"Flandry got."
-Poul Anderson, "Tiger By The Tail" IN Anderson, Agent of the Terran Empire (London, 1977), pp. 7-36 AT p. 17.
"'Go,' snapped Cerdic.
"Flandry went."
"Tiger By The Tail" IN Captain Flandry..., p. 252. (Full reference here.)
But I liked "got" as a past tense of "go."
"Tiger By The Tail" is extensively rewritten. As with "Margin of Profit," I do not propose to analyse the alterations in detail. Sometimes, they show a rethink. In the original version, when Flandry's guard summons others not by using an intercom or a speaking tube but by blowing a horn, Flandry interprets this as confirming that his captors are barbarians. However, in the revised version, he thinks that the horn is:
"...pure flamboyancy; anyone who could build or buy spaceships would have intercoms installed." (p. 243)
But he also acknowledges that old customs often linger. Indeed, the references to both slaves and temples in the Terran Empire make us think simultaneously that the Empire is in the far future and is very old. The Roman god, Janus, looks backward and forward and so do we.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
For the most part Anderson's rewriting of "Tiger By The Tail" improved the story. But I agree in preferring "got" to "went." That "got" was pithier and sharper.
You don't have to be a pagan to have temples! E.g., some Jewish synagogues are "temples."
Yes, the Empire was old in Flandry's lifetime. I have speculated it was more than 400 years old in ENSIGN FLANDRY.
Ad astra! Sean
In re those flamboyant horns:
In 1914, the mobilization instructions to British officers (and French and German ones) included the instruction to "sharpen your swords". This was literal, not metaphorical -- in that year, officers in all three armies carried swords as sidearms and wore them into action.
Older habits can linger on until they're forcibly suppressed by circumstances. By 1918, German officers were more likely to carry submachine-guns.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I assume officers in the Austro-Hungarian and Russian armies received similar orders about swords in 1914. And, as you said, advances in military tech made submachine guns much more practical very soon!
I do wonder if combat knives were an exception. I can see knives being sometimes useful for "up close and personal" fighting. And as general purpose tools.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, modern bayonets -- which every soldier still carries, more or less -- are designed to be useful as general purpose tools and as fighting knives. Infantry and special forces often shell out for an additional combat/utility knife as well.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I thought so! And that may well remain the case far into the future. Chapter 4 of ENSIGN FLANDRY mentions how he carried a regulation issue knife.
Ad astra! Sean
When people in Spain generally stopped wearing swords, they took up -large- folding knives, often with blades more than 6 inches long, worn tucked into sashes.
That's the "navaja", of the type Luz carries in the Black Chamber series.
(I carry one myself.)
Women in southern Spain sometimes carried smaller navajas tucked into the garters of their stockings... the saying went they did so that any man who hoisted their skirts without permission would "Get a little something, but not what he was expecting."
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Ha! I remember Luz's navaja! The closest I have to a navaja would be my old Swiss Army pocket knife--which I seldom carry. I doubt the longest blade it has is more than three or four inches in length. Not very useful in a lethal fight!
Ad astra! Sean
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