OOC: terminology

[sythyry]

OOC: In a previous post, I used the word "teratology" to mean "the study of monsters". A pretty routine coinage, from Greek roots, "terat" (monster, marvel) + "logy" (science, knowledge).

beetiger, who knows Real Science, pointed out that it's a standard English word whose main uses aren't at all what I meant: it's currently used for the study of malformations and birth defects and stuff. (So, monstrous things, but mostly one-offs rather than whole monster species.) In the 17th century, "teratology" was used for more or less what I intended it for. But then the concepts of "monstrous mutation of an ordinary thing" (e.g., sideshow freaks, two-headed goats) and "freaky species of dubious reality" (e.g., centaurs, giant squids) got separated. 'Terato-' tends to mean the former. I mean the latter.

Sometimes, when I abuse a word, I do intend to cause some discord in the reader's world view. In The Wrath of Trees there's an aside that sometimes two lakku, that world's dominant species, accidentally rape each other (in the eyes of lakku law and society and the victims/perpetrators). "Accidental rape" is an oxymoron for humans, and more so when it's mutual. Several people whom I generally respect have suggested I cut that aside, but I think it really underscores a point of alienness of the lakku.

I'm not trying to do that with "teratology". I just want a word for Mynthë's field of study. Preferably one that sounds respectably scientific (Mynthë is a science student), and isn't particularly emotionally charged. So I'm not really very happy with "teratology".

What I really intend by the word is the study of intelligent non-prime species. In terms of Earth disciplines, it's sort of like ethology (which, terrestrially, is the study of animal behavior, esp. in their natural environments). And it's sort of like anthropology and ethnography (especially in their less scientific or sympathetic 19th century incarnations).

There's not really a good English word for it that I'm aware of.

beetiger and I came up with something. The ancient Greeks had a sort of concept of ... not quite non-primes, but not that different. Barbarians were "civilized people who really exist but are Not Like Us and really mostly spiritually and culturally and technologically inferior" to the ancient Greeks. So ... the study of barbarians could, presumably, be called "barbarology" or something like that.

Or, I could stick with "ethology" or "ethnography". But "ethology" sort of suggests that non-primes are animals rather than people, which is wrong. And "ethnography" sort of suggests, more weakly, that non-primes are the same kind of entity as the ethnographer, which is wrong -- you'd use the same English word for studying primes of other cultures too, which is very wrong for the World Tree.

So what do you think?

[Poll #1191275]

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I thought 'teratology' worked well, and carried a meaning which was obvious from context. "Monster" is a perfectly valid, although rather archaic and certainly non-PC term for a child born with severe defects.

The one that always jarred for me was 'cataphract' being applied to a ship. You do this sort of thing from time to time, it seems. IMHO, on the whole, contrasted to "The Cryptic Cataphract of Coeoios", your definition of 'teratology' is pretty much textbook. I'd not fret over it.

[zeeth_kyrah]

I'll just echo this.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

There is already an actual English word for this: Cryptozoology

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Right. It means:

* The search for living examples of animals taxonomically identified through fossil records, but which are believed to be extinct.
* The search for animals that fall outside of taxonomic records due to a lack of empirical evidence, but for which anecdotal evidence exists in the form of myths, legends, or undocumented sightings.

Neither of which applies to World Tree monsters, which live no more than thirty miles away and your narrator visits three times a week. They're not a bit crypto.

So Vicki and I rejected it.

[bluedeer.livejournal.com]

In reference to the trees, it's a great example of when human 'morals and values' are projected on an alien species. Take chickens as another example. The notion of chicken love could also be considered rape by human definitions, but that's how Chickens (And honestly, probably a majority of animals on the planet) reproduce because that's how nature built them.

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Given that the word prime is derived from the latin "primus", meaning first, how about using "secundus" (second) as the base word for non-primes and call it secundology?

Just a thought.

[zhaleskra.livejournal.com]

Prime, on the World Tree, means "primary" and is only a reference to Primes being "first" in their importance in the eyes of that world's gods.

[shadsdf.livejournal.com]

But the gods certainly think of the monsters. Nendrai get upgraded on a regular basis by one god, iirc.

[terrana.livejournal.com]

And Ketherian isn't even comparable to latin. Look at it this way, then: if the primes are primary, then wouldn't that make the non-primes secondary?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Exactly. That's the point. (From the primes' point of view.)

[khereva.livejournal.com]

I suppose on the dubiously worthy principle of avoiding hybrid words (of Latin/Greek mixed parentage), one could try "deuterology." That would make the study of Primes, of course, "protology."

Perhaps "heterology" would work, too...

[mazlynn.livejournal.com]

Hmm... that works. I'd been trying to come up with something mathematical about "non-primes", but couldn't come up with any good synonyms.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Yes! Since it's studying non-primes, it should be called...

...composite-ology!

Thank you; I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

[mazlynn.livejournal.com]

Ah, there ya go. :) I knew there had to be a mathematical term for "non-prime" numbers, but couldn't come up with it. :)

[rowyn]

I like this idea.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Shasa: "Hey, we're a one-off birth defect freak!"

Kinsha: "We weren't born this way."

Ess recalls a wonderful morning, lying in wait on a cheetah cub that was worrying a gazelle fawn to death that went horribly, horribly wrong.

Shasa: "Well, terratetratology still sounds fine."

Kinsha: "You're doing it wrong."

Shasa: "No, more syllables makes it more important. And sound alliteration makes it super-powered."

Ess flicks out her tongue.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Hee!

[vik_thor]

In context, I think teratology works fine. I don't think anyone reading it is going to confuse it with the real teratology, esp. since you say it was closer to what you meant earlier in history.

Since we read Sythry's journal as translation anyway, monsterology would also work fine. We are already used to all non-prime intelligent species being referred to as monsters.

I also like the suggestion above of Secundology. (or whatever the Latin phrase 'study of the second tier beings' would be.

[coppercheetah.livejournal.com]

Myself, I'd think of things more like 'Xenology' (study of stange things/strangers) or 'Xenobiology'--depending on just how much Mynthë is 'getting into' her subjects *cough*--when speaking on creatures that are similar but different.

[calamitous-cani.livejournal.com]

I am sure there would be a different term for what "Teratology" is. "Monster" is a state that cannot be reconciled with being a prime, so a word with a root of "monster" can't really be used to discuss primes. A discussion of broken primes would use some other root. Since I of all people would be the one encountering it, once I know what the appropriate word is I'll mention it somewhere; I'm sure I'll run into some discussion of that at some point in medical school, possibly even in reference to myself.