Should I have a contest?

[Lester Curtis]

What with everything else I'm doing on my major writing project, I still haven't come up with a species name for the main character.

I occurred to me to get some help from you folks on that, but I thought I'd ask first, to see if you thought it was a good idea.

Very simply, I would provide a physical description of the species, plus a couple short examples of their language. You would submit species name suggestions. If I see one I like, the person submitting it would get a mention of credit. Variations on the outcome may be possible, and I haven't thought of how to determine a closing deadline (no hurry, though).

What think ye?

[Lester Curtis]

Tao, you're supposed to wait until I provide the clues!

And I think I'll wait until someone else says 'yea' -- or provides an objection.

I was going to just put all that stuff up and not ask, but my spidey-sense warned me against that . . . haven't figured out why yet.

So . . . if I should not run this contest, someone tell me why.

[doc]

I see no reason why you shouldn't hold a contest. The whole point of having a community of writers is being able to bounce ideas off one another.

[Lester Curtis]

Okay -- I tried to do this myself, but for whatever reason, I just haven't arrived at anything I like, so . . .

The contest is on. Here's what you have to work with:

ITEM 1: Species description.

The following quote describes the female (Ketenn). Her son (Leeta) when fully grown, will be a little taller and more muscular, and will have a narrow mane of stiff black hair down the center of his back, running from above the eyebrows to about his shoulders.

Subspecies are known to have some slightly different facial proportions and coloration.

The man called Sammy clipped a recorder to his shirt collar. "Okay, let's see what we got here . . . " He straightened the limp body of the unconscious alien and began his examination. "Subject, uh . . . " he looked around the hindquarters, lifted the tail, then a leg. "Female. Mammalian, bipedal, digitigrade, fur-bearing . . . bilaterally symmetric, two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, all the same shit we got two of . . . one bushy tail, very long, thick at the root. Seems to have a really deep pelvis . . . with a pronounced keel. Mmm, two mammary glands, small, located -- below the navel, I'm guessing." He brushed back her coat. "Fur is long and silky, with a thick undercoat, nice for the chilly climate -- reddish in color on back and sides, kinda tan on the belly and most of the face -- dark brown above the eyes and over the top of the head." Prying an eyelid up, "Eyes -- green. Yellow. Yellow-green. Kinda cute for a -- whatever it is." He fished a tape measure from his pocket and stretched it out. "Length, ah, one hundred forty-two centimeters. Weight . . . hey, you guys bring the scale?"
The pilot snorted. "No. You think we got room in here for everything?"
"Well, Roy, you got your ego through the door . . . aaah, I'll just guess at it -- weight is, say, forty-five kilos, give or take, she's a little plump."
The copilot said, "You're s'posed to call it 'it,' not 'she.'"
"Well, that works fine for you, Red, since you don't know what a female of any species looks like anyway . . . "
"Ha . . . ha."
"Yeah. Uh, what else . . . feet -- four toes each, long and fine, first and fourth are notably shorter than the other two -- like a dog's, pretty much, but on the large side . . . heavy, blunt claws . . . a little webbing between the toes. Umm, looks like a rudimentary heel pad on the hocks. Hands -- three fingers, one thumb, located same as ours -- slightly leathery skin on the palms and -- callused, if I'm not mistaken; looks like our girl did some work. Fingers are long and fine also. Nails, curved, not too thick, extending slightly beyond the fingertips . . . looks like they may have been trimmed."
"Sammy, you really suck at that, y'know?"
"Yeah, well, I took art classes, not medical -- whatever. The Colonel just wanted a physical description, and I got the job. Now, where was I . . . ribcage, rather deep and narrow . . . shoulders are narrow; not prominent, and slightly forward on the body. Mm, no backpack for you, honey, it'd slide right off . . . fairly long arms, slender wrists. Ehh, she's got a scrape on her left elbow." He swabbed the wound with an alcohol pad, followed by ointment.
"Head . . . longish . . . uh, binocular vision . . . ears are pointed and erect, not too prominent, maybe about six centimeters above the top of the head . . . mmm, not much of a forehead, but I suspect a reasonable cranial volume. Mild facial notch . . . uh, the muzzle slopes down in a bit of a curve forward of the eyes -- mouth is somewhat V-shaped at the front. The line of the jaw is curved down . . . Nostrils . . . uh, inverted L-shape, no nose leather. The lips close, but they're a little thin . . . " He pried them open on one side. "Teeth . . . uh, some blunt molars, premolars -- four canines total, fairly sharp but not too long -- small incisors at the front, uppers only slightly larger than lowers. All slightly yellowish, look like they're in decent shape. Gums are pink, with a few dark spots that I take to be normal pigmentation." Opening the jaw farther, "Tongue . . . slightly narrow, pink, a little thin, seems fairly well populated with taste buds."

ITEM 2: Language samples.

A:

ahma ketee, sendurry kah myah layna

B:

Myah sahnah tu nah kaynet.

***********

Ready? Go!

[Lester Curtis]

Oh, one other thing -- bonus points if you can also provide a name for their homeworld.

[Lester Curtis]

Nice to see you're sticking with your original idea, Tao. Not bad.

How 'bout the rest of you?

[Lester Curtis]

Update -- forced to make a quick decision in order to keep writing, I've named the planet 'Sayet.'

The species-name contest is still open.

[Lester Curtis]

Unless you have a linked meaning to "Sayet" that serves as an extended "punchline", and only that term will work, (national anthem rhyme?) you can just use a placeholder for the planet, and do a search&replace later.

I've thought of the 'punchline' trick, but haven't used it in this story yet . . . it's a kind of authorial trick that I want to avoid . . . sort of in the same league with bad puns.

An example I considered for this story involves the song "Shenandoah." One of the humans sings this for the alien Ketenn, and I was thinking of having her ask about it and mention that it sounds very close to some word or phrase in her language that has significance of some sort. Too schmaltzy.

I've already used the placeholder trick once in this story, and I was ready to do it again here, but I went away for a while and when I looked at it again, the word just kind of happened, so I decided it was okay to keep.

An interesting thing I discovered in my reading of Native American myths is that nearly every tribe calls themselves 'The People' (or just 'people'). They have different names for outsiders. This practice seems to be as common as dirt -- make that 'earth' -- or 'sayet.'

[Megawatts]

Lester, I think yours is a good idea.

[Lester Curtis]

Wow, I thought this had been forgotten . . . it was -- by me!

I should have been diligent and notified you all . . . the species name is Eesah, and I've been using that for a while, and using Sayet as their world's name.

Alien names are hard to come up with . . . good usable ones, at least. Once upon a time, I tended to fall into the trap of using unpronounceable constructions, but that rather annoys me when other writers do it. Then, when I make them easy to read, they all sound too close to common existing words. Oh, well.

Thanks again for all your input.