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[chomiji]

Poll #14930

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

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The cloned human quasi-slaves in Cyteen and related books are called azi, an acronym for "artificial zygote insemination," although she doesn't put in in all capital letters. Do you pronounce it:

View Answers

To rhyme with "lazy"
3 (25.0%)

Like the name "Ozzy"
7 (58.3%)

As the three letters, A-Z-I
0 (0.0%)

Some other way that I will explain in comments
2 (16.7%)

Comments

[yhlee]

Where does she establish that, BTW? Is it in Cyteen itself? I always wondered if it stood for anything but my memory refuses to tell me anything. If it was in one of the other Alliance-Union books I bet I missed it.

[kate_nepveu]

Ah-zee . . . I guess is the second option? I figure since it's lower-case it's said as a word.

[chomiji]

Serpent's Reach has azi, and it was published in 1980. They were handled slightly differently than they are in Cyteen, which was published in 1988.

ETA: Still didn't answer your question. I'm not sure where the definition was introduced, to be honest. I found it online, but I have seen it before — just can't remember where.

[chomiji]

I concur that it's pronounced. I think CIT is, as well.

[yhlee]

That's okay--I read Serpent's Reach but it was long ago as well and I could well have missed it even if it'd been in there. I was just curious. :-) I didn't even remember Serpent's Reach had azi but I can barely remember what it did have, so that's not surprising.

...of course, since I'm not 100% sure what a zygote is other than something to do with cells (I have forgotten everything from 9th grade biology) I suppose it doesn't matter...

[chomiji]

LOL ... zygote is a fertilized egg, so the acronym doesn't actually make all that much sense. It makes me wonder whether, as my father (an engineer who invented things for the U.S. Navy) sometimes did, she came up with a cool acronym first and then figured out what it stood for.

[yhlee]

I had honestly assumed that "azi" was some kind of shorthand for "Alpha to Zeta," except looking at the Greek alphabet order that doesn't even make sense, and I was never sure how far down azi were made (I think it's mentioned that they only go down so "low" but I can't remember where the reference was, somewhere in Cyteen).

[chomiji]

I know that they go down at least to Mu. I think that when Ari I is messing with Justin, she says that the pleasure tapes she's giving him along with her own little psych tweak are "what the Mu-class azi get when they've been really, really good." (There's a presumably illicit scanned copy of Cyteen online that turns up in Google whenever I can remember at least part of a line. That's definitely the line, but I don't want to go on the site to verify that I've got the context right.)

[yhlee]

I remember that line.

There's also some line elsewhere that talks about what the lowest class of azi they practically produce is, even though presumably others were created in the past.

[chomiji]

Found it online. The discussion is in the little textbook snippets where the conception through birth development narrative of several representative azi is given: "This set is Rho-class, Rezner 45 and below. Rho is the last of the azi classes which Reseune deliberately engineers on a commercial basis. Rho-class azi perform very well with positive feedback and minimal intervention, having little inclination to deviate from program ... ."

[oyceter]

Like Kate, I pronounce it ah-zee, so kind of like Ozzy?

[chomiji]

Yeah, that seems to be the consensus! Oh well, I wonder why I was so convinced it rhymed with "lazy"?

[nenya_kanadka]

I say it "azzy", with the "az" as a "dazzle" sort of sound. Which may or may not be what you mean by "Ozzy"? :P

[tuulentupa]

I'm also in the "ah-zee" camp, but I guess the way I pronounce it is influenced by me being Finnish and used to pronouncing words quite phonetically.

[tessercat]

I read it as "ah-zee", which doesn't quite fit either of your examples. Depends on how you vowel, I think.

[cordialcount]

I'm now curious how you pronounce Ozzy. Azi is for me, like everyone above, AH (rhyming with the au in laugh) - zee, and Ozzy is AW (rhyming with the aw in claw) - zee.