Bouncing around the net I found the tree Melia azedarach and thought that name looked fimiliar. Its only one letter more than Azédarac. Since the tree grows in CAS's neck of the woods it seems a likely source for his sorcerer's name.

Quote:

\A*zed"a*rach\, n. [F. az['e]darac, Sp. acederaque,
Pers. [=a]z[=a]ddirakht noble tree.]
1. (Bot.) A handsome Asiatic tree ({Melia azedarach}), common
in the southern United States; -- called also, {Pride of
India}, {Pride of China}, and {Bead tree}.

2. (Med.) The bark of the roots of the azedarach, used as a
cathartic and emetic.

wonder where else he acquired some of his other place and person names.

Did you note the French name of it, Boyd? There's your answer there.

I understood were it came from, but did not know till I encountered the tree, that it had a source. I presumed he pulled that name from the air. I wonder how many other CAS place and people names have a more meaning full root (of course a few are obvious).

article in French

Does this character have any distinct qualities in form?

I noticed another definition of azedarach is :



m. azedarach

Bead \Bead\, n. [OE. bede prayer, prayer bead, AS. bed, gebed, prayer; akin to D. bede, G. bitte, AS. biddan, to ask, bid, G. bitten to ask, and perh. to Gr. ? to persuade, L. fidere to trust. Beads are used by the Roman Catholics to count their prayers, one bead being dropped down a string every time a prayer is said. Cf. Sp. cuenta bead, fr. contar to count. See Bid, in to bid beads, and Bide.] 1. A prayer. [Obs.]

2. A little perforated ball, to be strung on a thread, and worn for ornament; or used in a rosary for counting prayers, as by Roman Catholics and Mohammedans, whence the phrases to tell beads, to at one's beads, to bid beads, etc., meaning, to be at prayer.

3. Any small globular body; as, (a) A bubble in spirits. (b) A drop of sweat or other liquid. ``Cold beads of midnight dew.'' --Wordsworth. (c) A small knob of metal on a firearm, used for taking aim (whence the expression to draw a bead, for, to take aim). (d) (Arch.) A small molding of rounded surface, the section being usually an arc of a circle. It may be continuous, or broken into short embossments. (e) (Chem.) A glassy drop of molten flux, as borax or microcosmic salt, used as a solvent and color test for several mineral earths and oxides, as of iron, manganese, etc., before the blowpipe; as, the borax bead; the iron bead, etc.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, (c) 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.



I presume this is in reference to it's round and yellow fruits which are poisonous.

I was about to suggest a metaphor based on the 2nd def. quoted by Boyd "The bark of the roots of the azedarach, used as a cathartic and emetic", the character being indeed quite disgusting under his mellow disguise, but the def. sent by Alycia suggests a much more subtle pun. Apparently CAS consciously combined different characteristics (what linguists call semantic components): poisonous, praying, etc.
It reminds me of the constant play on words, especially characters names, by another author named Smith: Cordwainer Smith (Paul Linebarger) who did it almost systematically.
This may open whole new vistas to CAS studies!

Philippe

Dear Friends - It delights me that you have discovered yet another instance of Clark's genius - It is only rarely that Clark made up a word or name, and even then the sound will reveal character (Avoozl?!). Remember he had read the entire Hernia Edition of the
Webster - no skimming. I asked him once if he made up names or had dug something out of memory - his response was my favorite quote,"Sweet are the uses of obscurity" - I did not discuss this specific name with him, since I was familiar with the tree having been raised climbing the thing - down there we ignorantly called it by mispronunciation the "chainey ball tree" - a southern corruption of "china berry" - but our teachers told us the real name in 2d grade - a great tree for climbing and making forts. The Texas
"rain tree" is a relative, probably the Cascara of Oregon as well.
While any of the connections with the character is plausible, i would incline toward the mystery of the rosary, as this practice has cognates in tibetan practice, Aztec, Inca, ancient Egypt, and, indeed most mystery religions - It may be recalled that the phrase
in the mass "hoc est corpus" (this is the body...) is the moment when the bread becomes the literal body, and in corrupt common speech became "hocus pocus" as being deemed magic words by which the inanimate becomes animate - ie, sorcery.

Maal Dweb being one of my favourites I thought I would have a look at his name.


Maal Dweb originally Mool Dweb

Dweb

Quote:

"A person regarded as socially inept or foolish, often on account of being overly studious. "

Surley the latter half of the definition "overly studious" is more apt.


Maal\Mool
a little bit harder to trace - I quite like this for Mool -what do you think?

Quote:

Mool Mantra is the very first Hymn that appears in the Sikh Holy Book called the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. The English Translation of the hymn is given below:

The Mool Mantra
There is Only One God
Truth is His/Her* Name
S/he is the Creator, Perfect Protector, Without Fear, No Enmity, The First Entity, Without Incarnations, Self-perpetuating; With the Guru's grace: Recite!
True in the beginning, True Through the Ages, True even now and says Nanak will be True in the future

Perhaps just seeing the tree, knowing the name, brought an association of ideas that he knew would use one day, or just a word he savoured for its own sake.

P

Boyd,

this may be another of the created names, since it has that feel, from the doubling of the 'a', and the 'dw' in the second name.

P

That's rather prosaic; I prefer inept Sikh hymn. And as he's dead I'm sticking with my version :-)

That's your prerogative, of course, however, I have yet to be convinced.

P

Boyd,
I wonder if the word "dweb" had the same meaning in the 1930's that it has today? If someone has access to the OED, perhaps they might check to see when the word came into this meaning.
Incidentally, I was pleasantly surprised at both the quantity and quality of the number of posts I needed to check, since I've been unable to check the ED for awhile. Seriously, there are the beginnings of some excellent critical pieces here and there, and I hope to get around to commenting on them in the next day or so.
Best,
Scott

Hiya Scott!

As you can guess, I haven't been able to shut up recently.

I'm going to drop you a line later.

Ciao!

Phillip

*Author of Strange Gardens [www.lulu.com]


*Editor of Calenture: a Journal of Studies in Speculative Verse [calenture.fcpages.com]

*Visit my homepage: [voleboy.freewebpages.org]

Quote:

I wonder if the word "dweb" had the same meaning in the 1930's that it has today? If someone has access to the OED, perhaps they might check to see when the word came into this meaning.

You must mean dweeb? That's the closest word that I can find to dweb in the online OED; there is no entry for dweb. The earliest listed reference to dweeb is from 1982. From this evidence, I gather that the words have nothing to do with one another.