[LadyMTL]

Alrighty, so I finished reading DoD last night and I noticed that Onos T'oolan's name kept being spelled differently. In one paragraph towards the end of the book (forgive me for not citing page numbers, I don't have the book with me) his last name is spelled Toolan and then T'oolan a few lines later. It occurred a few times, actually, and I found it a little weird.


THERE BE SOME SLIGHT SPOILERS BELOW

Now, a part of me thinks that this may just be a typo but another part of me says that SE doesn't "do" typos, that there may be a significance to the difference in spelling. My main thought was perhaps "Toolan" was his domestic name (for lack of a better word), the name that he used when he was married, had kids, etc etc...and wasn't the badass warleader/destroyer/baby killer that he later became. He took back the name "T'oolan" once he had decided to become the warrior again, once he took command of the Imass and went off to war.

Does that make sense? Or am I reading too much into an apostrophe?

This post has been edited by Maia Irraz: 18 September 2009 - 11:51 AM

[MTS]

The glottal stop or apostrophe denotes past tense in the Imass tongue, I believe. Thus when he was alive he was Onos Toolan, and then when he was T'lan Imass once again he became Onos T'oolan. I don't think that fits the timeline of the book, though, so this could just be a typo. Technically, he is T'oolan once he dies, not Toolan.

[ritchiediaz]

Mappo, on 18 September 2009 - 11:58 AM, said:

The glottal stop or apostrophe denotes past tense in the Imass tongue, I believe. Thus when he was alive he was Onos Toolan, and then when he was T'lan Imass once again he became Onos T'oolan. I don't think that fits the timeline of the book, though, so this could just be a typo. Technically, he is T'oolan once he dies, not Toolan.

Yup,

Toolan = Imass Tool, alive if not very happy
T'oolan = T'lan Imass, dead and dusty

[Amaterasu]

I kinda remember reading somewhere in either MOI or GOTM Tool was explaining to Toc the Imass language whilst making arrows. The stop between letters symbolizing "broken" in the abstract sense. So I reckon like above he was called T`oolan in his broken form (Post-Ritual form) and Toolan in his Imass form.

[fafner]

was not the meaning from the imass that a ' in a name/word means broken?