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I have now completed the Man and Beast 03 refoirms and am now planning to fully investigate possibilities for Man and Beast 05. There are two piece names that are "standing in" for marsupial ones - the Runout as well as the Ultimatum - and I will reinvestigate the possibilities of replacing both names.
If anyone wants an update on the table that I put in a comment on the Flamingo page, this is the full range of oblique leapers out to the 11th perimeter:
Knight Camel Zebra Giraffe Charolais Antelope Zemel Satyr Gimel Rector Flamingo Crane Chamois Zherolais Parson Namel Stork Samel Ox Famel Curate Bittern Ghirolais Huckster Caltrap Agronome Nharolais Deacon Remel Albatross Cassowary Outsetter Somel Zhemois Bimel Verger Macaw Zrene Lyrebird Sharolais Chainmail Grine Wyvern Rherolais Zany Pamel Quail Xomel Mystic Humel Scryer Lamel Flybynight Mamel Eccentric
First, it is really good to see Bittern in place of Ibis. The table format is good, though I'd like to see the non-oblique leapers, too. I was able to extract their names (assuming extensive use of Bi- and Tri- prefixes), the only missing ones are 11:0, 11:11, 13:0, and 13:13 up to diameter 15. If you consider further replacements; I'd suggest to take out Wyvern because of its usage in Glenn Overby's Beastmaster Chess for a combined leaper. Problemists use different names for a few pieces in the table, but this is not a serious problem for me. Synonyms are much easier to deal with than homonyms, because the piece name is a handle to its moving pattern.
Sorry not to get back to you earlier on this, Jörg. It's good to see your approval. Wyvern does clash with Beastmaster Chess, but then so does Pegasus (which I use for a Bent piece). I do not completely rule out replacing Wyvern, but it will not be easy. It is quite difficult to find names that don't have internal clashes, and I had chosen Wyvern because I had previously underused names using Y as a vowel. An added complication is that my convention for 8:6:n cubic pieces is to reverse the 10:n piece name, so Replacing Wyvern would also require replacing Nrevyw with another non-clashing name. Of course the combination of R and I is now free, as would be that of R and U were I to rename the 8:3:2 leaper Sugarglider - a kind of marsupial to go with Dunnart. That however would in turn require a new name for the root-61 pure-hex leaper - I was never satisfied with Suntrap but am still struggling for an alternative to it. Turning to forward-only leapers I have managed to preserve the initial letters of the 7:4 and 8:1 forward-only leapers, and would prefer to do likewise with the 10:7 one and still have a name fitting in with whatever I settle on for the symmetric one. Had I remembered Beastmaster Chess I might have used one or more of the names from that for the same pieces, but substituting them for the names that I ultimately chose - n:4-n Caribou, n:5-n Gamewarden, n:6-n Trampler, n:7-n Swan, each prefixed with End- to add the orthogonal leap - would have too many knock-on effects for other compound pieces.
Looking into Wyvern seem to have done the trick. At first it looked like a distraction from what had been my priority of getting Runout replaced by something closer in meaning, rather than just ib sound, to Dunnart, but it turns out to help. After some though I devised a way of swapping round the remainder-1 pieces whose radial compounds take Ne-, Ru-, Su-, and Wy- at the start, with one knock-on effect for a remainder-2 piece. What I have come up with is as follows:
10:7 Runaway/Yell replace Wyvern/Yale 17:3 Rumel/Yump replace Wymel/Yump 8:3:2 Sugarglider/Gusher replace Runout/Renewer 8:7:6 Yawanur/Lley replace Nrevyw/Elay R61 pure hex Entrap/Prison replace Suntrap/TanNow Runaway is admittedly very similar in look and sound to Runway (a Bent piece), but very different in literal meaning, and there are plenty of advantages to counterbalance this. Getting rid of Suntrap and its Rook compound, Sunshal, lessens the crowded collection of pieces starting with Sun- both in the Sun directions (Wazir+Cross+Saltire) and the Sunhat and Sunshade. The names Nreshal, Nrevyw, and Wyvshal looked clumsy and were hard to pronounce. Unless there's any major objection or better idea I'll go ahead with it.
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The new name that I had in mind for the 8:1 leaper was Bittern. This would preserve most of the extrapolated names, in particular Birdinal would still have a bird-named oblique component. Those that would change would include simplifications - the exceptional Iris and its compound the Bibshal would give way to the more usual Tibtern and Tibshal.
The 7:4 leaper I still wanted to name after a beast of some kind, to preserve the bird+beast property of the Bat piece, and the square-board beast piece names are ungulate ones. I could not think of any ungulates genuinely starting with Be or Ble of Bre or Eb, so I realised that Bemel and Beau and so on had to change too. In any case, I had an idea for using Be- elsewhere, to replace Ultimatum with Bettong for Man and Beast 05's 8:4:1 leaper. A bettong is a type of marsupial - and therefore would fit in with Dunnart, Bandicoot, and in particular Opossum.
My first thought was Ox, as I had never used that combination of vowel and consonant before. Bemel would become Xomel, but I could not think of any satisfactory replacement for Beau. Then I started looking into words beginning with Lu- or Ul- to do a complete swap with the 8:4:1 leaper. I discovered that there was a breed of cattle called Luing, and thought that I would have to settle for it. It would be a very obscure choice of name for something as useful as a coprime square-board piece. It would alo mean that the switches to pages 03 and 05 of Man and Beast would have to be changed during my same internet session - along with all the other changes.
Then it occurred to me that Ormolu was no better a name for Oddfellow+Dormouse than for a hypothetical Ox+Xomel, and so I looked for a different name for Oddfellow+Dormouse. Evenetually I settled on Dropthru, a reference to how one might "drop through" a hole or a trapdoor or whateer. It was fairly desperate, but it would allow me to keep more options open for when I get round to updating Man and Beast 05. So now I have the choice of Ox or Luing, and am inclined more to the former - but would be interested to hear what others think.
This message is also a test to see whether I can still start my own threads.