It’s not a Discworld joke unless you read it, don’t parse it as a joke, and then carry on with your life for ten years until someone stops you to say something like “It’s a pavlovian response because the dog ate a pavlova” and you scream Terry’s name with enough indignant rage you hope it rattles the pillars of the multiverse so wherever his soul is he’ll hear it.
#i don’t think this is what pterry meant by ‘a man’s not dead while his name is still spoken’
I absolutely think it is
I read Jingo for the first time when I was 13.
I’m 33 now, and I still discover a new joke every time I reread it.
Terry was a comedic genius
#shoutout to the one in Soul Music about the leopard that got thrown out of the circus because it couldn't hear the ringmaster#it was several months after my second or third time reading the book that I clocked it was a Deaf Leopard (via @morkaischosen)
god DAMMIT
When I was informed that “Vetinari” is a pun on “Medici”. That pun was so painful I couldn’t even see it.
...are you FUCKING KIDDING ME.
*starts thunderously knocking on the doors of heaven*
get out here Terry I just wanna talk
Twurp’s Peerage made me throw a book (gently) at a wall.
In the UK, the book of the peerage is called Burke’s Peerage. Burke sounds like berk, which means a silly/annoying person. So Terry took ‘twerp’, another word for a silly or annoying person, and replaced the e with u.
The Book of Silly and Annoying People, based on the real thing with a pun on the name thrown in for good measure.
OMG I FUCKING *KNEW* VETINARI WAS A JOKE ON FUCKONG SOMETHING I JUST COULDNT GRASP IT. I THOUGHT IT WAS A REFERENCE TO WIND SOMEHOW
I am not a talented punster so I was today old when I realised about Vetinari.
guys it's fucking close to water
Latinclass ca. 9th grade: the text we had to translate contained the words trans means "on the other side of" or in german it can be translated to "über/ hinüber". Also silvas; silvanis means "the forest" or in german "der Wald".
Trans silvas very simply translated into german would be über den Wald
Trans silvas -> Transsilvanien -> Überwald
My latin teacher gave me a very weird look as I suddenly facepalmed myself and groaned quietly.
The Venturi and Selachii feud is what killed me when I got it.
The Venturi Effect is a scientific term referring to the acceleration of a liquid through a narrow tube (like a jet).
Selachii is a classification of sharks. (I discovered this when my stepson got really into sharks)
... fucking HELL Terry.
In Carpe Jugulum, Count Magpyr boasts of having helped write the Malleus Maleficarum, along with the Torquus Simiae Maleficarum, the Auriga Clavium Maleficarum, and in fact the entire Arca Instrumentorum.
The Malleus Maleficarum is a very real, very nasty and absolutely batshit insane book from late 15th-century Germany, basically laying out the procedure for catching, torturing, and executing witches. Its title translates to The Hammer of Witches. The other titles are Pratchett's inventions.
Malleus = "hammer" Torquus Simiae = "monkey wrench" Auriga Clavium = "bucket of nails" Arca Instrumentorum = "box of tools"
Monstrous Regiment is named for a pamphlet written by extremely shouty Calvinist and one of the leaders of the new Church of Scotland, John Knox, in the 16th century against all the women getting into positions of power in politics at the time (Liz I, Mary Queen of Scots etc). The document itself is titled "The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment of Women".
In a book about an overbearing and baffling and misogynist God and the heroes being a ragtag regiment of literal women and monsters, I punched the air on that one. The layers of pun are built up like a millefeuille.
(Also, if you read some of the stuff in the actual tract, you can see where Pterry got some of Nuggan's laws, although proceed with caution because it's a vitriolic piece of work)

















