OOC: Draconomicon

[sythyry]

A bit of OOC stuff about the dragon novel. Only in sythyry 'cause it's a poll.

In this irromantic story about dragons, I want to have words for male and female dragons that sound a bit less clinical than "male" and "female". "Dragoness" is fine for female.

I've been using "drake" for "male dragon".

Which is sort of sensible, 'cause that word (a) is sometimes used for a dragon, and (b) is sometimes used for a male (of another species).

[Poll #1060106]

Comments

[redbird]

I expect that it would eventually come clear, but it would take me a while.

Thought: you could, by analogy to ducks/drakes, simply use "dragon" for the females, and make "drake" the marked state for when you needed to specify that you were referring to males. So "there are five dragons in the yard" might well be a mixed-sex group, but "the resident was a young dragon" would mean either female, or that the viewpoint character had assumed zie was observing a female.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Yeah... but I seem to want to refer to a marked group of females at least as often as a marked group of males. And since males outnumber females 2:1, I don't think it makes sense to have female be the linguistic default. Thanks, though.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

I like the name "drake", personally.

But, if you don't, there's dozens of suggestions at "http://www.theserenedragon.net/dragonschart.html".

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

"Drake" has been perfectly fine for my uses, only confusing in settings where it refers to wingless dragons, which are few.

[justicezero.livejournal.com]

Seems fine to me.
Other ideas that come to mind are male 'draco' if confusion is an issue.
Or take two words that don't even have immediate roots in the word "dragon" - after all, how does 'chicken' morph into 'rooster'?

[alonewiththemoon]

I like draco--it's unmistakably dragony. Drake I'm afraid does make me think of ducks, and then I picture the male dragons as being plump little things with green heads and a waddle. Although if that's what they are, then drake works just right ;-)

[rowyn]

I like drake. Makes them sound rakish. :)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Some of them are!

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that 'drake' referred specifically to smaller types of dragons (e.g. Sythyry would be a drake, but not Smaugh from The Hobbit).

I've also never liked the word 'dragoness', a rather clumsy melding of a Latin root with a Greek suffix.

Another issue with the two gender signifiers you've chosen is that the words you're choosing for male and female are completely different styles ('drake' comes from Germanic roots and 'dragon' from French.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Exactly. This is why I'm fussing about it.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Yeah... the 'dragoness' doesn't wasn't quite right. I've seen drake/cow. I don't suggest that. What's the feminine construction of 'draco'?

[mazlynn.livejournal.com]

Draco/Draca maybe? Although that starts to sound more like a title and less like a species indicator. "The Draca of Brisbane will be dining with us tonight". Although, depending on the type of story you're working on, that might work well.

[zhaleskra.livejournal.com]

I've never particularly liked "female forms" of words for anything in English.

1. They're hold-overs from their original languages.
2. Something about feminine suffixes (e.g. -ette, -ess) suggests an inferiority of the female.

Drake: "So instead of calling me dragon in your language, you call me dragon in another." - Draco, Dragonheart. (I have a similar problem with our Solar System being called Sol in Science and Science Fiction - it just seems lazy)

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

Actor is actor, Star is star, 'ess' and 'ette' versions are Hollywoodisms to make a diminuitive and should be avoided.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

It seems weird to have dragoness obviously derived from dragon but drake not... on the other hand, both are obvious as far as what you mean by them. And better than using entirely made up words, which is always kind of cheesy.

[elthionesse.livejournal.com]

Are male ducks called drakes???? O_o

[waywind.livejournal.com]

You could be radical and call the males "men" and the females "women," regardless of species. You can call it either an artifact of dignity for characters who are people rather than animals, or an artifact of translation-- like the motley steeds in World Tree being all called "horses." Depends on what effect you're going for.

Some friends of mine in chat rooms consistently used "drake" to mean "male dragon," but I can't think of any fantasy or sci-fi books that do so. Most of them just used "dragon" all around.

In the juvenile fantasy "The Talking Parcel," the creatures called fire-drakes are not dragons but ducks. On fire.

[deor.livejournal.com]

Well, you could use "bull" and "cow" as paralling crocodile terms. Crocs are kinda like dragons. Only, you know, not. Or there's "cock" and "hen"; I'm pretty sure I've seen those used for m/f dragons but I don't remember where.