Fluccish

First Appearance and Context

Fluccish is heard prominently when the gates open for Apert: onlookers beyond the walls speak it openly, and a man addresses a distressed woman in slangy Fluccish. The narrator also recalls everyday Fluccish words such as "barbecue," "cooler," and "cheesburg." Inside the math, avout switch to it when addressing visiting artisans so they are better understood. Beyond the gates, a visit to a burger household shows a servant speaking in a local Fluccish that is difficult for avout to make out, underscoring dialect and register differences. During a large Apert gathering, a hierarch’s weak phrasing in Fluccish came across as a command to “be entertained,” prompting laughter and illustrating cross‑register misreadings between Orth and Fluccish.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

Fluccish functions as the common tongue used extramuros by visitors, artisans, servants, burgers, and officials. Within the mathic world it serves as a practical bridge to outsiders, while Orth remains the customary language for scholarship and internal discourse. Avout typically use Fluccish only when clarity for non‑avout is the priority, such as during guided conversations or public interactions at the gates; some visitors prefer to keep discussions in Fluccish when their Orth is rusty. In mixed intramuros–extramuros settings (e.g., festival addresses), hierarchs and avout may address audiences in Fluccish; limited fluency can lead to awkward modality and humor.

Relationships

• Counterpart to Orth: Fluccish contrasts with the mathic language and register maintained inside the walls.
• Reference usage: The Dictionary marks certain headwords as Fluccish and dates senses by period labels (e.g., late Praxic Age, early Reconstitution). The entry for Sline explicitly treats it as a Fluccish slang term with evolving senses. A separate headword ("Bulshytt") in that reference contrasts Fluccish senses with a more technical usage in Orth, exemplifying how the tags distinguish colloquial from scholastic registers.

Descriptions/Characteristics

Fluccish includes colloquial and slang registers common outside the walls and varies by locale and social group, which can challenge comprehension for avout unused to current accents and idioms. Speakers’ accents can mark different regions and continents, and in formal dialogs some specialized terms may have no ready equivalents in the Fluccish lexicon, prompting participants to rephrase. The Dictionary shows that some terms are tagged as Fluccish and traced across eras (for example, "sline" as a truncation of "baseline" with senses that shifted over time). Everyday vocabulary is broad and fast‑changing (e.g., devices and media like "speely"/"speelycaptor"). Some school and civic terms preserve older layers (e.g., a modern "stabil" identified as deriving from an older Fluccish "Stabilization Center"). Differences in tone and modality can change perceived intent, and non‑native fluency sometimes yields odd constructions that strike listeners as humorous or overly forceful.

Contractions and connotations: Standard references note that compound mathic terms may be shortened in Fluccish, with meanings that can drift. For example, Vale‑Lore is sometimes contracted to “vlor” in informal speech; this highlights the martial‑arts side of the term at the expense of its more academic and bureaucratic aspects. Extramuros, "Vlor" also names an entertainment genre and—among those who actively practice it—a type of academy.

Current Status/Location

Fluccish is in active use outside the walls and is commonly heard around the gates during Apert. Inside the maths, it is employed selectively—chiefly when communicating with visitors—while Orth remains the default for study and daily discourse.