Table of Contents
Stuff copied from the Commonthroat lexicon
Many of the entries in the Commonthroat lexicon, especially for words coined during Lexember, have overly verbose lore in the notes section. Notes are for in-universe word usage notes, not general lore, so they gotta go, but much of that lore may not be copied anywhere else, so here's me doing that.
Fabricators in zero G
Fabricators on orbital colonies form components by injecting molten material into a gel medium that keeps the material in place while it cools in order to compensate for the lack of gravity
Wormcows
Wormcows are livestock bred for their meat. However, the meat is obtained without slaughtering the animal. Wormcows are normally limbless, but after mating , the male grows several pairs of girthy vestigial limbs that the calf eats before transitioning to herbivorous grazing as it matures. Domestic wormcows have been bred to grow far more pairs of much larger trophic limbs than their wild cousins.
When the calf is born, the limbs are cut off from the nervous and circulatory systems, effectively dying to allow the calf to eat them without harming the father. The muscle tissue contains high levels of capsaicin to deter insectoid carrion eaters, making the meat inherently spicy.
Domestic wormcows regard their yinrih masters as their calves, and gladly give up their trophic limbs.
Breach Bunkers
These air chambers, also known in English as air closets, oxygen rooms, breach bunkers, and the like, are scattered at regular intervals throughout orbital colonies. Outside of their intended purpose as emergency shelters, they are usually used for other purposes. Washrooms and self-service kitchenettes are popular as public breach bunkers, and the modular capsules used as private residences are almost always also breach bunkers.
Most Focus governments, except *sigh*, say it with me now, the Spacer Confederacy, mandate a maximum legal population of an orbital colony based on the number of breach bunkers.
Atavists vs isolated human tribes
Yinrih ignorant of human history or politics often refer to members of Native peoples as smfcg. This is an unfortunate choice of words resulting from a misunderstanding of how human cultures developed. While the yinrih are not and have never been politically united as a species, they never sundered completely into isolated cultures, either. Groups such as the Atavists, Primitive Wayfarers, and other sundry self-isolated peoples resulted from a conscious decision to cut ties with the outside world at some point in the past.
It should be noted that the term smfcg is actually a self-designation, likely coined by groups of Atavists, reflecting their desire to return to being nonsapient animals. The word as applied to human groups is not usually intended to be derogatory, but yinrih have nothing else comparable to human first peoples. It's just really unfortunate when used this way, and vulpithecine anthropologists (yes they exist) consistently use more descriptive terms roughly equivalent to “founding people” or “original inhabitants”.
It should also be noted that humans likewise mislabel cynoid smfcg as “natives” even though Sweetwater, where most such groups can be found, is a terraformed planet and a member of the Allied Worlds.
Yellow Fruit
Before retooling the Commonthroat color system this word simply meant yellow. Commonthroat now no longer has simple color words beyond Broadly absorbent/dim/dark and diffusely reflective/white. Colors are now described using analogy, much like English's odor vocabulary, often using fruits, plants, or flowers that are similarly colored.
As for the fruit itself, it contains high levels of menthol, or analogous compounds, to deter insects from eating it. Vulpithecines, however, enjoy the cooling sensation and help spread the plant's seeds by consuming and passing the fruit.