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§8.15. Calling names

Conditions like "if somebody is in an adjacent room" allow complicated tests to be performed with a minimum of fuss, but it's rare that we want to know only whether they are true: more likely we also want to know which person, and which room.

For this purpose, we are allowed to supply a name for any such vaguely-described object which comes up, and then to use that name thereafter.

if somebody is in an adjacent room (called the Hiding Place), say "You hear distant breathing from [the Hiding Place]."

We can even name more than one of the things discovered:

Instead of waiting when a woman (called the kidnapper) is holding an animal (called the pet), say "How can you think of rest when, somewhere out there, [pet] has been cruelly kidnapped by [the kidnapper]?"

Note the brackets, which are essential. The result of typing "wait" is then

How can you think of rest when, somewhere out there, a lapdog has been cruelly kidnapped by Baroness Orczy?

Of course, that might be just one of many animals held by women in the story. We shall later see ways to go through all of the possibilities found, performing some action with each in turn.

A calling, if we can use that word, should be made immediately after the noun it refers to, and not left to hang back after any relative clauses. For instance,

if something (called the penitential object) held by the player is hot

is allowed, but not

if something held by the player (called the penitential object) is hot

because there is too much potential ambiguity - are we trying to call the player something?

 See Repeat running through for systematically working on everything matching a description

	Start of Chapter 8: Change
	Back to §8.14. More flexible descriptions of whereabouts
	Onward to §8.16. Counting the number of things

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