From: Lindsay.Marshall@newcastle.ac.uk (Lindsay F. Marshall)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: The Annotated Pratchett File, v2.0
Date: 2 Sep 92 08:54:13 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU

leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart) writes:
>- [p. 158] "[...] the hero had been born in a handbag"
>  Which is what happened to the protagonist in Oscar Wilde's 
>  "The Importance Of Being Earnest".

No. He was not born in a handbag but *found* in a handbag.

>- [p. 47] "Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little".
>  Refers to the quote "Can't act. Can't sing. Can dance a little" about
>  Fred Astaire [But who said this??]

I can dig this out for you.

>- [p. 67] Ginger's real name is Theda Withel, which probably refers to
>  Theda Bara, famous movie star of the 1920's, a kind of Elvira, Mistress 
>  of the Dark, avant la lettre. Her portrayal of evil women in movies like 
>  "The Blue Flame" and "Kiss Of A Vampire" caused the current meaning of
>  the word 'Vamp' to be added to the English language.

Note that Theda Bara is in fact an (intentional) anagram of Arab Death.

>- As far as the giant statue is concerned: think Academy Awards and
>  notice the references to everybody's uncles Oswald and Osric etc.
>  sprinkled throughout the book. [I would never have included this one
>  myself, I mean it's even less obscure then Cohen the Barbarian,
>  but just yesterday someone asked about this on a.f.p, so why not.]

Yes, but does everyone know why Oscars were called Oscars? (Because
the statuettes looked like someone's Uncle Oscar, ro so the story goes...)

WITCHES ABROAD

You should perhaps elucidate the Ernest Hemingway sectiona nd explain
about Pamplona and what cojones are!!


SMALL GODS

Didactylos == two fingers (as pointed out by TP in an interview in a
magazine produced for Dillons or Waterstones)

>- [p. 162] "Go on, do Deformed Rabbit ...it's my favourite."
>  Reference to the art of making shadow animals with your hands, as
>  described on p. 36 of "Moving Pictures": "'Mainly my uncle did
>  "Deformed Rabbit"', said Victor. 'He wasn't very good at it, you see.'"

I wonder if there is also a hidden reference to making pictures with
*other* parts of your body (women need not try). This is mentioned
several times in Spike Milligan's war memoirs and the shapes also have
interesting names.

Anyone interested in hand shadows shoule check out Hand Shadows and
More Hand Shadows by Henry Bursill, both Dover reprints and very cheap.

>- [p. 180] The name Citron Deux-Chevaux refers to the Citroen 2CV,
>  or deux-chevaux as it is commonly called in Europe [do Americans
>  know about this car? Should I leave this one in?]

You perhaps point out that deux-chevaux is a misnomer as 2CV in fact
is shourt for deux-chevron (the Citroen emblem) and has nothing to do
with horsepower!!

>All this may be lost on the typical American reader. Picture, then,
>six men in white shirts and trousers, decorated with ribbons, wearing
>bells on their legs, in a two-by-three formation -- the men, not the
>bells. To a tune played on fiddle or squeezebox, they dance up and
>down, back and forth, gesturing with big white handkerchiefs in their
>hands -- or, maybe, clashing yard-long willow sticks with one another.
>That's morris dancing, as it was done in the late 19th century in the
>Cotswolds region of England.

Please, Morris Dancing never was confined to the Cotswold region,
though the daft handkerchief stuff was. All parts of England had their
own different kinds of Morris dancing, though in the North they tend
to involve swords and clogs rather cricket gear and handkerchiefs....

>None of which stops people from doing it. It used to be the case --
>maybe still is -- that morris dancing was taught in English schools as
>part of physical education, thus leaving most English people with
>about the same kind of impression as we Americans mostly have of
>square dancing, somewhere between amusement and nausea. Enough have
>not been soured on the whole thing, however, to staff (reportedly)
>several hundred morris teams in England as well as 170 or so in the
>U.S. and God knows how many in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and
>other odd places.

Rapper dancing (A sword dance from the North East of England
originally done by coal miners) is sometimes taught in schools in
Newcastle, but only as an aspect of tradition *not* as PE.

Lindsay
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