From: b.scott@csuohio.edu   
      
   On Mon, 6 Oct 2014 15:25:01 -0700 (PDT), "David E. Siegel   
   (siegel@acm.org)"  wrote in   
      
   in rec.arts.sf.composition:   
      
   > On Monday, October 6, 2014 4:27:58 PM UTC-4, Brian M.   
   > Scott wrote:   
      
   >> On Mon, 6 Oct 2014 15:09:22 -0400, Michelle Bottorff   
   >>  wrote in   
   >>  in   
   >> rec.arts.sf.composition:   
      
   >>> A. Tina Hall  wrote:   
      
   >>>>> Racciman's World is hard enough with a "don't use" list   
   >>>>> that includes: year, month, week, hour, minute, second,   
   >>>>> mile, ghost, and cat.  There may be more that I've   
   >>>>> forgotten.   
      
   >>>> That reminds me. I really don't like using hours or   
   >>>> minutes or seconds on not Earth worlds. Couldn't come up   
   >>>> with a replacement though, except moment or eyeblink for   
   >>>> second. If you have something for 'hour', tell me!   
      
   >>> I end up using heartbeats a lot, instead of seconds.  But   
   >>> hours are tough to do without.  Mostly I either get very   
   >>> vague and go for "a while", "a short while" or "a long   
   >>> while" or I use times of the day as reference points, so   
   >>> "later that afternoon," etc.   
      
   >> In his fantasy novels Modesitt generally uses 'glass'; it's   
   >> never defined, but context makes it clear that it's an   
   >> hour-like unit of time.  In one series he uses 'quint' for a   
   >> smaller unit of time; I don't think that he defines the   
   >> relationship between quint and glass, but I suspect that a   
   >> quint is a fifth of a glass; its usage seems to fit   
   >> something on the order of ten or fifteen minutes.  (In   
   >> another series he uses 'quint' for unit of time that is a   
   >> significant part of a year, probably a fifth of a year.)   
      
   > I suppose a "glass" is the time for a more-or-less   
   > standard sand-glass (aka hourglass) to run out.   
      
   I assume that that’s what he had in mind, yes.   
      
   > In Lackey and I think some other fantasies I have seen   
   > "candlemark" used for a period of time which seems to be   
   > more-or-less an hour. Never clearly defined, that i   
   > recall.   
      
   That agrees with my recollection (and interpretation).   
      
   > But then, hours are a quite old concept, nor are they tied   
   > to a particular astronomical feature.  I wouldn't feel   
   > drastically upset to read of an "hour" in a work set on   
   > another world, indeed rather less by an 'hour" than by a   
   > "mile" or a "meter", I think.   
      
   Modesitt tries to avoid the distance problem with ‘kay’ and   
   ‘vingt’ (depending on world) for the roughly mile-like   
   distance.  It’s clear from context that both are distances   
   on that order.  I don’t recall that the former is ever   
   defined; the term obviously suggests ‘kilometre’, but   
   there’s obviously no reason to think that this is anything   
   other than an easy way of giving the term some of the right   
   connotations without making it *too* obtrusive.   
      
   ‘Vingt’ *is* defined, at least in one of the worlds in which   
   it’s used: it’s 2000 yards.  The yard is a natural enough   
   measurement whose name isn’t horribly intrusive, and there’s   
   no reason to suppose that this yard is exactly the same as   
   ours.  Presumably 100 yards is also a standard unit, though   
   I don’t recall whether it’s given a name, and a vingt is 20   
   of these.  Of course these folks don’t speak French, but the   
   term is suggestive without being as intrusive as, say,   
   ‘kilometre’.  In the other world in which ‘vingt’ is used in   
   this way Modesitt *does* use some more or less French-like   
   names and terms as a way of giving the world a particular   
   flavor, so the term is even less intrusive: we just assume   
   that quasi-French gives the flavor of the real thing while   
   possibly being in actual fact very different.   
      
   > I recall my confusion when I first read _Mission of   
   > Gravity_ where the hours are earth-standard, but the   
   > "days" are local, so that an hour was several days long.   
   > But it didn't take long to adjust.   
      
   The one time-keeping system that really took me a little   
   getting used to was that of Joan D. Vinge’s _Outcasts of   
   Heaven Belt_: all time intervals are given in seconds (with   
   metric prefixes as needed), and it took me a little while to   
   get a real feel for it.   
      
   Brian   
   --   
   It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their   
   holes to root for sandtatties.  The waves whispered   
   rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,   
   haggisss.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)