# Kaor! I'm from Helium, Barsoom **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 11, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508 "2022-08-11T21:06:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/1 "2022-08-11T21:06:29Z")
“Kaor! I’m from Helium, Barsoom.” is a comment I made to a Facebook post. Then I got to wondering how well known “kaor” is. I didn’t expect it to be the first result, but kaor as a greeting is nowhere on Google that I could see. Kaor is from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars books. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/2 "2022-08-11T21:09:11Z")
This might help a little: > **[Martian Language](https://barsoom.fandom.com/wiki/Martian_Language#Written_Language)** > > The Martian language is the spoken and written language of Barsoom, used and understood by nearly all sapient-beings on the planet. It has a relatively small vocabulary, as Martians have very little need or patience for poetics, with nuances and... ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/3 "2022-08-11T21:11:04Z")
I had no idea what “kaor” was, but seeing “Barsoom” I knew it was from Burroughs’ Mars books. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/4 "2022-08-11T21:21:56Z")
I’ve never read any Burroughs. I’ve been meaning to, if nothing else for the historical context. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/5 "2022-08-11T21:23:02Z")
I’ve read multiple Mars books, maybe all of them. It was decades ago. I don’t remember them particularly well but I found them pretty entertaining as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/6 "2022-08-11T21:39:09Z")
Same here. Read them all by the end of High School, nothing since. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/7 "2022-08-11T22:02:01Z")
I read them all by the end of college. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/8 "2022-08-11T22:04:04Z")
I think I read about everything ERB had in print back when I was in High School. It helped that I worked at Waldenbooks back then as my after school job. Tarzan, John Carter, Carson of Venus, Pellucidar, etc. I only vaguely remember “Kaor”, though. Anyone else remember this [Barsoom poem](http://www.charlesrtanner.com/published/1968/03/01/princess-of-mars.html) by Charles R. Tanner? Sample stanza: “The green men came up fast so she fled upon a thoat. John Carter told her, “Go, I’ll stay behind and be the goat.” But when the Martians got up close, he saw they were no Tharks. These savage goons were all Warhoons, a damsite worse than sharks.” ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/9 "2022-08-11T22:10:51Z")
ERB really packed the series with the craziness: brain transplants, synthetic people, invisible spaceships, and a strict adherence to sword fighting even though, as ERB points out, they always carried a “radium pistol”. The reader is rewarded with imaginative zaniness if suspension of disbelief can be achieved. ERB didn’t make it easy. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/10 "2022-08-11T22:19:54Z")
I’ve read one or two Pelucidar and Barsoom books- and a few silver age Marvel comics of Barsoom. I liked it but not enough to shell out a bunch of money. ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2022, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/11 "2022-08-11T23:12:19Z")
I only know it tangentially from Heinlein. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2022, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/12 "2022-08-15T22:25:25Z")
I read them all before graduating high school. (They were on the bookmobile.) I enjoyed them. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2022, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/13 "2022-08-16T00:24:02Z")
I owned all of the Tarzan, Barsoom and Pellucidar books, all or most of the Amtor stories, and a lot of his other books when I was in jr high and high school. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2022, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/14 "2022-08-16T01:53:37Z")
I read all the Tarzan books, the Caspak books, the Mars books, the Moon Maid books, and several (but not all) of the Pellucidar and Carson of Venus novels. I’ve also read a lot of his stand-alone novels, like The Monster Men, Beyond the Farthest Star, and Beyond Thirty/Lost Continent. Burroughs had a prolific imagination, but he wasn’t really all that great a writer, as I realized when I read **Tarzan and the Valley of Gold** by Fritz Leiber (the first authorized Tarzan book since Burroughs’ death). Leiber simply blew Burroughs away. To tell the truth, I’d forgotten “Kaor!”, but it was easy to figure out in context. I just recently read the DC Pellucidar and John Carter series in collections. I’d started reading the issues, but not all of them were available at my newsstand, so I had significant gaps in my reading until I picked these up a few months ago. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2022, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/15 "2022-08-16T02:19:02Z")
I’ve read Burroughs’s Lensman series, and a couple Skylarks, but none of the Mars ones. I did recognize “Kaor”, but that’s because I read _The Number of the Beast_. ETA: Was ERB the writer who bet he couldn’t write a story so bad it wouldn’t be sold, and someone took him up on the bet, and he wrote the first Barsoom novel and not only did the story sell but he had to keep writing sequels? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2022, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/16 "2022-08-16T02:29:12Z")
Lensmen and Skylark were by the father of Space Opera; E E Doc Smith. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2022, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/17 "2022-08-16T02:39:32Z")
GAH! 🤪 🤪 ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2022, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/18 "2022-08-16T02:40:33Z")
Those books I love and reread every 5-10 years. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2022, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/19 "2022-08-16T02:41:26Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > Was ERB the writer who bet he couldn’t write a story so bad it wouldn’t be sold, and someone took him up on the bet, and he wrote the first Barsoom novel and not only did the story sell but he had to keep writing sequels? No. ERB worked for his brother’s stationery company (like working for a real-life Dunder Mifflin) and wrote the first half of the novel on scratch pads made by the business. He had a wife and two kids and submitted the story to _All-Story Magazine_ as a pulp serial, since he was desperate for money. He had previously failed in different business ventures, but had come to know a variety of different people in his endeavors (miners, cowboys, soldiers, various real-world adventurers). Their collective stories helped inspire the content of _A Princess of Mars_. So essentially, the real story is the opposite of what you were thinking. It was his first break into the literary world and done when he badly needed income. Only later did his other stories come out, including Tarzan (also inspired by stories he’d heard from his travels and people he’d met). ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2022, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508/20 "2022-08-16T02:59:04Z")
Well, no. I don’t know who the writer is who bet he couldn’t write a story so bad it wouldn’t sell. It’s supposed to be a “well-known anecdote” in the SF community, but no one has ever told me who it was, and I’ve _asked_. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kaor-im-from-helium-barsoom/969508.md?page=2)