Tales of MU 429: Called Out Of Class

Are you planning on soliciting questions to be among those answered in the next thaum class?

Those who forget the
Lessons of History are
Doomed to repeat them

Typo Report

This Friday we’re going to have a comprehensive quiz to gauge what has been retained what has been forgotten.

It really seems like there should be something between "retained" and the next "what". An "and", a comma, something. It just doesn't feel like it reads quite right as is.



Also, welcome back AE. We've missed you. ^-^

Re: Typo Report

Another one:

The ones that aren’t can come like a slap in the face, but it’s the ones that could have been foreseen and averted but weren’t that really hit people were they live.

Looks like that should be where.

Space before comma.

always the possibility that Harlowe could be overlooked by the powers that were in charge of announcing such a thing , but that seemed unlikely in this case.

I don't think there should be a space before the above comma.

X Marx The Spot?

Not related to current story events, but of possible diverting interest until the new chapter goes up; something sparked off by a visit to a website of Russian silvermarks, of all things.

As we all know, Pax is not English, and has a different alphabet. The first letter of which is Kh, pronounced differently from K. It’s the sacred letter, the initial letter of “Khersis”, and causes trouble when used to spell “Khazarus”, which is why many people call it “The Shift”. It’s so important, it’s represented as the first and last letters in childhood alphabets. We’ve probably all wondered what it looks like...

Well, Russian has the letter Kha, which takes the form of an X and is pronounced as the ch in Johann Sebastian Bach. This would tie in with the Arms of Khersis, a warding sign made by holding out the palms of the hands side by side and crossing the index fingers to form an X.

I suppose I was thrown off the scent by reliance on Greek, from which the Cyrillic alphabet ultimately derives. The Greek letter Chi has the same glyph, but is usually transliterated as Ch. I should, of course, have remembered the holy significance that it picked up with early Christianity, used as an abbreviation for “Christ” and as part of the Chi-Rho formation. Come to that, “Christ” in Russian starts with a Kha. There’s even a pre-Christian reference from Plato, in that the two bands of the soul of the world cross like a letter Chi.

It is difficult to determine how far I can take this line of thought, because we don’t know how far this crossover extends. However, it would be amusing if they were speaking Russian.

As we also know, there is a Russian analogue in the WoMU, and it’s the Shift/Khazarus, home to Mariinsky Lake and other strange places, an area where the gods do not tread. Very much like Russia, then, where Christianity and folklore coexisted uneasily for centuries. Russia could be a very dark and scary place for a Russian peasant. Jesus might offer salvation, but he couldn’t stop the wolves roaming and howling in the winter nights – or keep Baba Yaga away, for that matter.

The formation “Khazarus” would seem to derive from Khazar, the semi-nomadic people who controlled most of what is now Russia. The Khazars were eventually supplanted by and absorbed into the Rus (oh yes), the Muscovite faction of which went on to rule Russia. “Khazar” itself appears to derive from a Turkic word meaning “wandering”, which would certainly chime with the environment of the Shift. “Rus”, they’re not sure about: it’s most likely a reference to a place in Sweden (there was a lot of Scandinavian blood in the Rus) but could just mean ruddy-cheeked.

The only other questions to ask are: how Greek are the elves really? Did they give the letter Kh/X to Pax? Who originated the term Khazarus in tWoMU? Is there a Russian-speaking empire plotting to take over the world? Is Mack supposed to help her father sabotage it? >:=)>

Dos vidanya, druz’ya.

I really enjoy reading when Goldman is speaking. Even when giving a serious address to his students there are points of levity, without being disrespectful. The kind of guy I aspire to be.

As a future teacher, I know what you mean. I'd like to be a teacher like him. Or a professor like him, if possible, but that might be aiming a bit high...