Jingo

“Johnny Foreigner” is a generic, disparaging term used by Britons of — well, foreigners. During the First World War, the more specific term “Johnny Turk” appeared.

9

In the latter part of the 19th century, the phrase “gunboat diplomacy” was coined to describe this British method of negotiating with uppity colonials. The gunboat in question would not normally be expected to do anything, merely to “show the flag” as a reminder that, however vulnerable it might appear on land, Britannia still Ruled the Waves, and could make life very difficult for anyone who got too obstreperous.

The Mary-Jane is a reference to Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, which (most embarrassingly) sank, in calm seas, immediately after being launched from Portsmouth in 1545. The ship was recovered in the 1980s, and is now a tourist attraction.

10

Theodore Roosevelt famously summarised his foreign policy as “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.”

11

This echoes a famous line from Stanley Kubrick's 1964 movie Dr Strangelove, which has President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) saying: “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.”

12

A character in Dickens' Oliver Twist is called the Artful Dodger.

13

Carrot has formed Ankh-Morpork's first scout troop. This salute parodies the traditional (but now discontinued) Cub Scout exchange “Dyb dyb dyb.” “Dob dob dob.”. The ‘dyb’ in the challenge supposedly stands for “do your best”, the ‘dob’ in the scouts' response for “do our best”.

14

This sounds very much like the story of young Tom the chimney sweep's transformation, told in moralistic Victorian children's tale The Water Babies, written in 1863 by Charles Kingsley.

15

Press-ganging was the 18th-century equivalent of conscription. A ship's captain, finding himself short-handed while in a home port, would send a gang of his men round the port, enlisting anyone they could find who looked like a sailor. Often this involved simply picking up drunks, but it was not unheard-of for men to be taken by force.

16

In Arabic, “al” is the definite article, and it is joined to the word that it defines.

17

The idea of treating zero as a number was one of several major contributions that Western mathematics adopted from the Arabs.

18

A long-running series of British commercials for a certain brand of bread emphasised the Yorkshire origins of the manufacturer. This slogan is in a parody of a Yorkshire accent, presumably for similar reasons.

19

Reg Shoe first appeared in Reaper Man as the founder of the Campaign for Dead Rights (slogans included “Undead, yes! Unperson, no!”). Possibly Vimes has forgotten that he personally ordered zombies to be recruited into the Watch, towards the end of Feet of Clay.

20

Swires was the name of the gnome Rincewind and Twoflower encountered in The Light Fantastic. Given that gnome lives are described in that book as ‘nasty, brutish and short’, it seems unlikely that this is the same gnome. Possibly a relative, though.

21