Would you use these words in a ms.?

[William Vetter]

aileuromorphic

vibrissae

metapodia

calcaneus

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 5/10/15 10:27 AM, William Vetter wrote:
> aileuromorphic
>
> vibrissae
>
> metapodia
>
> calcaneus

If it was a scientific one I might well. If it's a novel, depends on
the characters, the story, and so on.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Brenda]

On 5/10/2015 11:55 AM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> On 5/10/15 10:27 AM, William Vetter wrote:
>> aileuromorphic
>>
>> vibrissae
>>
>> metapodia
>>
>> calcaneus
>
> If it was a scientific one I might well. If it's a novel, depends
> on the characters, the story, and so on.
>
>

Oh sure. In context, and in character, mind you.

Brenda

[William Vetter]

Some of them are not in 2nd Ed. OED., but there are no subsitutes. The
last 2 refer to parts of extended hind foot of animals of order
Carnivora. The 1st is similar in meaning to teliomorphic and is used
to describe godesses Bastet and Bubasis.

[Jim Hetley]

On Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 10:28:36 AM UTC-4, William Vetter wrote:
> aileuromorphic
>
> vibrissae
>
> metapodia
>
> calcaneus

If they fit, use them.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sun, 10 May 2015 13:15:00 -0400, William Vetter
<mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
in<news:mio3kk$d3j$1...@dont-email.me> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

> Brenda wrote:

>> On 5/10/2015 11:55 AM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:

>>> On 5/10/15 10:27 AM, William Vetter wrote:

>>>> aileuromorphic

Should be <ailuromorphic>, to match other similar
compounds, or <ailouromorphic>, if you want to use a more
accurate transcription of Greek αἴλουρος (ailouros) as
basis; there’s no basis for <eu>.

>>>> vibrissae

I would certainly expect an ailuromorph to have vibrissae!

>>>> metapodia

>>>> calcaneus

>>> If it was a scientific one I might well. If it's a
>>> novel, depends on the characters, the story, and so
>>> on.

>> Oh sure. In context, and in character, mind you.

> Some of them are not in 2nd Ed. OED., but there are no
> subsitutes.

The OED has <calcaneum> in lieu of the more recent
<calcaneus>. The only one that it lacks altogether is
<ailuromorphic>, the OED does have its Latinate
counterpart, <feliform>.

> The last 2 refer to parts of extended hind foot of
> animals of order Carnivora.

Among other things. Both metatarsals and metacarpals are
metapodia, and mammals in general (and some reptiles) have
calcanea.

> The 1st is similar in meaning to teliomorphic and is used
> to describe godesses Bastet and Bubasis.

Bubastis was an Egyptian city; its Egyptian name
<Per-Bast(et)> means ‘House of Bast’, and it was,
unsurprisingly a centre of worship of Bast(et). <Bastet>
is a later form of her name, with a redundant feminine
suffix <-et> -- the <-t> of <Bast> was already a feminine
suffix -- but I believe that it’s the one most often used
by Egyptologists; in fiction I’ve <Bast> more often.

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[William Vetter]

Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On Sun, 10 May 2015 13:15:00 -0400, William Vetter
> <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
> in<news:mio3kk$d3j$1...@dont-email.me> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>

>>>>> aileuromorphic
>
> Should be <ailuromorphic>, to match other similar
> compounds, or <ailouromorphic>, if you want to use a more
> accurate transcription of Greek αἴλουρος (ailouros) as
> basis; there’s no basis for <eu>.
>

Nevertheless, the only way I've seen it spelled in print has eu in it.

>
>> Some of them are not in 2nd Ed. OED., but there are no
>> subsitutes.
>
> The OED has <calcaneum> in lieu of the more recent
> <calcaneus>. The only one that it lacks altogether is
> <ailuromorphic>, the OED does have its Latinate
> counterpart, <feliform>.
>

When I look feliform up, it doesn't say anything like "(esp. in
relation to a deity)," so I don't think it's equivalent.

>> The last 2 refer to parts of extended hind foot of
>> animals of order Carnivora.
>
> Among other things. Both metatarsals and metacarpals are
> metapodia, and mammals in general (and some reptiles) have
> calcanea.
>

Metapodia is the _collection_ of foot-bones that, when elongated by
Evolution, result in the long hind feet of carnivores, and also the
only word for the part of the hind feet exclusive of the toes, which
toes digitigrade animals walk upon. Calcaneus is the name of the
heelbone, and also a word for heel, the only effective word for the
heel-end of the metapodia.

I have a bunch of dictionary programs that are supposed to be based on
the OED database. One of them is similar to the 2nd OED. The closest
word it gave me was "metapodialia", as the collection of foot-bones.
But it is not the word for the part of the animals' foot that, in
comparative anatomy, is linked to its mode of hunt, its speed and gait,
its posture, its aboreality, the grasping ability.... The development
of the musculature and connection points of the ligaments in the
metapodia is involved with the degree to which the toes will curl. So
the sense of metapodia is important.

>> The 1st is similar in meaning to teliomorphic and is used
>> to describe godesses Bastet and Bubasis.
>
> Bubastis was an Egyptian city; its Egyptian name
> <Per-Bast(et)> means ‘House of Bast’, and it was,
> unsurprisingly a centre of worship of Bast(et). <Bastet>
> is a later form of her name, with a redundant feminine
> suffix <-et> -- the <-t> of <Bast> was already a feminine
> suffix -- but I believe that it’s the one most often used
> by Egyptologists; in fiction I’ve <Bast> more often.
>
> Brian

In my understanding, Bubastis is the form of Bastet that was adopted
into the Isis cult exported to the Roman Empire, in that case
considered to be an incarnation of Isis. Bastet was the cat-headed
goddess in Ancient Egypt, often depicted with her four kittens at her
feet. Bubastis was associated with cats in the later Isis cult; they
were her symbol and black was her special color. This cult persisted
into Medieval times especially among rural folk, and eventually the
Catholic Church identified it with witchcraft, launching an inquisition
to stamp it out. This witch hunt decided cats, especially black ones,
as demons and witches' familiars, the burning of cats and their
owners...the extermination of village cats throughout Christendom was a
factor that enabled the Black Plague.

Such is the importance of the goddess Bubastis in the history of the
cat's role in civilization.


Public Librarians in America have told me that the OED Online is too
expensive for them. I would need to take a train to Stony Brook to
read OED volumes in Univ. Library. I try OED-like programs on my
computer, and, if the words don't come up, then they seem obscure to
me.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sun, 10 May 2015 20:02:23 -0400, William Vetter
<mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
in<news:miorgh$a2g$1...@dont-email.me> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

> Brian M. Scott wrote:

>> On Sun, 10 May 2015 13:15:00 -0400, William Vetter
>> <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
>> in<news:mio3kk$d3j$1...@dont-email.me> in
>> rec.arts.sf.composition:

>>>>>> aileuromorphic

>> Should be <ailuromorphic>, to match other similar
>> compounds, or <ailouromorphic>, if you want to use a more
>> accurate transcription of Greek αἴλουρος (ailouros) as
>> basis; there’s no basis for <eu>.

> Nevertheless, the only way I've seen it spelled in print
> has eu in it.

Then you’ve only seen it used by people who didn’t know
what they were doing.

>>> Some of them are not in 2nd Ed. OED., but there are no
>>> subsitutes.

>> The OED has <calcaneum> in lieu of the more recent
>> <calcaneus>. The only one that it lacks altogether is
>> <ailuromorphic>, the OED does have its Latinate
>> counterpart, <feliform>.

> When I look feliform up, it doesn't say anything like
> "(esp. in relation to a deity)," so I don't think it's
> equivalent.

Of course it is: both mean simply ‘cat-shaped’. The term
<ailuromorphic> has no particular connection with deities.

>>> The last 2 refer to parts of extended hind foot of
>>> animals of order Carnivora.

>> Among other things. Both metatarsals and metacarpals are
>> metapodia, and mammals in general (and some reptiles) have
>> calcanea.

> Metapodia is the _collection_ of foot-bones that, when
> elongated by Evolution, result in the long hind feet of
> carnivores, and also the only word for the part of the
> hind feet exclusive of the toes, which toes digitigrade
> animals walk upon.

It’s simply the plural of metapodium and can be used as
such. Your metatarsals are metapodia. The posterior lobes
of mollusks are metapodia.

> Calcaneus is the name of the heelbone, and also a word
> for heel, the only effective word for the heel-end of
> the metapodia.

Hardly, as your sentence itself demonstrates.

> I have a bunch of dictionary programs that are supposed
> to be based on the OED database. One of them is similar
> to the 2nd OED. The closest word it gave me was
> "metapodialia", as the collection of foot-bones. But it
> is not the word for the part of the animals' foot that,
> in comparative anatomy, is linked to its mode of hunt,
> its speed and gait, its posture, its aboreality, the
> grasping ability.... The development of the musculature
> and connection points of the ligaments in the metapodia
> is involved with the degree to which the toes will curl.
> So the sense of metapodia is important.

It has a number of senses, and the sense in which you
appear to be using it is by no means the most salient.

>>> The 1st is similar in meaning to teliomorphic and is used
>>> to describe godesses Bastet and Bubasis.

>> Bubastis was an Egyptian city; its Egyptian name
>> <Per-Bast(et)> means ‘House of Bast’, and it was,
>> unsurprisingly a centre of worship of Bast(et). <Bastet>
>> is a later form of her name, with a redundant feminine
>> suffix <-et> -- the <-t> of <Bast> was already a feminine
>> suffix -- but I believe that it’s the one most often used
>> by Egyptologists; in fiction I’ve <Bast> more often.

> In my understanding, Bubastis is the form of Bastet that
> was adopted into the Isis cult exported to the Roman
> Empire, in that case considered to be an incarnation of
> Isis.

The Hellenized form of the city-name was indeed sometimes
applied to the goddess.

> Bastet was the cat-headed goddess in Ancient Egypt, often
> depicted with her four kittens at her feet.

Grandmothers. Eggs. Actually, she began as a lioness
deity, not a cat deity.

> Bubastis was associated with cats in the later Isis cult;
> they were her symbol and black was her special color.
> This cult persisted into Medieval times especially among
> rural folk, and eventually the Catholic Church
> identified it with witchcraft, launching an inquisition
> to stamp it out.

Evidence, please.

> This witch hunt decided cats, especially black ones, as
> demons and witches' familiars, the burning of cats and
> their owners...the extermination of village cats
> throughout Christendom was a factor that enabled the
> Black Plague.

It may have made some contribution, but not a very large
one. At this point it appears that the primary impulse was
climate change in Asia.

[...]

[Joy Beeson]

On Sun, 10 May 2015 10:27:55 -0400, William Vetter
<mdha...@gmail.com> wrote:

> aileuromorphic
>
> vibrissae
>
> metapodia
>
> calcaneus

I would use those words in a story only if I wanted to convey those
concepts.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <minpsa$695$1...@dont-email.me>,

William Vetter <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>aileuromorphic
>
>vibrissae
>
>metapodia
>
>calcaneus

Yes, if they were the right words for the occasion.

I recently commented elsethead on David Brin's using words like
bromopnean and atrichic, for which he probably could have used
"stinky-breathed" and "hairless," at the cost of making the
prose a little less distinctive.

Is someone writing about the vibrissae of an aileuromorph?
Please send a link, if so.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.
Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.

[William Vetter]

Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On Sun, 10 May 2015 20:02:23 -0400, William Vetter
> <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
> in<news:miorgh$a2g$1...@dont-email.me> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
>>> On Sun, 10 May 2015 13:15:00 -0400, William Vetter
>>> <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> in<news:mio3kk$d3j$1...@dont-email.me> in
>>> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
>>>>>>> aileuromorphic
>
>>> Should be <ailuromorphic>, to match other similar
>>> compounds, or <ailouromorphic>, if you want to use a more
>>> accurate transcription of Greek αἴλουρος (ailouros) as
>>> basis; there’s no basis for <eu>.
>
>> Nevertheless, the only way I've seen it spelled in print
>> has eu in it.
>
> Then you’ve only seen it used by people who didn’t know
> what they were doing.
>

There are a lot of big words that are wrong in relation to their Greek
or Latin roots, but have become impossible to change. Epitaxial should
be epitactic, but you would never be allowed to publish a book with
*Epitactic Growth* on the cover.

These are the arguments in _Classical Cats_, by Donald Engels. It is a
book that tries to infer the roles of kitties in human life in the
Classical world by various means, even from the frequency of the
sex-linked red allele for coat color in the Loire Vallley. He is the
one who uses "aileuromorphic" throughout to discuss the goddess
"Bastet" and her images in artifacts of the Ancient World. I don't
actually remember how he spelled Bubastis. I've used your spelling
above. I have a lot of PDF files on my hard drive, and I'm almost sure
I have one of _Classical Cats_, but I can't find it.

I have read a couple of his books..._Alexander the Great, and the
Logistics of the Macedonian Army_. You can read his books and write
him some angry letters, if you want.

I do have _The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives_ here, which uses
"metapodia" and "calcaneus" in the ways you say are wrong above. These
fellows who reconstruct animals and speculate one animals based on
their skeletons will talk about the bones and the fleshed-out
representations and the anatomy of extant animals with the same
language.

[Michael R N Dolbear]

"Dorothy J Heydt" wrote

> Is someone writing about the vibrissae of an aileuromorph?
> Please send a link, if so.

The best Amazon can find is the facsimile reprint "The Functions Of The
Vibrissae In The Behavior Of The White Rat (1912) "

All listed seem to be non-fiction.

--
Mike D

[William Vetter]

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <minpsa$695$1...@dont-email.me>,
> William Vetter <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> aileuromorphic
>>
>> vibrissae
>>
>> metapodia
>>
>> calcaneus
>
> Yes, if they were the right words for the occasion.
>
> I recently commented elsethead on David Brin's using words like
> bromopnean and atrichic, for which he probably could have used
> "stinky-breathed" and "hairless," at the cost of making the
> prose a little less distinctive.
>

Yeah, I saw that. That's why I posted this. Also, no activity here.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I had a book with at least two words on
every page that sent me to the research library to go through volumes
of OED for words. It was a sort of romance novel/space opera hybrid
where all of the male characters had hair and muscles like Fabio, and
the writing was flowery. None of the words were ever there. I think
she invented them freely from roots. At page 50, I asked myself, "Why
am I doing this?" So when I try this with my own drafts, or at least
with something that's available that resembles the thickest dictionary
possible, and the word isn't there, I ask whether I am punishing my
younger self.

> Is someone writing about the vibrissae of an aileuromorph?
> Please send a link, if so.

I have the word "aileuromorphic" once in a draft ms. I don't think I'm
going to use the word vibrissae anywhere.

[William Vetter]

If you cut the rat's whiskers off, he can't find his way through a
maze.

If you cut the cat's whiskers off, he can't locate a victim's neck in
the dark to kill it with a bite.

That is the importance of the vibrissae, whiskers that function as
sensory organs.

Cats score very badly in maze work anyhow. Maze work is how many
scientists define the intelligence of animals.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <miqetn$ad8$1...@dont-email.me>,

That, and being willing to understand/carry out the command of
humans. This is why some humans think dogs are more intelligent
than cats. The dog is a pack animal and wants to cooperate with
whoever it thinks its pack leader is. The cat is less social,
more independent, and while it can become very fond of its human,
this takes time. Thus, the cat may understand perfectly what you
want it to do, but just can't be bothered; so you'll never know
if it understood you or not.

The differences between dogs and cats tells us something about the
differences between dog people and cat people.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <miqee3$8gk$1...@dont-email.me>,

William Vetter <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <minpsa$695$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> William Vetter <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> aileuromorphic
>>>
>>> vibrissae
>>>
>>> metapodia
>>>
>>> calcaneus
>>
>> Yes, if they were the right words for the occasion.
>>
>> I recently commented elsethead on David Brin's using words like
>> bromopnean and atrichic, for which he probably could have used
>> "stinky-breathed" and "hairless," at the cost of making the
>> prose a little less distinctive.
>>
>Yeah, I saw that. That's why I posted this. Also, no activity here.
>
>When I was in my mid-twenties, I had a book with at least two words on
>every page that sent me to the research library to go through volumes
>of OED for words. It was a sort of romance novel/space opera hybrid
>where all of the male characters had hair and muscles like Fabio, and
>the writing was flowery. None of the words were ever there. I think
>she invented them freely from roots. At page 50, I asked myself, "Why
>am I doing this?" So when I try this with my own drafts, or at least
>with something that's available that resembles the thickest dictionary
>possible, and the word isn't there, I ask whether I am punishing my
>younger self.
>

I'm trying and failing to remember who wrote an essay on
vocabulary, specifically in F/SF, and gave the example of a woman
who returned a book to him, saying, "I don't like this. I have
to look up too many words." He may have been talking about a
book by A. Merritt, or that may have been in a different
paragraph; but the point he was making was that Merritt's work
was very rich in vocabulary. I remember a sentence on the order
of " 'Crimson' isn't a word in the standard reader's vocabulary;
'red' isn't a word for Merritt."

The last time I read any Merritt was back in the 1960s. (I forget
the title -- may have been _Ship of Ishtar_ -- but I know the
approximate date because I borrowed it from Bjo Trimble when she
was living in Oakland.) I wasn't thrown by any of the
vocabulary, but it seemed to have no plot, just a lot of
gorgeously painted dream sequences. Suum cuique.

[William Vetter]

That means the reader is blitzed. Several obscure words in a novel may
excite the reader without blitzing her.

> He may have been talking about a
> book by A. Merritt, or that may have been in a different
> paragraph; but the point he was making was that Merritt's work
> was very rich in vocabulary. I remember a sentence on the order
> of " 'Crimson' isn't a word in the standard reader's vocabulary;
> 'red' isn't a word for Merritt."
>

Crimson is in the dictionary. Aileuromorphic is not in the dictionary
(if you want to spell it like ailourophobia, it won't be in there
either).

[Will in New Haven]

The idea that there are dog people and cat people is debatable. I would not have a household without both. And I would prefer to have my parrots back also, although they are fine where they are and they will certainly outlive Micki and I, so this is better for them.

--
Will in New Haven

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <miqshq$3j7$1...@dont-email.me>,

William Vetter <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>
>> I'm trying and failing to remember who wrote an essay on
>> vocabulary, specifically in F/SF, and gave the example of a woman
>> who returned a book to him, saying, "I don't like this. I have
>> to look up too many words."
>
>That means the reader is blitzed. Several obscure words in a novel may
>excite the reader without blitzing her.

Blitzed, as in confused? Or as in not possessed of a very large
vocabulary? I get the impression that woman was like the little
boy in _Heidi,_ whom his grandmother would ask to read to her
from her hymnbook, but he would leave out any word he didn't
understand, so that there were hardly any nouns left in what he
read.

>
>> He may have been talking about a
>> book by A. Merritt, or that may have been in a different
>> paragraph; but the point he was making was that Merritt's work
>> was very rich in vocabulary. I remember a sentence on the order
>> of " 'Crimson' isn't a word in the standard reader's vocabulary;
>> 'red' isn't a word for Merritt."
>>
>Crimson is in the dictionary. Aileuromorphic is not in the dictionary
>(if you want to spell it like ailourophobia, it won't be in there
>either).

Yes, but (as above) that woman didn't *want* too look things up
in the dictionary.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 11 May 2015 14:32:22 -0400, William Vetter
<mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
in<news:miqshq$3j7$1...@dont-email.me> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

[...]

> Aileuromorphic is not in the dictionary (if you want to
> spell it like ailourophobia, it won't be in there
> either).

Correction: like <ailurophobia>, the normal headword
spelling, or occasionally the Latinized spelling
<aelurophobia>; the spelling <ailourophobia> is extremely
rare.

Its meaning, however, is obvious: ‘cat-shaped’. As in this
pair of sentences, found on an internet forum:

I don't have a lot of use for the standard "furry
culture" though with all its anthropomorphic
cats. I'd rather be an ailuromorphic human.

Or this:

I followed your link to Dr. Bob's puppy post--
being a cat person myself, I liked the rotating
epigram that appeared when I clicked on the link--
it was C. S. Lewis' remark that the human search
for God is like the mouse searching for the cat.
I'm sure my three felines have no difficulty at
all with an ailuromorphic image of God!

I have seen Donyatsu described (correctly!) as ‘obviously
an ailuromorphic doughnut’.

And Matthew Woodring Stover used it in ‘The Persian, the
Coon, and Bullets’ in the anthology _Catopolis_ in a
slightly different sense:

“Yeah, the Coon’s right,” Hacky chimed in.
“That’s just-what’s the word, Drags? You
know, the one where you think regular animals
are almost like cats?”

“Ailuromorphism. But it’s not. I didn’t say
humans are smart as cats-they’re no smarter
than dogs, if that. If they were smart, we’d be
working for them instead of the other way
around. Look, I know humans. I used to have
some of my own.”

This sense, by the way, also found its way into a PhD
thesis in cognitive science:

<http://www.abstract.lib-ebook.com/a1-psychology/1818196-25-stuart-neil-kennaway-watt-thesis-submitted-for-the-degree-phd-cog.php>

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 11 May 2015 12:06:04 -0700 (PDT), Will in New Haven
<willre...@yahoo.com> wrote
in<news:439121d4-c172-4cc1...@googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.composition:

[...]

> The idea that there are dog people and cat people is
> debatable.

It’s obviously not an exhaustive classification, but there
are enough people who unhesitatingly identify themselves as
one or the other that the existence of the two types is
pretty clear.

[Michael R N Dolbear]

"William Vetter" wrote

> Such is the importance of the goddess Bubastis in the history of the
cat's role in civilization.

> Public Librarians in America have told me that the OED Online is too
expensive for them. I would need to take a train to Stony Brook to
read OED volumes in Univ. Library. I try OED-like programs on my
computer, and, if the words don't come up, then they seem obscure to me.

Maybe you should emigrate ?

Every holder of an English public library card can use the OED online either
from a library PC or in nearly all cases from home. I don't know what price
they negotiated

http://public.oed.com/how-to-subscribe/does-my-library-subscribe/


Of course even the OED is missing some words (they only have two meanings
for 'footcloth' and it will be a few years before 'F' comes around again.)



--
Mike D

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <u8oqwf3q7jlr$.wpn88bmh...@40tude.net>,

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>On Mon, 11 May 2015 12:06:04 -0700 (PDT), Will in New Haven
><willre...@yahoo.com> wrote
>in<news:439121d4-c172-4cc1...@googlegroups.com>
>in rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
>[...]
>
>> The idea that there are dog people and cat people is
>> debatable.
>
>It’s obviously not an exhaustive classification, but there
>are enough people who unhesitatingly identify themselves as
>one or the other that the existence of the two types is
>pretty clear.

And it is certainly the case that cats and dogs can live happily
together, if they've been brought up together, and that there are
humans who are happy with that combination. Others, not so much.
I would hate to have to take a dog outside to eliminate at
regular intervals, and as far as I know dogs can't be taught to
use litterboxes.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <1nvcding6hml4.k...@40tude.net>,

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>

>Correction: like <ailurophobia>, the normal headword
>spelling, or occasionally the Latinized spelling
><aelurophobia>; the spelling <ailourophobia> is extremely
>rare.
>
>Its meaning, however, is obvious: ‘cat-shaped’. As in this
>pair of sentences, found on an internet forum:
>
> I don't have a lot of use for the standard "furry
> culture" though with all its anthropomorphic
> cats. I'd rather be an ailuromorphic human.

I'd be happy to meet an ailuromorphic human, provided I had some
kind of guarantee that it wouldn't eat me. (Or failing that,
full armor.)

>
>Or this:
>
> I followed your link to Dr. Bob's puppy post--
> being a cat person myself, I liked the rotating
> epigram that appeared when I clicked on the link--
> it was C. S. Lewis' remark that the human search
> for God is like the mouse searching for the cat.
> I'm sure my three felines have no difficulty at
> all with an ailuromorphic image of God!

Lewis also remarked (in _The Four Loves_ if I mistake not) that
he'd said to a friend that it was surprising how often dogs and
cats could be friends; and his friend replied, "Yes, but I bet
the dog would never admit it to the other dogs."

[William Vetter]

Michael R N Dolbear wrote:

> "William Vetter" wrote
>
>> Such is the importance of the goddess Bubastis in the history of the
> cat's role in civilization.
>
>> Public Librarians in America have told me that the OED Online is too
> expensive for them. I would need to take a train to Stony Brook to
> read OED volumes in Univ. Library. I try OED-like programs on my
> computer, and, if the words don't come up, then they seem obscure to me.
>
> Maybe you should emigrate ?
>
> Every holder of an English public library card can use the OED online either
> from a library PC or in nearly all cases from home. I don't know what price
> they negotiated
>
> http://public.oed.com/how-to-subscribe/does-my-library-subscribe/
>

I showed this webpage to one of these people at the reference desk. He
said he had already showed it to his boss, and she said no.

[William Vetter]

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <miqshq$3j7$1...@dont-email.me>,
> William Vetter <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>>
>>> I'm trying and failing to remember who wrote an essay on
>>> vocabulary, specifically in F/SF, and gave the example of a woman
>>> who returned a book to him, saying, "I don't like this. I have
>>> to look up too many words."
>>
>> That means the reader is blitzed. Several obscure words in a novel may
>> excite the reader without blitzing her.
>
> Blitzed, as in confused? Or as in not possessed of a very large
> vocabulary? I get the impression that woman was like the little
> boy in _Heidi,_ whom his grandmother would ask to read to her
> from her hymnbook, but he would leave out any word he didn't
> understand, so that there were hardly any nouns left in what he
> read.

I will tell you a parable...

Once upon a time I was involved with a university professor from
Britain. All of his graduate students were Chinese. He would talk to
them, give them orders in very rapid and elaborate speech, and they
would stand in a circle around him, smile and nod their heads.

After he left the room, they would all turn to me and ask, "What did he
say? We only understand one word in ten when he talks."

I would tell them in a sort of Pidgin, "The crystal, he diffract weak,"
and so on.

They would gaze at me in wonder and say, "You aren't like other
Americans! We can understand you!"

The moral is human beings can tolerate some new words, but if they are
far too many, they lose hope.

[David Goldfarb]

In article <miqshq$3j7$1...@dont-email.me>,

Google "ailuromorphic", you get 284 hits. "Ailouromorphic" gets four.
"Aileuromorphic" gets none at all.

--
David Goldfarb | "I am an atheist, myself. A simple faith, but
goldf...@gmail.com | a great comfort to me in these last days."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- Lois McMaster Bujold, _Shards of Honor_

[William Vetter]

Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On Mon, 11 May 2015 14:32:22 -0400, William Vetter
> <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
> in<news:miqshq$3j7$1...@dont-email.me> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
> [...]
>
>> Aileuromorphic is not in the dictionary (if you want to
>> spell it like ailourophobia, it won't be in there
>> either).
>
> Correction: like <ailurophobia>, the normal headword
> spelling, or occasionally the Latinized spelling
> <aelurophobia>; the spelling <ailourophobia> is extremely
> rare.
>
> Its meaning, however, is obvious: ‘cat-shaped’. As in this
> pair of sentences, found on an internet forum:
>
> I don't have a lot of use for the standard "furry
> culture" though with all its anthropomorphic
> cats. I'd rather be an ailuromorphic human.
>

Ah, I suspect this was written by a person who likes to dress up in an
animal costume and have sex with other persons dressed in animal
costumes. Something like that will always be your first hit.


What follows comes from what is supposed to be Oxford English
Dictionary, 2nd Ed., 1989, plus add on series 1 to 3(1997), on CD-ROM,
which is what I have.

theriomorphic, a.

(θɪərɪəʊˈmɔːfɪk)

[f. therio- + Gr. µορϕή form + -ic: cf. morphic.]

Having the form of a beast; also transf. of or pertaining to a deity
worshipped in the form of a beast.

   1882 Sat. Rev. 21 Jan. 71 The process by which Theriomorphic became
Anthropomorphic Gods is‥sufficiently illustrated in early religions.
   1884 E. H. Plumptre in Expositor July 4 The ‘abominations’ of the
Egyptian theriomorphic worship.    1890 L. R. Farnell in Oxf. Phil.
Soc. Tr. 7 Feb. 9 The perfectly human God, the transition from a‥vaguer
and often theriomorphic conception of him.    1898 Q. Rev. July 103 An
elaborate cult of bestial gods, or at least a theriomorphic ritual.

So theriomorphosis (-ˈmɔːfəʊsɪs, -mɔːˈfəʊsɪs), transformation into the
shape of a beast; therioˈmorphous a., (a) = theriomorphic; (b) Zool. of
or pertaining to the Theriomorpha, in Owen's classification, a suborder
of Batrachia; also in Palæont. resembling a quadruped or mammal, as
‘the theriomorphous reptiles of the Permian period’.

   1865 Baring-Gould Werewolves x. 172 The phase of transition from
theriomorphosis to anthropomorphosis.


This is from Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 2007, which I also
have:

theriomorphic θiəriə(ʊ)'mɔ:fik ♫ adjective. l19.
Esp. of a god: having the form of an animal.

theriomorphism noun representation of a person or god in the form of an
animal; ascription of animal characteristics to a person: e20.


This comes from Chambers Dictionary, 12th Ed., 2011:

ailuro- /ī-loor-ə-/ or ailur- /ī-loor-/, also ailour-, ailouro- and
aelur-, aeluro- /ī- or ē-loor-/
combining form
Denoting cat

ORIGIN: Gr ailouros cat
ailur'ophile or ailour'ophile /-fīl/ noun

A cat lover or fancier


ailurophilia or ailourophilia /-fil'i-ə/ noun

Love of cats


ailurophil'ic or ailourophil'ic adjective

ailur'ophobe or ailour'ophobe /-fōb/ noun

A cat hater
Someone with an abnormal fear of cats

ailuropho'bia or ailouropho'bia noun

ailuropho'bic or ailouropho'bic adjective




I will go down the street and check out _Classical Cats_ again soon. I
looked at one of my manuscripts, and I had ailouromorphic typed into
it, where I thought that I had copied the word from the book, but my
memory is convinced this author spelled it with an e.

[John W Kennedy]

For Heaven’s sake, the very first comicbook superhero was "The Crimson
Avenger" (a blatant ripoff of the Green Hornet).

--
John W Kennedy
"Give up vows and dogmas, and fixed things, and you may grow like That.
...you may come to think a blow bad, because it hurts, and not because
it humiliates. You may come to think murder wrong, because it is
violent, and not because it is unjust."
-- G. K. Chesterton. "The Ball and the Cross"

[Kay Shapero]

In article <minpsa$695$1...@dont-email.me>, mdha...@gmail.com says...
>
> aileuromorphic
>
> vibrissae
>
> metapodia
>
> calcaneus

The first two certainly go together - if your characters are catlike,
whiskers seem to be an obvious choice. Though it would depend heavily
on scansion in my case since I generally write songs, not stories.

Probably not the other two - someone already WROTE "Dem Bones" after
all. :)

--

Kay Shapero
Address munged, try my first name at kayshapero dot net.

[William Vetter]

Kay Shapero wrote:
> In article <minpsa$695$1...@dont-email.me>, mdha...@gmail.com says...
>>
>> aileuromorphic
>>
>> vibrissae
>>
>> metapodia
>>
>> calcaneus
>
> The first two certainly go together - if your characters are catlike,
> whiskers seem to be an obvious choice. Though it would depend heavily
> on scansion in my case since I generally write songs, not stories.
>
> Probably not the other two

You don't see it. In the cat family, the legs are extended by the
lengthening of the metapodia, while the animal stands on its toes. The
calcaneus never touches the ground while walking. This gives the
felids their gracility. In the family Procyonidae, the metapodia are
less elongated and lie on the ground while the raccoon walks, yet the
calcaneus never touches the ground as it does for hominids.

[Will in New Haven]

On Monday, May 11, 2015 at 4:15:02 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <u8oqwf3q7jlr$.wpn88bmh...@40tude.net>,
> Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> >On Mon, 11 May 2015 12:06:04 -0700 (PDT), Will in New Haven
> ><willre...@yahoo.com> wrote
> >in<news:439121d4-c172-4cc1...@googlegroups.com>
> >in rec.arts.sf.composition:
> >
> >[...]
> >
> >> The idea that there are dog people and cat people is
> >> debatable.
> >
> >It's obviously not an exhaustive classification, but there
> >are enough people who unhesitatingly identify themselves as
> >one or the other that the existence of the two types is
> >pretty clear.
>
> And it is certainly the case that cats and dogs can live happily
> together, if they've been brought up together, and that there are
> humans who are happy with that combination. Others, not so much.
> I would hate to have to take a dog outside to eliminate at
> regular intervals, and as far as I know dogs can't be taught to
> use litterboxes.
>

Oh, they can but it isn't easy or common. My mother's little white Poodle named Sugar was litter-trained. Mom said that it wasn't even that difficult. Our Lab da Bear, used the litterbox several times as a puppy, before I lived with him. He seems to have been imitating the five Himmys that lived there and he started getting regular walks before it became a habit. I don't know if his litter-using would have amounted to anything had he not been walked.

I've trained dogs professionally but I never tried to litter-train one.

[William Vetter]

Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On Mon, 11 May 2015 14:32:22 -0400, William Vetter
> <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
> in<news:miqshq$3j7$1...@dont-email.me> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
> [...]
>
>> Aileuromorphic is not in the dictionary (if you want to
>> spell it like ailourophobia, it won't be in there
>> either).
>
> Correction: like <ailurophobia>, the normal headword
> spelling, or occasionally the Latinized spelling
> <aelurophobia>; the spelling <ailourophobia> is extremely
> rare.
>
> Its meaning, however, is obvious: ‘cat-shaped’.

Here is a word not in any dictionary, that will be impossible to derive
meaning from roots....

pseudaelurine

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <mith63$ej6$1...@dont-email.me>,

A teen-aged girl that wears cat ears and other cattish makeup to
convenitons?

[William Vetter]

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <mith63$ej6$1...@dont-email.me>,
> William Vetter <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>> On Mon, 11 May 2015 14:32:22 -0400, William Vetter
>>> <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> in<news:miqshq$3j7$1...@dont-email.me> in
>>> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>> Aileuromorphic is not in the dictionary (if you want to
>>>> spell it like ailourophobia, it won't be in there
>>>> either).
>>>
>>> Correction: like <ailurophobia>, the normal headword
>>> spelling, or occasionally the Latinized spelling
>>> <aelurophobia>; the spelling <ailourophobia> is extremely
>>> rare.
>>>

>>> Its meaning, however, is obvious: ‘cat-shaped’.

>>
>> Here is a word not in any dictionary, that will be impossible to derive
>> meaning from roots....
>>
>> pseudaelurine
>
> A teen-aged girl that wears cat ears and other cattish makeup to
> convenitons?

Having the proportions, especially skeletal, of the Miocene ancestor to
the Felids, pseudaelurus, a transition point between aboreal adaptation
(shorter metapodia with some grasping ability and lateral mobility at
the ankles) to cursorial (longer limbs, fixed ankles, fully digitigrade
stance), and also the branching point to the extinct subfamily
Machairodontae (sabertooth cats).

[Kay Shapero]

In article <mis6b1$7up$1...@dont-email.me>, mdha...@gmail.com says...

Ahh.. those two words are less common than the first too so I had to
look them up so was thinking more in terms of bones not their usages.
Still doubt I'd use them, though.

[C. E. Gee]

On Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 7:28:36 AM UTC-7, William Vetter wrote:
> aileuromorphic
>
> vibrissae
>
> metapodia
>
> calcaneus

I've had too many stories rejected because of some first (slush) reader or an editor not being familiar technical or scientific words.

And if professionals in the publishing world don't know a word, you can bet they're thinking the average reader won't know it either.

I try to stay away from such words.

NAMASTE

C.E. Gee aka Chuck

http://www.kinzuakid.blogspot.com

[William Vetter]

C. E. Gee wrote:
> I've had too many stories rejected because of some first (slush) reader or an
> editor not being familiar technical or scientific words.
>

Thanks for answering, Chuck.

I don't think I've ever got anything except the form letter from a
first reader.

[C. E. Gee]

I'd recommend submitting to BEWILDERING STORIES. And be sure to read their mission statement (although I don't think they call it that).

Other magazines that have given me personal and very helpful guidance are PLASMA FREQUENCY MAGAZINE, PERIHELION ONLINE SCIENCE FICTION, THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION.

[William Vetter]

Van Gelder gave me a couple personal ones, and the new guy they have
now...I've never submitted to the others you like.

Once afternoon I got one of Van Gelder's letters, and I crumpled it
into a ball into the pocket of my jacket. Then, a little later, I was
in the gogo bar near my home. This was perhaps 15 years ago, and there
was a Russian woman I drank with there because she made me laugh. I
took out the letter and said, "Maybe _you_ wanna read this," because I
was feelin' grumpy. Her lips moved some while she read English.

After that, whenever she saw me walk into a bar, she'd point at me and
shout, "Alas!"

[William Vetter]

William Vetter wrote:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:

>> On Sun, 10 May 2015 20:02:23 -0400, William Vetter
>> <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
>> in<news:miorgh$a2g$1...@dont-email.me> in
>> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>>
>>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>
>>>> On Sun, 10 May 2015 13:15:00 -0400, William Vetter
>>>> <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>> in<news:mio3kk$d3j$1...@dont-email.me> in
>>>> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>>
>>>>>>>> aileuromorphic
>>
>>>> Should be <ailuromorphic>, to match other similar
>>>> compounds, or <ailouromorphic>, if you want to use a more
>>>> accurate transcription of Greek αἴλουρος (ailouros) as
>>>> basis; there’s no basis for <eu>.
>>
>>> Nevertheless, the only way I've seen it spelled in print
>>> has eu in it.
>>
>> Then you’ve only seen it used by people who didn’t know
>> what they were doing.
>>
> There are a lot of big words that are wrong in relation to their Greek or
> Latin roots, but have become impossible to change. Epitaxial should be
> epitactic, but you would never be allowed to publish a book with *Epitactic
> Growth* on the cover.
>
>>>>> Some of them are not in 2nd Ed. OED., but there are no
>>>>> subsitutes.
>>
>>>> The OED has <calcaneum> in lieu of the more recent
>>>> <calcaneus>. The only one that it lacks altogether is
>>>> <ailuromorphic>, the OED does have its Latinate
>>>> counterpart, <feliform>.
>>
>>> When I look feliform up, it doesn't say anything like
>>> "(esp. in relation to a deity)," so I don't think it's
>>> equivalent.
>>
>> Of course it is: both mean simply ‘cat-shaped’. The term
>> <ailuromorphic> has no particular connection with deities.
>>
>>>>> The last 2 refer to parts of extended hind foot of
>>>>> animals of order Carnivora.
>>
>>>> Among other things. Both metatarsals and metacarpals are
>>>> metapodia, and mammals in general (and some reptiles) have
>>>> calcanea.
>>
>>> Metapodia is the _collection_ of foot-bones that, when
>>> elongated by Evolution, result in the long hind feet of
>>> carnivores, and also the only word for the part of the
>>> hind feet exclusive of the toes, which toes digitigrade
>>> animals walk upon.
>>
>> It’s simply the plural of metapodium and can be used as
>> such. Your metatarsals are metapodia. The posterior lobes
>> of mollusks are metapodia.
>>
>>> Calcaneus is the name of the heelbone, and also a word
>>> for heel, the only effective word for the heel-end of
>>> the metapodia.
>>
>> Hardly, as your sentence itself demonstrates.
>>
>>> I have a bunch of dictionary programs that are supposed
>>> to be based on the OED database. One of them is similar
>>> to the 2nd OED. The closest word it gave me was
>>> "metapodialia", as the collection of foot-bones. But it
>>> is not the word for the part of the animals' foot that,
>>> in comparative anatomy, is linked to its mode of hunt,
>>> its speed and gait, its posture, its aboreality, the
>>> grasping ability.... The development of the musculature
>>> and connection points of the ligaments in the metapodia
>>> is involved with the degree to which the toes will curl.
>>> So the sense of metapodia is important.
>>
>> It has a number of senses, and the sense in which you
>> appear to be using it is by no means the most salient.
>>
>>>>> The 1st is similar in meaning to teliomorphic and is used
>>>>> to describe godesses Bastet and Bubasis.
>>
>>>> Bubastis was an Egyptian city; its Egyptian name
>>>> <Per-Bast(et)> means ‘House of Bast’, and it was,
>>>> unsurprisingly a centre of worship of Bast(et). <Bastet>
>>>> is a later form of her name, with a redundant feminine
>>>> suffix <-et> -- the <-t> of <Bast> was already a feminine
>>>> suffix -- but I believe that it’s the one most often used
>>>> by Egyptologists; in fiction I’ve <Bast> more often.
>>
>>> In my understanding, Bubastis is the form of Bastet that
>>> was adopted into the Isis cult exported to the Roman
>>> Empire, in that case considered to be an incarnation of
>>> Isis.
>>
>> The Hellenized form of the city-name was indeed sometimes
>> applied to the goddess.
>>
>>> Bastet was the cat-headed goddess in Ancient Egypt, often
>>> depicted with her four kittens at her feet.
>>
>> Grandmothers. Eggs. Actually, she began as a lioness
>> deity, not a cat deity.
>>
>>> Bubastis was associated with cats in the later Isis cult;
>>> they were her symbol and black was her special color. This cult persisted
>>> into Medieval times especially among
>>> rural folk, and eventually the Catholic Church
>>> identified it with witchcraft, launching an inquisition
>>> to stamp it out.
>>
>> Evidence, please.
>>
>>> This witch hunt decided cats, especially black ones, as
>>> demons and witches' familiars, the burning of cats and
>>> their owners...the extermination of village cats
>>> throughout Christendom was a factor that enabled the
>>> Black Plague.
>>
>> It may have made some contribution, but not a very large
>> one. At this point it appears that the primary impulse was
>> climate change in Asia.
>>
> These are the arguments in _Classical Cats_, by Donald Engels. It is a book
> that tries to infer the roles of kitties in human life in the Classical world
> by various means, even from the frequency of the sex-linked red allele for
> coat color in the Loire Vallley. He is the one who uses "aileuromorphic"
> throughout to discuss the goddess "Bastet" and her images in artifacts of the
> Ancient World. I don't actually remember how he spelled Bubastis. I've used
> your spelling above. I have a lot of PDF files on my hard drive, and I'm
> almost sure I have one of _Classical Cats_, but I can't find it.
>
I checked out the book from the public library again last evening. It
doesn't seem to be offered as a copyright violation anyplace on
Internet.

He says that aielouros was the word for cat in Greek before 400BC;
afterward, ailouros.

Yes, there is a city Per-Bubastis. It is the center of one particular
dynasty of Phaorohs. This is what Wikipedia tells us. Donald Engles
claims that, beginning with Ptolemy Soter, there were a series of
religious changes in Hellenistic Egypt. Then, in the following years,
Bubastis became the Grecian name of Bastet, and then the name a figure
pretty much equivalent to Bastet in the Cult of Isis that was
distributed through the Roman Empire, especially through the port of
Ostia. This persisted in degraded forms into Medieval times,
especially among rural women in Europe, who suffered for it. So he
says, and provides us with many footnotes.

I can't tell you whether to believe this, for he states that kittycats
and a variety of other furry carnivores are among the "viverrids,"
which I believe is completely wrong, the viverridae being the small
family of civets.

As for ailouromorphic, he writes it out in italics as the Greek word,
ailouromorphos, so I don't know what book I got ailouromorphic from.
In any case, this is how he spells stuff.

[William Vetter]

Kay Shapero wrote:
> In article <mis6b1$7up$1...@dont-email.me>, mdha...@gmail.com says...
>>
>> Kay Shapero wrote:
>>> In article <minpsa$695$1...@dont-email.me>, mdha...@gmail.com says...
>>>>
>>>> aileuromorphic
>>>>
>>>> vibrissae
>>>>
>>>> metapodia
>>>>
>>>> calcaneus
>>>
>>> The first two certainly go together - if your characters are catlike,
>>> whiskers seem to be an obvious choice. Though it would depend heavily
>>> on scansion in my case since I generally write songs, not stories.
>>>
>>> Probably not the other two
>>
>> You don't see it. In the cat family, the legs are extended by the
>> lengthening of the metapodia, while the animal stands on its toes. The
>> calcaneus never touches the ground while walking. This gives the
>> felids their gracility. In the family Procyonidae, the metapodia are
>> less elongated and lie on the ground while the raccoon walks, yet the
>> calcaneus never touches the ground as it does for hominids.
>
> Ahh.. those two words are less common than the first too so I had to
> look them up so was thinking more in terms of bones not their usages.
> Still doubt I'd use them, though.

I had been building myself up to write the scene where the monster
first appears...a lot of research for something that will seem trivial.
The POV character is the fired financial officer of a megabank, so his
mouth can tolerate some rather high diction, maybe even ailouromorphic,
but I took it all out. His character voice is about exotic emotions,
anyhow. The rest are words for the mouth of a paleontologist. I would
really like to use the word calcaneus. When I try to use the word
heelbone, the result is unsatisfactory.

Thanks for letting me burp up some of my research. Sometimes the urge
becomes overpowering.

[William Vetter]

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <miqetn$ad8$1...@dont-email.me>,
> William Vetter <mdha...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Michael R N Dolbear wrote:
>>> "Dorothy J Heydt" wrote
>>>

>>>> Is someone writing about the vibrissae of an aileuromorph?
>>>> Please send a link, if so.
>>>
>>> The best Amazon can find is the facsimile reprint "The Functions Of The
>>> Vibrissae In The Behavior Of The White Rat (1912) "
>>>
>>> All listed seem to be non-fiction.
>>
>> If you cut the rat's whiskers off, he can't find his way through a
>> maze.
>>
>> If you cut the cat's whiskers off, he can't locate a victim's neck in
>> the dark to kill it with a bite.
>>
>> That is the importance of the vibrissae, whiskers that function as
>> sensory organs.
>>
>> Cats score very badly in maze work anyhow. Maze work is how many
>> scientists define the intelligence of animals.
>
> That, and being willing to understand/carry out the command of
> humans. This is why some humans think dogs are more intelligent
> than cats. The dog is a pack animal and wants to cooperate with
> whoever it thinks its pack leader is.
> The cat is less social,
> more independent, and while it can become very fond of its human,
> this takes time. Thus, the cat may understand perfectly what you
> want it to do, but just can't be bothered; so you'll never know
> if it understood you or not.

I've been reading some books by Roger Tabor. The phrase he uses is
that the cat is "not particularly hierarchical." And in terms of
hunting behavior, the dog is "a cog in the machine," and the cat "_is_
the machine."

Well...the way I look at it is the cat, in that he is an independent
hunter, is self-employed, and really doesn't get the concept of a boss.
Cats may also operate as scavengers, although their dentition isn't
specialized for that such as, for example, the hyena. When we feed
them, they are operating as scavengers. When their main procurement of
food is this way, and food is plentiful, they form colonies, and, in
feral colonies, adult cats interact socially as kittens do in the nest,
grooming one another in the regions of their bodies they can't reach,
nursing their neighbors' kittens, etc. Some cats, especially large
males, can show dominance behavior, but the cats in these colonies
behave as colleagues, rather than employees of the leader.

That's how I see their behavior toward their humans. Surely you've
encountered personnel managers who believe an employee who doesn't show
ritual submission is up to something, and others who want to relate to
their subordinates as junior colleagues. Some types of employees will
succeed under either; and for an employee ill-suited to the type of
boss will fail disastrously.

[Will in New Haven]

Nitpick: The hyena, if were are talking about the spotted Hyena, kills much more of its food than it scavenges. And much of its scavenging consists of taking kills away from lions in battle, not of waiting for the lions to finish eating, so their teeth are just fine for things other than scavenging.

--
Will in New Haven

[William Vetter]

Kitties don't have the great molars of the hyena for crushing bone;
only for tilting their heads sideways and chopping meat, so the
paleontologist will say the kitty is not meant to be a scavenger.
Nevertheless, we presume the kitties first became village cats in
settlements around the Mediterranean by hitting the garbage dump. Such
was the early relation of kitties with humanity, outside of Egyptian
religion. We presume.

[John W Kennedy]

The last I heard, perhaps as early as 10,000 BC, a small number of cats
(five or six females and an unknown number of males) realized that
human neolithic grain stores attracted mice, etc., and that Egyptian
cat-worship was an effect, not a cause.

>> When we feed
>> them, they are operating as scavengers. When their main procurement of
>> food is this way, and food is plentiful, they form colonies, and, in
>> feral colonies, adult cats interact socially as kittens do in the nest,
>> grooming one another in the regions of their bodies they can't reach,
>> nursing their neighbors' kittens, etc. Some cats, especially large
>> males, can show dominance behavior, but the cats in these colonies
>> behave as colleagues, rather than employees of the leader.
>>
>> That's how I see their behavior toward their humans. Surely you've
>> encountered personnel managers who believe an employee who doesn't show
>> ritual submission is up to something, and others who want to relate to
>> their subordinates as junior colleagues. Some types of employees will
>> succeed under either; and for an employee ill-suited to the type of
>> boss will fail disastrously.
>>>
>>> The differences between dogs and cats tells us something about the
>>> differences between dog people and cat people.

--
John W Kennedy
"Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne
of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts"
-- J. Michael Straczynski. "Babylon 5", "Ceremonies of Light and Dark"

[William Vetter]

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Um, cats spread about the Mediterranean apparently by boat, to Greece
and the Greek colonies, where they did't seem to have had a close
relationship with humans, by about 600BC, even to Massilia and from
thence into Gaul, with the exception of a cat that was found buried
among human graves in Cyprus. They start to appear in art a few
hundred years later. These cats had the Felis Lybica spot pattern,
rather than tabby stripes, because that's what we see in Pompeian
mosaics. In the first century BC, cats are depicted in Roman funeral
stelles, which clearly have the pet relationship similar to what we
have today. The religion that involved cats never spread much outside
Egypt until after Rome took control of Ptolemaic Egypt.

[John W Kennedy]

Dogs may have been attracted to garbage, but all the evidence is that
cats were attracted by hunting possibilities around human granaries,
about 9500 B.P. (rather than my earlier 10000 B.C.).

--
John W Kennedy
"Sweet, was Christ crucified to create this chat?"
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"

[Will in New Haven]

There's a distinction between stealing kills and scavenging. When hyenas steal a kill from lions, or vice versa, there is still meat on it. Being able to crush the bones is useful but not necessary. The little wildcat ancestor of our cats could not steal kills very often.

> Nevertheless, we presume the kitties first became village cats in
> settlements around the Mediterranean by hitting the garbage dump. Such
> was the early relation of kitties with humanity, outside of Egyptian
> religion. We presume.

I think it was the rodents around the granary. There were undoubtedly dogs around but terriers specialized for killing rodents, who are also cat-killers if not taught different, were far in the future, so the hunting was good.

And the scant genetic evidence so far places the cat as descending from wildcats to the east of Egypt, in Israel and Syria, although the same species can be found in Egypt, the rest of Africa and in Europe.

[William Vetter]

Well, in those days they tried ferrets and weasels, but these were hard
to domesticate, and were most effective for rodents burrowed
underground -- not infesting human habitations.

>who are also cat-killers
> if not taught different, were far in the future, so the hunting was good.

What I was refering to above, is that when cats traveled to Grecian
colonies on boats, they found no big granaries for them to guard, and
no temples equipped with priests to feed them fish from the Nile.

>
> And the scant genetic evidence so far places the cat as descending from
> wildcats to the east of Egypt

That is felis lybica, the Libyan wildcat, which was tawny and spotted,
with a black tip on its tail (as drawn on papyrii), 2X as large as the
modern domestic cat. The modern ones are tawny, and more faintly
spotted. Feral kitties around cities in Egypt are sometimes spotted.
The breed Egyptian Mau is said to have derived from a Cairo street cat,
but it doesn't really look like the cats in the papyrii.

> , in Israel and Syria,

Not then.

> although the same species
> can be found in Egypt,

Yes.

>the rest of Africa

That is the African wildcat, another species.

> and in Europe.

That is felis sylvestris, the European wildcat, another species, which
looks like a gray tabby cat, but at least 2X as big, which interbred
with the domesticated cats from Egypt and probably gave kitties the
tabby stripes. Because they interbreed with feral cats so easily,
there are very few pureblooded European wildcats today.

[John W Kennedy]

You're out of date. Felis sylvestris is the old-world wildcat in
general. The European wildcat is Felis sylvestris sylvestris. Felis
sylvestris lybica, the African wildcat (with a range extending into the
near east and southern Europe) is the immediate ancestor of the
domestic cat. Felis sylvestris has quite a few other subspecies.

--
John W Kennedy
"I want everybody to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of
ignorant people is too dangerous to live in."
-- Garson Kanin. "Born Yesterday"

[William Vetter]

John W Kennedy wrote:
> Felis sylvestris lybica, the
> African wildcat (with a range extending into the near east and southern
> Europe) is the immediate ancestor of the domestic cat.

That is it's range now. What's relevant is the range several thousand
years ago. The range of the kittycat is very much different now than
it was 2000 years ago, and that of F. Sylvestris is vanishing.

Herodotus said that Libya was a forest 2500 years ago. He's less
spotted now than he was then. (I think it was Herodotus, or maybe
Diodorus Siculus.) That's where F. Lybica emerged from to inhabit the
granaries and temples.

[Will in New Haven]

Wrong

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/070628-cat-ancestor.html

[William Vetter]

Will in New Haven wrote:

I have never read this paper (Science (2007) _317_, 519). Thank you
for bringing it to my attention.

This archeological specimen (Science (2004) _304_, 259), is F.
Silvestris:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4867-ancient-remains-could-be-oldest-pet-cat.html

Remember that "domesticated," "culturally significant," and "pet" can
mean different things. I still maintain that, while their are feline
heads on ceremonial vessels, pictures of cats crouching under chairs
and wildcat-sized felines being baited to fight other animals, on
coins, pottery and papyrii that are ca. 300 to 3000BC from various
ancient civilizations; there is no representation of a fully
domesticated cat being held in a person's arms like a modern kittycat
until near the end of Republican Rome.

[William Vetter]

May I ask what precisely you are saying is "wrong"?

I have looked at the linked news article you have here, and it says the "Near Eastern Wildcat" is the ancestor of the housecat. Is that what you say is wrong, that Near Eastern Wildcat is the correct ancestor, where I said F. Lybica? Because when I read the article in Science, I found that "Near Eastern Wildcat" is the name the authors give Felis Lybica, which is often called North African Wildcat, or Libyan Wildcat. In my understanding, these are more or less synonyms, depending on how one chooses to define or distinguish subspecies, or whether you choose to call the varieties of wildcat separate species.

Additionally, there are four other Felis Silvestris wildcats discussed in this Science paper, some they have their own names for...F. silvestris (European Wildcat), F. ornata (Central Asian Wildcat), F. Cafra (Southern African Wildcat), F. Bieti (Chinese Desert Cat).

[Will in New Haven]

I meant that the original domestication apparently took place in Syria and not in North Africa. It's a minor issue, I will admit.

[William Vetter]

I have read this paper. Much of it is about defining the various
wildcat species as a Felis Sylvistris species or not in terms of
certain genetic markers that the authors felt defined the species &
subspecies. There was much about quantifying the amount of
interbreeding between local wildcat varieties in different regions of
the world with local feral cats and peoples' pet cats, again in terms
of how the authors defined the wildcat's genetic markers. That is
really not breaking news, that wildcats and kitties sometimes fuck each
other.

A primary cat domestication is only mentioned once in the quote below,
which is the kernel of the paper (and the only thing really new in it).
If I understand it, the authors are saying that the street cats in the
Middle East today genetically resemble the wildcats in the desert there
today. You can read it and decide what you thing it means. The next
paragraph in the paper is about molecular time estimation; but ya know,
that technique also tells us that the sparrow in your backyard evolved
during the Early Cretaceous, so I tend to leave that sort of thing for
the people who watch CSI.


We implemented the Bayesian population
genetic analysis program STRUCTURE, which
assesses population subdivision and characterizes
genomic evidence of recent hybridization.
STRUCTURE analyses of the 851 STR genotypes
placed cats into discrete population clusters
corresponding to European, African, and central
Asian wildcats and identified a subdivision of
domestic cats from different regions (Fig. 2B).
Interestingly, we identified a discrete population
of wild and domestic cats from the Near East
(brown group in Fig. 2B) distinct from the other
F. silvestris subspecies, as well as three subgroupings
of domestic cats. These 15 individuals
had concordant mtDNA and STR phylogenies
identical to those of domestic cats and were
collected in remote deserts of Israel, United Arab
Emirates, Bahrain, or Saudi Arabia. These data
suggest that these Near Eastern wildcats may
represent the ancestral founder population of domestic
cats, supporting a domestication origin in
the Near East.

[bobth...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 7:28:36 AM UTC-7, William Vetter wrote:
> aileuromorphic
>
> vibrissae
>
> metapodia
>
> calcaneus

_The Spelling Bees of Rigel IV_

[William Vetter]

John W Kennedy wrote:
>
> The last I heard, perhaps as early as 10,000 BC, a small number of cats (five
> or six females and an unknown number of males) realized that human neolithic
> grain stores attracted mice, etc., and that Egyptian cat-worship was an
> effect, not a cause.
>

Since you guys come after me, and there is not so much activity
here....

There was never any "cat-worship" in Egypt. This is a myth that was
created by 3rd Century Christian writers, either in their ignorance of
the pagan religions, or to intentionally slur them. The cats
themselves were never worshipped. In religion involving Bastet or her
Romanized forms Isis/Bubastis, the cats were throught to _embody the
qualities_ of the ailouromorphic gods, particularly fertility and
motherhood, and were regarded as sacred, protected and cultivated
around the temples, and sometimes sacrificed, mummified and buried.

[William Vetter]

The below excerpt (3 pages) comes from a moderately scholarly book _Do
Cats Hear With Their Feet?_, by Jake Page, (2008). It contains some
discussion of this paper.


In that year, a team of geneticists headed by Carlos Driscoll
of the U.S. National Cancer Institute announced that the do-
mestic cat was derived from the Near Eastern wild cat (actually
a population of the African wild cats) some 10,000 years ago,
and the entire planetary realm of house cats and stray cats and
feral cats-uncountable millions of them-are the progeny of a
mere five female wild cats from the Near East. The study, which
took six years to complete, has nothing whatsoever to say about
the sires. For now, if you wish, you can imagine a single tom
tracking down the five females in heat in his extended territory
and becoming one of the most productive male mammals ever
to live on the planet. But that is probably not what happened
and, indeed, we may never know about the male side of this
revolutionary reproductive effort.
The new facts the geneticists have given us are alarming to
other scientists called paleontologists, who piece together sto-
ries of the past from fragments of fossilized bone along with
insights into ancient climates and other scraps of highly cir-
cumstantial evidence. When the geneticists breeze in with such
authoritative pronouncements, the noses of the patient sifters
of fossils and dirt can get a bit out of joint. Molecular biology
is high tech, a hard science within the realm of biology, and a
brash newcomer, relatively speaking, in the world of science.
Paleontology is, along with the social sciences, generally con-
sidered soft science, even though its evidence is as hard as rock
and indeed often is just that: rock. (Fossils are bone that is re-
placed over the eons by rocky minerals.)
The world-and especially the press-likes things that are
definite, precise, and easily stated such as: 10,000 years ago,
five female Near Eastern wild cats bellied up to the rubbish
piles of some settled tribes of agriculturalists and became, or
gave rise to, the domestic cat. Period. End of story. There is, by
subtle implication, no further need for discussion.
What bothers the paleontologists is the certitude with which
the geneticists assert when things took place. The genes most
often used in such studies are not the genes that come down
from both the father and the mother. Instead geneticists study
the DNA found in tiny cells within the body cells-little organs
called mitochondria. These little blobs of protoplasm provide
the energy engine for each bodily cell and, importantly, they are
passed down from generation to generation only by females.
There is no sexual mixing of mitochondrial DNA. The only
changes in it are what might be thought of as passive, result-
ing from such forces as natural background radiation. No one
argues much about this, but suspicion arises when the natu-
ral changes over time in mitochondrial DNA (familiarly called
mtDNA) are taken to be a precise calendar of events. On aver-
age, such changes (called mutations) are said to accumulate at
a specific and usually very slow rate, knowledge of which comes
from various estimates of time based on the evolutionary dis-
tance of one species from a related species. Evidently thousands
of years can go by without a mitochondrial mutation. So this
molecular clock is based, in other words, upon guesses that
may be true, on average, or may not. Such guesses probably
have a great deal more likelihood of being accurate when the
time period measured by the calendar of mtDNA is in the mil-
lions of years. How such a tiny interval of time as 10,000 years
is to be accurately reckoned is a bit obscure and is at best more
of an art than a science.
On the other hand, paleontologists specify the timing of such
matters by the most rigorous methods: radioactive decay-in
the case of material from the last 50,000 years ago or less, by
the known rate of decay of one form of carbon into another.
This is called radiocarbon dating, and it can be accurate to
within a couple of hundred years. But the paleontologist, like
the archaeologist, requires the evidence provided by a carbon-
containing specimen-such as a piece of wood or, in our con-
cern here, the jawbone of a cat. And the main problem that
paleontologists have with the origins of the domestic cat is that
no certain remains of one have been found in the Near East and
none are represented in drawings or etchings or other forms
of Near Eastern art and craft in the period in question. Pale-
ontologists tend to be pretty skeptical about anything that isn't
represented by some form of physical evidence-fossils, bones,
and preserved artifacts of nature like pollen, or illustrated on an
ancient piece of bone or pottery.
The time and place of cat domestication therefore remains
a subject that scientists can argue about, but no scientist is
about to suggest that domestic cats did not arise originally from
the Near Eastern (nee African) wild cat. The coat of the Afri-
can version of the wild cat varies from reddish to sandy brown
with thin broken stripes. The European version is more like
the common tabby cat with a stronger pattern of stripes on a
gray-brown coat. Speculation once was that while the African or
(among geneticists) Near Eastern version led directly and first
to the domestic cat, thereafter some European genes slipped
in there to produce the domestic tabby (a word that refers to a
pattern, not color). There are orange tabbies, as well as brown
ones, and black ones where the coat and the stripes are almost
the same color black. If indeed there were such a mixing, it was
so minor as to be invisible to the molecular biologists. On the
other hand, we do know that the tiniest change in a gene or set
of genes can have considerable effect.

[William Vetter]

William Vetter wrote:
>
> We implemented the Bayesian population
> genetic analysis program STRUCTURE, which
> assesses population subdivision and characterizes
> genomic evidence of recent hybridization.
> STRUCTURE analyses of the 851 STR genotypes
> placed cats into discrete population clusters
> corresponding to European, African, and central
> Asian wildcats and identified a subdivision of
> domestic cats from different regions (Fig. 2B).
> Interestingly, we identified a discrete population
> of wild and domestic cats from the Near East
> (brown group in Fig. 2B) distinct from the other
> F. silvestris subspecies, as well as three subgroupings
> of domestic cats. These 15 individuals
> had concordant mtDNA and STR phylogenies
> identical to those of domestic cats and were
> collected in remote deserts of Israel, United Arab
> Emirates, Bahrain, or Saudi Arabia. These data
> suggest that these Near Eastern wildcats may
> represent the ancestral founder population of domestic
> cats, supporting a domestication origin in
> the Near East.

What I don't get about this is, if the domestic cats and the Felis
Sylvestris wildcats interbreed so easily, then how do they know these
15 wildcats they found in Mideast deserts aren't descended from one or
two litters of kittens from a domestic kittycat bred by Felis
Sylvestris Lybica? That situation would give the wildcats domestic cat
mitochondrial DNA.

[William Vetter]

William Vetter wrote:

> vibrissae
>
mystacial vibrissae

superciliary vibrissae

genal vibrissae

carpal vibrissae

[J.Pascal]

I suppose it's sort of nit-picky but lots of people use words like "worshiped" to mean things other than "this thing is a deity." It's sort of like an argument between protestants and catholics... "you worship Mary", "no, we don't", "really, what would you call that then?", "not worship," "How can it not be worship to have a shrine for her?" "But it's not *worship*", "but you have a shrine", "It's not the same", "you pray to her"... "It's. Not. The. Same"... etc. etc.

I don't imagine that having sacred cats who embody the qualities of gods is trackable precisely to the monotheistic religions, but is it impossible to worship *small* gods or god-fragments?

[William Vetter]

Some people regard the Voodoo loa as Christian saints, not gods.

The mummified cats were sold to pilgrims who came to Bubastis, for them
to participate in some ritual and entomb them. It was a business.
Cats were bred to be mummified and sold. X-ray analysis of mummies
show that many of them were Felis Chaus, the jungle cat, another
species somewhat larger than Felis Lybica, caught for the purpose.
Further, one specimen was shown to be a fraud, being five bones from a
human hand wrapped to form a body, with a cat's skull stuck on top.

Additionally, there were a variety of other animals involved with other
Egyptian deities mummified, ibises and so on.
The above refers to Journal of Acheological Science, *8*, (1981), 185.

[William Vetter]

Would you use "stoup" in a manuscript?

It is supposed to be a Scottish word that would mean patron or perhaps
subsidizer.

If you did, would you spell it stoup or stoop?

[Jim Hetley]

That's not the first definition I'd recognize. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stoup

Holy water basin or bucket or cup is more common. If you use "stoop" I would think of either a threshold or the dive of a hawk.

Jim

[John W Kennedy]

Neither "stoup" nor "stoop" is in the OED with the desired meaning.
That doesn't exclude the possibility that it might be a word in the
guid Scots tongue -- I haven't a Scots dictionary to check -- but I
wouldn't use either in English, even Scottish English, without a damned
good reason.

--
John W Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 09:22:34 -0400, William Vetter
<mdha...@gmail.com> wrote
in<news:mss03n$rkk$1...@dont-email.me> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

> Would you use "stoup" in a manuscript?

> It is supposed to be a Scottish word that would mean
> patron or perhaps subsidizer.

The Dictionary of the Scots Language isn’t aware of such a
word. From the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up
to 1700) it has:

<stoup> 'a vessel for holding, chiefly, liquids; a cask,
bucket, pitcher or the like; a vessel containing liquid
for drinking; a drinking vessel; a tankard, cup,
flagon', the latter meaning being the one with which
I’m familiar; and

<stoup> 'a post or pillar, usu. of wood, chiefly used
to support something, also as a barrier, etc.' (and some
related senses).

From the Scottish National Dictionary (1700-) it has:

<stoup>, <stoop> 'a wooden post, pillar or prop,
e.g. a chair or table leg, a bed- or gate-post, etc.; a
pillar of coal left in mining to support the roof of
the working' (and some related senses); and

<stowp>, <stoup> 'a wooden pail or bucket, gen.
used for carrying water from a well, and usu. narrower
at the mouth than at the bottom to prevent spilling;
'a smaller-sized vessel for holding liquor, sometimes
also used as a drinking-vessel, acc. to its size, which
varied considerably, a mug, flagon, tankard, decanter'.

[...]

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 15:42:16 -0400, John W Kennedy
<john.w....@gmail.com> wrote
in<news:2015091015421673...@gmail.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

> On 2015-09-10 16:38:56 +0000, Jim Hetley said:

>> That's not the first definition I'd recognize.
>> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stoup

>> Holy water basin or bucket or cup is more common. If
>> you use "stoop" I would think of either a threshold or
>> the dive of a hawk.

> Neither "stoup" nor "stoop" is in the OED with the
> desired meaning. That doesn't exclude the possibility
> that it might be a word in the guid Scots tongue -- I
> haven't a Scots dictionary to check -- but I wouldn't
> use either in English, even Scottish English, without a
> damned good reason.

It isn’t. When you’re online, you do have a Scots
dictionary: <http://www.dsl.ac.uk/>.

[William Vetter]

I found it in Chambers Dictionary and Chambers Thesaurus, and also
mentioned once in OED, 2nd Ed. I asked because it was a short word,
but seemed archaic & obscure. Jim Theis would have no problem using
stoup in a ms. I paste what I found below.

Chambers Dictionary:

stoop4 or stoup /stoop/
noun
1. A post (dialect)
2. A prop, supporter, patron (Scot)
3. A massive supporting pillar of coal in a mine (dialect)
ORIGIN: ON stolpi post
stoop and roop or stoup and roup (Scot)

Stump and rump, completely



Oxford English Dictionary:

stoop, n.1 Now only dial.

(stuːp)

Forms: α. 5 stolpe, 5–9 stulp(e, 6 stoulpe. β. 5–7 stowpe, 6 stuipe,
stouppe, stowppe, 6–8 stoope, 6–9 stoup(e, 7–9 stope, stowp, (7
stoppe), 7– stoop.

[Late ME. stulpe, stolpe, a. ON. stolpe (Icel. stólpi, Sw., Da.
stolpe); prob. cogn. w. Russian stolb post, pillar.
   It is doubtful whether the word has any connexion with MLG. and
early mod.Du. stolpe, stulpe lid (according to Kilian also beam,
rafter), mod.Du. stolp, stulp, mod.G. stulpe (from LG.).
The β forms may possibly partly represent a distinct but synonymous
word, a. or cogn. w. OFris. stûpa, MLG., MDu. stûpe whipping-post,
stake, punishment of flogging, MHG. stûpe (from MLG.; mod.G. staupe)
flogging.]

2.2 fig. A person or thing that supports or sustains; a ‘prop’,
‘pillar’. Sc.

   a 1572 Knox Hist. Ref. iv. Wks. 1848 II. 411 Ledingtoune and the
Maister of Maxwell were that nycht the two stoupeis of hir chair.
   1640 R. Baillie Lett. & Jrnls. (Bannatyne Club) I. 282 Since he
heard of Ratcliffe prisoned, and Wentford's death, his two stoups, his
heart is a little fallen.    1721 Ramsay To Earl Dalhousie 2 Dalhousie
of an auld descent, My chief, my stoup, and ornament.    1821 Galt Ann.
Parish xxvi. (1895) 167 All [invited] in addition to our old stoops
from the neighbouring parishes.    1863 R. Paul in B. Bell Mem. (1872)
266 He‥is‥a great stoop to the Free Church.    1896 Barrie Marg. Ogilvy
ii, He was a great ‘stoup’ of the Auld Licht kirk.

[John W Kennedy]

On 2015-09-10 19:49:06 +0000, Brian M. Scott said:

> On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 15:42:16 -0400, John W Kennedy
> <john.w....@gmail.com> wrote
> in<news:2015091015421673...@gmail.com> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
>> On 2015-09-10 16:38:56 +0000, Jim Hetley said:
>
>>> That's not the first definition I'd recognize.
>>> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stoup
>
>>> Holy water basin or bucket or cup is more common. If
>>> you use "stoop" I would think of either a threshold or
>>> the dive of a hawk.
>
>> Neither "stoup" nor "stoop" is in the OED with the
>> desired meaning. That doesn't exclude the possibility
>> that it might be a word in the guid Scots tongue -- I
>> haven't a Scots dictionary to check -- but I wouldn't
>> use either in English, even Scottish English, without a
>> damned good reason.
>
> It isn’t. When you’re online, you do have a Scots
> dictionary: <http://www.dsl.ac.uk/>.

And that goes straight into my Bookmarks folder. I don’t often have
dealings with Inglis (even when I have been in Scotland, it’s been
Edinburgh and Castle Culzean), but it’s nice to know the resource is
there.

> Brian

Anyway, it seems that "Stoup" in “Dictionary of the Scots Language” has
Sense I. 7, ‘Fig. A loyal and enthusiastic supporter of a cause or
institution, esp. of a church, a staunch adherent, patron or ally (Sc.
1808 Jam.; Sh., ne.Sc., Per., wm.Sc. 1971), = Eng. “pillar.”’

But I’d still say it probably shouldn’t be used except in actual Scots.

--
John W Kennedy
"Give up vows and dogmas, and fixed things, and you may grow like That.
...you may come to think a blow bad, because it hurts, and not because
it humiliates. You may come to think murder wrong, because it is
violent, and not because it is unjust."
-- G. K. Chesterton. "The Ball and the Cross"

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 20:17:25 -0400, John W Kennedy
<john.w....@gmail.com> wrote
in<news:20150910201725420...@gmail.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

[...]

> Anyway, it seems that "Stoup" in “Dictionary of the Scots
> Language” has Sense I. 7, ‘Fig. A loyal and enthusiastic
> supporter of a cause or institution, esp. of a church, a
> staunch adherent, patron or ally (Sc. 1808 Jam.; Sh.,
> ne.Sc., Per., wm.Sc. 1971), = Eng. “pillar.”’

Ah, I missed that one.

> But I’d still say it probably shouldn’t be used except in
> actual Scots.

Agreed.