Like hell he didn’t…HPL wrote whole pages describing the unspeakable. Admittedly, the descriptions were often pretty vague, but he managed to get the basic ideas across. XX
Except that when HPL described certain things, he proved they were not unspeakable. Unspeakable means you cannot speak of it, and if he even partly described it, then that’s speaking of it. Or using words that then allow speaking, anyway.
Actually.. if you go to the technical.. you couldn’t say the word “unspeakable” because by defining it as “unspeakable” you have in fact described it to a degree.
To tie both of these discussions together, I’d hazard that telling the gender of a wombat would be pretty unspeakable unless there was some clue in voice or mannerisms. Given she’s a marsupial there aren’t going to be any externally visible secondary sexual characteristic, and given wombats have backwards facing pouches observing the internal secondary sexual characteristics would be pretty tricky, if not actually unspeakable.
Still, better than the Hyenas: with them you’d have problems at the level of, ahem, Primary sexual characteristics. And don’t get me started on the gender of the Shadowchild, who quite possibly took a third option altogether. Somehow the image of three toilet doors with the little pictures of an man, woman, and cthuloid nightmare on the doors spring to mind.
I sense a hint of Douglas Adams in all these ‘unspeakable’ things.
Are they the same unspeakable things of which the bird warriors refused to speak? I wonder.
Yes Tamfang, but then were are getting into VERY Lovecraftian territory. You see, Lovecraft was only good at English semantics so his fictional gernan book within a book, “Unaussprechlichen Kulten” which he thought meant “Unspeakable cults” in the sense of nameless and forbidden cults actually meant “unpronounceable cults”… which to be fair given the names of the old high ones was bang on the money, but not as intended. He also struggled with Greek, as the endless arguments over the word “Necronomicon” will attest: He meant it to mean “Image of the laws of the dead” but that’s not a good translation, and as for the author “Abdul Alhazred” is not a grammatically valid Arabic name.
Yep, arguing about where you should put the breaks in a compound words such as “Unspeakable” and “Necronomicon” and how that changes the meaning… welcome to Lovecraft studies people!
Well, you could say Lovecraft never actually spoke the unspeakable, he wrote it. Nobody said it was unwritable!! Also, at least in earlier pages, Digger has some boobage going on.
It would be quite easy to test Ryn’s hypothesis. All one would need to do is take the sections of Lovecraft’s books that are being referred to as unspeakable and attempt to read them out loud. If Ryn is correct, it should prove impossible to do so.
@Tindi: thanks. Now All I can see in my mind when i try to picture Lovecraft is the Shadowchild, plus moustache and faux Spanish ascent saying “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
and @Eugene: I donât know. I could maybe picture her with an English ascent, but not an incredibly posh one as most of these 1920’s explorers would have had. Have met far more horsey Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire girls than is good for oneâs mind, and but for an allergy to horses and a Y chromosome BEING one, I canât picture them handling it as well as Digger. The ones that are practical enough, and there are a surprisingly large number of very practical ones because looking after a hoarse well takes some organisational skills, would have clobbered Ed with the pick axe, yelled “got the blighter” and have had him stuffed and mounted before he got a single line of dialogue, and the less practical ones would have grabbed him and yelled âdaddy, heâs so adorable. Buy me one.â Since Digger has never shown any indication to hunt either anything that moves or buy anything that doesnât we may have to rule that particular accent out.
on the gender issue, i’ve looked at her multiple times and it looks like (kids stop reading) she has a wombat-stylized version of some breasts
at first though, i thought digger was a guy, what with the androgynous name (that is the right word right?) and generally genderless body design.
eheh but ya…
How exactly do you tell someone about something Unspeakable?
HP Lovecraft did it all the time…
He didnt
Like hell he didn’t…HPL wrote whole pages describing the unspeakable. Admittedly, the descriptions were often pretty vague, but he managed to get the basic ideas across. XX
Why do I get the feeling the unspeakable part is going to come back and bite our dear wombat in her heavily-armoured backside?
How can a human tell the gender of the wombat?
I would hazard a guess that their voices are not as ambiguous as their bodies are.
I keep giving her one of those 1920s female British explorer voices that always seem to come with safari hats and a dirigible.
Except that when HPL described certain things, he proved they were not unspeakable. Unspeakable means you cannot speak of it, and if he even partly described it, then that’s speaking of it. Or using words that then allow speaking, anyway.
I guess the meaning of the word has changed.
Actually.. if you go to the technical.. you couldn’t say the word “unspeakable” because by defining it as “unspeakable” you have in fact described it to a degree.
Therefor the argument is moot.
Okay.. the truth is, I like saying the word moot.
To tie both of these discussions together, I’d hazard that telling the gender of a wombat would be pretty unspeakable unless there was some clue in voice or mannerisms. Given she’s a marsupial there aren’t going to be any externally visible secondary sexual characteristic, and given wombats have backwards facing pouches observing the internal secondary sexual characteristics would be pretty tricky, if not actually unspeakable.
Still, better than the Hyenas: with them you’d have problems at the level of, ahem, Primary sexual characteristics. And don’t get me started on the gender of the Shadowchild, who quite possibly took a third option altogether. Somehow the image of three toilet doors with the little pictures of an man, woman, and cthuloid nightmare on the doors spring to mind.
Hastur, Hastur, Hastur! See, nothing happ-
(Well, *somebody* had to say it…)
I sense a hint of Douglas Adams in all these ‘unspeakable’ things.
Are they the same unspeakable things of which the bird warriors refused to speak? I wonder.
The unspeakable will come back to bite her in the butt… Digger will then proceed to beat a new description of pain into said unspeakable.
Graham Chapman in A Liar’s Autobiography used phrases like “conveniently indescribable” more than once.
Say, maybe it’s not un+speakable but unspeak+able, that is, one can unspeak about it all day long if one so chooses.
Yes Tamfang, but then were are getting into VERY Lovecraftian territory. You see, Lovecraft was only good at English semantics so his fictional gernan book within a book, “Unaussprechlichen Kulten” which he thought meant “Unspeakable cults” in the sense of nameless and forbidden cults actually meant “unpronounceable cults”… which to be fair given the names of the old high ones was bang on the money, but not as intended. He also struggled with Greek, as the endless arguments over the word “Necronomicon” will attest: He meant it to mean “Image of the laws of the dead” but that’s not a good translation, and as for the author “Abdul Alhazred” is not a grammatically valid Arabic name.
Yep, arguing about where you should put the breaks in a compound words such as “Unspeakable” and “Necronomicon” and how that changes the meaning… welcome to Lovecraft studies people!
I like how her fourth panel speech bubble cuts him off.
Oh, and bunny, you’ve given way too much thought to the gender question. đ
Necronomicon is still an awesome word, even if it does not mean what he thinks it means…
Well, you could say Lovecraft never actually spoke the unspeakable, he wrote it. Nobody said it was unwritable!! Also, at least in earlier pages, Digger has some boobage going on.
It would be quite easy to test Ryn’s hypothesis. All one would need to do is take the sections of Lovecraft’s books that are being referred to as unspeakable and attempt to read them out loud. If Ryn is correct, it should prove impossible to do so.
I’ll remember you, Fred, when Cthulhu is eating our souls and my tongue is tied in knots.
Won’t be the front of my mind, obviously. But in there somewhere.
@Tindi: thanks. Now All I can see in my mind when i try to picture Lovecraft is the Shadowchild, plus moustache and faux Spanish ascent saying “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
and @Eugene: I donât know. I could maybe picture her with an English ascent, but not an incredibly posh one as most of these 1920’s explorers would have had. Have met far more horsey Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire girls than is good for oneâs mind, and but for an allergy to horses and a Y chromosome BEING one, I canât picture them handling it as well as Digger. The ones that are practical enough, and there are a surprisingly large number of very practical ones because looking after a hoarse well takes some organisational skills, would have clobbered Ed with the pick axe, yelled “got the blighter” and have had him stuffed and mounted before he got a single line of dialogue, and the less practical ones would have grabbed him and yelled âdaddy, heâs so adorable. Buy me one.â Since Digger has never shown any indication to hunt either anything that moves or buy anything that doesnât we may have to rule that particular accent out.
I find it slightly odd that this comic has so many Lovecraft references in it’s comments.
on the gender issue, i’ve looked at her multiple times and it looks like (kids stop reading) she has a wombat-stylized version of some breasts
at first though, i thought digger was a guy, what with the androgynous name (that is the right word right?) and generally genderless body design.
eheh but ya…
@Eugene: I wish more accents came with dirigibles. Would be pretty convenient.