And it wasn't a word for liars, but for lies, if I recall correctly.

[ October 31, 2001: Message edited by: Sol System ]

For instance, when the Novan said he did not believe what Archer was telling hime, he would say,

"Shale .. it is all Shale!"

Which would indicate that "shale" (spelling circumspect) would be a offshoot of "lie".

My next question would be... Why change some of their language at all .. unless the colonists were non-North American. There english was near perfect, if not perfect. Why have different words for anything!?

English has survived for over a thousand years! Why would their English change in 70?

English in 1001, or thereabouts:

Sw� begnornodon G�ata l�ode
hl�fordes hryre, heorth-gen�atas;
cw�don th�t h� w�re wyruld-cyninga,
manna mildust ond mon-thw�rust,
l�dum l�thost ond lof-geornost.

Shale is a type of rock.

Being rock dwellers, they were assumed to have come up with idioms dealing with rocks, in addition to the fact that apparently the majority of the first generation of rock dwellers were children, with incomplete vocabularies and no records of the english language to study. They made a language out of the words they knew.. apparently they didnt know 'ancestors' so they said 'go-befores' those who went before them.

I too think that they made up several words, after all they have forgotten even more important things than their language, for instance where they came from. And considering that Germans who have been living in America for twenty years or so, have only a faint knowledge of their mother language, it's only plausible that even if the first generation's English was good, it may have taken a strange direction without having many references and many people to talk to.

But still a neat play on words .. I did not know that Shale was a rock ..