Friday, 10 April 2026

Different Writers And Different Histories

We can compare future histories by different sf writers or different future histories by one sf writer, Poul Anderson. The immediately preceding post is enriched by comparisons of details in:

the Psychotechnic History
the Technic History
the Harvest Of Stars History
the Time Patrol (a past and future history)

- and there have also been recent references to Genesis and Maurai which leaves only Kith, Rustum and Flying Mountains not mentioned.

While I type in this language that will become Anglic or Anglo, Sheila's relatives, our house guests, converse around me in incomprehensible Northern Irish accents and it is time to give up the struggle.

Good night and peace on Earth (which still makes sense as an aspiration).

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Paul!

Anderson/Dickson's Hoka stories could also had been listed, containing as they do concepts like the United Commonwealths/Inter-Being League.

Those incomprehensible northern Irish accents is an example of how languages changes with times and locations.

Short of the second coming of Christ, I believe some kind of peace will come to Earth only when someone like Manuel Argos declares, "Peace, ye underlings!"

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

If you think northern Irish accents are hard, try outport Newfie...

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Virtually another language, at least by ear?

I am reminded of how, during one of my visits to the UK, while purchasing things like postcards at a shop the proprietor asked not simply if I was American, but whether I came from Massachusetts! Obviously, he had an ear for accents and could tell quite accurately which state I came from.

Boston, MA is called the "Hub of the Universe." I guess that means we Massachusettans speak the most dulcetly cultured English in the world! (Laughs)

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: Yeah, they were isolated for a long, long time. Sound changes -- and not undergoing sound changes that English in general did.

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Makes me think that sometimes the best way people speaking such widely variant dialects of "English" to communicate with each other would be by writing notes. Standard, written forms of a language might change less rapidly.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: widespread voice recordings and transmissions have drastically slowed the divergence of dialects.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

A factor I should have recalled, esp. the influence of the BBC in standardizing spoken English in the UK. I think commentators said something happened in the US, due to a Mid-Westernizing of spoken English here. Not entirely, of course.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: if you listen to the very earliest voice recordings, you see more diversity of dialects. Theodore Roosevelt spoke with a quasi-British, mid-Atlantic accent, evidently common among upper-crust New Yorkers in his youth.

When he was out ranching in the Dakota Badlands, he once called out: "Advance more swiftly there, men!"

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I had to laugh at that! WE would be more likely to yell, "Hurry up, boys!"

Ad astra! Sean