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From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: The Warm Equations
Date: 30 Jun 2024 17:39:18 -0000
Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000)
Lines: 41
Message-ID: <v5s586$kh9$1@panix2.panix.com>
References: <ldr19qF74vgU1@mid.individual.net> <v5hquj$2a07o$1@dont-email.me> <v5s0tg$jgmd$1@dont-email.me> <v5s33t$jvjk$2@dont-email.me>
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In article <v5s33t$jvjk$2@dont-email.me>,
Dimensional Traveler  <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>On 6/30/2024 9:25 AM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> On 26/06/2024 14.42, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>> On 6/24/2024 12:01 PM, James Nicoll wrote:
>>>> In article <v5c7ij$113u3$1@dont-email.me>,
>>>> Lynn McGuire  <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 6/23/2024 11:37 AM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>>>>>> Interesting to note the way margins of a real-life space venture 
>>>>>> are run:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Two astronauts have been stuck at the ISS for an extra two weeks,
>>>>>> so far, because their ride has flat tires, and it's not a crisis,
>>>>>> and nobody has had to volunteer to step out the airlock.
>>>>>
>>>>> For those who do not know, this is a play on "The Cold Equations"
>>>>> awesome incredibly sad short story:
>>>>>     https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-cold-equations/
>>>>>
>>>> Alternatively, it's a terrible story about people with extremely
>>>> shitty pre-flight safety procedures.
>>>>
>>>> https://reactormag.com/on-needless-cruelty-in-sf-tom-godwins-the-cold-equations/
>>>
>>> There are so many stories about people sneaking on a ship that we have 
>>> created a word in the English language for them: Stowaways.
>> 
>> Did that term arise from *stories* about the concept? I was under the 
>> impression that
>> it came from real, physical people sneaking on board real, physical ships.
>> 
>I sense a *whoosh*....

In order to talk about real physical people you have to be able to tell
their stories.  This is why we make up words, to be able to tell these stories.
A good discussion of this process can be found in "How the Alphabet Was Made" 
from Kipling's _Just So Stories_.
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."