Book 3. (7 results) Priest-Kings of Gor (Context Quote)
| Chapter # | Sentence # | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 19 | A disadvantage of this mode of communication, of course, is that the message may be understood by strangers or others for whom it is not intended. |
| 10 | 20 | One must be careful of what one says in the tunnels of priest-kings, for one's words may linger after one, until they sufficiently dissipate to be little more than a meaningless blur of scent. |
| 10 | 21 | For longer periods of time there are various devices for recording a message, without relying on complex mechanical devices. |
| 10 | 22 | The simplest and one of the most fascinating is a chemically treated rope of clothlike material which the priest-king, beginning at an end bearing a certain scent, saturates with the odors of his message. |
| 10 | 23 | This coiled message rope then retains the odors indefinitely and when another priest-king wishes to read the message he unrolls it slowly, scanning it serially with the jointed sensory appendages. |
| 10 | 24 | I am told that the phonemes of the language of priest-kings or, better, what in their language would correspond to phonemes in ours, since their "phonemes" have to do with scent and not sound, number seventy-three. |
| 10 | 25 | Their number is, of course, potentially infinite, as would be the number of possible phonemes in English, but just as we take a subset of sounds to be English sounds and form our utterances from them, so they take a subset of odors as similarly basic to their speech. |
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A disadvantage of this mode of communication, of course, is that the message may be understood by strangers or others for whom it is not intended.
One must be careful of what one says in the tunnels of priest-kings, for one's words may linger after one, until they sufficiently dissipate to be little more than a meaningless blur of scent.
For longer periods of time there are various devices for recording a message, without relying on complex mechanical devices.
The simplest and one of the most fascinating is a chemically treated rope of clothlike material which the priest-king, beginning at an end bearing a certain scent, saturates with the odors of his message.
This coiled message rope then retains the odors indefinitely and when another priest-king wishes to read the message he unrolls it slowly, scanning it serially with the jointed sensory appendages.
I am told that the phonemes of the language of priest-kings or, better, what in their language would correspond to phonemes in ours, since their "phonemes" have to do with scent and not sound, number seventy-three.
Their number is, of course, potentially infinite, as would be the number of possible phonemes in English, but just as we take a subset of sounds to be English sounds and form our utterances from them, so they take a subset of odors as similarly basic to their speech.
- (Priest-Kings of Gor, Chapter )