"I don't send men out on hazardous duty I wouldn't take myself,' [Gratillonius] said to her." (p. 194)
"Brechdan nodded. An Ynvory did not send personnel into danger and himself stay behind without higher duties."
-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER THREE, p. 26.
This comparison prompts another. In Anderson's second Flandry novel, A Circus of Hells, an old female Domrath shakes her head in disbelief. So Merseians nod their heads for yes and Domrath shake their heads for disbelief. Anderson projects human gestures onto two extra-solar species. And I did not expect to arrive there having started from a remark by Gratillonius. Good night.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Except Merseians could have picked up such gestures from the humans manning the Grand Survey ship visiting their home planet two centuries before "Day of Burning." And then having such mannerisms copied from them by other races. Or other species could have independently invented such habits.
Ad astra! Sean
Nodding and shaking your head for yes and no are very common among humans -- have been for a while, and more so now than before (because of Western influence).
But the ancient Greeks didn't use them, for example. They -tossed- their heads for negation.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Shaking one's head to mean "no" might be a worn down remnant of that Greek head tossing.
Ad astra! Sean
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