > >
| > > >Earlier in the story, Christie offered sex to the male
character of
| > > >the story to keep him from telling others about a secret.
He turned
| > > >her down. Later, they have this conversation:
| > > >
| > > >>> I felt my face relax in a brief smile.
| > > >>> Her eyes narrowed. "Who you going to tell?"
| > > >>> "Nobody. I guess I was... reconsidering your offer."
My
| > > >>> own snicker sounded nervous.
| > > >>> Christie's face darkened and her eyes fell, clouding
over
| > > >>> with anger. Then she said, "I... I'm not steropoeic."
| > > >>> Not... I suddenly realized the magnitude of her
bribe,
| > > >>> what it might've cost her to make the offer.
| [snip]
| > > >| > > My guess would be that she meant she was a virgin.
[snip]
It seems reasonable to deduce that "steropoeic" means
| > > no longer virginal.
| >
[snip]
| > It baffles me that 1) the writer would use such an obscure
word and 2) the
| > male character would have the slightest idea what she meant!
| >
|
| A search on Google turns up the text of the story at
| http://www.asimovs.com/neb2000/dark.html
|
| That contains an earlier use of the term:
| <quote>
| I turned to watch her, slim, pretty woman with long, curly
black hair turning slowly around under a fine needle spray, maybe
| showing off for me, maybe not, water streaming over her
shoulders, jetting provocatively from her nipples, running down
her
| belly, spattering between her legs.
|
| After a while, she looked up at me again, stretching her arms
over her head, arching her back, flashing the red dot of a
| steropoeic implant. "You used to be interested, Hoxha."
| </quote>
|
| <boggle>
| A virginal implant?
| </boggle>
|
| Hugh
Having now read the story in full, I think "steropoeic" must mean
"making sterile". The woman with the red dot that indicates a
steropoeic implant is sexy but sterile; the "dumpy"
non-steropoeic woman is potentially fertile.
In a dead solar system, with Earth reduced to uninhabitable
desert by back-firing attempts to blow up a threatening asteroid,
the few remaining human beings are scattered in various Dome
colonies on the Moon and elsewhere. Their irreplaceable supplies
are almost exhausted, and they must have no descendants; I assume
that the implant is to make sure of that. The central character
Maxwell, a maintenance technician wandering from colony to
colony, rejects the sexual advances of a former lover (the one
with the red dot), dreaming regretfully all the time of the wife
with whom he had intended eventually to have children, but who,
like everyone else on earth, died in the asteroid debacle. Note
that, as she tries to seduce him, she "flashes" the red dot,
indicating her sterility - they will both be safe from criticism.
Maxwell forms an odd, half-reluctant relationship with the
"non-steropoeic" woman, who is a research scientist living alone
in a pressurised cabin on Titan, the moon of Saturn. She has
discovered a very advanced but totally non-human life-form on
Titan , with which she thinks mankind could establish a mutually
supportive partnership leading to resettlement on an
as-yet-unknown planet. She is desperate that her knowledge about
the life-form should not be revealed yet (hence her initial offer
to Maxwell when she realises that he suspects the truth) and even
at one point considers felling him with her ice-axe while his
back is turned. But she comes to see that he is trustworthy. For
some unstated reason she is non-steropoeic (which I take to mean
"not rendered infertile"), a fact which has forced her to hide
herself away. She offers herself to Maxwell in the implicit hope
of having a child; the couple may become a new Adam and Eve,
saved by the new life-form.
The word "steropoeic", if my analysis of a rather elusive story
is accepted, must be a Latin-Greek hybrid on the lines of
"television". Another linguistic oddity in the story is the use
of a peculiar variant of Latin for mathematical purposes: "Cubus
plus sext rebus aequalis vigentum."
'It baffles me that 1) the writer would use such an obscure word
and 2) the male character would have the slightest idea what she
meant!' It's not an "obscure" word - it's invented, I imagine.
Maxwell lives in 2057, and to him it's a familiar word - that's
why he makes no comment. That's fiction for you, folks!
Alan Jones
D. Spencer Hines
butterfat ---- in this thread.
--
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
"To be learned about [the Middle Ages] is a ridiculous affectation in
any man who means to be useful to the present age. Down to this aera
let us read history: from this aera, and down to our own time, let us
study it." Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke [1678-1751] (1735)
"Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense."
(1716)
"Alan Jones" <a...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:FTPy4.2848$921....@news3.cableinet.net...