Sometimes a Smeerp is Just a Smeerp

[anicalewis]

I recently ran up against an interesting worldbuilding issue: a reason for smeerps.

In case you're not familiar with the convention of "calling a rabbit a smeerp", it is when a writer of sci-fi or fantasy includes something that is clearly recognizable as an existing object, concept, or creature (e.g. clock, love, rabbit) in a non-human (or at

Comments

[magic_7_words]

Huzzah!

I don't have much to add, but I wanted to underscore your connection of smeerpage (excellent word, btw) with culture. You mention it in the context of Hopping Death, but I think it's the operative principle behind your smeerpage of the sari-like garment as well. The reason you need to smeerp it is that saris have cultural connotations that don't match your characters' culture--just as the word "rabbit" would have cultural connotations (fuzzy, timid, harmless, etc.) that wouldn't match the carrot-people's culture.

I think "castle," on the other hand, has been used in so many novels, movies, and fairy tales--with varying degrees of realism--that its cultural connotations now include "medieval Europe or anything remotely resembling it."

[toastedcheese]

I agree that you were right to smeerp in this case. You really just have to do what will be clearest to your audience. Sometimes this means avoiding a word based on its connotations, other times it means ignoring a word's cultural history because the word has lost its context in modern usage and won't be seen as wrong/anachronistic (and is much clearer than any alternative).

But why would you link to TVTropes, Nic? Why would you do that to me??

[toastedcheese]

Haha, having now been sucked into TVTropes, I do like the "Uncoffee" trope - because so many writers are hopelessly dependent on coffee, they want their characters to drink coffee, but because this doesn't fit in a SF or medieval fantasy setting, they create a drink that is obviously meant to be coffee but isn't actually called coffee.

[toastedcheese]

Also: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CallASmeerpARabbit

[anicalewis]

I am aware that linking to TVTropes is evil. It's a delicious kind of evil, though, like an evil cookie.

Have you read DWJ's short story "Nad and Dan adn Quaffy" (yes, that's how I meant to spell that).

Oh - haha, just went to look at the TVTropes page, and it quotes that story. :P But yes, an interesting point. I think it's also the reason so many fantasy books include cats, treecats, Cats in Space, etc. (And, incidentally, why so many mystery protagonists have cats.) I suspect that writers, on average, own more cats than the general population.