From: goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu   
      
   In article ,   
   Jymesion   wrote:   
   >A publisher is seriously interested in the novel I've been working on   
   >for umpity-umpteen years.   
   >   
   >A couple of issues, though. They want family-friendly books, so the   
   >sex has to go (minor -- edits already done), and two characters being   
   >demons and two more being devils worries them because of the whole   
   >demonology thing.   
      
   Perhaps the Greek word "daimon"?  This is the word from which "demon"   
   derives, of course; it originally didn't mean a malevolent being, but   
   any sort of superhuman spirit.  (I'd guess that the negative connotations   
   were added by the early Christians.)   
      
   That seems to me pretty close in meaning to what you want, perhaps   
   even closer than "demon"; similar enough to "demon" to raise the   
   kinds of associations you want in the readers' minds; and possibly   
   sufficiently far from "demon" to satisfy your publisher.  To be sure   
   this last may be the sticking point, if it isn't.  But it strikes   
   me as worth a shot.  (Tell them about the Greek thing.)   
      
   --   
      David Goldfarb          |"The number of times I have been declared   
   goldfarbdj@gmail.com       |dead is statistically insignificant,   
   goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu  |although admittedly non-zero."  -- James Nicoll   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)