This is all a massive failure of science to pierce the carapace of public ignorance.

In conjectural statements, the French often use the Future or the Conditional, instead of the Perfect or the Pluperfect used in English.

… you could say he's left antdom by being so expanded and perhaps that's true although perhaps just as accurately he's actually achieved true antdom for the first time in his life …

Another example of Smilla's advantageous mindset is her remembered Inuit understanding of space as she recalls measuring journeys she took with her mother in siniks, the number of sleeps that a journey requires (278).