We Need A Word For "Feruchemical Flaring"

[Guest Galavantes]

Didn't Sazed "dump" his copperminds when he absorbed ruin and preservation? I thought that got the point across pretty well, he dumped everything from his metalminds into himself.

I dunno if it really works, but it's canon.

Edited December 2, 2011 by Galavantes

[Guest Galavantes]

(After all, we use Shardholder and Brandon doesn't like that term. However, it is important for some theorizing.)

He doesn't like it? I knew he didn't use it, but I didn't know he had an aversion to it. Do you know if he has a term for...uh..shardholders that he uses to himself?

[ulyssessword]

My personal term for tapping a large amount of a feruchemical attribute at once is "stack". I know that the connotation and flavour is off, as it seems to refer to increasing an attribute from multiple sources, and is used more with video games than anything to do with water, but that's my 0.02 cents worth.

PS: yes, two hundredths of a cent. It doesn't fit well enough to be worth a full cent, let alone two.

[Emeralis00]

I disagree with the term surge, because the powers on Roshar are called Surges.

What about discharge or outflow?

Edited December 2, 2011 by Emeralis00

[Chaos]

He doesn't like it? I knew he didn't use it, but I didn't know he had an aversion to it. Do you know if he has a term for...uh..shardholders that he uses to himself?

Yeah, he doesn't like it. He said that when a person takes up a Shard, they become the Shard. There's no distinction in his mind. I asked him if there was a term for Shardholder, specifically, and he didn't. Also, from a recent interview, he said that Harmony is a Shard, in the way that a king of two countries is still a king.

I disagree with the term surge, because the powers on Roshar are called Surges.

See my post above on why I think this is a very minor issue. I may feel differently if the term is used like Surging later, but if they are "Surges" as a noun, I think we can tell them apart.

I don't really like "Surge", it just rubs me the wrong way for some reason, I prefer Condense, like people were talking about on the other thread, cause you're condensing all the stored attribute into a quick flash of power.

My problem with condense is that it lacks oomph. I don't know about you, but I haven't felt a great deal of power from condensed milk or condensation...

[Kurkistan]

I disagree with the term surge, because the powers on Roshar are called Surges.

What about discharge or outflow?

Those two words do not create positive associations in my mind. Think in medical terms for a bit there: You'll see what I mean.

Sentences incoming!

Old ones (for ease of use):

"Wax channeled weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax drained weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax over-tapped weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax sapped weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax squeezed weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax synthesized weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax flooded weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax funneled weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax condensed weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"You must remember that channeling Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"You must remember that draining Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"You must remember that over-tapping Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"You must remember that sapping Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"You must remember that squeezing Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"You must remember that synthesizing Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"You must remember that flooding Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"You must remember that funneling Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"You must remember that condensing Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"He channeled his metalmind"

"He drained his metalmind"

"He over-tapped his metalmind

"He sapped his metalmind"

"He squeezed his metalmind"

"He synthesized his metalmind

"He flooded his metalmind"

"He funneled his metalmind"

"He condensed his metalmind"

New ones:

"Wax surged weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax stacked weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"You must remember that surging Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"You must remember that stacking Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back"

"He surged [from] his metalmind"

"He stacked [from] his metalmind"

Stacking might just work. It's not very fluid-like, though, and I feel that we're starting to drift away from the necessity of implying entropy. Or am I the only one who cares about that particular aspect of our choice?

Edited December 2, 2011 by Ookla the Conformist

[Chaos]

Stacking might just work. It's not very fluid-like, though, and I feel that we're starting to drift away from the necessity of implying entropy. Or am I the only one who cares about that particular aspect of our choice?

No, I think that is still an important element. I think surging qualifies (barely). Electrical surges do have a connotation of destruction. It's kind of a stretch, but we sometimes think of metalminds as batteries, so an electrical implication seems pretty good in my mind.

[Eerongal]

Personally, I'm on board with surging or over-tapping. "stack" doesn't really feel right to me. That feels more like using more than one metalmind at once, as opposed to "flaring" one metalmind. Condensed i dont like, because it makes me think of condensed milk.

as for the term shardholder, i've previously figured out a perfectly acceptable replacement. See my signature for details.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

I read what you wrote, Administrator Formerly Known As Crow, but I still think that Surge is in elegant, due to the Roshar issue. Earlier, I briefly considered Storm, but disliked it for the same reason.

If people do not like Flooding, what about dialing it down to Flowing? "He flowed his metalminds" sounds less like filling them, while still keeping the water theme.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

[happyman]

It should be noted that we don't necessarily need one term. A lot of the words we're looking at are synonyms. If they all describe the action of tapping a metalmind, then we can use them all. Certainly Brandon refers to Wax "drawing [weight] into himself". Allomancy sticks to "burn" because there aren't any synonyms that fit the action an Allomancer takes that work better than burn. But that's not the case with Feruchemy. With Feruchemy, there's a larger pool of verbs we can use that all fit.

I agree that we should agree on some standards, but as long as we all know what we're talking about, I don't see why we couldn't use "flood", "squeeze", "channel", "condense", and "pickle" to refer to accessing metalminds (okay, not the last one). Just as long as they make sense, and are understandable in context. The only one that should definitely be avoided is "compound", because that's already taken.

I agree with this. I just take it one step further and say that we don't need a new word---we just use the term 'tap' with modifiers to make it clear how much is being tapped. If it's more than 100%, we can assume there will be loss, but that doesn't affect the action in most scenes.

[Kurkistan]

I agree with this. I just take it one step further and say that we don't need a new word---we just use the term 'tap' with modifiers to make it clear how much is being tapped. If it's more than 100%, we can assume there will be loss, but that doesn't affect the action in most scenes.

*Warbreaker, AoL Spoilers*

While we might be throwing the importance of this slightly out of proportion, I feel that it would still be useful to have a specialized word here. I envision *Filler* being used in more of an academic sense than in the middle of action scene, similar to Vasher's description of Awakening to Vivienne in Warbreaker, or even just in our discussions here on the boards. The use of well-defined terms can never hurt in that regard.

An example of when *Filler* would have been useful is when Wayne was healing himself slowly after being burned by the bomb. It was explained to the reader that slower healing would allow Wayne to stretch out his reserves, but we are left mystified as to why exactly this is the case, given that the rule of diminishing returns for Feruchemy was not explained to us in that book. A little infodump with impressive terminology would not have been amiss, and would have gone to show the depth and reality of Scadrial's magic, as well as the effort which has gone into studying it. An example of an explanatory passage using "Surge":

"'Surging,' when a Ferring draws upon upon more of a Feruchemical attribute at one point in time than they have stored at a single point of time in the past, yields diminishing returns as more and more energy of the energy gained is utilized to surge together attributes stored at different points in time in the past into a single moment in the present. This is why Wax can't surge together enough Weight to break Scadrial's crust and why a Spinner can't become President of the world while simultaneously winning the lottery and pedaling a unicycle backwards with one hand while winning 500 simultaneous coin tosses."

Incidentally, it would be ludicrously cool if Brandon were to adopt terminology developed on these forums.

Edited December 5, 2011 by Kurkistan

[Wispsy]

I don't like the use of surge, what happens when feruchemists meet surgebinders, it doesn't matter what caps u put on it would still end up confusing ! Lol

It is a nice word tho:p just already has serious use!

Edited December 5, 2011 by Wispsy

[IvoryRoad]

I think that whatever excuses you can offer up, overlapping words between worlds of the Cosmere is just asking for trouble. Let's face it - Brandon's got a LOT of redefined verbs in his canon. No need to make things difficult for when Surgebinding becomes more prominent in future SA books.

Of the suggestions thus far, I like Over-tap the best, but I think if you cut the hyphen it's a bit more elegant. Overtap just sounds more... fluid. No pun intended.

I just take it one step further and say that we don't need a new word---we just use the term 'tap' with modifiers to make it clear how much is being tapped. If it's more than 100%, we can assume there will be loss, but that doesn't affect the action in most scenes.

This is sort of what I was thinking, with the base word being modified by the word you slide in before "tap".

E.g.:

Doubletap = Twice normal strength

Tripletap = Triple normal strength, with implied diminishing returns

Overtap = Anything over that, leading up to Draining as described in the book.

Semitap or Undertap or even Halftap = Really slow withdrawal to minimize loss of power. Most economical, you know? Hey! Eco-tap!

The only problem I forsee with this system is that it really opens the door for innumerable low-class jokes.

Edited December 6, 2011 by IvoryRoad

[Ari]

He doesn't like it? I knew he didn't use it, but I didn't know he had an aversion to it. Do you know if he has a term for...uh..shardholders that he uses to himself?

I think he just refers to them as Shards, because after a certain point, the "holder" of the shard ceases to matter.

I like double- (etc...) tapping, but if people use flood or surge, I'd like to suggest it in the form of "she flooded with Strength" or "she surged speed", rather than referring to the metalminds, or if you do refer to the metalminds, say "from her metalmind". The grammar people have been using in this thread looks very weird to me.

[Kurkistan]

I think he just refers to them as Shards, because after a certain point, the "holder" of the shard ceases to matter.

I like double- (etc...) tapping, but if people use flood or surge, I'd like to suggest it in the form of "she flooded with Strength" or "she surged speed", rather than referring to the metalminds, or if you do refer to the metalminds, say "from her metalmind". The grammar people have been using in this thread looks very weird to me.

The odd grammar on my part is an artifact of my laziness more than anything else.

I agree that we should clean up our acts as far as the proper usage for each option goes.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Kurkistan

[IvoryRoad]

The odd grammar on my part is an artifact of my laziness more than anything else.

I agree that we should clean up our acts as far as the proper usage for each option goes.

That's another advantage of the modifier + tap system. It's a simple verb, usable in the same sense as basic "tap", and it's quick to type out.

[Kurkistan]

That's another advantage of the modifier + tap system. It's a simple verb, usable in the same sense as basic "tap", and it's quick to type out.

Now let's not get too far ahead of ourselves! I don't think we need to reference exact proportions within the phrase itself. "Funneling three times his normal Weight" works well enough compared to "Triple-tapping his Weight."

I've also been approaching our new verb as descriptive of a discrete phenomenon: tapping more of an attribute at one time than you put in at another. This as opposed to a description of where it falls on the range of possibilities within that phenomenon.

I think that, especially in scholarly discussion, a verb followed by descriptive modifiers is on par with or preferable to a compound modifier-verb when discussing exact proportion and effects.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Kurkistan

[Chaos]

I really can't think of a situation where surge in Feruchemy would ever get confused with Surges in Surgebinding. One is a verb, the other is a noun. For one, so far in Stormlight Archive, you never see "Szeth Surged something," it's "Szeth Lashed," or "Jasnah Soulcast". Is that ever going to get confused with the context of surging that we're talking about here? "Wax surged his steelmind" very different. So I guess I see the objection to surge as "oh no it's a common word!" However, the usage is totally independent. Even if I wrote a cage match battle where Szeth fights Wax (the only time where it would be ambiguous), they are very distinctive. In this light, I still fully support surge as the verb we want, because there isn't an actual context that would be written which makes it confusing. By all means, try and come up with an example where it would be.

Surge is a stronger verb than anything else here, and let me consult the dictionary a moment...

4. to rise suddenly to an excessive or abnormal value

Wow, that's like the exact definition of what we want.

But no, you're totally right, let's throw away a precise, evocative word because it might be ambiguous in a context that would never happen in any books, despite the fact that even if it did happen, there isn't an example of a sentence where you could actually make it confusing.

"Wax surged weight" > "Wax overtapped weight"

Happyman makes a good point regarding whether we even need a term. I personally think it's useful to use it for theoretical discussion, if only so people don't refer to it as Compounding. And if we pick a term, surge sounds the best of them all, tenfold. We don't refer to flaring as overburning, after all.

EDIT: The only context where Feruchemical surging would be ambiguous with the Surges in Stormlight is if Surge suddenly became a verb in later books. Yes, it is possible, I suppose. But from what we know, Surge is a noun. Surgebinding has a symmetry with Voidbinding, and you don't "Void" something. You wouldn't "Surge" something either.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Chaos

[Morderkaine]

Crazy idea here. Why not look at alternative words for compounding, as in allomantically burning a feruchemical charge, instead?

[CrazyRioter]

because Brandon's already given us a canon term for that, we shouldn't go changing canon terms because it will confuse new people who come here.

[Kurkistan]

I just finished a re-read of AoL, and noted that "compounded" (note the lower case 'c') was actually used within the book to fit our meaning.

Page 296

The weight was gone from him in an instant, compounded upon itself in that moment, his metalminds drained all at once.

I state this merely for full disclosure. I think that all of us can agree that "Compound" vs "compound" would twist so many brains into pretzels that we could all be justifiably sued for mental damage if we start using the case of the letter 'c' to differentiate these fundamentally different concepts.

[IvoryRoad]

Now let's not get too far ahead of ourselves! I don't think we need to reference exact proportions within the phrase itself. "Funneling three times his normal Weight" works well enough compared to "Triple-tapping his Weight."

I've also been approaching our new verb as descriptive of a discrete phenomenon: tapping more of an attribute at one time than you put in at another. This as opposed to a description of where it falls on the range of possibilities within that phenomenon.

I think that, especially in scholarly discussion, a verb followed by descriptive modifiers is on par with or preferable to a compound modifier-verb when discussing exact proportion and effects.

I don't necessarily disagree with you... just a thought. Simply "Overtap" would work just fine. Just thought it was a cool concept. I do think, though, that the modifier system allows for greater flexibility and ease of specification with fewer words. Just a matter of a few keyboard taps, I guess.

I really can't think of a situation where surge in Feruchemy would ever get confused with Surges in Surgebinding. One is a verb, the other is a noun. For one, so far in Stormlight Archive, you never see "Szeth Surged something," it's "Szeth Lashed," or "Jasnah Soulcast". Is that ever going to get confused with the context of surging that we're talking about here? "Wax surged his steelmind" very different. So I guess I see the objection to surge as "oh no it's a common word!" However, the usage is totally independent. Even if I wrote a cage match battle where Szeth fights Wax (the only time where it would be ambiguous), they are very distinctive. In this light, I still fully support surge as the verb we want, because there isn't an actual context that would be written which makes it confusing. By all means, try and come up with an example where it would be.

I still don't think that we as a reader base have a very clear idea of what, exactly, a Surge is, and until we do I don't feel like we should play with the term. Why leave ourselves open to any possibility of confusion at all?

But no, you're totally right, let's throw away a precise, evocative word because it might be ambiguous in a context that would never happen in any books, despite the fact that even if it did happen, there isn't an example of a sentence where you could actually make it confusing.

"Wax surged weight" > "Wax overtapped weight"

Happyman makes a good point regarding whether we even need a term. I personally think it's useful to use it for theoretical discussion, if only so people don't refer to it as Compounding. And if we pick a term, surge sounds the best of them all, tenfold. We don't refer to flaring as overburning, after all.

EDIT: The only context where Feruchemical surging would be ambiguous with the Surges in Stormlight is if Surge suddenly became a verb in later books. Yes, it is possible, I suppose. But from what we know, Surge is a noun. Surgebinding has a symmetry with Voidbinding, and you don't "Void" something. You wouldn't "Surge" something either.

Nitpicking here, but we actually have no idea what Voidbinding entails either. I can't see Brandon turning "void" into a verb - just seems too inelegant - but "surge" could very well become verbed. In any case, what this argument is really about is you liking your verb better than mine, and vice versa.

Your reasoning, however, is quite good. I feel that overtap would be more specifically useful, and practical, but surge does seem more like a "magical" term.

I will support "Surge" as the official verb, but if Brandon ends up using it later in the Stormlight Archive, I will demand at least a cookie or something.

[CrazyRioter]

i wouldn't, you'll get a spike-late chip cookie.

[Emeralis00]

Fine. I concede the point about surge.

[Chaos]

I still don't think that we as a reader base have a very clear idea of what, exactly, a Surge is, and until we do I don't feel like we should play with the term. Why leave ourselves open to any possibility of confusion at all?

Nitpicking here, but we actually have no idea what Voidbinding entails either. I can't see Brandon turning "void" into a verb - just seems too inelegant - but "surge" could very well become verbed. In any case, what this argument is really about is you liking your verb better than mine, and vice versa.

Your reasoning, however, is quite good. I feel that overtap would be more specifically useful, and practical, but surge does seem more like a "magical" term.

I will support "Surge" as the official verb, but if Brandon ends up using it later in the Stormlight Archive, I will demand at least a cookie or something.

i wouldn't, you'll get a spike-late chip cookie.

No no, I'll totally put money down on this. If it does, I'll totally PayPal you five bucks, or something. Plenty for a cookie. Surge very well could be turned into a verb, but I'm confident Plus, if you're right, you get even more ammunition to make fun of me, which there's plenty of already.

Though, I disagree that overtap is more specifically useful. For example, in context that Kurkistan posted:

The weight was gone from him in an instant, compounded upon itself in that moment, his metalminds drained all at once.

We could not use "overtap" to replace compound in this instance, which is exactly what we're trying to do, right? "Surging upon itself" does make grammatical and visceral sense, in my opinion. Hence we clear up the ambiguity with compound, and yet still fits the spirit of the canonical material, without even changing the sentence. Overtap is more clunky in this case, you have to admit, and if there's another verb in this thread which does fit as well (or better) than surge, I'm not seeing it. Which is why I'm pushing surge so hard.

So in this model, it would be 17th Shard standard to either:

1. Use tap, with modifiers to indicate that the rate is higher than normal, as happyman suggests. That's of course fine.

2. Use surge if lazy. But don't use "compound".

I like this paradigm, personally.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Chaos