[Retros] linguistic hole

[andrew buchanan]

If consensus can't evolve, then I think voting would be a great idea.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

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?

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.

All the best,
Andy.

PS: I think Parsefal should be made a term some day, for something.



________________________________
From: Steve Dowd <sdowd367 at gmail.com>
To: The Retrograde Analysis Mailing List <retros at janko.at>
Sent: Tue, January 19, 2010 7:59:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Retros] linguistic hole

Why not ask Milan if the Mat Plus forum survey option could be used for seeing who likes  whichof the various options we have seen here? It seems perfectly suited to the task, or perhaps another webmaster might post a survey?


On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 1:27 PM, Forlot <dominique.forlot at wanadoo.fr> wrote:

What do you think about the term:

>

>'Perceval'

>or

>'Parsifal'

>

>for these promotions!

>

>Its universal in the meaning, ( everybody Know "his Name" )

>A simple man who 'promote' ... and find the graal!

>

>Best regards!

>

>Forlot Dominique.

>

>

>-----Message d'origine-----

>>De : retros-bounces at janko.at [mailto:retros-bounces at janko.at] De la part de

>andrew buchanan

>Envoyé : dimanche 17 janvier 2010 15:09

>>À : Retros Mailing List

>Objet : [Retros] linguistic hole

>

>

>

>Dear Retrofriends,

>

>It seems to me there is a hole in our language for describing promotions.

>

>We like promotions, and we like to have diagrams which are free of

>non-thematic extraneous promoted units. So if there is a promotion,

>>something may have to be captured at some point, to keep things looking

>nice.

>

>- If it's the promoted unit which is captured, we call it Ceriani-Frolkin

>and pat ourselves on the back.

>- If it's an original unit which is captured, we call the promoted unit

>>Phoenix *but* *only* *if* *the *original* *unit* *died* *before* *the

>*promotion*.

>

>We haven't any term for the more general case of a non C-F promotee, where

>the diagram is free of extraneous promoted units of that type.

>

>Some problems are sometimes described as "double Phoenix", e.g.:

>

>Henrik Juel

>rnbqkb1r/ppppp1p1/8/3B4/8/4n3/PPPP1P1P/RNBQK1NR

>Thema Danicum no. 86, 1997/04

>(no. 22 in Alain Brobecker's Introduction to Proof Games)

>>PG in 6.0 moves.

>

>But actually it isn't - only the second promotion is Phoenix.

>

>What we have here I suspect is another adoption of a non-PG term to the PG

>world, where it doesn't quite work the same way. See:

>

>http://dt.dewia.com/yacpdb/?id=271408

>www.selivanov.ru/download/Magazins/Kudesnik/Cud-104.pdf

>

>which are referring in the world of directmates to a Nissl theme (as a

>subtype of Phoenix I think) where the capture must come *immediately* before

>the promotion. Clearly in direct mates it is more elegant for the original

>>unit to be saced before the promotee reappears.  [Hmmm... Nissl could be an

>interesting theme for a PG exploration...] (Maybe others on the mailing list

>have more experience than I of use of the Phoenix theme in forwards

>>composition.)

>

>But what should we do in PG world?

>(a) continue to abuse the term "Phoenix" some of the time

>(b) use the term "non-C-F"

>(c) decide that we don't need a word for this

>>(d) invent a new term

>

>I think options a-c are unacceptable. I suggest the term "inheritor". So a

>Phoenixes is a kind of inheritor (a posthumous one! :). We have still no

>term for non-Phoenix inheritors, but let's not worry about that now.

>

>Comments welcome,

>Andy.

>

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