Pernese versus Terran terms

[Hans]

One of my pet projects that doesn't get the attention it needs... A Pernese Concordance if you will.

Can you add to the list? (I'll add your suggestion to the list)
You do need to be able to tell us in which book you found your entry, so I can check it if your entry is queried. This is just a short list to begin with, with terms from Dragonflight.

• Alehold: pub, tavern
• Apprentice: student, lowest crafter rank
• Beasthold: a cattle farm, also: stable(s)
• Birthing woman: midwife
• Birthing day: birthday
• Black heavy water: oil
• Black rock (Cromcoal): coal
• Bloodline: genealogy, family tree
• Breast band: bra, brassiere
• Bubbly (bubbling) wine: champagne
• Canine: (spit)dog
• Carbon stick: pencil
• Cartbeast: oxen
• Cleansing sand: sand used as soap
• Cold, the: winter
• Cold season, the: winter
• Cot: a (wooden) bed
• Cothold: small house or primitive housing
• Cromcoal: see: black rock
• Distance viewer: telescope, minocular
• Distance writer: telegraph
• Dolphineer: a dolphin trainer
• Draybeast: oxen
• Drudge: labourer, servant
• Drying cloth: towel
• Espousal: engagement/bethrotal or marriage
• Far viewer: telescope, minocular
• Feline: cat
• Fine viewer: microscope
• Flamefly: firefly
• Furs: bedding or blankets
• Gitar: guitar
• Glass smith: glassblower, -crafter
• Healer: medic, physician
• Healer Hall: like an academic hospital
• Herdbeast: cow
• Hop-it: hopscotch (a children's streetgame, in France called "marelles", in Germany "templehupfen", in The Netherlands "hinkelen", in India "ekaria dukaria", "pico" in Vietnam and "rayuela" in Argentina, to name a few examples.)
• Klah: coffee-like hot drink
• Looking metal: mirror
• Marks: money, wooden coins
• Nameday: birthday
• Milchbeast: cow
• Necessary: lavatory, toilet
• Records: archives
• River grains: rice
  
• Runner: courier
• Runner beast: horse
• Sanding: lathering
• Sevenday: Week
• Shipfish: dolphin(s)
• Sleeping furs: bedding, blankets
• Snowstaves: skis
• Spouse: a person's partner in marriage; husband, wife
• Starsmith: astronomer
• Stone-clean: bare, free of greenery
• String-doll: a marionette
• Sulfure sticks: Matches
• Sweet oil: perfume
• Sweet soap: sand used as soap
• Sweetsand: sand used as soap
• Tubers: potatoes (?)
• Turn: Year
• Turnover: New Year's Ever
• Water grains: rice
  
• Wherhide: leather

From Ruwin's post I left out:
sea hold, the meaning of which I think is much broader than harbour and besides, the word harbour is normally used; knocked between, more an expression; and fellis which is not the word for painkiller but which is a plant.Ruwin, I am not tryng to build a mini-encyclopedia here just a list of terms that have Terran equivalents.

[Ruwin]

Hey Hans
I looked at Dragondrums and found these terms

wherhide - leather
runner beast - horse
sea hold - harbour
cothold - small house or primative housing
furs - bedding or blanket
knocked between - unconscious
tuber - potato
fellis - painkiller
klah - coffee

[edith]

bout to offer to do ddrums as I've got to read that for next months discussion.
oh well...
give me a book to do!

[c_ris]

I'm reading through DQ, so I'll do that one for Dragonquest

[monkeysrule]

Klah is not coffee, more of a substitute the colonists made from the bark of a plant that became the regular caffeinated drink.

[Hans]

Originally Posted by edith

bout to offer to do ddrums as I've got to read that for next months discussion.
oh well...
give me a book to do!

Pick one that's convenient for you

[ghyle]

Re.: knocked between

Hans, there is the verbal phrase knocked out, in English, meaning rendered unconscious. It is related to out for the count, possibly. Knocked between can be read as the Pernese equivalent to that phrase, rather than as only a Pernese conception.

[McClance]

Dolphineer for dolphin trainers and dolphin researchers
Healer Hall for hospital (?)
Healer for doctor

[Anareth]

Originally Posted by Ruwin

Hey Hans
I looked at Dragondrums and found these terms

fellis - painkiller

I would not say 'fellis' is a synonym for 'painkiller.' As Hans says, it's a specific plant. Behavior-wise, it seems to most closely resemble the opium poppy. (Does not pass up chance to plug her Pernese Herbarium.) The Pernese have other painkillers, like willow salic (better known on Earth as asprin), and numbweed, a topical analgesic. Fellis isn't something you give out for minor headaches.

I would say the Healer Hall is more the equivalent of a medical school/teaching hospital than just a hospital per se.

[Hans]

McClance; I don't like the "docter" thing but think you mentioned a good one with healer, so I changed it to medic and physician (as the colonists used those terms)


Ghyle, I know about knocked out but both expressions that are given are expressions, a way of saying something. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the "knocked out" isn't used by the Pernese, too

Keep 'em coming people; let's make this a LIVE thread

[Hans]

OK, ok I'm crazy, I know. So I search all my digital files to see if "knocked out" was used in one of the Pern books

From The Renegades of Pern

"Was Farli among the fire-lizards?" Piemur asked weakly, a healthier color gradually reducing his pallor.
"I didn't see her," Jancis replied.
"She probably went for help once I was knocked out."
"To the Master Harper?" K’van asked.
"I suppose!"

[ghyle]

Thanks, Hans.

It was a thought, but then, such thoughts may have some basis, and better safe and all that.

May I get an update on those books that have been done, or are being done? I'd like to tackle the Harper Hall trilogy, if that's no problem.

[granath]

Tuber is a term used on Earth for plants like potato and sweet potato. In some climates on Pern the latter would probably grow better than the former.

[ghyle]

Word: greens (Dragonsong).

This could be read as an extension of the term (salad) greens to any edible leaf, such as lettuce and the like (but cress is also mentioned). I think, Hans, you may need to consider where the word hasn't changed, but been applied to new or other things.

R/l example: in Australia, the acacia is called a wattle, from its use in the early colonies in daub-and-wattle huts. The term wattle was applied to the tree, from its use in a style of building.

Understand where I'm coming from?

[edith]

shall I do Moreta-its the one published after DDrums so its convenient!

[Hans]

By all means, Ghyle, concentrate in the Harper Hall trilogy and Edith on Moreta, but do mention think with us in general too

I'll look at other posts/remarks and additions later.

[Anneli]

Getting down to basics

Breast band = bra (Dragonsinger UK Corgi pg 135)
Underpants = knickers - same reference (or is that one simply a US/UK difference rather than a Pernese/Terran one?)

[Lily]

Cot: a (wooden) bed
Cothold: small house or primitive housing

I thought a Cot was a small house - as in cottage
Cothold - an area of cottages - village
Cotholder - owner of said cottage

A wooden bed? Where does that reference occur?

[Hans]

Originally Posted by Lily

Cot: a (wooden) bed
Cothold: small house or primitive housing

I thought a Cot was a small house - as in cottage
Cothold - an area of cottages - village
Cotholder - owner of said cottage

A wooden bed? Where does that reference occur?

Dragonsinger. Beside Dunca's littel house being called a cot, you are right at that, an apprentice bed is also called a cot.
I was under the impression that cot for small house wasn't Pernese but was used in regular English, too? Or is cot a new (shortened) name for cottage Anne came up with?

Silvina gave her [Menolly] a droll look. "I could, of course, move all the furniture out, take down the hangings, and give you an apprentice's cot and a fold stool ..."
"I'd feel better about it ..." Silvina stared at her so that Menolly broke off, flustered.
"Why, you numbwit. You think I meant that"?"
"Didn't you? Because the things in that room are far too valuable for an apprentice." Silvina was still staring at her. "Having nine fire lizards is causing enough trouble. The room would be just grand, and if I've only the furnishings of any other apprentice, why, that's proper, isn't it?"
Silvina gave her one more long, appraising look, shaking her head and laughing to herself.
"You're right, you know. Then none of the others could quibble about the change. But an apprentice s cot is narrow, and you've the fire lizards to consider."
"Two apprentice cots? If you have them to spare?"

[Hans]

Originally Posted by Anneli

Getting down to basics

Breast band = bra (Dragonsinger UK Corgi pg 135)
Underpants = knickers - same reference (or is that one simply a US/UK difference rather than a Pernese/Terran one?)

What do others think of "underpants", is it Pernese? Is it used in modern day English? It is the litteral translation of a man's underwear in Dutch
I'll wait adding this one, the other one I judge to be Pernese although it has been used on Earth, too. But that was long ago.

[Lily]

I have always heard men's underpants being called as such
And i bet a breastband wasnt a brassiere (sp) as we know it
probably just what it says - a firm band bound around the breast

(wouldnt be much fun for a nursing mother would it?
I wonder if they had elastic?)

[Hans]

Re: the breastband. Lily, I understand it wouldn't be the same thing as a bra, which is short fdor brassier right? But it would have the same function (keep the breasts from moving around) and that's what counts in this case.

As for the underpants, that means it is not a Pernese equivalent of knickers but that that particular British word hasn't survived and that people referred to underwear with its old name: underpants and shifts.

[c_ris]

A cot is a type of bed - especially used in ships, I think due to their small size.

[Hans]

Actually...

cot1
• noun Brit. a small bed with high barred sides for a baby or very young child.
— ORIGIN Hindi, ‘bedstead, hammock’.


cot2
• noun 1 a small shelter for livestock. 2 archaic a small, simple cottage.
— ORIGIN Old English, related to COTE.





so, cot for cottage isn't even Pernese, just archaic Terran

[c_ris]

The term 'cot' however, is also used in many sea-faring novels, particuarly those set on ships when they were still made of wood.

[Cheryl]

Underpants is a common American term. We don't use knickers -- the term I mean, not the actual object!

Ooh, wait, we do use the term knickers, but with a different meaning. Here, knickers are short pants ending just below the knee, usually worn by little boys. Grown men wearing them would be laughed at (actually so are boys if they're over a few years old), and women wear capris instead (similar concept, but slightly different in style)

Other American terms: http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=underwear

[Hans]

Originally Posted by c_ris

The term 'cot' however, is also used in many sea-faring novels, particuarly those set on ships when they were still made of wood.

Erm, I wasn't disputing that C_ris; sorry if I gave that impression. I just went to the online oxford dictionary and found even more than two (but the others were irrelevant) descriptions thna the ones we already had

[ghyle]

Re. underpants.

There's a children's rhyme, which preserves it. I don't know its spread.

I see Paris, I see France,
I see [name]'s underpants.

Cheryl, the American knicker is a contraction of knickerbocker.

Re. cot.

It is also used for babies' beds

[ghyle]

From the Macquarie dictionary:

1. a child's bed with enclosed sides.
2. a light, usually portable, bed, especially one of canvas stretched on a frame.
3. Nautical a swinging bed made of canvas for officers, sick persons, etc.

phrase

4. hit the cot, Colloquial to go to bed.

[Anglo-Indian, from Hindustani khāt]

*****

1. a small house; cottage; hut.
2. a small place of shelter or protection.

[Middle English and Old English; origin unknown]

*****

cot case
/ˈkɒt keɪs/ (Say 'kot kays)


noun Colloquial (humorous)

1. someone who is exhausted, drunk, or in some way incapacitated, and fit only for bed.

*****

cot death
/ˈkɒt dɛθ/ (Say 'kot deth)

noun

1. the sudden and apparently inexplicable death of a child while sleeping.

See sudden infant death syndrome.

[Sandi]

Throwing in a spanner (or a wrench), the word cot is widely used in the US to mean a small, portable bed that is light-weight and foldable. They are often used by campers and sometimes come in handy when a housefull of guests spend the night.

Baby beds are usually called either baby beds or cribs (yes, I know that to a lot of peeps a crib is where the corn is, not the baby)

[Anneli]

Fascinating thread,

*heads off to try to think of other expressions for Hans*

[Kath]

What about descriptive insults like deadglow/dimglow? Are they the kind of thing that can be included, or not?

[Hans]

Hmm, they don;t belong in this list Kath. But by all means start a new one with insult. I must "warn" you however, I already collected quite a few

Look here and see if you can give us new ones? If yes (invented or from the books): GREAT!

[Kath]

Nah, it's not really my thing. I just thought, seeing as they're pretty interchangeable words for "idiot", unique to Pern, that they might merit inclusion.

[Topaz the Golden]

Originally Posted by ghyle

Re. underpants.

There's a children's rhyme, which preserves it. I don't know its spread.

I see Paris, I see France,
I see [name]'s underpants.

Cheryl, the American knicker is a contraction of knickerbocker.

Re. cot.

It is also used for babies' beds

i haven't heard that rhyme in a long time. also there is an ave in new york city called knickerbocker and the New York Knicks is short for knickerbocker. the old name of the team was the new york knickerbockers.

[Myt]

In Australia, both knickers and underpants are used. The words I mean.

[Hans]

Is this where we fall silent... at the department of knickers and undergarments?

Come on people, think with me! It is Pernese terms we want!

[Myt]

I will look very carefully through 'the dolphins of pern' and see if there's anything not previously said. OK?

[Hans]

Yes, please Myt. any help is very much appreciated!

[Myt]

Turn-Year
and
Sevenday-week
Is a Pernese turn similar in length to a Terran year?