![]() | Chapter 16: Understanding | ![]() ![]() |
16.16. Understanding things by their relations |
Sometimes it makes sense for the name of something to involve the names of other things to which it is related. For instance, if we say TAKE THE BOTTLE OF WINE, we mean that the bottle currently contains wine - if it were the very same bottle containing water, we would call it something else.
For names which must involve related names, a special form of token is provided. For instance, we could say:
A box is a kind of container. Understand "box of [something related by containment]" as a box.
The Toyshop is a room. The red box is a box in the Toyshop. Some crayons are in the red box.
and now TAKE BOX OF CRAYONS will work, because CRAYONS matches against "[something related by containment]" for the red box - or it does for as long as the crayons are there. We can have similar matches against relations of all kinds, but have to name the relation explicitly, using its one-word name. (See the examples at the end of this section for plenty of cases.)
We can also reverse the sense. If we write:
A box is a kind of container. Understand "box in [something related by reversed containment]" as a box.
The Toyshop is a room. The crate and the hammock are in the Toyshop. In the crate is a box. In the hammock is a box.
then TAKE THE BOX IN THE HAMMOCK will work: here, the relation goes the other way, because the box is being contained by the other-named item, rather than doing the containing.
| ![]() A door whose description says where it leads; and which automatically understands references such as "the west door" and "the east door" depending on which direction it leads from the location. |
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| ![]() A taco shell that can be referred to (when it contains things) in terms of its contents. |
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| ![]() When a character is not visible, responding to such commands as EXAMINE PETER and PETER, HELLO with a short note that the person in question is no longer visible. |
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| ![]() ![]() An instant camera that spits out photographs of anything the player chooses to take a picture of. |
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