Discworld Annotations - MEN AT ARMS - Part 2

Concluded from Issue 77

     - [p. 185/140] "Vimes had believed all his life that the
     Watch were called coppers because they carried copper badges,
     but no, said Carrot, it comes from the old word *cappere*, to
     capture."

This, however, appears to be true, according to Brewer's, who says
that it is "more likely" that 'copper' derives from 'cop' (instead
of the other way around!), as in the verb 'to cop something',
which indeed comes from the Latin 'capere', to take.

     - [p. 189/143] "He pushed his hot food barrow through streets
     broad and narrow, crying: 'Sausages! Hot Sausages! Inna
     bun!'"

From the folk song 'Molly Malone':

        "In Dublin's fair city
         Where the maids are so pretty
         I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone
         She wheels her wheel-barrow
         Through streets broad and narrow
         Crying 'cockles and mussels alive alive-o'"

I am told that the statue that was put up in Dublin in honour of
Molly was such an artistic failure, that it is now fondly known by
the Dubliners as "The Tart with the Cart".

     - [p. 192/145] "'I call it a flapping-wing-flying-device,
     [...] It works by gutta-percha strips twisted tightly
     together.'"

This time, Leonard has invented the rubber-band-powered model
aeroplane.

     - [p. 193/146] "[...] wondering how the hell he came up with
     the idea of pre-sliced bread in the first place."

From the saying (of inventions): "the greatest thing since sliced
bread".

     - [p. 194/146] "'My cartoons,' said Leonard. 'This is a good
     one of the little boy with his kite stuck in a tree,' said
     Lord Vetinari."

The reference to Charlie Brown's struggle against the kite- eating
tree in Charles M. Shultz's comic strip _Peanuts_ will be obvious
to most readers, but perhaps not everyone will realise that in
Leonardo da Vinci's time a cartoon was also a full-size sketch
used to plan a painting.

     - [p. 197/149] "'They do things like open the Three Jolly
     Luck Take-away Fish Bar on the site of the old temple in
     Dagon Street on the night of the Winter solstice when it also
     happens to be a full moon.'"


I'm rather proud of figuring this one out, because I really hadn't
a clue as to *why* this Fish Bar would be such a bad idea. Then it
occurred to me to look up the word 'Dagon'. Webster's doesn't have
it, but luckily Brewer saves the day, as usual: 'Dagon' is the
Hebrew name for the god Atergata of the Philistines; half woman
and half fish.

It was actually a Dagon temple that the biblical Samson managed to
push down in his final effort to annoy the Philistines (Judges
16:23, "Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together
for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to
rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy
into our hand.")

After including this annotation in earlier editions of the APF,
there have been numerous e-mails from people pointing out that H.
P. Lovecraft also uses the entity Father Dagon as the leader of
the Deep Ones in some of his horror stories. Terry has confirmed,
however, that the inspiration for his Dagon goes back to the
original source, not Lovecraft's incarnation.

     - [p. 203/153] "[...] Dibbler, achieving with his cart the
     kind of getaway customarily associated with vehicles that
     have fluffy dice on the windscreen [...]"

Take an old, battered car of the type that the Waynes and Kevins
of our world (boyfriends to Sharon and Tracey -- see the
annotation for p.  106/95 of _Reaper Man_) often drive -- a Ford
Cortina or Capri is the usual candidate in the UK. Respray it
metallic purple. Some go-faster stripes, possibly a la 'Starsky
and Hutch' may be appropriate at this time. Plaster rear window
with car stickers in dubious taste:  "Passion wagon -- don't laugh
it could be your daughter inside", "My other car is a Porsche", or
even: "I <heart> Ankh-Morpork". Advanced students might like to
experiment with a stick-on cuddly Garfield in the rear window.
Put in stretch seat-covers, preferably in luminous pink fur.  Add
a Sun-strip, possibly with the names of the owner and 'His bird'
on them (so they can remember where to sit presumably). Hang a
pair of fluffy dice from the rear-view mirror. *That* kind of
vehicle.

     - [p. 205/155] "'Chrysoprase, he not give a coprolith about
     that stuff.'"

Coprolith = a fossilised turd.

     - [p. 209/158] "'He say, you bad people, make me angry, you
     stop toot sweet.'"

"Toute suite" = immediately. One of the few bits of French that
the typical Brit is said to remember from schooldays.

     - [p. 210/158] "'C. M. O. T. Dibbler's Genuine Authentic
     Soggy Mountain Dew,' she read."

Terry is not referring to Mountain Dew, the American soft drink,
but is using the term in its original meaning, as a colloquialism
for whisky -- particularly, the homemade 'moonshine' variety.

     - [p. 218/165] VIA CLOACA

The major sewer in ancient Rome, running down into the Tiber, was
called the Cloaca Maxima. Anything with 'Via' in its name would
have been a street or road. The Cloaca Maxima was actually a
tunnel.

     - [p. 235/178] "[...] huge scrubbing brushes, three kinds of
     soap, a loofah."

Loofah is a genus of tropical climbing plant bearing a fruit, the
fibrous skeleton of which is used for scrubbing backs in the bath.

     - [p. 238/180] "'Hi-ho -- '-- hi-ho --' 'Oook oook oook oook
     ook -- '"

The dwarvish hiho-song. See the annotation for p. 88/73 of _Moving
Pictures_.

     - [p. 239/181] "'He said "Do Deformed Rabbit, it's my
     favourite",' Carrot translated."

Running gag. See also the annotation for p. 226/162 of _Small
Gods_.

     - [p. 251/190] "'All right, no one panic, just stop what
     you're doing, stop what you're doing, please. I'm Corporal
     Nobbs, Ankh-Morpork City Ordnance Inspection City Audit --
     [...] Bureau ... Special ... Audit ...  Inspection.'"

Nobby is imitating Eddie Murphy. Terry explains:

"Almost a trademark of the basic Murphy character in a tight spot
is to whip out any badge or piece of paper that looks vaguely
official and simply gabble official-sounding jargon, which sounds
as if he's making it up as he goes along but nevertheless
browbeats people into doing what he wants. As in:  'I'm special
agent Axel Foley of the Special ... Division ...  Secret ...
Anti-Drugs ... Secret ... Undercover ... Taskforce, that's who I
am, and I want to know right now who's in charge here, right now!'

Cpl Nobbs uses this technique to get into the Armoury in Men At
Arms."

     - [p. 252/191] "'Have you got one of those Hershebian twelve-
     shot bows with the gravity feed?' he snapped. 'Eh? What you
     see is what we got, mister.'"

This is straight from _The Terminator_. Arnold says to the gun
shop owner: "Have you got a phase plasma rifle in the 40 watt
range?" and the shopkeeper responds: "Hey, just what you see,
pal".

     - [p. 255/193] "'Oh, wow! A Klatchian fire engine! This is
     more *my* meteor!'"

Perhaps obvious, but this *really* had me puzzled until I realised
that 'meteor' refers back to Sgt Colon's use of the French word
'metier' a few pages back...


By the way: you really need to have a twisted mind to come up with
a fire engine that *literally* *is* a fire engine!

     - [p. 257/195] "'No sir! Taking Flint and Morraine, sir!'"

These two trolls first appeared as actors in _Moving Pictures_.

As far as their names go, Flint is obvious, but I had to look up
Morraine: Webster spells it with one 'r', and defines it as "the
debris of rocks, gravel, etc. left by a melting glacier".

An e-mail correspondent subsequently pointed out to me that
Webster's definition is lacking, because (a) the spelling with two
r's *is* valid, and (b) morraine is *unstratified* debris only. If
it were stratified it would be called esker or kame, which are of
course fluvioglacial products rather than just glacial.

Hey, don't look at me -- I'm just the messenger...


     - [p. 258/196] "Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower
     than curse the darkness."

From the old saying: "It is better to light a candle than curse
the darkness".

     - [p. 258/196] "'Lord Vetinari won't stop at sarcasm. He
     might use' -- Colon swallowed -- '*irony*.'"

This reminded many correspondents of Monty Python's 'Dinsdale'
sketch:

Vercotti: I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than
see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.

Interviewer: What did he do?

Vercotti: He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony,
metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.

Presenter: By a combination of violence and sarcasm the Piranha
brothers, by February 1966, controlled London and the South East.

     - [p. 263/200] "'I mean, I don't mean well-endowed with
     *money*.'"

Very obvious, but still: it is the conventional stereotype that
both under-sized males as well as black males are 'better-
endowed' than white males. Hence the joke: 'What is fifteen inches
long and white?' Answer:  'Nothing'.

     - [p. 268/203] "'Shall we be off... Joey, wasn't it? Dr.
     Whiteface?'"

Another Grimaldi reference. See the annotation for p.  143/108.

     - [p. 269/204] "'All those little heads...'"

Clowns' faces are trademarked and cannot be copied by any other
clown (unlike clothes or a specific act). If you are a clown, you
can send a photograph of your face to the Clown and Character
Registry, where the face is then painted on a goose egg (a
tradition dating back to the 1500s) and stored.

     - [p. 277/210] "'Stuffed with nourishin' marrowbone jelly,
     that bone,' he said accusingly."

All through the 1960s and 1970s, TV commercials for Pal ("Prolongs
Active Life") dog food used to claim that it contained "nourishing
marrowbone jelly", and showed an oozing bone to prove it.

     - [p. 279/212] "Gonnes don't kill people. People kill
     people."

Slogan of the US National Rifle Association.

     - [p. 284/216] "'It's Bluejohn and Bauxite, isn't it?' said
     Carrot."


More troll names. For Bauxite see the annotation for p. 49/37.
Bluejohn is another one I had to look up, and again I was saved by
Brewer's, because Webster's doesn't have it. Blue John is "A
petrifaction of blue fluor-spar, found in the Blue John mine of
Tre Cliff, Derbyshire; and so called to distinguish it from the
Black Jack, an ore of zinc.  Called John from John Kirk, a miner,
who first noticed it.".

Brewer's may not have the final word on this, however. A
correspondent tells me that Blue John is actually derived from a
rock called 'Bleu-Jaune' (blue-yellow) because of its mixed
colouring.  This rock was originally named in French either
because it was first found shortly after the Norman invasion or
because the buyers were primarily French.

     - [p. 285/216] "'Remember, every lance-constable has a field-
     marshal's baton in his knapsack.'"

"Every French soldier carries in his cartridge-pouch the baton of
a marshal of France." Said originally by Napoleon, though of
course he would have pronounced it as "Tout soldat francais porte
dans sa giberne le baton de mere'chal de France."

Note that on p. 297/226 Detritus repeats the phrase as "You got a
field-marshal's button in your knapsack", while on p. 302/230
Cuddy creatively manages "You could have a field-marshal's bottom
in your napkin".

     - [p. 287/218] "'Only two-er things come from Slice Mountain!
     Rocks...  an'... an'...' he struck out wildly, 'other sortsa
     rocks! What kind *you*, Bauxite?'"

Detritus in drill sergeant mode replays a scene from _An Officer
and a Gentleman_, in which sergeant Foley (played by Louis
Gossett, Jr) has a conversation with a new recruit along the lines
of: "Where're you from?"  "Oklahoma, sir!" "They only have two
things in Oklahoma, queers and steers. Which one are you?"

If anyone can supply me with an exact transcription of this scene,
I'd be most obliged.

     - [p. 295/224] "'You just shut up, Abba Stronginthearm!'"

One of the members of the legendary Swedish pop group Abba was
Bjorn Ulvaeus. Obviously, by Discworld logic, if Bjorn is a
typical dwarf name, so is Abba. Not to mention the 'Bjorn Again'
pun Death makes on p. 82/62:  Bjorn Again is the name of an
Australian band with a repertoire that consists entirely of Abba
covers.

     - [p. 295/224] "'Aargh! I'm too short for this shit!'"

A phrase originating from US forces slang during the Vietnam war,
where the tour of duty was fixed so the 'grunts' knew exactly how
long, to the day, until they were due back in 'the world'. A short
timer was one who didn't have long to go and therefore didn't want
to put himself at undue risk -- hence "I'm too short for this
shit".


Another popular reference to this expression is "I'm too old for
this shit", a catchphrase for Danny Glover's character in the
_Lethal Weapon_ series of movies.

Terry adds:

"'I'm too short for this shit' is a line that has appeared in at
least two grunt movies. I had intended Cuddy to use it in the
sewers..."

     - [p. 305/232] "'I thought you rolled around on the floor
     grunting and growing hair and stretching,' he whimpered."

Reference to the famous werewolf transformation scenes in the 1981
horror movie _An American Werewolf in London_.

     - [p. 307/234] "'So we're looking for someone else. A third
     man.'"

A reference to the film _The Third Man_. Terry says:

"It may be that there is a whole generation now to whom The Third
Man is just a man after the second man. And after all, it wasn't
set in Vienna, Ohio, so it probably never got shown in the US :-)"

The book contains a couple of other resonances with _The Third
Man_. In the film, the British, French, American and Russian
occupation troops in Vienna patrol the city in groups of four, one
from each country, to keep an eye on each other. Carrot sends the
Watch out in similar squads of a human, a dwarf and a troll. The
final chase through the sewers under the city also mirrors the
film.

     - [p. 313/238] "'As I was a-walking along Lower Broadway,
     [...]'"

Terry says: "While there are 789456000340 songs beginning "As I
was a-walking...", and I've probably heard all of them, the one I
had in mind was 'Ratcliffe Highway'."

'Ratcliffe Highway' (a version which can be found on the album
_Liege & Lief_ by Fairport Convention) starts out:

        "As I was a-walking along Ratcliffe Highway,
         A recruiting party came beating my way,
         They enlisted me and treated me till I did not know
         And to the Queen's barracks they forced me to go"

     - [p. 317/241] "'Hand off rock and on with sock!'"

The Discworld version of an old army Sgt Major yell to get the
troops up in the morning: "Hands off cocks, on with socks!".

     - [p. 318/242] "'We're a real model army, we are'"

The New Model Army, besides supplying the name for a Goth group,
was the Parliamentarian army which turned the tide of the English
Civil War, and ensured the defeat of King Charles I.


     - [p. 321/244] "'Yes, sir. Their cohorts all gleaming in
     purple and gold, sir.'"

Lord Byron, _The Destruction of Sennacherib_:
        The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
        And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold...
        The sheen of his spears was like stars on the sea,
        When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
A cohort is not an item of clothing or armour but a division of
the old Roman Army: the tenth part of a legion, 300 to 600 men.

     - [p. 325/246] "[...] Fondel's 'Wedding March' [...]"

Fondel = Handel.

     - [p. 325/247] "'[...] it's got the name B.S. Johnson on the
     keyboard cover!'"

Johann Sebastian Bach's initials are 'JSB', which is 'BSJ'
backwards, and Bach was of course also involved in organ music.
But Terry has mentioned numerous times (not just on-line but also
in _The Discworld Companion_) that he did not choose the name with
this intention at all.

     - [p. 332/252] "'Who would have thought you had it in you,'
     said Vimes, [...]"

Shakespeare. See the annotation for p. 227/226 of _Wyrd Sisters_.

     - [p. 341/258] "'Detritus! You haven't got *time* to ooze!'"

"I ain't got time to bleed!" is a line from _Predator_, another
Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie.

     - [p. 345/262] "It was important to ensure that rumours of
     his death were greatly exaggerated."


Paraphrase of a famous quip Mark Twain cabled to Associated Press
after they had reported his demise.

     - [p. 357/271] "_Cling, bing, a-bing, bong..._"

The scene with Vimes' watch mirrors the movie _For a Few Dollars
More_.  All the way through this film, the bad guy has been
letting a watch chime, telling his victims to go for their gun
when the chimes stop (of course he always draws first and kills
them). At the end of the film his victim is Lee van Cleef, and
just as the watch chimes stop, Clint Eastwood enters with another
watch, chiming away, to ensure Lee gets his chance and all is
well.

Terry says: "[...] when the play of Men At Arms was done a couple
of months ago, [Stephen Briggs]'s people actually went to the
trouble of getting a recording of the 'right' tune for the watch.
It was interesting to hear the laughter spread as people
recognised it..."

     - [p. 365/277] "'They call me *Mister* Vimes,' he said."

In the Sidney Poitier movie _In the Heat of the Night_ the most
famous line (and indeed the name of the sequel) is Poitier saying
"They call me *Mister* Tibbs."

     - [p. 371/281] "'Would he accept?' 'Is the High Priest an
     Offlian?  Does a dragon explode in the woods?'"

Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods?

     - [p. 373/283] "'Like a fish needs a... er... a thing that
     doesn't work underwater, sir.'"

From the quip (attributed to feminist Gloria Steinem): "A woman
without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." Note that the
bicycle is not known on the Discworld to anybody but the Patrician
and Leonard of Quirm. And they don't know what it is.

Next issue : Soul Music

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