Glossary — T

Back Home Up Next

tactician
person responsible for everyday operation of a combine and completion of its contract; in late-Twentieth-Century parlance, a project manager, or in some cases, a project leader (language=Yeibichai/business); see also strategist

 

ta-monduá
Either of two small nocturnal anteaters (ta-monduá tetradactyla or T. mexicana) of Central and South America, having thick, bristly fur and dwelling in trees during the day (language=Tupi, from monduar, to catch, though the Português turned it into tamanduá; cue/www=http://www.bartleby.com/61/90/T0029000.html). Seen in TIME magazine at Disney's Animal Kingdom

 

tanni
water (language=Madras Tamiz, spoken in southern Bharat); cue/www=http://sysindia.com/forums/General_Discussion/posts/3167.html

 

tarantella
a lively folk dance of southern Italia in 6/8 time (language=Italiano: from Taranto, Italia, 1782) [Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary; see cue/www=Merriam-Webster OnLine]

 

tashe delek
peace to you (language=Ter-get; name of language based on listening to sound file from cue/www=http://www.lib.virginia.edu/dmmc/FluentTibetan/ft-frames.html)

 

Tawakalt ala Allah
"I put my faith in God," or "I entrust myself to God." (language=Al-fuSHa); a common Muslim prayer in a challenging or dangerous situation

 

techgibber
technical jargon (language=Yeibichai/slang)

 

Techniker
technical specialist (language=Deutsch; pronunciation=tek-nee-ker)

 

tech-sploration
exploration performed by technology, that is, agents (language=Yeibichai/slang)

 

telling time
People of the Backdoor Planets describe a significant period of time, such as people's ages, by number of seconds because time units from minutes to years are dependent on the planet. The only universal unit is the second.

However, to make numbers of seconds more accessible, people base their descriptions on scientific notation, for example, 0.631E+08, where "E" stands for "10 to the power of." They use the power of ten as a rough indicator. For example, people between 4 Gë years (0.126E+09 seconds) and slightly less than 32 Gë years, which is 0.101E+10 secods, are called "Niners." Everyone older is a "Tenner."

To get more precise, people use the first one or two digits of the exponent. Har Norma, for example, is a 16-Tenner or, in Gë years, her early Fifties. The following chart shows the equivalency between Gë years and seconds written in scientific notation:

 
1 0.315E+08 11 0.347E+09 21 0.662E+09
2 0.631E+08 12 0.378E+09 22 0.694E+09
3 0.946E+08 13 0.410E+09 23 0.725E+09
4 0.126E+09 14 0.442E+09 24 0.757E+09
5 0.158E+09 15 0.473E+09 25 0.788E+09
6 0.189E+09 16 0.505E+09 26 0.820E+09
7 0.221E+09 17 0.536E+09 27 0.851E+09
8 0.252E+09 18 0.568E+09 28 0.883E+09
9 0.284E+09 19 0.599E+09 29 0.915E+09
10 0.315E+09 20 0.631E+09 30 0.946E+09
31 0.978E+09 41 0.129E+10 51 0.161E+10
32 0.101E+10 42 0.132E+10 52 0.164E+10
33 0.104E+10 43 0.136E+10 53 0.167E+10
34 0.107E+10 44 0.139E+10 54 0.170E+10
35 0.110E+10 45 0.142E+10 55 0.173E+10
36 0.114E+10 46 0.145E+10 56 0.177E+10
37 0.117E+10 47 0.148E+10 57 0.180E+10
38 0.120E+10 48 0.151E+10 58 0.183E+10
39 0.123E+10 49 0.155E+10 59 0.186E+10
40 0.126E+10 50 0.158E+10 60 0.189E+10
61 0.192E+10 71 0.224E+10
62 0.196E+10 72 0.227E+10
63 0.199E+10 73 0.230E+10
64 0.202E+10 74 0.233E+10
65 0.205E+10 75 0.237E+10
66 0.208E+10 76 0.240E+10
67 0.211E+10 77 0.243E+10
68 0.214E+10 78 0.246E+10
69 0.218E+10 79 0.249E+10
70 0.221E+10 80 0.252E+10

 

 

Tenner
a period of time longer than 31 Gë years; see also telling time (language=Yeibichai/telling time)

 

tête-á-tête
head-to-head (language=Français); direct, real-time, interactive dialog between two or more people via the Mirnaya Direvnya; better known as meeting/can-be-felt

 

3-Four
regular length for a shift of work, 30,000 seconds, very close to eight hours (language=Yeibichai/telling time)

 

tjatjat
defective (language=Bahasa Indonesia)

 

tlaxtli
ball game originating with the Olmecs of Meso-America and adopted by the Aztecs; see a description of play, see Chapter 1, Scene 2 (language=Olmec)

 

toll-gated Klatsch
Klatsch where attendance requires a fee, either one-time and/or subscription (language=Yeibichai/Em-Deh)

 

tockawhoughe
edible root-stock (language=Powhatan; pronunciation=TE-KE-'HO) aka tuckahoe: 1: either of two arums (Peltandra virginica and Orontium aquaticum) of the U.S. with rootstocks used as food by American Indians where arum = any of a genus of Old World plants having usually arrow-shaped leaves and a showy spathe partially enclosing a spadix; 2: the large edible sclerotium of a subterranean fungus (Poria cocos) [Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary/Thesaurus]

 

topador
near center, position in tlaxtli, where the player remains near the center line of the court (language=Olmec)

 

toromiru
tree (language=Rapa Nui), formerly found on Easter Island, provides dense, Mesquite-like firewood; it offers "wandering, tufted branches"

 

toubab
foreigner (language=Timbuktu)

 

troika
threesome (language=Rooski); a ruling body consisting of three people

 

tsegi
rock canyon (language=Diné)

 

tsiroot
winnowing birds (language=Hopi)

 

tufani
storm (language=Waswahili); on Yeibichai, also used to describe a grazing beast found on the plains of Popovich that snorts a warning to its herd, all of whom reply in a storm of snorts that can easily change to bawls and hoofbeats as they stampede over the encroacher who caused the warning
 

Back Home Up Next