The Cairn
splice
Dock insult for a mixed-line person — two lines made one, weaker at the join.
In full
Dock trade gave the Cairn the word: a splice is two lines joined, and the join is where a line parts. On the station it lands as an insult about parentage — casual from some mouths, a wound from others — and it appears in the same recorded statement as drusk, written beside the name of the officer taking it down. Like the rest of the station's ugliest vocabulary, it is never explained and never lectured over; the reader learns it the way a newcomer does.
Key facts
- From dock trade — a joined line, weaker at the join.
- An insult about parentage, aimed at mixed-line people.
- Casual from some mouths, a wound from others.
- Never explained on the page.