User:Soap/gumption

04:52, 11 September 2022 (PDT)

See also Orphaned languages of Teppala.

GUMPTION words are a catch-all term for a word with a very specific meaning not recoverable from its etymology. They are fairly common in Play, but especially well-known in Late Andanese. Because of a longstanding mutual respect for each other's distinct cultures and languages, Play and Andanese seldom borrow words from each other, but instead use calques or coin new words. This holds true even for speakers who are fluent in both languages, because all citizens belonged to only one tribe, even if they were fluent in both languages or in a mixed marriage. Thus, many gumption words are pairs, but it is most often Andanese that coined the word first.

This section is very disorganized because the terms in each section also share traits with terms in other sections, and as a result all of them are difficult to categorize.

Play and Andanese often translate doubly foreign words (that is, words that are foreign to both languages) through a cipher rather than attempting to represent the complex sounds of various languages like Leaper.

Type I Gumption words (culturebound)

These terms are considered culturebound, even if they are not. There is a much larger number of terms that are also culturebound because of politics, but typically have short lifetimes. Examples of longer-lived words follow:

Champions

• Play's "champion" word, kapipāsuaa, or something even more specific, referring to an all-around champion who is fond of competing in one particular sport (or other competition) but is so good in general that they can beat others at their own favorite sports.

Taapau

• Play taapau, often considered an ideal masculine trait; may have various definitions even inside Play because of different men having different ideas of what it means to be taapau. The overarching concept is to be helpful to others without taking criticism from those who are being helped. Possible finer shades of meaning follow:

• "utilitarian and ugly", which is one interpretation of the bare word taapau rather than a compound based on it. Note that taapau is an AA compound, not BB as one might expect. The Play and especially Andanese scripts were considered very taapau, and even feminists took pride in this despite their conscious acknowledgment that the scripts were masculine. These women subscribed to a type of feminism in which men were not seen as harmful or inferior, but were considered expendable in times of scarcity, and so the taapau ideal served them well.

Child superheros

There is a word for a child superhero, literal or metaphorical, particularly one whose behavior is more stereotypically adult-like than that of most adults. Play 's word is žafaa, inherited directly from the Gold ancestor gahʷaʕ, which had a broader meaning in Gold. The Gold word is in turn from MRCA ìka mfʷògo, showing it was originally a compound. The earlier MRCA word mfʷògo was again originally a compound (note that /mfʷògo/ is not a legitimate atomic word shape, even if /g/ comes from earlier /B/) that had been formed shortly after the breakup of the language. Therefore it does not occur in Dreamlandic.

Other languages also retained cognates of mfʷògo. The concept as it evolved in languages such as Leaper was comparable to the Play cipher term pušeže, a term with no native Play equivalent that only appeared when Players began ciphering words from other languages instead of using loans. The difference between a žafaa and a pušeže is difficult to explain, but the Players believed that their concept of a child superhero honored the child's contributions whereas the foreigners' concept made the child seem little more than a toy, one whose struggles are a source of amusement for the adults around them.

Yet another type of child superhero known to the Leapers but foreign to the Players and Andanese was the pointer, named for adults' promise to believe anything the child said about someone they pointed out with their hand. Play translated this as činuaā but did not believe in their authority. This is related to the "alarm" concept below.

(Note: more words applying to all sections on this page can be found in the GUD dictionary, intended for a draft of Andanese in which such word formation is normal although the words are compounds.)

Butterfly

• "go back to the only place i have left" (the gumption word would be "one's own refuge" as in the word for butterfly. in Play this is an ordinary content word, but in other languages it might need to be named after a person, or alternatively just calqued from Play using the borrowing language's own word for butterfly)

• This is often used by people at the bottom of society, but whose sole comfort — a safe place to live — seems to never be in jeopardy. For example, one among a group of people forced to live in the wilderness would say they were going back to the campsite using the butterfly verb. Because these people are otherwise very poor and troubled, their sole refuge is very important to them, and the name of the safe place might be considered even more comforting than the Play word for home (nuīs).

The city without work

• a city in which nobody works or goes to school, and people are poor but all needs are nonetheless taken care of. Not the same as the butterfly refuge above, because the butterfly habitat is real, and only provides one thing (shelter) without providing food and well-being.

• The Play name for this city was Ŋapata Ŋūa, where ŋūa means to make a toy of something and is also used in words related to child care. Thus Ŋapata Ŋūa was a city where everyone was like small children, even younger than the youngest school-age children, and yet their needs were taken care of.
• The Late Andanese name for the city is Upuayaha. This has no connection to the Play name because both cultures shared the concept and neither needed to loan its name from the other.
• Although this is not the same as the butterfly habitat, some common bonds unite them.

• For example, both places are described as materially poor, yet in at least one way better off than the richer society around them.
• People living in both places may have only a narrow connection to the outside world, such that they don't conceive of their own living situation as extreme, but instead see the outside world as exotic. A common item from the outside world might be treated as a treasure in Ŋapata Ŋūa, but not as an item of temptation; it would thus be then quickly discarded as something not worth seeking more of.

• Both Play and Andanese speakers agree that the city has a definite location in Play territory, but would be reluctant to place it on a map.
• There are similarities to the Big Rock Candy Mountain song, in that the pleasures never run out, but also are limited to individualistic elemental pleasures rather than pleasure derived from monetary wealth or from exploitation of other people. Not everyone would be happy in Upuayaha, but those who live there are glad to have found their paradise and have no desire to leave. Note that the Players and their forebearers specifically defined pata "play" as being fun for all involved, and with no one suffering to provide another with pleasure.

Frog Pond

• A state of mental clarity which brings perfect peace. Commonly believed to be a physical place, even by adults who have studied their religion.

Type II Gumption words (painful emotions)

Play and Andanese both share a trait where the word for emotion also includes reflexive verbs such as "sleep", and therefore their class of emotions is very broad. These words, nonetheless, are emotions in the same sense as used in English.

Waiting and wishing

Some saying "are you still waiting for ___", either

• said to comfort someone when the person/thing clearly will never arrive, or
• pretending not to notice something is wrong, so that the listener can realize the problem without the visible embarrassment of being confronted

These practices are intended to soften the blow of the listener's realization of their situation, as to let it come all at once might lead to a worse reaction than otherwise. This undesirable emotional reaction can be called "ACM", from a customer who entered her favorite store and walked through the aisles, only to be shocked upon reaching the end and realizing that the store no longer carried any of the items she had come to rely on them for. See also Salem78 and With shaking hands, where the person comes to realize their depressing situation on their own.

With shaking hands

To perform a pleasurable activity for the last time. Alternatively, to abstain from an activity after realizing it is no longer pleasurable (e.g. "to put away the game controller" etc).

It may also be said of activities that are not pleasurable, but which were expected to yield pleasure indirectly. For example, someone whispering the same wish fifteen times facing the full moon might only slowly realize that it is not coming true, and on the sixteenth time, burst out crying instead of whispering the wish one more time.

Salem78 and RS Defense Hall

These words both refer to a person who has been beset by repeated misfortunes while others have prospered, and believes that their luck will soon improve because they see literally everyone else rising above them. It says nothing about whether the person is to blame for their misfortune or not; the word is for the emotion itself.

The two words are subtly different in that Salem78 implies that the person is relying on positive reinforcement they learned in earlier life, while the person described by RS Defense Hall is in a dire situation and believes that they have fallen so far that anything they do will bring them to a better place.

A good example of the Salem78 meaning is saying that last month was terrible, so the next month must be good, as it would be unthinkable for someone to suffer two such difficult months in a row.

A good example of the RS meaning from in-world history is the Crystals in Nama seeking to form alliances with every single nationality they could locate in the diplomatic Mirror Project, and then, finding none at all, choosing to side with the group which had rejected them the least virulently, figuring that their situation could not possibly get worse.

A second example of RS, also in Nama, involved Nama's government seeking to form a diplomatic alliance with Anzan, one of their historical abusers, who had taken away much of Nama's land. Nama's diplomats stated that they wanted to still be allies even though Anzan had always abused them in the past.

That horrible town

• Emotional distress and temper tantrums expressed only when one's living situation improves, whether because it was unsafe to do so in worse times or because nobody was around to listen

• In particular, a delayed and seemingly disproportionate negative reaction caused by early trauma. As in English "once bitten, twice shy", seen from the perspective of an outsider who either did not witness the original event or did not understand its effect on the other person at the time.

• Sympathy for a person undergoing the above, just after rescuing them or taking them in. May be associated with certain words in English, as in e.g. We wont go back to that horrible town ever again, where the speaker does not name the place spoken of.

Joshi

To give advice based on an early life experience that no longer applies. Identical to GUD Andanese cipher inakau. This behavior is expected of toddlers and to some extent even of young children (e.g. 10 year old girl giving career advice because her father is happy in that job), but it only becomes a behavior worth criticizing when practiced by adults. It could be compared to the Rainman scene in which the main character tries to stop his brother (both men are adults) from taking a bath because the brother had been burned by hot water when he was a baby.

The connection between this and that horrible town is difficult to explain. This is also the "Billy Joel CD" emotion.

Color paint

The emotion felt by parents upon sending their child to live in the adult world, realizing the child is not ready but that the time for parenting has run out. In many Play-speaking societies, the government rules even inside the home, and parents cannot keep their children (especially boys) in the household past a certain age, usually thirteen.

Sometimes triggered by seeing the child attempt to use a children's solution (ninapasua) to solve an adult problem (tatūataša). This latter word is not cognate to taša as in a temper tantrum, which derives from thrusting one's thighs.

A similar Play word, ninašamabe, refers to a children's answer to a question, something that might be expected playfully in early life but which becomes embarrassing in later childhood and dangerous in adulthood. An example from Earth would be a child still believing in Santa at age 13, and so confidently so as to believe that they can outsmart Santa by climbing on the roof to steal the other kids' toys.

Unsorted emotions

• depression in small children may have a distinct word

• chemical and situational depression may also have distinct words, despite the total lack of psychological knowledge throughout the entire planet

Moonshine culturebound concepts

These are not part of Play society, and even though Moonshine came to exert strong influence over the Players around the year 4200, they did not attempt to make the Players behave like Moonshines. Nonetheless, the Players developed native words to translate the concepts (not ciphers).

• expressions of alarm and crying must always be trusted, even from adults, and even if a listener has a strong incentive to believe the other person is trying to elicit undeserved sympathy or to cause a distraction. For Moonshines, this was taken for granted and it was highly taboo to ignore this cultural norm. Among the Players, there had never been a cultural rule, so the Players created words for the Moonshines' trusting behavior and for the distrust. The Play word for Moonshine was Vemsimu, a literal translation (as the Moonshines preferred).

Positive emotions

• nuen — to deny the existence of immoral behavior in an enemy, deflating the argument for righteous war. not restricted to war or even to politics. Often describes an attempt to calm down a friend with a feud against a third party. The angry friend will come expecting his listener to side with him, but the listener will say, "you know, I havent seen him do that" etc

Words mostly not about emotions

These are the least likely to have established usage in Play and may end up in my diary or autobiography if I ever actually write one.

Victoria Beach incident

Giving help and expecting nothing in return may require traveling unprotected in a wild land, and could make the helper vulnerable to an attack by an otherwise very weak third party not previously considered a danger by either the helper or those they attempt to help. For such a complex definition one might expect to see a proverb, but gumption words are precisely those whose meanings are not recoverable from their etymologies.

A close parallel from in-world history is the Pine Tree Planters, a group of very young children who were brought into areas of wilderness in the midst of a major war to plant pine trees, but with delinquent adult guards who focused mostly on discipline. They soon found themselves facing a band of kidnappers who chased off the adult guards and then rapidly began abducting the children into their hideouts in eastern Nama. These men actually considered themselves rescuers, but the children did not know this, and the men's motives never convinced the Players or even the enemies of the Players that they were genuine, so they became known as an army of kidnappers who had appeared only because the young Pine Tree Planters had been trying to good deeds for the Players.

This is similar to English no good deed goes unpunished, but highlighting the possibility of those doing good things for others being vulnerable to attack specifically by third parties. The name "Victoria Beach incident" comes from a group of children sent to a beach to clean up trash, only to find themselves attacked by small animals who would not have been brave enough to attack adults.

Herpes

From a herpes patient who denied treatment because acknowledging the visible disease would also require her to acknowledge a much greater invisible disease. It is unlikely that in Play there will be a medical counterpart; this situation refers to daily life in general.

Staples 10

A word describing how e.g. small children will talk to others their age even if adults are far more numerous in a gathering of people and one would naively expect them to talk with the adults. Also describing the action of peering around, with great hardship, to find other children in the crowd of adults, whose larger figures make it difficult for children to simply see across the room.

Metaphorically, also used for adults seeking their own kind when surrounded by others they dont feel comfortable with. Compare also in science fiction (and with some wry sarcasm in modern online environments) humans struggling to find another human amidst a crowd of a thousand robots.

Unsorted

• nupy nutu: "to ask for help, helplessly". One cannot better their situation without a source of wealth or power to use against others.

• th ... an emotion only felt by authority figures

• to deny reality by incorrectly repeating what one has heard

• lollipop boy (self-interest)
• IGC (self-interest)
• parents who repeat their children's words back incorrectly (varied interests)

• turkey family cellphone store

• novotrade. possibly a subsense of taapau above.

• triple action soap

• something more extreme than what was already thought to be extreme. Often seen as good, such that citizens of Upuayaha would talk about a second city with an even more luxurious lifestyle, and how they did not feel jealous because Upuayaha was good enough

• Newburyport temper tantrum

• to seek solace from one's low position by finding someone whose life is even worse

Eponyms

Eponyms are named after people, and are not considered gumption words. This is not a third category, but rather a subset of the other two. Possible examples of eponymous concepts could be

• to approach a loyal customer asking them to buy even more, while ignoring potential new customers in the perception that they will be more difficult to convince
• to use someone else's property because you have more need for it than they do; often causative ("X assigned Y's Z to W"); a possible quadrivalent verb
• the original "gumption" word set, relating to items whose price does not relate to its value

• might be derived from a single eponym or several. Alternatively, it could just be a set of words calqued from Andanese or even native to Play, so long as they behave as a set

• a tourist. even the richest nations produced few tourists, either coming or going, because transportation was both slow and inconvenient.