Re: Grandmother v granmother

From: David Cake <dave_at_...>
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 00:42:40 +0800

At 4:33 PM +0000 30/6/06, Jeff Richard wrote:
>David speaks in a particularly unflurried manner:
>
>> speaking only for myself (and I don't think I particularly
>> flurried), its a confusion in formal address and description, not in
>> intimate family setting. When an Esrolian says to another 'I have to
>> do this thing for my Grandmother', it remains ambiguous.
>
>Remember, Esrolians don't speak English.:) Probably Grandmother (the
>title) is something like Hara-Grandmother or Hantra-Grandmother, or
>some other one syllable differentiation.

At 4:33 PM +0000 30/6/06, Jeff Richard wrote:
>Additionally, the term "matriarch", as normally defined, self-
>consciously implies "patriarch" as the norm. It also for me has all
>sorts of irritating connotions to bad Women's Studies seminars back at
>The Evergree State College, along with crappy readings like "The
>Chalice and the Blade".

        If the Esrolians indeed have separate words meaning 'matriarch' and 'grandmother', even if they sound similar, we should translate them to the appropriate words.

        On the other hand, I find myself quite convinced by Donald Oddys example of the word father in English as used in reference to Catholic priests that use of familial terms to indicate social positions is quite plausible.

        In other words, I would much rather assume that if we are going to use the same term for grandmother and for clan matriarch, its because the Esrolians overload the word too, not because we are snooty about real world gender politics and such things.

        And I have much reduced objection to the introduction of ambiguity if we are conceptually reproducing Esrolian linguistic ambiguity, rather than simply introducing ambiguity of our own.

	Cheers
		David