[Retros] linguistic hole

[Alain BROBECKER]

Andrew wrote:

> I think that for the general term for surviving promoted

> pawns, Guus' suggestion of "parvenu" is better

> than either of the other suggestions I made. Parvenu is a

> word in English, but obviously derives from French.

> Sometimes these borrowed words have different meanings. What

> is the sense in French?


Exactly what Guus said:

>> The word “parvenu” typically describes a person

>>who recently ascended the social ladder, especially

>>a nouveau riche or “new money” individual.




> As far as the specific term for non-Phoenix survivor there

> are a number of good suggestions, I am awestruck by the

> appositeness of Otto's "Horcrux". I am far too

> old to know Harry Potter well, but I enjoyed the movies. Key

> things that Wikipedia pointed out to me is that the Horcrux

> creation precedes the death of the

>  original, that it can be a person (SPOILER WARNING heh),

> and that it involves a sacrifice (just as a promotion

> implies a capture). It's a 7 letter word ending in

> "x" referring to a fictional object and I

> don't think we could ask for more. Also would be

> recognizable to younger newcomers who we ought to be

> interested in introducing to our little hobby.

> 

> It also occurs to me that in some proof games it may be

> difficult to determine which pieces are Phoenix, and which

> are "Horcrux". 

> Suppose:

> - a rook is captured

> - two pawns promote to rook

> - another original rook is captured

> 

> Which pawn is the Phoenix? Unless there is some kind of

> Pronkin action going on to associate "parvenus"

> with originals, there is no clear way to do it.


Horcrux would sound ok to me, except that i don't know
Harry Potter at all, and we can't expect it to be as
widely known as greek mythology (at least in occident).

But my favorite is finally Andrew's "XINEOHP", being a
phoenix doing it the wrong way!

Alain