Thomas Covenant meets Saddam Hussein
Jan. 26th, 2003 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
major_clangerI think someone in the MoD is a closet Stephen R Donaldson fan.
The UK deployment of military forces to the Gulf region has, as is usual with such activities, been given an Operation name. Unlike the Yanks, who tend to go for dramatic names like Operation DESERT STORM, the MoD apparently has a big list of miscellaneous words and grabs one at near-random. This time the name off the list is Operation TELIC.
'Telic' sounded oddly familiar but I couldn't quite place it. It isn't in my Concise Oxford Dictionary, but googling for a definition gave me:
telic adj.
1. directed or moving towards some goal; purposeful.
2. (of a clause or phrase) expressing purpose.
[from Greek telikos final, from telos end]
Which is perhaps apt, if this is meant to be (as the US news media reminded me nightly on my recent trip), the Showdown With Saddam. But where had I heard it before? And then I remembered. Dave Langford's wonderful collection of his reviews and talks, The Silence of the Langford, includes a particularly fine piece of character assassination of that quantity purveyor of turgid epic fantasy, Stephen R Donaldson. To highlight SRD's use of words unknown to most mere mortals, Dave quoted from one of the Thomas Covenant books:
"They were featureless and telic, like lambent gangrene. They looked horribly like children"
So, there you have it. Indeed, more googling found 'telic' listed on assorted lists of Donaldson Vocabulary. I look forward with trepidation to Operations GELID, HIERATIC and SABULOUS.
MC
The UK deployment of military forces to the Gulf region has, as is usual with such activities, been given an Operation name. Unlike the Yanks, who tend to go for dramatic names like Operation DESERT STORM, the MoD apparently has a big list of miscellaneous words and grabs one at near-random. This time the name off the list is Operation TELIC.
'Telic' sounded oddly familiar but I couldn't quite place it. It isn't in my Concise Oxford Dictionary, but googling for a definition gave me:
telic adj.
1. directed or moving towards some goal; purposeful.
2. (of a clause or phrase) expressing purpose.
[from Greek telikos final, from telos end]
Which is perhaps apt, if this is meant to be (as the US news media reminded me nightly on my recent trip), the Showdown With Saddam. But where had I heard it before? And then I remembered. Dave Langford's wonderful collection of his reviews and talks, The Silence of the Langford, includes a particularly fine piece of character assassination of that quantity purveyor of turgid epic fantasy, Stephen R Donaldson. To highlight SRD's use of words unknown to most mere mortals, Dave quoted from one of the Thomas Covenant books:
"They were featureless and telic, like lambent gangrene. They looked horribly like children"
So, there you have it. Indeed, more googling found 'telic' listed on assorted lists of Donaldson Vocabulary. I look forward with trepidation to Operations GELID, HIERATIC and SABULOUS.
MC
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no subject
Date: 2003-01-26 10:33 pm (UTC)Send your observation to Dave, I think it qualifies for Ansible..
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Date: 2003-01-27 02:14 am (UTC)