Counterfeit Monkey — 218 of 292

Chapter 14 - The Catalan punt volat Needle

[This is a wholly unnecessary toy that exists (a) to give the player something to fiddle with briefly if stuck with the anagramming gun; and (b) to suggest a wider world of language use beyond the shores of Atlantis.]

The description of the Catalan punt volat needle is "An infinitely delicate tool designed to slip between two Ls. It has no application in English."

Sanity-check inserting the Catalan punt volat needle into something:

try poking the second noun with the noun instead.

Check poking something with something:

if the player does not carry the second noun:

try taking the second noun;

if the player does not carry the second noun:

stop the action.

Check poking something with something which is not the Catalan punt volat needle:

say "[The second noun] [is-are] not very suitable for the purpose." instead.

Check poking the Catalan needle with the Catalan needle:

say "[The noun] doesn't bend that way." instead.

Carry out poking something with the Catalan punt volat needle:

let sample be indexed text;

let sample be "[noun]";

now sample is "[sample in lower case]";

if sample matches the regular expression "(.*l)(l.*)":

say "The needle slips into place, trying to construct '[text matching subexpression 1]·[text matching subexpression 2]'. It fails, however, to make any recognizable word out of this, and the needle wire grows hotter and hotter in our hand as it tries to fix the change. Finally [you] have to pull out." instead;

otherwise:

say "There's nowhere for the needle to slide in, because there are no paired Ls in [the noun]." instead.

Understand "use [catalan punt volat needle] on [something]" as poking it with (with nouns reversed).

Understand "poke [something] with [catalan punt volat needle]" as poking it with. Poking it with is an action applying to one thing and one carried thing.

Understand "poke [something] with [something]" as poking it with.

Understand "poke [something] in/into [something]" as poking it with (with nouns reversed).

Understand the commands "pierce" and "stick" and "penetrate" as "poke".