In Tuesday’s story, we have a character named Baarbaarbaar.

This is pronounced, in my head, like you started saying Barbara and got stuck.

(“Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling ‘banana’, but didn’t know how you stopped. (Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett)

Someone on Mastodon asked me about the etymology, so I needed to come up with one!

First I found:

baar: he/she (person pronoun)

But I do not think someone is going to name their kid They-they-they (or he-he-he).

So I kept thinking.  And I found (in my head):

we had the word baarbaan, horizon, which became baarbaanbaar, a name, which then became Baarbaarbarr *nods*

(Adding “person” or “them” to the end of a name isn’t common, but repeating syllables is.  So in this case, I think what happened is that you had BaarBaan, and to differentiate it from the word horizon, they repeated a syllable again.  BaarBaanBaar. And then you have someone mishear it and you end up with Baarbaarbaar).

In Edally era, names are not commonly given for their direct meaning, but in Baarbaarbaar’s time, that may have been different.  And indeed, as the Head of Edally Academy, it would be good to be one who looks forward, toward the horizon.

For more about Calenyena, see the Reiassan landing page here: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2016/03/09/landing-page-reiassan-2/#more-11655