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Show Note on BauerWorlde Language A most sensible addition to a book of BauerWorlde adventures is a glossary of some of its folks' more mystifing archaisms-for BauerWorlde prides itself on being a most archaic worlde, as the reader has no doubt discovered. Its grammar, too, is at times unsettling-though never unintelligible to visiting twenty-fourth century Earthskis-having rather the flavor of early nineteenth century literary English, peppered liberally with Elizabethan, Shakespearean, and Biblical phrases and not a few fossilized structures beloved by the romantic writers of many centuries before. And though the BauerWorlders live most assiduously by an intricate and well-defined linguistic system, the rules they follow have arisen more from a syntax romantically remote to the second millenium ear, a love of euphony, and a generous pillaging of Sir Walter Scott and his imitators, rather than any logical consistency. For instance, the verb do as an auxiliary appears in odd places, as in I hope his head does ache and ache, and in other places is missing entirely, as in What wilt thou?-both phrases archaic enough to suit any lover of the nineteenth century romantic novels. The second person spending is used liberally, also, as in Thinkest thou on t h i s . . . , which phrase also illustrates the verb-subject switch, casting the reader back effortlessly to folk like Robin Hood and his Merry Men, Ivanhoe's unhappy admirer, Rebecca, Elizabethan troubadors, and 367 |
