Let's Translate: Lighan ses Lion by Andrew Plotkin

[EJoyce (Emery Joyce)]

I think it’s clear some words just happen to end in O, yeah. Like, in English, you can say “present participles end in -ing” but that doesn’t mean there aren’t verbs whose base form ends in -ing, like “ring”, for example.

[Melisande]

This is what I was thinking of:

@jwalrus

• PRESENT BOWL

From the disambiguation prompt which follows is, this has to be something like “push” or “turn”, with the offered options being either left/right or clockwise/counterclockwise.

“Push” does makes a lot more sense as a suggestion; I was quickly checking to see if anyone had already translated PRESENT and misinterpreted what you meant.

As for FIWEEM, I had missed that there was already PRON. “Casting” just seemed like the most likely thing for the dragon to be doing with the spell, especially since the PC’s weapons disintegrate immediately afterwards.

[evouga]

@jwalrus

This makes me even more certain that “a PACSILM (emerald/sapphire) big enough to CRELN your FIRF” on must be a reference to something. Not only does it seem a very particular choice of phrase, but also, as the author, if it was an arbitrary choice then why wouldn’t you make it “hang your hat on” and put in another clue to the word DAIMAR?

I did some trawling through the historicalsource GitHub repositories. Unfortunately I didn’t turn up anything useful:

Emeralds

• Adventure has an emerald “the size of a plover’s egg.”
• Zork 1 has a “large emerald” as a treasure, but it doesn’t have a long description.
• Enchanter’s ornamental egg has an emerald knob.
• Infidel has a “brilliant, glowing emerald cluster.”
• Trinity has an emerald that you power your boots with, but it doesn’t have a long description.

Sapphires

• Zork 1 has a sapphire-encrusted bracelet.
• Zork Zero has a cursed sapphire in the iron mine. There are several paragraphs of lore about the curse, but nothing looks relevant.
• Sherlock has a sapphire attached to a bell clapper.
• Beyond Zork’s Crocodile Tear is a sapphire, but it only “sparkles with obvious value.”

I also searched for “big enough” and “large enough,” to no avail.

[evouga]

@jwalrus

I don’t know whether this makes the “in the pits lately” interpretation more or less likely. My memory of 2001 was that Red Hat was seen as falling out of favour somewhat in tech circles, which might mean this makes sense as the author making a joke at his own/his employer’s expense. But the Wikipedia article on the history of Red Hat suggests that things were going pretty well for the company at that point, so I don’t know.

Well, we have

VAS (adverb) Red Hat stock has been in the (plural location noun) (adverb).

Is there anything but “pits” that remotely fits? “Dumps”? “Weeds”? I can’t think of any “in the (nouns)” idioms with positive sentiment.

[lpsmith (Lucian Smith)]

@jwalrus

I don’t know whether this makes the “in the pits lately” interpretation more or less likely. My memory of 2001 was that Red Hat was seen as falling out of favour somewhat in tech circles, which might mean this makes sense as the author making a joke at his own/his employer’s expense. But the Wikipedia article on the history of Red Hat suggests that things were going pretty well for the company at that point, so I don’t know.

I can confirm that Red Hat stock shot WAY up on speculation in late 1999, then crashed: you can see from Red Hat, Inc. price | Digrin it going up over $100, then crashing to $3.50

I remember a story of some IFites meeting zarf at one point in the aforementioned late '99 (I think it was Stephen Granade and others) and having dinner, and zarf stashing his backpack under his chair or something, and at one point casually mentioning that he was carrying around his Red Hat stock in it. “MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE THAT TO THE BANK IMMEDIATELY,” said Stephen’s eyebrows.

[EJoyce (Emery Joyce)]

Not only this, but the noun (in singular form) can also be applied to the location we start in, which makes “pit” a much stronger option, IMO.

[zarf (Andrew Plotkin)]

@lpsmith

I remember a story of some IFites meeting zarf at one point in the aforementioned late '99 (I think it was Stephen Granade and others) and having dinner, and zarf stashing his backpack under his chair or something, and at one point casually mentioning that he was carrying around his Red Hat stock in it. “MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE THAT TO THE BANK IMMEDIATELY,” said Stephen’s eyebrows.

True enough! It might have been early 2000 though.

Red Hat is headquartered the Raleigh-Durham area, and Sargent had just finished up his PhD at Duke. So that’s how we met in person.

[averyhiebert]

Could it just be an emerald (or whatever) “big enough to quit your job on?” Kinda awkward phrasing (but e.g. “enough money to retire on” would be quite natural), and would kinda fit with the axe blade CRELNing (quitting?) its handle?

EDIT: Except we already have “quit.” “Leave,” maybe?

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

I’ve also done Google searches for the exact phrases “emerald big enough to” and “sapphire big enough to”, with no success.

[evouga]

Or maybe “break your toe on”?

[averyhiebert]

I did already suggest that earlier, and it still feels the most probable to me.

[Hituro (David Donachie)]

I don’t think “enough money to retire on” would be my idiom, I’d say “with”, but it might be correct in the US

[evouga]

“An emerald worth enough to retire on” is idiomatic in the US; but “to retire your X on” isn’t. (And the axe head retiring doesn’t fit.)

[averyhiebert]

Well, “an emerald big enough to quit your job over” is perfectly idiomatic for me, and “an emerald big enough to retire on” also is, I’m just not sure to what extent you can interpolate between those two things to get “big enough to quit your job on.” I still think “big enough to stub your toe on” is the most plausible, except that “stub” doesn’t work for the axe, and “break your toe on” sounds weird to me, so there are issues with that interpretation as well.

[evouga]

We have another fit-the-verb puzzle at the start of the transcript:

All you need to do is get in and KOONA UNLARV a few dwarves.

Aha! It [the wall of SEAT] KOONA MANAN, but it is CROSH MOOK.

No other words resembling UNLARV or MANAN are in the transcript, so they are of little help.

The PC is not bloodthirsty when it comes to the dwarves; we give an item to a dwarf that is helpless after it tries to kill us.

The possibilities that come to mind for KOONA UNLARV (“sneak past”, “pay off”, “shake down”) don’t make any sense when the subject is a wall (potentially made of fire) blocking our way.

[jwalrus (Adam Biltcliffe)]

What have we seen about adverb placement? Could KOONA UNLARV be “avoid carefully” (i.e. “carefully avoid” in idiomatic English) and VA KOONA MANAN be something like “it avoids moving/changing/breaking”?

[evouga]

Adverbs usually follow the verbs/adjectives they modify.

“Slip past” is maybe another option… it’s possible a wall could “slip” (e.g. “slightly”).

[averyhiebert]

@evouga

Adverbs usually follow the verbs/adjectives they modify.

Is this really a consistent pattern? Just looking through quickly now, I can see multiple examples that appear to be adverbs coming before verbs. I think it might be like in English, where both orders are permissible, depending on the situation.

Examples:

Your GORNY are HOBII starting to STORN.
Your GORNY are FULBA burning.
The QUERL twists around, trying to GORD at the LERUL SEATO, but KORII SEGOST its STARN.

I guess in two of this cases you could maybe argue that the adverb is modifying BI, but definitely not in the third case.

[evouga]

@averyhiebert

I guess in two of this cases you could maybe argue that the adverb is modifying BI

I agree with your third counterexample; I would indeed argue that in the first two, the adverbs modify “are.”

Most adverbs do follow the verb, though. Even in translations of English fixed idioms like “too bad.”

[Hituro (David Donachie)]

What about KOONA = maybe