SPOILERS Equal Rites Discussion *Spoilers*

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Phoenix

Lance-Corporal
Oct 4, 2009
302
2,275
Hampshire, England
#41
poohcarrot said:
poohcarrot said:
I can't think of much to say about this book, so I'll wait for someone to say something stupid and then argue with them. :twisted:

(Jan's usually good for a stupid comment or two. So is SWReader, but she's incapacitated at the moment.)
Phoenix said:
Eh, I've quite probably said something silly in the above, so please be gentle with me and leave some limbs attached ;)
Um... I was only joking! Only trying to wind up Jan and hopefully bring a smile to the face of SWReader. :oops:
Hehe, I was taking it as a joke and I was joking too... hence the wink :)
 

Trish

Corporal
Apr 23, 2009
518
1,925
Wintersville, Ohio
#42
Tonyblack said:
CrysaniaMajere said:
AND it says clearly that Hilta's broom was old and malfunctioning...
I just think TP forgot about that. He probably liked too much the idea of Granny running and running to start the broom.
I agree! It is a funny idea - especially with Granny being normally so self-assured.
Granny is stubborn.
And it's completely within her (character) to "appropriate" Hilta's broom.
 

Trish

Corporal
Apr 23, 2009
518
1,925
Wintersville, Ohio
#43
CrysaniaMajere said:
kakaze said:
CrysaniaMajere said:
This is NOT an important question, I know, but Granny's line: "don't try to walk before you know how to run" ... o_O: shouldn't it be "don't try to Run before you know how to walk" ???
My (American english paperback) book says "Don’t try to walk before you can run."
So it wasn't the translator's error.
No, this is Granny, who'd say something to the tune of: If a thing is worth doing, do it as hard as you can.
It's the obverse of "in for a penny, in for a pound."
 

kakaze

Lance-Corporal
Jun 3, 2009
488
1,775
#44
Trish said:
No, this is Granny, who'd say something to the tune of: If a thing is worth doing, do it as hard as you can.
It's the obverse of "in for a penny, in for a pound."
When I was a kid I could never figure out what a penny and a pound had in common. I mean, one is a coin and the other is a measure of weight.
 
#45
kakaze said:
Trish said:
No, this is Granny, who'd say something to the tune of: If a thing is worth doing, do it as hard as you can.
It's the obverse of "in for a penny, in for a pound."
When I was a kid I could never figure out what a penny and a pound had in common. I mean, one is a coin and the other is a measure of weight.
until you realized that penny and pound were actually both monetary thingies? or I, being a bluidy minded american assumed it was in for a penny's weight, in for a pound worth...? :laugh:
 
Oct 10, 2009
1,196
2,600
italy-genova
#46
kakaze said:
As someone who'd done translation work, I think that translating a book with as many puns as the average Discworld book has, would be very difficult.
I know, and they often do a good work, they found a good translation for CMOT Dibbler that was really something, but sometimes they make some mistakes that leave you... once, on a serious book, I read that the soldiers were dying because they were ugly... There's definitely something wrong there! o_O

What made me angry :devil: is when they choose to change something. If you're a translator I hope you don't do it. Like, in one of Terry Brooks' books, an elf girl calls his partner of adventure "Valeman" because of where he comes from, and the translator decided it wasn't nice and changed it with "wil", his name, causing a change in their relationship and a consistent error on in the story. I was a little girl then and I thought the writer was dumb.. well, I was little..
years after I bought the book in english and found out ALL the things she had changed. :devil:
 
#47
Phoenix said:
poohcarrot said:
poohcarrot said:
I can't think of much to say about this book, so I'll wait for someone to say something stupid and then argue with them. :twisted:

(Jan's usually good for a stupid comment or two. So is SWReader, but she's incapacitated at the moment.)
Phoenix said:
Eh, I've quite probably said something silly in the above, so please be gentle with me and leave some limbs attached ;)
Um... I was only joking! Only trying to wind up Jan and hopefully bring a smile to the face of SWReader. :oops:
Hehe, I was taking it as a joke and I was joking too... hence the wink :)
Pooh's bark is worse than his bite. Consider him as ... oh, our version of Loki the Norse god of chaos and jokes. We lub him and alternately desire to spank hiim, in a mettyforical sense. :laugh:
 

Trish

Corporal
Apr 23, 2009
518
1,925
Wintersville, Ohio
#48
kakaze said:
Trish said:
No, this is Granny, who'd say something to the tune of: If a thing is worth doing, do it as hard as you can.
It's the obverse of "in for a penny, in for a pound."
When I was a kid I could never figure out what a penny and a pound had in common. I mean, one is a coin and the other is a measure of weight.
Not really. A penny, or a pence or 1P, is the smallest unit of measurement for the pound Sterling.
So, if you'll up for a penny, you might as well spend a pound.
 

kakaze

Lance-Corporal
Jun 3, 2009
488
1,775
#49
Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit said:
kakaze said:
Trish said:
No, this is Granny, who'd say something to the tune of: If a thing is worth doing, do it as hard as you can.
It's the obverse of "in for a penny, in for a pound."
When I was a kid I could never figure out what a penny and a pound had in common. I mean, one is a coin and the other is a measure of weight.
until you realized that penny and pound were actually both monetary thingies? or I, being a bluidy minded american assumed it was in for a penny's weight, in for a pound worth...? :laugh:
No, you're right; it was when I found out that the Brits called their money "Pounds".

But by then I was more confused about how a society could go around paying for things with peas. Wouldn't they get all mushy?
 

Jan Van Quirm

Sergeant-at-Arms
Nov 7, 2008
8,524
2,800
Dunheved, Kernow
www.janhawke.me.uk
#51
PMSL :laugh:

Gods you're a sod smartypants! - perpetrating mythic stereotypes on these innocent colonials!! :rolleyes: That's fish and chips which is not breakfast and in a lot of quarters is most eaten of a Friday night (old christian trad of no meat on Fridays). ;)

Fish for breakfast is generally - kippers (herrings - salted/pickled and then smoked) or kedgeree (smoked haddock with cooked rice and eggs, sometimes with a bit of curry powder/sauce and peas as well) - no chips see? :laugh:

Fish, chips and mushy peas with lots of salt and malt vinegar (has to be malt!) are a tea or dinner-time meal and again curry sauce is quite popular too these days.

With the pound money - this was possibly linked to a pound in weight at one time as 20 shillings (now 100 pence) buying a pounds worth of something or other - maybe pooh can enlighten us on that score :laugh:
 

poohcarrot

Sergeant-at-Arms
Sep 13, 2009
8,317
2,300
NOT The land of the risen Son!!
#53
Jan Van Quirm said:
With the pound money - this was possibly linked to a pound in weight at one time as 20 shillings (now 100 pence) buying a pounds worth of something or other - maybe pooh can enlighten us on that score :laugh:
In days of yore, 20 shillings (one pound) used to be able to buy a a pound of Afghan Double Zero (hashish). This was when the Brits tried to rule the Afghans but failed, and before the Russians tried to rule the Afghans but failed, and way, way before the Brits (again) and the US tried to rule the Afghans (but I'm sure they'll succeed this time).
 

Jan Van Quirm

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Nov 7, 2008
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#54
Nope - is to do with Old English/Saxon/Norse myth like some of the other days

Fri = Freya's (or maybe Frig, fertility/agricultural gods anyway)
Thurs = Thor
Wednes = Woden/Odin
Tues = Tyr or Tīw war god

rest of 'em are astronomical - Moon, Sun and Saturn ;)

Friday in early christian times was a traditional fasting day from meat to show respect for the Crucifixion and the death of Jesus so linked to the communion, but really it was likely already in the culture from before Roman times, because of meat being an expensive commodity (much like it is in some 3rd World places today) and fish were more readily available to most people whether or not they lived near the sea. All the red meat animals back then were also not for regular consumption as they were needed for milk, wool etc so fish was more available and easier to keep than pork for instance. ;)
 

Jan Van Quirm

Sergeant-at-Arms
Nov 7, 2008
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#56
Nope Friday was just the day he's supposed to have died allegedly (the day - not that he died 'cos he did). ;)

And the economics and dietary reasons stand for Judea at that time as well as colder climates. Also most religions tend to like their adherents hungry but alive for the most part - makes 'em much more tractable 8)

Did I mention chickens? Not sure if they have chickens outside of Far Eastern and Oriental parts in those times? Think it was mostly ducks and geese that were the poultry options in Europe and Asia Minor in those days? :rolleyes:
 
Jul 20, 2009
4,945
2,600
Lelystad, The Netherlands
#57
Jan Van Quirm said:
Nope Friday was just the day he's supposed to have died allegedly (the day - not that he died 'cos he did). ;)

And the economics and dietary reasons stand for Judea at that time as well as colder climates. Also most religions tend to like their adherents hungry but alive for the most part - makes 'em much more tractable 8)

Did I mention chickens? Not sure if they have chickens outside of Far Eastern and Oriental parts in those times? Think it was mostly ducks and geese that were the poultry options in Europe and Asia Minor in those days? :rolleyes:
According to wikipedia they had chickens back then. The Phoenicians spread chickens along the Mediterranean coasts, to Iberia in the 1st millennium BC :laugh:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken#Origins
 

Jan Van Quirm

Sergeant-at-Arms
Nov 7, 2008
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#58
Thanks Sjoerd - wasn't sure if they had them back then. Phoenicians were visiting Cornwall if nowhere else in the UK (lots of tin and copper which was also traded with the Bretons and Basques) so we might have had them as well. Anyway back then I think birds and fish weren't seen as 'proper' meat in that they didn't need hunting or herding as such. :p
 

Tonyblack

Super Moderator
City Watch
Jul 25, 2008
30,855
3,650
Cardiff, Wales
#59
Dragging this topic kicking and screaming back to ER... ;)

Does anyone think it a bit hypocritical of Granny one minute looking down her nose at what Hilta was doing and the next minute doing the same thing - selling preparations in A-M?

By the way - pennyroyal, which is mentioned a few times was used to abort pregnancies.
 

Jan Van Quirm

Sergeant-at-Arms
Nov 7, 2008
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#60
:oops:

She's definitely being a hypocrite - the fortune-telling thing's just another stock-in-trade for witches - but it is more an urban thing. People in rural or remote regions haven't generally got so much time for frivolities... :p

Methods of contraception (of which abortion was really the only option in most of those type of rural communities) and female affinity and tolerance of witches go hand in hand. The palm reading/gypsy aspect is as good a way as any to cloud other more practical consultations. Pennyroyal's just one of several herbal methods of causing miscarriage or with contraceptive properties that go as far back as late neolithic times (in Ancient Egypt in particular) although they weren't too reliable especially if taken over long periods.

We've had discussions about witches v wizards, difference thereof before and what it comes down is basic biology and mostly sex (having it, making and preventing babies and feeding them once born). Though males can participate of course, some of those aspects are physically impossible for them and so this means that women's concerns and skills require 'magic' - knowledge, empathy and hands on and off support which is best provided by their own gender.

All the women of the Ramtops value their witches as Terry constantly underlines with the Lancre witches and with Tiffany and indeed Mrs Googol in Genua who's an exotic cultural witch of course and moreover an urban one so Hilta has more common ground with voodoo magic to some extent, what with living in a larger community than Granny. Love potions are also a nice little earner for witches and a more even-handed sexual service for both genders of course - what man would go to a Wizard for that I ask you! Much better to go to Granny or even better Nanny as they understand these things so much better! :twisted:

Actually that's another big, big difference isn't it? Discword Wizards are nearly always celibate and happy to be so it appears. Sex (and it's repercussions) and Wizards aren't a good fit. There are exceptions of course, that almost always end in catastrophe (like Coin's horrible father in Sourcery). Whereas with witches there's matrilinear proof with Granny and with Tiffany who had other witches in the family and then there's Nanny as living proof that abundant sex and witchcraft are totally compatible... :laugh:
 

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