2
Breathing, for a start.
3
Lit. 'Child of the Djel'
4
It was quite a big frog, however, and got into the air ducts and kept everyone awake for weeks
5
It was said that life was cheap in Ankh— Morpork. This was, of course, completely wrong. Life was often very expensive; you could get death for free
6
Bloat is extracted from the deep sea blowfish, Singularis minutia gigantica, which protects itself from enemies by inflating itself to many times its normal size. If taken by humans the effect is to make every cell in the body instantaneously try to swell some 2,000 times. This is invariably fatal, and very loud.
7
The gates of the Assasins' Guild were never shut. This was said to be because Death was open for business all the time, but it was really because the hinges had rusted centuries before and no-one had got around to doing anything about it
8
Counterwise wine is made from grapes belonging to that class of flora — reannuals — that grow only in excessively high magic fields. Normal plants grow after the seeds have been planted, with reannuals it's the other way round. Although reannual wine causes inebriation in the normal way, the action of the digestive system on its molecules causes an unusual reaction whose net effect is to thrust the ensuing hangover backwards in time, to a point some hours before the wine is drunk. Hence the saying: have a hair of the dog that's going to bite you.
9
When the Thieves' Guild declared a General Strike in the Year of the Engaging Sloth, the actual level of crime doubled.
10
One of the two** legends about the founding of Ankh-Morpork relates that the two orphaned brothers who built the city were in fact found and suckled by a hippopotamus (lit. orijeple, although some historians hold that this is a mistranslation of orejaple, a type of glass-fronted drinks cabinet). Eight heraldic hippos line the bridge facing out to sea,. It is said that if danger ever threatens the city, they will run away.
** The other legend, not normally recounted by the citizens, is that at an even earlier time a group of wise men survived a flood sent by the gods by building a huge boat, and on this boat they took two of every type of animal then existing on the Disc. After some weeks the combined manure was beginning to weigh the boat low in the water so — the story runs — they tipped it over the side, and called it Ankh-Morpork.
11
Like many river valley cultures the Kingdom has no truck with such trivia as summer, springtime and winter, and bases its calendar squarely on the great heartbeat of the Djel; hence the three seasons. Seedtime, Inundation and Sog. This is logical, straightforward and practical, and only disapproved of by barbershop quartets. **
** Because you feel an idiot singing 'In the Good Old Inundation', that's why.
12
Lit. 'Dhar-ret-kar-mon', or 'clipping of the foot'. But some scholars say that it should be 'Dar-rhet-kare— mhun'. lit. 'hot-air paint stripper'.
13
Dunnikindiver: a builder and cleaner of cesspits. A particularly busy profession in Ankh— Morpork, where the water table is generally at ground level, and one which attracts considerable respect. At least, everyone passes by on the other side of the street when a dunnikindiver walks by.
14
Hoarse whispers are not suitable for a desert environment.
