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Grrl Power #872 - Patreon 2x
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Yes, the race that communicates with smell but deals with verbal languages all the time would obviously have sound friendly names, and "Aster" certainly could have volunteered that information. But that's not what Sydney asked. She asked how to spell the unpronounceable name.
Honestly, races that communicate with scents, what do they do when it's windy? Presumably all their buildings and spaceships have excellent airflow, and "soundproofing" a room would involve turning on a fan.
If you had an alphabet that represented every possible smell, it would be as much a pain in the ass as non-simplified chinese. Really, it would probably be a combination of glyphs that combine in certain ways. I mean if "Clur" is all those scents at once, then presumably it would be a combination of symbols for "underripe" "kovo" "nut" "moist" "summer" "rain" and "sun" at least. The fact that there's a phonemeable word for that one specific letter for a language that represents scents is in itself a little odd, not to mention they might run out of combinations of sounds before they covered every possible scent profile.
I do think that if humans ever create either some sort of chimeric human/animal hybrids, like fox or dog people walking around, or probably more likely, some sort of bio-mod that lets people smell with similar sensitivity to canines, it won't be long before those people start making up new words to cover all the distinct smells out there. Sure, in English right now, we can say something smells like wood, or even a specific kind of wood, but we don't have the vocabulary to describe how people smell, beyond simple stuff like stale, fresh, acrid, or other words that simply describe the scents we infuse in our soaps and deodorants.
Imagine a bloodhound chimera detective describing how a suspect smelled to his fox chimera sergeant. He wouldn't say that the guy smelled kind of B.O.-ey and Irish Springy and maybe he ate something with onions. He'd want to describe the specifics of what makes one human smell different from another, and he'd need new vocabulary for it. "He smelled glinty and arrus, traces of flemo and gorgol." Etc.
Aliens with different senses would have wildly different vocabularies to accomodate for them. Imagine a race that could feel electricity like sharks. There'd be all kinds of words to cover that, and not just "zappy" and "sparky."
So yeah. Aster should have immediately volunteered her word-speak name.
Comments
Some Ed
I like how you use the past tense to something I believe continues to happen even these days. Or is it that it now happens as part of the immigration process at some other point, such as at the embassy where they get their visa to travel, or something? I mean, to be fair, I've not interacted with anyone today who had their name changed by US immigration today. But within the last 10 years, I've spoken to someone who had their name changed by US immigration within the last 10 years of that point in time, or at least made that claim. As it happens, he was thrilled about it, because his old name was over 20 letters long, and the new name is so much shorter, and also easier for even him to pronounce.
Some Ed
Probably me, at least, given my luck. I note that the person who primarily communicates with scent does not have anything I visually recognize as a nose. Nice.
Sam Bradley
Sydney has done the same thing here that customs officers did back when people were getting off the boat for the first time in the US. "What's your name? Drumpf? That's daft. I'm going to write Trump. NEXT"
Justaguy
One could argue that words such as "fragrance", "perfume", were originally used to describe a pleasant smell. "tang" is used to describe a taste or smell that is strong and bitter but in a pleasant way.
Churchill (formerly TeaBear)
Well, Hepzibah herself was a reference to another Science fiction character, but I can't honestly recall after all this time what it was.
Stephen Gilberg
English doesn't even have a single word for a pleasant smell. It barely has a neutral term anymore, given how often we use "smell" by itself with a negative implication. We humans sure are pessimists when it comes to the olfactory realm. I like to imagine a species that doesn't rely much on vision doing something similar with slang. "Ugh, that just *looks*, man."
Paul Gabbard
Nice long reach for that Hepzibah comment :). Almost forgot about the skunky StarJammer.
Otoger
the question is when will a fan of hers come visit the Grakz eater
Jathby Dredas
"Kovomalt"
Tim
This brings up an interesting thought: since humans (largely) can’t control their scent, how many people are walking around constantly emitting what is essentially a swear-word in her language? Less than zero I would imagine.
akrasia
Increasing opportunities for Syd's space wizard unobtainium tech to get recognized, I wonder how long until Earth is invaded for it...
Thisguy
Yeah, “Aster” should have given her verbal designation, military personnel are essentially bureaucrats, and bureaucrats will try to fit things into the way they think, and then designate things they want to if you take too long.
