From 7684076e09f3d45291a0589fa376c02543a5538f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: PatR Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 02:23:27 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] tribute: Men at Arms The breakfast+coffee+doughnut one is by the far the longest we've had, but I decided not to try trimming any of it out. It was at the start of a 10 page stretch that has six good passages, but I've only included three of them. I've got passages for two more books queued up, but transcribing and proofreading is a chore.... --- dat/tribute | 247 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 245 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/dat/tribute b/dat/tribute index 340d2a47b..1d40d662b 100644 --- a/dat/tribute +++ b/dat/tribute @@ -591,12 +591,251 @@ kingdom. # # # -%title Men at Arms (1) +%title Men at Arms (14) %passage 1 The maze was so small that people got lost looking for it. [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] %e passage +# pp. 6-7 (Harper Torch edition) +%passage 2 +Ankh-Morpork had a king again. + +And this was /right/. And it was /fate/ that let Edward recognize this +/just/ when he'd got his Plan. And it was /right/ that it was /Fate/, +and the city would be /Saved/ from its ignoble present by its /glorius/ +past. He had the /Means/, and he had the /end/. And so on ... +Edward's thoughts often ran like this. + +He could think in /italics/. Such people need watching. + +Preferably from a safe distance. + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# pp. 76-77 +%passage 3 +There were such things as dwarf gods. Dwarfs were not a naturally +religious species, but in a world where pit props could crack without +warning and pockets of fire damp could suddenly explode they'd seen the +need for gods as the sort of supernatural equivalent of a hard hat. +Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it's nice +to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded +kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their +other armpit and shout, "Oh, random fluctuations-in-the-space-time- +continuum!" or "Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!" + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 119 (perhaps a bit subtle; it would be clearer if 'they' was italicized) +%passage 4 +"It's an ancient tradition," said Carrot. + +"I thought dwarfs didn't believe in devils and demons and stuff like +that." + +"That's true, but ... we're not sure if they know." + +"Oh." + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# pp. 168-169 (treacle == molasses) +%passage 5 +"I'd like a couple of eggs," said Vimes, "with the yolks real hard but +the whites so runny that they drip like treacle. And I want bacon, that +special bacon all covered with bony nodules and dangling bits of fat. +And a slice of fried bread. The kind that makes your arteries go clang +just by looking at it." + +"Tough order," said Harga. + +"You managed it yesterday. And give me some more coffee. Black as +midnight on a moonless night." + +Harga looked surprised. That wasn't like Vimes. + +"How black's that, then?" he said. + +"Oh pretty damn black, I should think." + +"Not necessarily." + +"What?" + +"You get more stars on a moonless night. Stands to reason. They show up +more. It can be quite bright on a moonless night." + +Vimes sighed. + +"An /overcast/ moonless night?" he said. + +Harga looked carefully at his coffee pot. + +"Cumulous or cirro-nimbus?" + +"I'm sorry. What did you say?" + +"You gets city lights reflected off cumulous, because it's low lying, see. +Mind you, you can get high-altitude scatter off the ice crystals in--" + +"A moonless night," said Vimes, in a hollow voice, "that is as black as +that coffee." + +"Right!" + +"And a doughnut." Vimes grabbed Harga's stained vest and pulled him +until they were nose to nose. "A doughnut as doughnutty as a doughnut +made of flour, water, one large egg, sugar, a pinch of yeast, cinnamon +to taste and a jam, jelly, or rat filling depending on national or +species preference, OK? Not as doughnutty as something in any way +metaphorical. Just a doughnut. One doughnut." + +"A doughnut." + +"Yes." + +"You only had to say." + +Harge brushed off his vest, gave Vimes a hurt look, and went back into +the kitchen. + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 174 (clumsy wording; 'they' in 2nd sentence != 'they' in 1st sentence) +%passage 6 +Why had they chased someone halfway across the city? Because they'd +run away. /No one/ ran away from the Watch. Thieves just flashed their +licenses. Unlicensed thieves had nothing to fear from the Watch, since +they'd saved up all their fear for the Thieves' Guild. Assassins always +obeyed the letter of the law. And honest men didn't run away from the +Watch.(1) Running away from the Watch was downright suspicious. + +(1) The axiom "Honest men have nothing to fear from the police" is +currently under review by the Axioms Appeal Board. + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# pp. 176-177 ("this [sic; no 'is'] the pork futures warehouse") +%passage 7 +"Oh, my," said Detritus. "I think this the pork futures warehouse in +Morpork Road." + +"What?" + +"Used to work here," said the troll. "Used to work everywhere. Go away, +you stupid troll, you too thick," he added, gloomily. + +"Is there any way out?" + +"The main door is in Morpork Street. But no one comes in here for months. +Till pork exists."(1) + +Cuddy shivered. + +(1) Probably no other world in the multiverse has warehouses for things +which only exist /in potentia/, but the pork futures warehouse in Ankh- +Morpork is a product of the Patrician's rules about baseless metaphors, +the literal-mindedness of citizens who assume that everything must +exist somewhere, and the general thinness of the fabric of reality +around Ankh, which is so thin that it's as thin as a very thin thing. +The net result is that trading in pork futures--in pork /that doesn't +exist yet/--led to the building of the warehouse to store it until it +does. The extremely low temperatures are caused by the imbalance in +the temporal energy flow. At least, that's what the wizards in the +High Energy Magic building say. And they've got proper pointy hats and +letters after their name, so they know what they're talking about. + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 212 +%passage 8 +Black mud, more or less dry, made a path at the bottom of the tunnel. +There was slime on the walls, too, indicating that at some point in the +recent past the tunnel had been full of water. Here and there huge +patches of fungi, luminous with decay, cast a faint glow over the +ancient stonework.(1) + +(1) It didn't need to. Cuddy, belonging to a race that worked underground +for preference, and Detritus, a member of a race notoriously nocturnal, +had excellent vision in the dark. But mysterious caves and tunnels +always have luminous fungi, strangely bright crystals or at a pinch +merely an eldritch glow in the air, just in case a human hero comes in +and needs to see in the dark. Strange but true. + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 218 +%passage 9 +"He's bound to have done /something/," Noddy repeated. + +In this he was echoing the Patrician's view of crime and punishment. If +there was a crime, there should be punishment. If the specific criminal +should be involved in the punishment process then this was a happy +accident, but if not then any criminal would do, and since everyone was +undoubtedly guilty of something, the net result was that, /in general +terms/, justice was done. + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 226 +%passage 10 +The librarian considered matters for a while. So ... a dwarf and a troll. +He preferred both species to humans. For one thing, neither of them were +great readers. The Librarian was, of course, very much in favor of +reading in general, but readers in particular got on his nerves. There +was something, well, /sacrilegious/ about the way they kept taking books +off the shelves and wearing out the words by reading them. He liked +people who loved and respected books, and the best way to do that, in +the Librarian's opinion, was to leave them on the shelves where Nature +intended them to be. + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 253 +%passage 11 +Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 265 (fyi, they're decorated chicken eggs) +%passage 12 +"All those little heads ... " + +They stretched away in the candlelight, shelf on shelf of them, tiny +little clown faces--as if a tribe of headhunters had suddenly developed +a sophisicated sense of humor and a desire to make the world a better +place. + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# pp. 300-301 +%passage 13 +"You know what I mean!" + +"Can't say I do. Can't say I do. Clothing has never been what you might +call a thingy of dog wossname." Gaspode scratched his ear. "Two meta- +syntactic variables there. Sorry." + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage +# p. 320 +%passage 14 +"Hahaha, a nice day for it!" leered the Bursar. + +"Oh dear," said Ridcully, "he's off again. Can't understand the man. +Anyone got the dried frog pills?" + +It was a complete mystery to Mustrum Ridcully, a man designed by nature to +live outdoors and happily slaughter anything that coughed in the bushes, +why the Bursar (a man designed by Nature to sit in a small room somewhere, +adding up figures) was so nervous. He'd tried all sorts of things to, as +he put it, buck him up. These included practical jokes, surprise early +morning runs, and leaping out at him from behind doors while wearing +Willie the Vampire masks in order, he said, to take him out of himself. + + [Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett] +%e passage %e title # # @@ -1345,12 +1584,16 @@ If you take enough precautions, you never need to take precautions. # Used for interaction with Death. # %section Death -%title Death Quotes (2) +%title Death Quotes (3) %passage 1 WHERE THE FIRST PRIMAL CELL WAS, THERE WAS I ALSO. WHERE MAN IS, THERE AM I. WHEN THE LAST LIFE CRAWLS UNDER FREEZING STARS, THERE WILL I BE. %e passage %passage 2 I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. *I* TURN UP ONLY ONCE. %e passage +# Men at Arms, p. 27 (Harper Torch edition) +%passage 3 +THINK OF IT MORE AS BEING ... DIMESIONALLY DISADVANTAGED. +%e passage %e title %e section