"Foot Assignments" - how idioms and metaphors bring your world to life

I've written about idioms before. I've explained them to my kids plenty of times. "That's an expression," I'll say. "It means this..."

English is full of little expressions that aren't literal, and a lot of these make reference to metaphors. I have a list of English examples in the post linked above and I'm not going to do a lot here, but take for example "I'm off to the rat race." That expression is all about metaphor. A person is a rat. Life, or at least work, is a race for rats. The metaphor then comes along with a whole set of implications about how the person feels about heading off to "the rat race," that it's pointless, exhausting, demeaning, etc. Depending on the character of the person who uses them, and how that person feels about work, for example, the implications of the expression may be interpreted somewhat differently.

This is an enormous opportunity for worldbuilders.

Some idioms might be cute, and some might be serious, but any way you approach them, they are incredibly illuminating of a culture and characters who belong to it. I personally feel that idioms are so closely linked to the culture of which they are a part that, if they are used outside their original cultural context, they stick out of a story when I'm reading it. If you're creating a world, you should be giving serious attention to idiomatic expressions.

One type of idiomatic expression is the aphorism - a phrase intended to give people behavioral guidance. "The early bird gets the worm" is used constantly in English, but this set of words, in this order, is so recognizable as belonging to our culture that I would hope I'd never run across it in a story world not directly linked to our own. If there are no birds, or there are no worms, you're in serious trouble. And even if there are, and your people place value on rising early or acting early, don't use it just as is. Change it. What are the primary motivators for your people to be getting up early, or acting fast? Create something that makes reference to that. Off the top of my head I'll give you this: "First arrow names the kill." This would be a society in which people hunt with arrows and whoever has their arrow hit first gets to receive some kind of honor. I'd work out the details with naming as I went. Story cultures can also have their own special values that will be honored with aphorisms. In Varin, the servant caste is guided by the expression, "Imbati, love where you serve." This is a big deal for members of the caste who have to struggle with their own identity and with cruel masters, etc.

Another type of special phrase arises around extremely common activities. In this context I think instantly of the phrases "log on" and "log off"... I mean, seriously. "Log"? I'm thinking this use of "log" goes back to the idea of a captain's log, but what you've got now is something where the expression is used so often that we don't really think about what the individual words mean, only what the phrase as a whole refers to. Because of the underlying connection to idiosyncratic activities of our own world history, this kind of phrase can't always be imported wholesale into a story world (hey, there's another expression!). Whenever you have a really common activity in your world (and it may not be common or have an associated idiom in ours), see if there's a special way people would refer to it, and how that might be connected to cultural details or cultural metaphors. I have used two different phrases involving the word "foot" in this context. In "Cold Words" (Analog Oct 2009) I had Rulii use the phrase "take foot" instead of "arrive." In my Varin world the servants don't "run errands" but "take foot assignments." This kind of tiny alteration can really help your world feel like it doesn't have to owe anything to ours, and can also create a wonderfully unique atmosphere.

I found myself listening in the other day on a forum conversation about a world that was using Chinese culture as its basis, and the writer was very concerned about whether to use Chinese idioms. Here's another very fascinating question. My own bias would be to say this: if your culture isn't actually a version of a culture, don't use actual idioms from that culture. Those idioms are going to broadcast the fact that this culture is at very least a fantasy or science fictional analog of Chinese culture (to use this example). Then if other aspects of the culture are non-Chinese, or if the language they use is not Chinese-derivative, the idioms will stick out by a mile. You can always alter or "translate" idioms. If you want to retain a Chinese flavor, one thing you can always do is have idioms play the same cultural role in your story world as they do in China. This is a link on the meta-level that won't actually require you to link your story world directly to China, but will give it some flavor that people will link with China. After all, one of the parameters of idioms is how often they are used and what they are used for.

I'll let you all think about this while I go off and take some foot assignments.


Note for Wednesday Worldbuilding fans: I have a couple of new entries that have come in, and I am planning to take them on, I hope within the next couple of weeks. Thanks for submitting!

Feet and Shoes across cultures

What do you know about feet?

I suppose the most recent thing I've heard about feet comes from runner friends who have been talking about a book, Born to Run, that advocates running without shoes. The argument basically goes, "You've been taught all your life to wear shoes, and have probably shelled out a lot for those specially designed running shoes, but they might actually cause you more injuries."

Well, it's interesting. I haven't researched the science behind the book, but it does go to show that science can always learn something new, and attitudes change, even about something as constantly present as our feet. There are also a lot of different attitudes about feet across cultures, and across history.

One poignant example of this was brought to my attention when I visited the Field Museum in Chicago, where they had a display of shoes from different countries and eras. The collection included beautiful embroidered shoes about two inches long, intended for Chinese women's bound feet. The very sight of them gives me the shivers, yet before the revolution in China they were seen as necessary for the refined beauty of women in the aristocracy. I remember reading Spring Moon by Bette Bao Lord in high school and being fascinated by the way she portrayed changing attitudes surrounding bound feet - in particular the way the older generation regarded the younger generation whose feet had not been bound.

I could spend a lot of time trying to list all the things we saw in the display, but I'll just do a few here. Fishing boots from Hokkaido made out of fish skin - with scales! Sandals from Hungary that looked like little tables - they had two wooden supports underneath and were inlaid with mother of pearl. Moccasins from American Indian nations. It even included modern shoes from Chicago.

One of the things I particularly remarked on in the display was a pair of snow boots from Japan, made out of rice straw. They dated from the 1970's - a lot later than I expected. Historically, sandals, rain/snow coats and boots were made of rice straw in Japan (if you have a lot of it, it makes sense to put it to use!). Then there were the construction shoes from Japan and the dockwork shoes from the US, both of which had a big toe that was separated from the smaller toes (almost as if it could wear a flip-flop over it). I've actually seen Japanese workers climbing around on scaffolding wearing these shoes - they look like blue canvas boots with rubber soles and the separated big toe. The wooden sandal-clogs from Japan called geta usually have two wooden "teeth" underneath on which you walk, but we saw a pair in the display that were made for wearing in the rain. These had very very tall wooden teeth and a leather cover to go over and protect the wearer's toes.

So here's a question: how different from each other are the shoes we wear now, and how does their form reflect their function? Sports shoes take all kinds of forms, high ankles or low, with all kinds of decorative patterns. Women's shoes come in all kinds of heel heights (though men in the era of Louis XIV in France were the first to wear high heels). When I shopped for shoes recently, I noticed that the sleek look I like in a shoe tends to come with a high heel, and not with a flat. Tough for me, because I can't wear high heels without hurting myself. The other thing I always have to look out for when shopping is the sole of the shoe. Women's shoes in particular tend to have very flimsy soles and not stand up to much walking.

I couldn't help asking myself whether this reflected the low value Americans appear to put on walking from place to place. Why walk when we could take our cars? Why walk when it would take so long (though it probably would take far less long than you'd think)? Why would we need strong soles for our shoes if we're not doing sports and we're not "rugged"?

The last thing I'd like to mention is the question of whether feet are inherently "dirty." Yes, certainly we know to be concerned with tracking mud in the house, and we don't want to put dirty feet in a clean bed. But running around barefoot in America is romanticized as a sign of freedom and maybe being in touch with one's inner child. Running around barefoot in Japan isn't done. If I were ever to step outside my door in bare feet when I lived there, people would look at me in complete shock. Shoes are worn outside, and then taken off in the entry hall (genkan) so they will not bring dirt into the house. Still, inside people wear slippers - and there's a special pair of slippers that must only be worn while in the bathroom (actually I should specify: the slippers are to be worn in the toilet room, not the room with the bathtub). Also, it's seen as inappropriate to use your feet to open or close doors or accomplish anything that is rightly done with the hands.

The point of this entire discussion is to bring attention to the way that different cultures perceive feet, shoes, how they are used, and what is beautiful or ugly about them. When you're putting together a fantasy or science fictional society, be aware that you can include differences in the value of common things, like feet and shoes, to add interest to your alien or fantasy culture. So long as the value of feet and shoes is consistent with other beliefs in the culture, it won't even necessarily stand out as bizarre, but will give a new level of depth to the culture you're trying to portray.

It's something to think about.

Special Directions

Asking for directions is the subject of one of the oldest jokes in the book - that one about men and asking for directions. This joke was, to my considerable surprise, employed successfully by Dory in Finding Nemo.

The other night, the topic of asking for directions came up at the dinner table here in Chicago, and my dad told me a couple of funny stories about directions. I thought I'd share them and muse a bit on the topic, because it could be useful for anyone working with fantasy or science-fictional environments (especially cities).

1. My dad was in Australia, trying to orient himself in Melbourne while holding a map, but having a very difficult time. After a few minutes he realized he was having trouble because the sun was in the wrong place.

This one is interesting to me because I have never learned to use the position of the sun to orient myself. I was never explicitly taught this, but I think sometimes people just just pick it up as part of assessing their surroundings. I think it would be a very good thing for people to use when in an unfamiliar environment (especially if they have no compass). But sun or compass could cause some confusion if the parameters of either the star and planet, or the magnetic pole, aren't the same as where the person came from. In my dad's case, he had to readjust for the fact that he was operating in the southern hemisphere, and needed to expect the sun in precisely the opposite position from the one he expected.

2. My dad and my mom were being given a tour of Montreal, and the guide kept telling them they were going north, but my dad was checking the sun again and couldn't believe that was possible. When he finally asked about his confusion, he was told about "le nord Montréalais," or the "Montreal north." It turns out that there's a river flowing through Montreal, and any time you're moving away from it on the northern side, that's called "going north," even if a bend in the river makes it so that you're really going east or west in absolute direction.

I did a post earlier on relative and absolute directions, and I think this story is a lovely example of a very idiosyncratic form of relative direction (which just happens to use the terminology of absolute direction!).

Not everybody thinks of direction in the same terms. When you give directions to a place based on street names and left and right turns, that's a system based on relative direction. Some people don't feel comfortable enough with that, though, and want to see landmarks added to the description (e.g. turn left after the W hotel). That's still relative. Contrast it with societies (I know of at least one in aboriginal Australia) that talk about one's north or south foot, east or west side of the body, depending on the body's absolute position.

Then take the Montreal example, where a landmark (the river) is so salient to the population that it becomes the basis for defining relative direction!

A couple more thoughts on direction...

Navigating in Kyoto, Japan is great because the center of the city is on a north-south, east-west grid. Once you get the hang of where North etc. are, it's virtually impossible to get lost, so exploring is lots of fun. This type of city design comes from ancient China, where the imperial city was designed to have the palace in the north with a road leading directly to it, and then the cross-roads all running east to west. At a certain point I felt like I understood this pretty well, so I was a bit confused when I learned that in China and Japan they talk about "the five directions," not the four.

Five directions?

Well, the first four are North, South, East, and West. The fifth one is Center. Once it was pointed out to me, it seemed so obvious - but this view also depends on defining your center. You may have heard Japan called "the land of the rising sun" - this is because it lies to the east of China, where the expression originated in a letter from the Chinese emperor to the Japanese emperor.

All very eloquent. But when in the reply, the Japanese emperor called China "the land of the setting sun," let's just say the Chinese didn't take it as a compliment.

I hope this gives you some more thoughts about different ways to treat directions in your world, and to give it a unique flavor on another level.

The meaning of colors

After yesterday's heat (84 degrees inside my house, since I have no air conditioning) I was tempted to write an entry about how hot weather can cause the melting of all thought in a susceptible brain. Fortunately, I got a different idea this afternoon when passing the dollar shop with my kids. There was a pair of rather ridiculous-looking bear balloons in the window, one pink, one blue, reading "It's a girl!" and "It's a boy!" respectively. When I explained that pink is generally considered a baby girl color, and blue a baby boy color, both of them asked me, "Why?"

Oh, boy.

At the time I said there was no real reason, but that was just the way people usually felt about pink and blue; since then I've looked it up online. The most interesting of the answers I found can be found here:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=238733

This answer seems well researched and confirms my general impression that fashion is pretty much arbitrary, despite its obvious strength. To give you a sense of what you'll find if you go there, "digsalot" explains that pink used to be considered a boy's color (1914 and earlier) because it was considered to be a watered-down version of red, which was also considered masculine. Blue, by contrast, was associated with the Virgin Mary, and thus considered feminine. The current bias didn't solidify until the 1950's.

Culture has a lot to do with the emotions and situations associated with colors. Take the association between red and masculinity, explained in the above discussion - it applies to America, and to many Western countries, but not to Japan. In Japan, red is a feminine color. Traditional kimono for young girls often are red, or contain the color red. When people are divided into a boys' team and a girls' team for competition, they are generally labeled the "red" team and the "white" team - the red being the girls, and the white the boys.

White is the color of mourning in China, while black has been used for mourning in America, and in England since at least Shakespeare's time (in Twelfth Night, the lady Olivia wears all black). When I Googled mourning colors, I found the following quote at the url http://chestofbooks.com/reference/Dictionary-of-Dry-Goods/Mourning.html :

"In China, white is invariably the color adopted for mourning; in Turkey, blue or violet; in Egypt, yellow; in Ethiopia, brown. Persia adopts pale brown; Burmah, yellow; Tartary, deep blue; Asia-Minor, sky blue. The Spartan and Roman ladies mourned in white; and the same color prevailed formerly in Castile on the death of their princes. Kings and cardinals mourn in purple. Each people have their reasons for the particular color which they affect: white is supposed to denote purity; yellow that death is the end of human hopes - in reference to leaves when they fall, and flowers when they fade, which become yellow. Brown denotes the earth, whither the dead return. Black, the privations of life, as being the the privation of light. Blue expresses the happiness which it is hoped the deceased will enjoy in the land beyond the skies; and purple or violet, sorrow on the one side and hope on the other, as being a mixture of black and blue. "

I can't help but be impressed by the variety of symbolisms associated with colors. Color symbolism is a great cultural dimension to add to a science fiction or fantasy world. In my Varin world, many castes are associated with colors (servants with black, soldiers with red, artisans with light gray). C.J. Cherryh's The Faded Sun trilogy used color symbolism for the castes of the mri people (black for the Kel warriors, gold for the scholarly Sen, and blue for the Kath women and children). A more unusual appearance of color is the pink mortar used to cement keystones in LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness - it turns out to have been mixed with blood instead of water. Cool and creepy to me!

Someday I hope I can have a more in-depth discussion of culture and colors with my kids - but for now I'm happy to have had the chance to share my thoughts here.

Upcoming posts at TTYU: education, nicknames