Kevin's Watch

What exactly does UR mean anyways?
I assume that it means 'Almost' or 'Nearly'. Like TC was nearly a lord, at least to the eyes of the Council. And the Ur-viles are almost like the Viles, but not quite.
On that note though, shouldn't the Clave have been calling themselves Ur-Mhorams?
The other prefix in the books was Sur..as in sur-jeherim..which I assume meant surpass as the were more advanced than their ancestors, by being able to reproduce.

drew wrote:What exactly does UR mean anyways?
I assume that it means 'Almost' or 'Nearly'. Like TC was nearly a lord, at least to the eyes of the Council. And the Ur-viles are almost like the Viles, but not quite.
On that note though, shouldn't the Clave have been calling themselves Ur-Mhorams?
The other prefix in the books was Sur..as in sur-jeherim..which I assume meant surpass as the were more advanced than their ancestors, by being able to reproduce.

Hmmmm... never thought about it before, but I think you are right!

What about the other additions, "cro", "in", "wist"?

ur is a prefrix meanign (i beleive) a stringer form of the noun, for example an Ur-Baskalisk would be more powerful than a baskilisk

Sylak wrote:ur is a prefrix meanign (i beleive) a stringer form of the noun, for example an Ur-Baskalisk would be more powerful than a baskilisk

This is *SO* OT but...

Hey Sylak, I can't help but notice that you are blowing through your resources, man!

What are you running on a 1GB of RAM system that would consume 77% of your resources??? Do you have a lot of spyware?

Ur- = primitive, original [German] (Chambers English Dictionary)

Which makes me say "huh?"

It strikes me that with "Ur-Lord", the Lords were calling Thomas Covenant "Berek Halfhand, the Lord-Fatherer" in backhand kind of way!

Yet if my memory serves, they first called him "Ur-Lord" when he showed them his white gold wedding ring!

In which case they were referring to *that* primal power, on which EVERYTHING in their world was based, the key to which he had on his finger.

Yet with "Ur-Viles", it is very odd! Clearly the Ur-Viles are NOT the original & primal Viles, because the original Viles were, well, just the "Viles", and, as we know now, they had a strikingly different nature.

So in this case, I have to guess that "original" is being used in the sense of "novel" and "unique", ie. these are the first "Vile-spawn" that are indeed that - (info from Runes follows)

Spoiler

because they have new bodies which are original and unique to their very selves, unlike their immediate forebears, the Demondim, which used dead bodies, and unlike the Viles who were derivative of something else - exactly what SRD is keeping quite tight-chested.

And that brings me round full-circle to our "Ur-Lord" again. Perhaps this too is really meant in the "original" as in "unique" and "novel" sense!

That would be fitting! As who is more "unique" than Thomas Covenant!

MrKABC wrote:

Sylak wrote:ur is a prefrix meanign (i beleive) a stringer form of the noun, for example an Ur-Baskalisk would be more powerful than a baskilisk

This is *SO* OT but...

Hey Sylak, I can't help but notice that you are blowing through your resources, man!

What are you running on a 1GB of RAM system that would consume 77% of your resources??? Do you have a lot of spyware?

I'm runnign an IRC FServer, an FTP Server, adn i beleive at that time 2 media players at once. Plus its Windows, that should explain alot of it

anyway, back on topic, perhaps teh Ur-Viles where the first vile-spawn, hence the title Ur-Viles, or it was a bad translation fromteh Old Lord's Tounge.

Sylak wrote: I'm runnign an IRC FServer, an FTP Server, adn i beleive at that time 2 media players at once. Plus its Windows, that should explain alot of it

It explains the 1 day uptime

MrKABC wrote: Hey Sylak, I can't help but notice that you are blowing through your resources, man!

What are you running on a 1GB of RAM system that would consume 77% of your resources??? Do you have a lot of spyware?

It depends also on how the metric is calculated, IIRC modern windows OS will use big chunks of memory as disk cache.

Don't look at massive memory use as a bad thing. If all the programs running get the resourses they need (memory, cpu, i/o) and the system is not constantly swapping to and from it's page file then everything is fine.

IVB wrote:

MrKABC wrote: Hey Sylak, I can't help but notice that you are blowing through your resources, man!

What are you running on a 1GB of RAM system that would consume 77% of your resources??? Do you have a lot of spyware?

It depends also on how the metric is calculated, IIRC modern windows OS will use big chunks of memory as disk cache.

Don't look at massive memory use as a bad thing. If all the programs running get the resourses they need (memory, cpu, i/o) and the system is not constantly swapping to and from it's page file then everything is fine.

I know... but in this age of spyware excessive resource and CPU usage is a BAD thing...

I am running about 260MB of 1024MB usage right now, not doing anything other than a chat program, IE, and NAV/Firewall... MAN it isn't like it used to be... <g>

Taking the case of 'Ur-Lord', I always took the "UR" to mean 'Super' or 'More than' (as opposed to 'almost' as quoted above.
So ur-lord = 'Super' Lord. ( Maybe as evidenced by Prothalls almost immediate offer to step down & offer the post of High Lord to the Ur Lord ?).

BUT - does that hold up for other uses of 'ur'.?
Are the Ur-viles 'Super Viles' - maybe yes.
Others?

Ur- can mean the same thing as Arch- . So Ur-Lord is Arch-Lord. That seems to fit for me - meaning that TC was ranked a level above the rest of the Lords, even the High Lord, and given deference accordingly.

I agree that the same meaning does not seem to apply to ur-viles. My mental impression, which has no justification whatsoever, is that ur-viles means "new Viles".

To me, URRRRRRRRR... is something I say when I stumble out of bed with a hangover...

As I have mentioned before, I take it to mean a variation on a theme.

TC is an ur-Lord - kind of basically a Lord, but not actually technically one.

ur-Viles - similar to Viles, but not actually the same. In the same vein, but different in important respects.

So processed cheese slices could legitimately be called ur-cheese, Jet Li could feasibly be made an honorary ur-Haruchai, and a hermaphrodite could perhaps be an ur-man or ur-woman or both.

CovenantJr wrote:As I have mentioned before, I take it to mean a variation on a theme.

That presumes that the author is free to make up a meaning for a word (rather, a prefix for a word) which already exists and has a meaning apart from his work.

Yes it does. And I stand by my opinion.

I think Ur- means above. The Lords know of the power of white gold and that it was above them. TC being the holder of white gold is above them. Only he can save them.

Ur is a shortened form of the word "Uber."

TC is an uber-lord.

Sorta like me.. Ur Dead.


Almost like or close to..

I chose Ur-Dead because of RL. A heart condition because I have had two heart attacks.
Not fully fuctionally alive but closer to the state of being "purnia worm chow"

But really not there.

"Next Generation"?

CovenantJr wrote:As I have mentioned before, I take it to mean a variation on a theme.

TC is an ur-Lord - kind of basically a Lord, but not actually technically one.

ur-Viles - similar to Viles, but not actually the same. In the same vein, but different in important respects.

I'll go with that. It seemed to me that TC was given this ranking because he was recognized as a Lord but didn't achieve that status through the normal procedure. Maybe that can apply to to ur-viles too?