Minor Discworld concepts
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This article details minor Discworld concepts: concepts and ideas from the Discworld of novels by Terry Pratchett which only appear in the background, or are not well fleshed out.
[edit] Anorankh
An anorankh is a pseudo-mystical symbol, consisting of an ankh wearing an anorak. It stems from a discussion on alt.fan.pratchett, a newsgroup for fans of British author Terry Pratchett, creator of the highly popular Discworld series of humorous fantasy novels. One user mistakenly used the word "anorak" to refer to the ancient Egyptian symbol of life, the "ankh". A series of puns ensued which was eventually joined by Pratchett himself, who commissioned the first Holy Anorankh from Clarecraft, the company responsible for creating the series of official Discworld figurines. Clarecraft eventually made two designs commercially available, one silver and one pewter. Both designs are generally worn as necklaces or earrings, and they have since become an unofficial symbol of Pratchett-fandom.
In Maskerade, Granny Weatherwax remarks that a girl named Colette is wearing "interesting earrings." This is a reference to a fan that Terry met at a convention; being impressed with her Anorankh earrings, he offered her a cameo in his next novel.
An image of the Holy Anorankh design is available here.
The L-Space Web's A.F.P (alt.fan.pratchett) Timeline Martin Walser's anorak post
[edit] Anti-crime
A rare type of crime, or rather, the opposite of crime. An anti-crime, as defined in Reaper Man, must:
... be done in such a way that it causes outrage and/or humiliation to the victim. Merely giving someone something is not enough. Examples of this type include breaking-and-decorating, proffering-with-intent, and whitemailing (for example threatening to reveal a mobster's donations to charity).
Even on the Discworld, or more likely, especially on the Discworld, anti-crime has never really caught on.
[edit] Background magic
On the Discworld, where magic has more in common with particle physics than Houdini, high-level background magic is what happens where a very powerful spell hits, creating a myriad of sub-astral particles that severely distort local reality. Building a house in (or even walking into) a region where this has happened is extremely dangerous.
If you prefer to remain the same species, shape or level of sanity, stay out of these places.
Low-level background magic simply refers to the standing magical field that allows the Discworld to exist at all. Medium levels cause odd effects, such as coins landing on their edges and turning into caterpillers, and high levels can lead to reality weakening, allowing the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions to enter.
This concept of the ramifications of magic is not unique to the Discworld. In Final Fantasy VII, drawing on Materia and Mako Energy from the planet's Lifestream begins to harm the planet. In the roleplaying game Rifts, the large release of potential psychic energy into the ley lines opens Rifts in reality. In Nightbane, areas where magic is commonly used may have residual energies creating a being out of magic, or attract ghosts or spirits.
In contemporary occult theory the idea that repeated magical or spiritual acts may have such an effect are common.
The concept is most likely a reference to background radiation and background electro-magnetic fields. The Discworld version of the Aurora Borealis, the Aurora Coriolis, is caused by charged particles hitting the Disc's magical field.
[edit] Battle of Koom Valley
The inhospitable Koom Valley was home to an ancient battle between dwarfs and trolls that both species came to use as an excuse for their mutual enmity. It was said to be the only known battle in which both sides ambushed the other, and acted as inspiration for the development of the game of Thud.
Later engagements have led to a total of sixteen battles of Koom Valley (seventeen counting a "fracas" in Vilinus Pass), only three of which took place in the valley itself. This is in part due to the battle being a convenient patch for rips in time often used by the History Monks, although the History of Thud suggests that something about the valley itself encourages violence (this might be related to the Summoning Dark).
Koom Valley's story is eventually revealed in the novel Thud!: The intention was to sign a treaty, but some took the sudden sighting of their mortal enemies for an ambush and tried to attack. Both sides fell on their own to keep this from happening, and fought until a flash flood destroyed them. The only word to come from the valley was exactly the wrong one.
This led to the continuation of the enmity until the efforts of Commander Vimes of the Ankh Morpork City Watch revealed the truth thousands of years later, in the process uncovering the last resting place of B'hrian Bloodaxe, the first Low King. He was playing an early form of Thud with Diamond, king of Trolls.
The name "Koom" is a reference to the Welsh word cwm, which is pronounced "koom" and means "valley". Thus "Koom Valley" means "Valley Valley." Pratchett has an admitted fondness for tautalogical place-names, such as "Cheetwood", which literally means "Woodwood," and Torpenhow Hill, which means "Hillhillhill Hill."
[edit] Boffo
Boffo is described by Pratchett as "the power of expectations"; the strength one gains from behaving exactly as someone expects you to. Boffo is introduced by the witch Eumenides Treason in Wintersmith as a means by which she ensures people take her seriously. It gets its name from the Boffo Novelty and Joke Shop, no. 4, Tenth Egg Street, Ankh-Morpork, from which Miss Treason purchases most of her interior decorating supplies. It is possible that the shop is run by a clown called Boffo, a minor character in Men At Arms. Frequently purchased items include fake skulls, fake spiders' webs and her hat (Wicked Witch #3- "A must for scary parties"). No witch actually has spiders' webs in her cottage or keeps skulls for any reason, but people expect witches to do so and Miss Treason obliges them, the better to ensure that when people come calling they don't see what is really there (a tired, blind 111-year-old woman), but what they expect (a venerable, terrifying 113-year-old witch). She also ensures that many of the rumours about her (that she has a demon in her cellar, that she eats spiders, that she has a clockwork heart) are kept current and circulating, to ensure the presence of "Boffo thinking" among her clients. As a concept, Boffo is hardly unique to the Discworld; Rolex watches, Armani suits and the crowns of kings are all, in their own ways, Boffo, only more expensive.
[edit] Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang
The Mulitverse has seen the evolution of Rhyming slang in many times and places. What most examples of the genre have in common is the element of rhyme. There is, however, one exception.
Dimwell arrhythmic rhyming slang (DARS) has so far (2007) appeared only in Going Postal, where it is spoken by Tolliver Groat, the elderly Junior Postman. On first introduction to him, the new Postmaster, Moist von Lipwig is disconcerted by Tolliver's denial of his toupée, when he asserts, "It's all mine, you know, not a prunes." Explanation reveals that in DARS, "syrup of prunes" means wig.
There are only a few examples of DARS in Going Postal, and we are not vouchsafed the specific meaning and derivation in each case. Some are:
- cup-and-plate - no definition but "He's a bit cup-and-plate in the head" implies it means "not quite right"
- syrup of prunes - wig
[edit] Figgin
A small short-crust pasty containing raisins, according to the Dictionary of Eye-Watering Words. (Guards! Guards!) Noted, in addition to the amusing confusion derived from sounding like some sort of euphemism, for its role in the end of Mad Lord Snapcase (Havelock Vetinari's predecessor as Patrician of Ankh-Morpork) who was hung up by his figgin following a revolt. (Interesting Times). It is possible the meaning has changed over the years, but then, there may really be a horrifying aspect to being hung next to a piece of pastry.
[edit] The Jerk Syndrome
Described in Thud!. This is a condition that may be experienced by a woman who is so beautiful, so alluring, that, as Angua describes it, any man with half a brain isn't even going to think about asking her out, because it's obvious she's too grand for the likes of him. This leads her to believe that the problem is at her end, and that there must be something wrong with her. This persists until she meets a man who does not have half a brain (i.e. is too stupid to realize she'll likely reject him, or is so used to rejection that it doesn't bother him, or has some other flaw that stems from an even more major flaw), and he does in fact ask her out, and she is so grateful that she says yes; it is implied that problems ensue because she is, as it were, going to a fancy, lavish restaurant and only ordering a bread roll and maybe a small salad. The concept is used in reference to Tawneee, who is the quintessential example of this with Nobby, although the strange part is that she actually likes him.
[edit] Klatchian Coffee
A strong, nearly magical coffee, brewed in Klatch and drunk only by the initiated in very small cups. Klatchian coffee has a strong sobering effect, bringing the drinker "to the other side of sobriety". This state of sobriety is referred to as knurd ("drunk" spelled backwards), which dispels the soft pink cushions of sobriety and allows the world to be seen as it really is. To counteract the effects of Klatchian coffee, in Klatch it is drunk with Orakh (a very violent alcoholic bevarage made by mixing scorpion venom and cactus sap and fermenting it in the sun for several weeks). After a few screams, a lie down and a stiff drink, the occasional drinker will try never to be "knurd" again.
Klatchian coffee is (presumably) intended as an exaggerated version of Turkish coffee.
Klatch's Coffee was a name of a store in King of the Hill. (To be fair, the reference is more likely to the term "Coffee Klatsch" than the Discworld books.)
[edit] Knurd
Knurdness is the opposite of being drunk; not sober, but as far from sober as drunkenness, except in the opposite direction. It strips away all the illusion, all the comforting pink fog in which people normally spend their lives, and lets them see and think clearly for the first time ever. This, needless to say, is a very traumatic experience though it sometimes leads to important discoveries. Those seeking to treat drunkenness by having the sufferer drink Klatchian coffee should take care, lest they send him too far the other way - through sobriety and out the other side.
Also, Samuel Vimes, one of the Discworld's most notable characters, is sometimes referred to as being constantly knurd and two drinks short of actual sobriety, which at least partially accounts for his depressive nature and tendency towards alcoholism—he started out looking for a cure to knurdness. It is also noted in the instance where Vimes gets knurd, that most people who ever get knurd make sure never to get knurd again.
Knurd written in reverse also spells "drunk".
[edit] Latatian
A variation of Dog Latin. Based on the name, it presumably originates from the Sto Plains town of Sto Lat, although it is often referred to as the "Old Language of Ankh-Morpork".
Pratchett describes it as "very bad doggy Latin." It is most often seen in the mottoes of the noble families, civic organisations and Guilds of Ankh-Morpork.
The classic example is the motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch; "Fabricati Diem, Pvnc". This is complete nonsense in Latin, but looks like it means "Make my Day, Punk" (see Dirty Harry), although Sergeant Colon insists it means "To Protect and Serve".
Latatian is also sometimes used by wizards when casting spells. It is also used by wizards and (as in the real world) doctors and lawyers to prevent laymen from knowing what they're saying, as in Albert's response to mysterious writing, "Sodomy non sapiens" ("I'm buggered if I know"), Rincewind's Stercus stercus stercus Moriturus Sum ("Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I'm going to die") and the Morporkian legal principle "Acquiris Quodcumque Rapis" ("You Get What You Grab").
As well, Latatian occurs in the religion of Omnianism, and an old mantra is "Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum." Pratchett loosely translates this to "When you have their full attention, their hearts and minds will follow," although this is not the exact translation. A more exact translation is "The one who holds the testicles holds both the heart and the mind." It is, of course, a variation on a saying by Lyndon Johnson: "When you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."
[edit] Necrotelecomnicon
A powerful grimoire. Its name is a portmanteau of "Necronomicon" and "telecom".
Since the "Necronomicon" is sometimes referred to as "The Book of Dead Names" or "The Book of The Dead", "Necrotelecomnicon" could be translated as "The Book of Dead Telephone Numbers" or simply "Phonebook of the Dead". The book is also known as the Liber Paginarum Fulvarum, Latin for "The Book of Yellow Pages". It lists all the old, dark gods of the Discworld (i.e. the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions). The First Edition, kept in the basement of the Library of Unseen University, has been known to eat readers. It is said that any man who reads more than a few pages will die insane, which works out fine for the Librarian; he is an orangutan and thus, not a "man".
It was written by the Klatchian mystic Achmed the Mad, who apparently preferred to be called Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches, (a parody of H.P. Lovecraft's mad Arab Abdul Alhazred) after drinking too much Klatchian Coffee. Achmed is also the author of Achmed The I Just Get These Headache's Book of Humorous Cat Stories, the writing of which was said to have driven him mad in the first place.
Grimoires called Paginarum Fulvarum (Yellow Pages) also appear in Good Omens (co-written by Pratchett and Neil Gaiman) and Gaiman's Sandman comic book. Pratchett calls it a "shared joke", and in the dedication to Equal Rites thanks Gaiman for lending him the last surviving copy of the book.
[edit] Octarine
The colour of magic, also often called the eighth colour. Octarine is strongly indicative of magic and can only be seen by wizards, who sometimes describe it as resembling a fluorescent greenish-yellow purple (note that in conventional human colour vision, colour opponency prevents the perception of reddish-greenish or yellowish-bluish colours, and it would therefore be impossible to perceive a colour as "greenish-yellow purple"; if greenish-yellow and purple lights or pigments were mixed, a shade of grey would result). The colour octarine appears as black or invisible to ordinary people.
The normal human visual system works by the presence of cones and rods in the eye. The ability of wizards to see octarine is explained by the additional presence of octagons.
A common conception of the colour is the colour of an incandescent filament when viewed through black-light film, a fluorescent white or ultrablue.
[edit] Quantum
Both quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle have appeared in the Discworld in some form or another; however, neither concept even remotely resembles their counterparts from Earth.
The Uncertainty Principle seems to be simply a "scientific" or "professional" way of saying "I don't know"; Death uses it in The Fifth Elephant as an excuse to appear when people are possibly going to die, apparently in addition to their actual deaths, even though he himself isn't clear what it is. All attempts to explain it outright, such as in The Last Hero, appear to be misunderstood versions of Schrödinger's cat. A slightly more accurate version has been used to explain the peculiar habits of the puzuma, and the unreliability of teleportation magic without assistance from Hex. A related concept is the Theory of Thaumic Imponderability, which says it is impossible to tell exactly what a given spell will do, until it's too late.
Quantum, on the other hand, isn't explained at all; in fact, it serves much the same function as "magic" does on Earth, as described in The Discworld Companion, "a sort of get-out-of-half-understood-explanation-free card" — essentially, an explanation that does not, in fact, explain anything. It should be noted that just "magic" by itself would not be appropriate as such a non-explanation on the Discworld, since magic is a more or less fully-understood phenomenon (as in The Last Hero, when Leonard of Quirm attempts to explain weightlessness in a spaceship as "er ... magic" and Rincewind asks, "What kind of magic?"). Another explanation of Quantum is given in Pyramids as "add another nought" (in regards to accounting).
It is implied in the books that Ponder Stibbons may have a better understanding of both concepts, but has given up trying to explain them to anyone.
[edit] Re-annual plant
In addition to the more common annual plants, biennial plants and perennial plants, Discworld harbors a small number of re-annual plants. These are plants which, due to a rare 4-dimensional twist in their genetic structure, flower and grow before their seed germinates. This is usually only possible in areas with considerable amounts of background magic. Farmers who grow re-annual plants are usually very careful about dates of sowing, lest they cause devastating temporal paradoxes (such as dying of starvation because the food one lived off months ago was never grown). The Discworld Almanak also mentions how a garden implement carelessly strewn among re-annuals months later can cause serious damage today, indicating that they can move items they are in contact with through time, as well.
When re-annual plant products undergo fermentation, the product is time-reversed alcohol, a rare substance much sought by fortune-tellers and the like, as ingesting it allows some ability to foretell the future, which from the point of view of the plant is the past. Time-reversed alcohol produces inebriation in the normal way, but the hangover is thrust backwards in time to several hours before the actual ingestion of the alcohol. This is known as a hangunder, and is usually very strong since one feels so dreadful one imbibes large amounts of alcohol to get over it.
The only revealed re-annual plants are the vul nut vine, which is remarkable in that it can begin to flower as much as eight years before being sown and reannual grapes, which are harvested a year in advance of being sown.
[edit] Retrophrenology
A small industry springing up on the area around Ankh-Morpork based on the concepts of phrenology and physiognomy. However, retrophrenologists, rather than measuring a person's head and predicting their personality traits, seek to give customers whatever traits they desire to have by moulding their heads directly. What actually happens is that the customer is hit with a selection of different sized mallets, a treatment that can be said in complete honesty not to hurt a 'bit'. The efficacy of such treatments is unknown, but at least it keeps the money in circulation.
[edit] Roundworld
Roundworld is the Discworld term for both planet Earth and the "real" universe itself. From a Discworld point of view it exists in a glass sphere at Unseen University, where it is taken care of by Rincewind. It was created by Hex to use up a huge excess of magic, created after the wizards split the thaum. The key point of Roundworld, however, is that it doesn't contain any magic. The wizards are fascinated, however, by the fact it does seem to have rules of its own.
Roundworld is the focus of all three Science of Discworld novels.
[edit] Scumble
An alcoholic beverage drunk in very small cups some months apart (or served to strangers in pint mugs, as a sort of initiation test).
It was first introduced in Mort which tells us:
"A lot of stories are told about scumble, and how it is made out on the damp marshes, according to ancient recipes passed down rather unsteadily from father to son. It's not true about the rats, or the snakes' heads, or the lead shot. The one about the dead sheep is a complete fabrication. We can lay to rest all the variants of the one about the trouser button. But the one about not letting it come into contact with metal is absolutely true..."
It is a parody of scrumpy and is made with apples. Well, mainly apples. Good scumble apples include the Lancre Blackheart, the Golden Disagreeable and the Green Billet. In Mort it was drunk on the Sto Plains, but in later books it is associated with Lancre, where it is distilled by Nanny Ogg (whose particular variant is known as "Suicider").
When scumble is mixed with dwarfish beer, it creates a highly intoxicating cocktail known as "Fluff".
[edit] Slood
Slood is something that could be discovered by intelligent civilizations, such as fire or water, but that humans on Earth have been too unintelligent to find. It is first described in The Last Continent. One of Rincewind's many accumulated positions is Reader in Slood Dynamics.
[edit] Thaum
see also: Discworld magic, Fictional particles, and Thaumaturgy.
The Thaum is a measuring unit used in quantifying magic. It equals the amount of mystical energy required to conjure up one small white pigeon, or three normal-sized billiard balls. It can, of course, be measured with a thaumometer, and regular SI-modifiers apply (e.g. millithaum, kilothaum).
A thaumometer looks like a black cube with a dial on one side. A standard one is good for up to a million thaums - if there is more magic than that around, measuring it is not going to do any good.
An alternate measurement is the "Prime." It measures the amount of mystical energy required to move one pound of lead one foot. An attempt to put magic measurement into a logical framework, it never really caught on, as wizards are natural traditionalists.
Confusingly, the thaum also appears to be a particle; the magical equivalent of the atom. "Splitting the thaum" revealed that it was in fact composed of numerous sub-particles, called resons ("thingies") which came in five "flavours", up, down, sideways, sex appeal, and peppermint (see quarks). Note that since even before this discovery magical fields of less than one thaum were reported (The Light Fantastic), the particle known as the thaum must represent less magic than one thaum on the measuring scale.
The term thaum is based on the Greek term thauma (marvel), which is often used as a prefix meaning "magical" on the Discworld. It also suggests the non-SI unit of energy therm.
[edit] Wahoonie
A fruit that grows in Howondaland. It is highly prized by some; the colour (earwax) and smell (like a sick anteater) make most people feel ill. It is also covered in spikes.
Its name may be based on the poisonous wahoo fruit, although the description is similar to the durian.
Ankh-Morpork is known as the Big Wahoonie, although the fruit does not smell that bad.
[edit] Wandering Shops
Also known as Tabernae Vagrantes. These are the mysterious shops from which people buy magical items, only to return when there turns out to be a problem (as there always does), and find the shop is vanished (as seen in H.G. Wells' "The Magic Shop", and various other fantasy stories).
One of these shops appears in The Light Fantastic, under the name "Wang, Yrxle!yt, Bunglestiff, Cwmlad and Patel. Estblshd Various. PURVEYORS". The proprietor explains that he operates under a curse, having failed to supply an item requested by a sourcerer, and being irritating about it. Twoflower apparently gained the Luggage from a similar shop.
Another, specialising in enchanted musical instruments, was encountered by some members of the Band With Rocks In during the events described in Soul Music, while they were trying to replace a ruined musical instrument. They were there able to buy the guitar which brought the Band fame (or which caused all the trouble, depending on your point of view). When two members of the Band came back to try to get more information about the guitar they were wholly unsuccessful, but after leaving, the presence of a faded '1' on the guitar caused one Band member to wonder who could have pawned the guitar:
"... but, I mean, number one. Even the conch shell was number fifty-two. Who used to own the guitar?"
to which his companion responds:
"Don't know, but I hope they never come back for it."
An equally interesting conundrum is - who did they pawn it to?
[edit] Wow-Wow sauce
A parody of the real world sauce of the same name. The Discworld version was invented by an uncle of Mustrum Ridcully, and its ingredients include grated wahoonie, asafoetida, scumble, sulphur and saltpetre. It is a highly unstable substance and believed to be responsible (when combined with a charcoal biscuit) for the elder Ridcully's explosive death. (See Black powder for why the combination might be problematic.) A presumably different uncle of Ridcully's used to swear by (or rather, swear at) Wow-Wow Sauce as a hangover cure; according to Ridcully, "He seemed very peaceful when they came to lay him out". Ridcully also advised that Wow-Wow Sauce must never be consumed when sweat is condensing on the bottle.
[edit] Reference
[edit] See also
- List of fictional books within the Discworld series
- Fauna of the Discworld
- List of fictional laws and rules
