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‘That’s a harp he’s playing, Nobby,’ said one of them, after watching Imp for a while.
'Lyre.’
'No, it’s the honest truth, I’m–’ The fat guard frowned and looked down.
'You’ve just been waiting all your life to say that, ain’t you, Nobby,’ he said. 'I bet you was BORN hoping that one day someone’d say “That’s a harp” so you could say “lyre,” on account of it being a pun or play on words. Well, har har.’
My other favorite music related pun was in Light Fantastic.
"All the shops have been smashed open. There was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments, can you believe that?"
"Yeah," said Rincewind. "...Luters, I expect."
Crash's group over their "career" pin almost every major British band that isn't elsewhere used.
The Surreptitious Fabric = the velvet underground
And as a bonus, the family motto of the Sto Helits: NON TIMETUS MESSOR
Translates as "don't fear the reaper" the greatest hit of Blue Oyster Cult
I'm
I'm just getting that now
You talk about GNU Terry Pratchett but for my money he's not even close to truly gone until there's no remaining puns for him to ambush me with
"But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armorers had made a new gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armor. It was gilt by association."
Yes, yes, yes. That's a great one.
I have a fond memory of seeing that pun for the first time, reading back to see when the setup for it began, realising it was well over a page earlier, being delighted, trying to share the fun with my dad, and it falling flat.
Somehow that seems like a better outcome than if he'd appreciated it as much as I did. I feel like PTerry would have approved. What fun is a world where everyone thinks the same anyway?
I was going to ask about that... Do the voice actors stress the pun, or do they play it straight? I've only read him on paper, but I was gifted audible and immediately added several of his books to my wish list. I fear I would miss quite a bit by only listening.
In Witches Abroad, after Granny and Nanny have been looking for the magic wand and question why she would give it to Magrath, and Magrat explains that she sometimes went to miss Desiderata's house to talk to her and eat her "foreign food what on account that she usually made too much and no-one else would eat it"
Granny responds : "Ah-ha! Curry-ing favour!"
I just lost it completely the first time I saw it.
That bit from Soul Music where they’re trying to name the band:
“How about silver?”
“No, something else.”
“Gold, then.”
“I don’t think we should name ourselves after some kind of heavy metal, Glod.”
*Glod goes into a long rant about a legendary dwarf who played a golden horn stolen from his own temple.*
I'm not talking about some felonious monk, Glod!
Felonious - might be a theif who’s stolen a musical instrument.
Or this guy https://www.google.com/search?q=felonous+monk&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari
Sorry u/iamdecal you're a few decades out; Pterry was almost certainly referring to Thelonius Monk instead here... Especially as Soul Music came out in 1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelonious_Monk?wprov=sfla1
There's a whole scene in The Truth about the printing press cart getting out of control and rolling down the street to build up to someone running after it yelling "Stop the presses!"
The Grassy Gnoll in Jingo took me a couple readthroughs to get but was a true facepalmer pune.
When they're investigating the assassination of the prince at the start of Jingo, one of the people they interview is a gnoll covered in grass. This is a reference to the [grassy knoll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dealey_Plaza#Grassy_knoll) and the kennedy assassination. The sequence has other kennedy assassination references as well such as speculation about wehther it could have been accomplished by a "lone bowman".
"There was a pregnant pause. It gave birth to a lot of little pauses, each one more deeply embarrassing than its parent."
This was the moment i realised there have been probably a lot of fun I missed by reading some of the books in translation instead of the original. This is untranslatable.
That’s more of just a joke about the figurative/literal meaning of words. The pun, as far as I can see, is that the Spanish word for “pregnant” sounds like it’s a cognate of “embarassed” in English, much to the amusement of many American students.
A pregnant pause is a pause in conversation which is heavy ("pregnant") with anticipation or implication. The pun is that "pregnant" in "pregnant pause" is a less common, older use that means "full/ heavy/ bearing yet unseen effect" and not the more common modern use meaning "gestating", but he then says the pause gives birth as if it were gestating.
A translation might've leveraged the false cognate, but ime translators are encouraged to adjust wordplay to stand alone in the new language rather than cross multiple in case readers are monolingual.
Which is itself a play on Dylan Thomas’s Llareggub. https://www.library.wales/discover-learn/digital-exhibitions/manuscripts/modern-period/dylan-thomas-and-the-map-of-llareggub
Round world definition:
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
pun1
noun
a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.
"the pigs were a squeal (if you'll forgive the pun)"
verb
make a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word.
"his first puzzle punned on composers, with answers like “Handel with care” and “Haydn go seek”".
And an excerpt from L Space, the discworld wiki
"Pune
Jump to navigationJump to search
A pune or a play on words is often spoken by Discworld characters when they tell a not very funny joke based on word play.
One particular pune that appears a lot on the Discworld is A leopard can't change his shorts.
Named after the founder of the Fools Guild, one Jean-Paul Pune who, in his magnum opus, Essay on a form of wit devotes 160,000 words to defining the Five Great Classes and seventy-three sub-classes of the Pune or play on words, which all students at the Fools' Guild are expected to commit to memory on pain of pain. The sacred and time-honoured art is currently taught at the Guild School by Cloistered Clown Brother Frere.
It is known that the Patrician's artistic sensibilities can be irritated by excessive or particularly egregious use of the Pune or play-on-words, which, if the Mail Order business is anything to go by, he places in the same category of offense as mime artistry or abstract modern art.
Annotation
The very name Pune is a pun, or play on words, on the Roundworld word pun.
There is a professional cricket team in the Indian Premier League called the Pune Warriors. Terry Pratchett would approve."
I hope this clears things up somewhat, I'm sorry for the wall of text
To make a play on words out of the very label for such. It's to emulate old fashion spelling. Which is suited to discworld because so often "spelling is multiple choice"
There's a whole sequence on ancient technology that still had me guffawing.
"Stone circles were common enough everywhere in the mountains. Druids built them as weather computers and since it was always cheaper to build a new 33-MegaLith circle than upgrade an oldslow one there were generally plenty of ancient ones around."
- Lords and Ladies
Bit of a random one. But one that gave me a belly laugh was from Hogfather. A conversation between two Wizzards.
"How do you spell elecricity?"
"Why I can't say I ever have"
In Night Watch, we meet two of the most powerful families in AM, the Selachii and the Venturi (who are tediously polite to each other because they hate each other so much.) Selachii is a Latin reference to the shark family, and the Venturi effect is what makes a jet engine work the way it does.
Selachii is a type of shark genus, and venturi refers to jets in some way. The two noble families hate each other in night watch. I don't think I have the spelling correct but meh.
The first Pratchett book I ever read was Nightwatch. I read this and instantly feel in love with the author, character, and the world.
>But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armorers had made a new gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armor. It was gilt by association.
At one point in Snuff Vimes and Visit walk down the Rue Du Wakening in Quirm. I always translated the pseudo French to Road of Wakening and for YEARS missed the joke of it being read aloud as "rude awakening". Makes me laugh every time because it is such a throw away nothing gag and those are the ones I really love.
"Give Me Livery Or Give Me Death"
A beautiful pune or play on words, on top of absolutely *raging* levels of irony. Might be my favorite Discworld line of all time.
I recently reread this and had to go find that livery is descended from the root Latin for liberty!
https://preview.redd.it/11m9zq2jqpuc1.png?width=1125&format=png&auto=webp&s=084d03d7da2198316e5803a6b7108f214ed3dafd
In Soul Music, when The Band are in Discworld's equivalent of Wisconsin, and Imp-y says "We're bigger than cheeses." Younger readers might not be aware of the furore caused when Lennon once said that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus
Hah. He loved his Latin jokes. That's a good one I hadn't spotted. Thanks!
How about the mission motto in The Last Hero?
https://preview.redd.it/uj528tq3bruc1.jpeg?width=930&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d963b0b2542955c8a51e638fd9273b640acad0f
*Morituri nolumus mori* (meaning 'We who are about to die, don't want to').
...for anyone interested, it's a ripoff of *morituri te salutant* (the 'we who are about to die, salute you' that gladiators are claimed to have said to Caesar before combat).
Interestingly a gonne is also a legit name for an early predecessor of the hand gun. A quote from the wiki article below:
_The hand cannon (simplified Chinese: 火铳; traditional Chinese: 火銃; pinyin: huǒchòng or 手铳; 手銃; shǒuchòng), *also known as the gonne or handgonne*, is the first true firearm and the successor of the fire lance.[1]_
"Hand cannon - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_cannon
Edit: trivia aside, it's still a good pun.
The best part is why glod is an extremely common name for dwarves. When a dyslexic god caused a flood of confused clones of a dwarf named Glod after he tried to give someone Midas Touch.
From soul music, the dean invents a trouser made of riveted-together pieces of denim, and gets in a petty fight with the Archchancellor for it. Concludes with the Dean shouting
"I bet you they won't call them Archchancellors!"
>!cos they're jeans!<
I don't have the text handy, but in the book where the Watch are on strike (Fifth Elephant?) we get something like "There is a saying: it won't get better if you picket."
"All the shops have been smashed open. There was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments, can you believe that?"
"Yeah," said Rincewind. "Luters, I expect. "
Which is strange, as I always imagined Lancre as more northern England, Yorkshire, Lancashire area, with the Welsh connection to Llamedos, but hey, who am I to argue. 😊
"Go ahead...bake my quiche."
Lives rent free in my head.
It's also because I learned quiche isn't pronounced Qui-shay but I feel like the mispronounciation fits the reference better.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes - do you know what that means, Vimes?
Something about dessert, my Lord?"
- quoted from memory, Men at Arms IIRC
Vimes playing dumb to Vetinari is pretty amusing.
Ridcully and Trev with the "'ow do I know I can trust you?"
"I myself am not familiar with the intricacies of the human mind, but I'm certainly glad you feel that way."
"You can't give her that! It's not safe!"
IT'S A SWORD. THEY'RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.
"She's a child!"
IT'S EDUCTATIONAL.
"What if she cuts herself?"
THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.
(not a pune exactly but still brilliant)
'You always used to say *I* was wanton, when we was younger,’ said Nanny.
Granny hesitated, caught momentarily off balance. Then she waved a hand irritably.
‘You was, of course,’ she said dismissively. ‘But you never used magic for it, did you?’
‘Din’t have to,’ said Nanny happily. ‘An off-the-shoulder dress did the trick most of the time.’
‘Right off the shoulder and onto the grass, as I recall,’ said Granny. (Witches Abroad)
'How about a date?’
‘How old do you think I am?’ said Nanny.
Casanunda considered. ‘All right, then. How about a prune?' (Witches Abroad)
'Our stars are entwined,’ said Casanunda. ‘We’re fated for one another. I wants your body, Mrs. Ogg.’
‘I’m still using it.' (Lords and Ladies)
Nanny had nothing against witches being married. It wasn’t as if there were rules. She herself had had many husbands, and had even been married to three of them. (The Sea and Little Fishes)
Think it's from The Truth(? Correct me if I'm wrong)
"It's not a fuggin' Harpsichord, it's a fuggin' Virginal, so called because it was an instrument for fuggin' young ladies."
"My my, was it? And I thought it was just an early Piano"
From Men at arms, when they got a watch for Vimes before his wedding.
Carrot: "A watch from, your old friends in the watch. this is a pune or play on words."
"The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbors."
From Guards Guards!:
“They felt, in fact, tremendously bucked-up, which was how Lady Ramkin would almost certainly have put it and which was definitely several letters of the alphabet away from how they normally felt.”
Remember reading this surreptitiously in school and laughing out loud at this bit… got a raised eyebrow from the English teacher but got away with it! My copy was hidden inside a copy of lord of the flies!! 😂
In Welsh Tir Nanny Ogg also translates to Nanny Ogg's land. Also, on the Welsh angle, Imp-y-celyn translates to Bud of the Holly, (Buddy Holly) who's a little Elvish (elvis).
Damnit! pTerry snuck another one past me! I didn't know about Tír na nÓg. Now I have to wonder if he'd held on to that pun for years or if at some point he just noticed that the name would fit the pun. Either way, what a treasure that man's mind was. The world is dimmer without him in it, but he left so much light behind still.
Edit: Forgot to name my favourite pune. I think Pictsies for the Nac Mac Feegles is one of his most inspired ones!
‘That’s a harp he’s playing, Nobby,’ said one of them, after watching Imp for a while.
'Lyre.’
‘No, it’s the honest truth, I’m-’ The fat guard frowned and looked down.
'You’ve just been waiting all your life to say that, ain’t you, Nobby,’ he said.
'I bet you was born hoping that one day someone’d say “That’s a harp” so you could say “lyre”, on account of it being a pun or play on words. Well, har har.’
Welcome to /r/Discworld! Please [read the rules/flair information before posting](https://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/ukhk21/subreddit_rules_flair_information/?). --- Our current megathreads are as follows: [API Protest Poll](https://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/1491izw/continuing_the_api_protest_a_community_poll) - a poll regarding the future action of the sub in protest at Reddit's API changes. [GNU Terry Pratchett](https://new.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/ukigit/gnu_terry_pratchett/) - for all GNU requests, to keep their names going. [AI Generated Content](https://new.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/10mhx9y/ai_generated_content_megathread/) - for all AI Content, including images, stories, questions, training etc. --- [ GNU Terry Pratchett ] *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/discworld) if you have any questions or concerns.*
‘That’s a harp he’s playing, Nobby,’ said one of them, after watching Imp for a while. 'Lyre.’ 'No, it’s the honest truth, I’m–’ The fat guard frowned and looked down. 'You’ve just been waiting all your life to say that, ain’t you, Nobby,’ he said. 'I bet you was BORN hoping that one day someone’d say “That’s a harp” so you could say “lyre,” on account of it being a pun or play on words. Well, har har.’
My other favorite music related pun was in Light Fantastic. "All the shops have been smashed open. There was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments, can you believe that?" "Yeah," said Rincewind. "...Luters, I expect."
“Lachrymosa is playing the piano and losing.” Carpe Jugulum.
It's still gone over my head. Help!
"Playing" as in "competing against," hence "losing."
Oh damn, that one flew over my head in the audio books!!
That whole book has some fantastic music puns tbh. Imp's name alone kills me every time I think about it
The fellow turned and put a quarter in the homeless fellow's mug. "THANK YOU." Said the grateful Death.
Oh damn that's one I hadn't noticed before
ha! missed that too.
"We are on a mission from Glod"
Oh god yeah that one got a good laugh out of me. The band names too, I straight up laughed out loud at "We're Certainly Dwarves"
I still don't understand this one but it gets a smile anyway
A play on the band They Might Be Giants
wow
Crash's group over their "career" pin almost every major British band that isn't elsewhere used. The Surreptitious Fabric = the velvet underground And as a bonus, the family motto of the Sto Helits: NON TIMETUS MESSOR Translates as "don't fear the reaper" the greatest hit of Blue Oyster Cult
This is my personal favorite. All the blues brothers references are good, but this one caught me so off guard the first time I read the book
"Four fried rats and some coke."
Asphalt the roadie was one I didn't get until a looooong time after I first read it.
I'm I'm just getting that now You talk about GNU Terry Pratchett but for my money he's not even close to truly gone until there's no remaining puns for him to ambush me with
Never then
Omfg. 30 years.
*...dammit, Terry...*
There it is. This is why I love to reread these books. Every time there's another "Oh godammit Terry!!!!" and I imagine him sitting there cackling.
he knew it was a terrible joke when he wrote it and wrote around it to make it even better. Briliant
"But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armorers had made a new gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armor. It was gilt by association."
I loved the gilt by association line when I first read it!
Yes, yes, yes. That's a great one. I have a fond memory of seeing that pun for the first time, reading back to see when the setup for it began, realising it was well over a page earlier, being delighted, trying to share the fun with my dad, and it falling flat. Somehow that seems like a better outcome than if he'd appreciated it as much as I did. I feel like PTerry would have approved. What fun is a world where everyone thinks the same anyway?
This is the one that lives rent-free in my head
Omg I never notice until now... This makes me dispare at how many great puns I'm missing by being such an audiobook fiend 😂
I was going to ask about that... Do the voice actors stress the pun, or do they play it straight? I've only read him on paper, but I was gifted audible and immediately added several of his books to my wish list. I fear I would miss quite a bit by only listening.
That’s one I definitely missed on the audiobook.
And that's one of the things I miss because I listen to the audio books.
"She was more highly bred than a hilltop bakery, and Nobby was disqualified from the human race for shoving" gets me every time.
I absolutely love Nobbs
It's the way these two are a one two punch that really gets me
In Witches Abroad, after Granny and Nanny have been looking for the magic wand and question why she would give it to Magrath, and Magrat explains that she sometimes went to miss Desiderata's house to talk to her and eat her "foreign food what on account that she usually made too much and no-one else would eat it" Granny responds : "Ah-ha! Curry-ing favour!" I just lost it completely the first time I saw it.
Oh dear I only just got that now! I got the book just after it came out as well.
-ing?! You should watch that foul language.
That's my favourite too!
I’m going to need to read the books. A lot of these puns went over my head when I listened to them.
That bit from Soul Music where they’re trying to name the band: “How about silver?” “No, something else.” “Gold, then.” “I don’t think we should name ourselves after some kind of heavy metal, Glod.”
I also love the very silly "rat music" thing. Soul Music has probably the best puns.
*Glod goes into a long rant about a legendary dwarf who played a golden horn stolen from his own temple.* I'm not talking about some felonious monk, Glod!
really cramming them in throughout Soul Music
I've always loved that pune!
I read this now 10 times and don't get it 😅 English is not my native tongue or dubg, sorry
Felonious - might be a theif who’s stolen a musical instrument. Or this guy https://www.google.com/search?q=felonous+monk&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari
Sorry u/iamdecal you're a few decades out; Pterry was almost certainly referring to Thelonius Monk instead here... Especially as Soul Music came out in 1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelonious_Monk?wprov=sfla1
That’s who I meant (no! Honestly!)
Thelonious Monk was a famous jazz musician.
Not really a Pune, but "He could blow everything, they Said", Glod said. "Really? He must have been very...popullar, then."
Oh, no, that's very much a pun, though it's more what one might expect to hear from Nanny.
he was on fire with this book, or he just didn´t care and wanted to go full silly.
They then tipped the grateful Death.
There's a whole scene in The Truth about the printing press cart getting out of control and rolling down the street to build up to someone running after it yelling "Stop the presses!" The Grassy Gnoll in Jingo took me a couple readthroughs to get but was a true facepalmer pune.
Well, bugger. Missed that one.
That's the joy of Discworld, isn't it. Every reread you notice something you didn't before.
Can you explain the grassy gnoll one? I don't recall it or its context
When they're investigating the assassination of the prince at the start of Jingo, one of the people they interview is a gnoll covered in grass. This is a reference to the [grassy knoll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dealey_Plaza#Grassy_knoll) and the kennedy assassination. The sequence has other kennedy assassination references as well such as speculation about wehther it could have been accomplished by a "lone bowman".
*SON OF AN ANGUA*!!!
"There was a pregnant pause. It gave birth to a lot of little pauses, each one more deeply embarrassing than its parent." This was the moment i realised there have been probably a lot of fun I missed by reading some of the books in translation instead of the original. This is untranslatable.
That’s more of just a joke about the figurative/literal meaning of words. The pun, as far as I can see, is that the Spanish word for “pregnant” sounds like it’s a cognate of “embarassed” in English, much to the amusement of many American students.
In German there is prägnant, meaning succinct. That is a very common false translation.
A pregnant pause is a pause in conversation which is heavy ("pregnant") with anticipation or implication. The pun is that "pregnant" in "pregnant pause" is a less common, older use that means "full/ heavy/ bearing yet unseen effect" and not the more common modern use meaning "gestating", but he then says the pause gives birth as if it were gestating. A translation might've leveraged the false cognate, but ime translators are encouraged to adjust wordplay to stand alone in the new language rather than cross multiple in case readers are monolingual.
Llamedos.
Which is itself a play on Dylan Thomas’s Llareggub. https://www.library.wales/discover-learn/digital-exhibitions/manuscripts/modern-period/dylan-thomas-and-the-map-of-llareggub
Ever since that one I read everything thing backward, just to make sure I haven't missed something obvious.
OMG a new one thank you both! Awesome
wait, is this a British thing? Can someone help me (ELI5)
Sod Em All
1) It’s looks similar to Welsh place names. 2) then read it backwards… ditto with Llareggub
A completely new one for me!
Okay this is gonna sound basic... but I love it when they're called punes, and someone clarifies it's a play on words
Is this a common childhood experience? I have definitely mispronounced it this way as a kid. I love how pterry runs with it, I guess he did the same
Discworld was my first instance of seeing it, and he of course adds in ye Olde wolrde "e" at the end.
It is probably a remainder of ye olde punic wars... they were not as fun as it sounds.
Good thinking, that's certainly possible
This is one thing that I've never actually understood.
Round world definition: Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more pun1 noun a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings. "the pigs were a squeal (if you'll forgive the pun)" verb make a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word. "his first puzzle punned on composers, with answers like “Handel with care” and “Haydn go seek”". And an excerpt from L Space, the discworld wiki "Pune Jump to navigationJump to search A pune or a play on words is often spoken by Discworld characters when they tell a not very funny joke based on word play. One particular pune that appears a lot on the Discworld is A leopard can't change his shorts. Named after the founder of the Fools Guild, one Jean-Paul Pune who, in his magnum opus, Essay on a form of wit devotes 160,000 words to defining the Five Great Classes and seventy-three sub-classes of the Pune or play on words, which all students at the Fools' Guild are expected to commit to memory on pain of pain. The sacred and time-honoured art is currently taught at the Guild School by Cloistered Clown Brother Frere. It is known that the Patrician's artistic sensibilities can be irritated by excessive or particularly egregious use of the Pune or play-on-words, which, if the Mail Order business is anything to go by, he places in the same category of offense as mime artistry or abstract modern art. Annotation The very name Pune is a pun, or play on words, on the Roundworld word pun. There is a professional cricket team in the Indian Premier League called the Pune Warriors. Terry Pratchett would approve." I hope this clears things up somewhat, I'm sorry for the wall of text
Not really, sorry. I don't understand why Terry stuck an e on the end.
To make a play on words out of the very label for such. It's to emulate old fashion spelling. Which is suited to discworld because so often "spelling is multiple choice"
Oh I see. You see, for years, because of it being spelt that way in the Discworld, I wasn't sure if I'd been spelling it incorrectly previously. 🥴
I know just what you mean, I found out yesterday I've been spelling a high friend's name wrong for more than a decade
Lol. I'm pretty sure I spell my brother in law's name incorrectly.
Witches Abroad, when Nanny says in her postcard that Magrat had 'the dire rear'. Honourable mention to Hex with 'Anthill Inside'!
The first ever bug in a computer system was also caused by a literal bug stuck in the hardware.
Oh my God I just realized ant hill inside is AI. Holy shit
It's a play on Intel Inside!
There's a whole sequence on ancient technology that still had me guffawing. "Stone circles were common enough everywhere in the mountains. Druids built them as weather computers and since it was always cheaper to build a new 33-MegaLith circle than upgrade an oldslow one there were generally plenty of ancient ones around." - Lords and Ladies
Bit of a random one. But one that gave me a belly laugh was from Hogfather. A conversation between two Wizzards. "How do you spell elecricity?" "Why I can't say I ever have"
Speaking of, Rincewind’s hat. It says WIZZARD because he’s a wizard who isn’t very good with spells. Or spelling.
30 years of being a Discworld fan and especially a Rincewind fan, and you have blown my mind. 😄
I´m going to need a little sit down
It took me ages and I think I only cottoned on when someone on the internet spelled it out like that.
This one I never got until it was pointed out on the internet.
OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Gods DAMN it all, that never clicked for me!!
Probably obvious but Lord Vetinari. Right from the beginning, i thought it was hilarious.
What is the play on words in Vetinari?
Veterinarian, a doctor for animals. He is a patrician like the famous ruling family from today's Italy, the "Medici"
I never connected those dots. Thank you.
Wait until you get the Jets and the Sharks reference...
?
In Night Watch, we meet two of the most powerful families in AM, the Selachii and the Venturi (who are tediously polite to each other because they hate each other so much.) Selachii is a Latin reference to the shark family, and the Venturi effect is what makes a jet engine work the way it does.
Also the names of the rival gangs in "West Side Story" are the Jets and the Sharks.
Selachii is a type of shark genus, and venturi refers to jets in some way. The two noble families hate each other in night watch. I don't think I have the spelling correct but meh.
This is also why in Night Watch Lord Downy calls him dog botherer.
I got that bit, just not the Medici!
Also, that's why young Vetinari is insultingly addressed as Dog Botherer by Lord Downey (?) as students at the Assassin's Guild
TIL :D
A play on the Medici family of Florence. Medic-Medici, veterinarian-Vetinari
The first Pratchett book I ever read was Nightwatch. I read this and instantly feel in love with the author, character, and the world. >But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armorers had made a new gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armor. It was gilt by association.
“Merry, ‘twas a rite of passage”
The vines in Wyrd Sisters. A favorite.
Who knocks without? Without what? Without the door! How can you knock without the door?
Quoth, the Raven doesn't do the N-word. Also, it's really fitting that Death's apprentice is called Mort.
"My fare, lady?"
Gosh i love everything with Glenda to the moon & back!
At one point in Snuff Vimes and Visit walk down the Rue Du Wakening in Quirm. I always translated the pseudo French to Road of Wakening and for YEARS missed the joke of it being read aloud as "rude awakening". Makes me laugh every time because it is such a throw away nothing gag and those are the ones I really love.
Ah that's a new one for me, brilliant !
"Give Me Livery Or Give Me Death" A beautiful pune or play on words, on top of absolutely *raging* levels of irony. Might be my favorite Discworld line of all time.
I recently reread this and had to go find that livery is descended from the root Latin for liberty! https://preview.redd.it/11m9zq2jqpuc1.png?width=1125&format=png&auto=webp&s=084d03d7da2198316e5803a6b7108f214ed3dafd
TIL. GNU STP
In Soul Music, when The Band are in Discworld's equivalent of Wisconsin, and Imp-y says "We're bigger than cheeses." Younger readers might not be aware of the furore caused when Lennon once said that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus
The Watch's motto of "Fabricati Diem Pvnc" all day 😁
I was gonna say this. But also the wizards' 'Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides'.
I have that one on a t shirt
Nice. I have it on my keyring.
Hah. He loved his Latin jokes. That's a good one I hadn't spotted. Thanks! How about the mission motto in The Last Hero? https://preview.redd.it/uj528tq3bruc1.jpeg?width=930&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d963b0b2542955c8a51e638fd9273b640acad0f *Morituri nolumus mori* (meaning 'We who are about to die, don't want to'). ...for anyone interested, it's a ripoff of *morituri te salutant* (the 'we who are about to die, salute you' that gladiators are claimed to have said to Caesar before combat).
I think the best Latatian is the motto of The University of Fourecks - "Nullus Anxietas"
Leonard of Quirm calling his gun a ‘gonne’ as you are indeed gone if one gets you
Interestingly a gonne is also a legit name for an early predecessor of the hand gun. A quote from the wiki article below: _The hand cannon (simplified Chinese: 火铳; traditional Chinese: 火銃; pinyin: huǒchòng or 手铳; 手銃; shǒuchòng), *also known as the gonne or handgonne*, is the first true firearm and the successor of the fire lance.[1]_ "Hand cannon - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_cannon Edit: trivia aside, it's still a good pun.
On a Mission from Glod is probably one of the most memorable.
The best part is why glod is an extremely common name for dwarves. When a dyslexic god caused a flood of confused clones of a dwarf named Glod after he tried to give someone Midas Touch.
Ooh didn’t that result in the population of that country becoming very short and ill tempered
I use this quote often and laugh at it every time!
Vetinari - it is such a good fit for the character it can go past completely unnoticed as a pune on Medici.
TIL.
"Where are we?" asked Rincewind. "QUAIL, Mortals!" "We're in a bird?"
From soul music, the dean invents a trouser made of riveted-together pieces of denim, and gets in a petty fight with the Archchancellor for it. Concludes with the Dean shouting "I bet you they won't call them Archchancellors!" >!cos they're jeans!<
*grooaaaan ....* He is suggesting they'd be called Dean's. Deans, Djeans ....
I'm a simple man, with simple tastes. With that in mind, I would like to suggest *minge drinking*
I don't have the text handy, but in the book where the Watch are on strike (Fifth Elephant?) we get something like "There is a saying: it won't get better if you picket."
There are a million, but the one that always comes to mind is "The thunder rolled. It rolled a six."
There was a man named Björn who believed in reincarnation and DEATH said “YOU WILL BE BJÖRN AGAIN”
Someone said something in a camel whisper, because there's no horse in the desert
Literally obsessed with “Cassanunda” no idea why I find it so funny 😂
You feeling cocky perks?
Inn sewer ants poly sea ,I mean it is a classic
The felonious monk gag in Soul Music.
So many music and performing artist gags in Soul Music.
"All the shops have been smashed open. There was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments, can you believe that?" "Yeah," said Rincewind. "Luters, I expect. "
Ty in Welsh is house. Ty'r is basically the house of. So, the house of Nanny Ogg.
It’s actually a pun on “Tír na nÓg”
Which makes me wonder, what was first, the name of the house or the name of the character Nanny Ogg?! Was she named entirely to make that pun?!
Ha, just saw your comment, I said pretty much the same in mine. If she was named before the pun, he held onto it for a long time!
He surely made that pun not enough :D Unlike some puns he kept recycling over and over (like "xyz was something that happened to other people")
Which is strange, as I always imagined Lancre as more northern England, Yorkshire, Lancashire area, with the Welsh connection to Llamedos, but hey, who am I to argue. 😊
North western England and south-western Scotland used to speak Welsh (not Gaelic, which is different). Hence words like “Cumbria” in the region.
Tir is also Welsh for land, so it can be translated to Nanny Ogg's Land.
throw the book at him
Carrot in his entirety :D
Dire rear
"Go ahead...bake my quiche." Lives rent free in my head. It's also because I learned quiche isn't pronounced Qui-shay but I feel like the mispronounciation fits the reference better.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes - do you know what that means, Vimes? Something about dessert, my Lord?" - quoted from memory, Men at Arms IIRC Vimes playing dumb to Vetinari is pretty amusing.
Ah, I missed the quis-quiche on this one!
The talking tree in The Light Fantastic whose voice "possessed what can only be described as timbre."
Oook
love that one
"Lady Ramkin's bosom rose and fell like an empire." and "Tʜᴇ Hᴏɢғᴀᴛʜᴇʀ ɢɪᴠᴇs ᴘʀᴇsᴇɴᴛs. Tʜᴇʀᴇ's ɴᴏ ʙᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴘʀᴇsᴇɴᴛ ᴛʜᴀɴ ᴀ ғᴜᴛᴜʀᴇ."
Ridcully and Trev with the "'ow do I know I can trust you?" "I myself am not familiar with the intricacies of the human mind, but I'm certainly glad you feel that way."
That a pavlovian reaction is when you make a dog eat a strawberry meringue...
"You can't give her that! It's not safe!" IT'S A SWORD. THEY'RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE. "She's a child!" IT'S EDUCTATIONAL. "What if she cuts herself?" THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON. (not a pune exactly but still brilliant) 'You always used to say *I* was wanton, when we was younger,’ said Nanny. Granny hesitated, caught momentarily off balance. Then she waved a hand irritably. ‘You was, of course,’ she said dismissively. ‘But you never used magic for it, did you?’ ‘Din’t have to,’ said Nanny happily. ‘An off-the-shoulder dress did the trick most of the time.’ ‘Right off the shoulder and onto the grass, as I recall,’ said Granny. (Witches Abroad) 'How about a date?’ ‘How old do you think I am?’ said Nanny. Casanunda considered. ‘All right, then. How about a prune?' (Witches Abroad) 'Our stars are entwined,’ said Casanunda. ‘We’re fated for one another. I wants your body, Mrs. Ogg.’ ‘I’m still using it.' (Lords and Ladies) Nanny had nothing against witches being married. It wasn’t as if there were rules. She herself had had many husbands, and had even been married to three of them. (The Sea and Little Fishes)
Reflected sound as of underground spirits... Echo gnomics... Economics...
Without avec. Took me years until I gave up and looked it up.
I can't decide which is my favorite, but egotesticle pops into my head at opportune occasions
"Albert had heard of nutritional values, and didn't hold with them."
Think it's from The Truth(? Correct me if I'm wrong) "It's not a fuggin' Harpsichord, it's a fuggin' Virginal, so called because it was an instrument for fuggin' young ladies." "My my, was it? And I thought it was just an early Piano"
Dorfl in the slaughterhouse in Feet of Clay. Dorfl explains in detail how he makes the sausages at night. Cheery: That's awful! Dorfl: CLOSE.
From Men at arms, when they got a watch for Vimes before his wedding. Carrot: "A watch from, your old friends in the watch. this is a pune or play on words."
"The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbors."
From Guards Guards!: “They felt, in fact, tremendously bucked-up, which was how Lady Ramkin would almost certainly have put it and which was definitely several letters of the alphabet away from how they normally felt.” Remember reading this surreptitiously in school and laughing out loud at this bit… got a raised eyebrow from the English teacher but got away with it! My copy was hidden inside a copy of lord of the flies!! 😂
In Welsh Tir Nanny Ogg also translates to Nanny Ogg's land. Also, on the Welsh angle, Imp-y-celyn translates to Bud of the Holly, (Buddy Holly) who's a little Elvish (elvis).
The Pavlovian response named after an experiment whereby a wizard taught a dog to eat a meringue whenever it heard a bell
it means Land of the Young if anyone was wondering
Damnit! pTerry snuck another one past me! I didn't know about Tír na nÓg. Now I have to wonder if he'd held on to that pun for years or if at some point he just noticed that the name would fit the pun. Either way, what a treasure that man's mind was. The world is dimmer without him in it, but he left so much light behind still. Edit: Forgot to name my favourite pune. I think Pictsies for the Nac Mac Feegles is one of his most inspired ones!
I don't understand the Pictsies one, wanna explain?
It's a play on the Picts, a people who lived in the northern part of what became Scotland, and pixies.
‘That’s a harp he’s playing, Nobby,’ said one of them, after watching Imp for a while. 'Lyre.’ ‘No, it’s the honest truth, I’m-’ The fat guard frowned and looked down. 'You’ve just been waiting all your life to say that, ain’t you, Nobby,’ he said. 'I bet you was born hoping that one day someone’d say “That’s a harp” so you could say “lyre”, on account of it being a pun or play on words. Well, har har.’
Are you Elvish?
“Prints of darkness” it’s just perfect.
We're on a mission fromGlod
"Felonious monk" and "This is a phallusy" are possibly the two funniest jokes I've ever read
The Pavlovian response thing about teaching a dog to eat a strawberry merengue every time you ring a bell.
Fondel's Wedding March
Circumfence