This echoes a famous line from Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 movie
33
‘Zweiblumen’ is the (almost) literal German translation of ‘Twoflower’ (it actually translates to ‘Twoflower
‘Rjinswand’, however, is merely something that was intended to
34
Clearly they have been, get this, translated to another plane (the last few paragraphs of this section seem to support the theory that Terry actually intended this rather implicit pun). Note also the “powerful travelling rune TWA” appearing on the Luggage: Trans
35
'Breakaway oxidation phenomena' is a reasonably well-known example of doubletalk. Basically, what Terry’s saying here is that Dr Rjinswand is an expert on uncontrolled fires in nuclear reactors. And we all know what Terry’s job was before he became a Famous Author…
36
‘Dactylos’ means ‘fingers’ in dog-Greek.
The fate of Dactylos has been suffered by craftsmen in our world as well. In 1555 Ivan the Terrible ordered the construction of St Basil’s Church in Moscow. He was so pleased with this piece of work by the two architects, Postnik and Barma, that he had them blinded so they would never be able to design anything more beautiful.
The Greek name Didactylos, besides having the word ‘didactic’ as its root (very appropriate for a philosopher), also translates as ‘Two-fingers’.
The British equivalent of “giving someone the finger” consists of extending two fingers upwards, palm facing the gesturer, in a kind of rotated ‘V for Victory’ sign.
The origin of this rude gesture is supposed to date back to the battle of Agincourt. In those days the French used to cut the index and middle fingers off the right hands of any British archers they happened to catch, in order to render them useless for further shooting should they e.g. ever manage to escape and rejoin their army.
When the English finally won the battle (largely thanks to their longbowmen) the gesture quickly evolved from a Frenchmen-ridiculing “look what I still got” statement into a more general rudeness.
Whether this story, charming as it may be, is in fact completely incorrect, or only partially incorrect, or completely correct after all, is something I will no longer be attempting to resolve in this annotation, since proponents of all three theories have been supplying me with quotes from various history books in order to support their claim.
37
‘Neff’ is the name of an oven manufacturer, and ‘nef’ is of course ‘fen’ (i.e. something incredibly wet) spelled backwards.
38
Probably the best known version of this line is from Woody Allen, who said: “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying”.
39
In Greek mythology Tethys or Thetis was the personification of the feminine fecundity of the sea. She was the daughter of Uranus and Gaia, and the youngest female Titan (or Titanide). Eventually she married her brother Oceanus, and together they had more than 3000 children, namely all the rivers of the world.
Undoubtedly because of these origins, ‘Tethys’ is a name that has been given to, amongst others, a tropical sea that existed during the Triassic era in what is now Southern Europe, and to a moon of Saturn, one primarily composed of water ice.
Note that this is one instance where it appears Terry violates his own unwritten rule that trolls should have ‘mineral’ names. Perhaps this is simply because we are looking at this early book in the series with hindsight: the only rock troll to appear up to this point lasted about three paragraphs and didn’t have a chance to introduce himself. But even if the unwritten rule was already established in Terry’s mind at this point, it seems reasonable that it need not apply to Tethis, who is, after all, neither a rock troll nor originally a Discworld creature.
40
Glenlivet is a well-known Single Malt Scotch whisky. It’s a wee bit more expensive than Johnny Walker.
41
‘Bathys’ is Greek for ‘deep’, as in for example bathyscaphe deep-sea diving equipment.
42
Tethis is describing a planet designed according to a world-view that is about as ancient and as widespread
