'Never talk to people who write things down.' (MR)
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... she thought there should be a word meaning ‘a word that sounds like the noise a thing would make if that thing made a noise even though, actually, it doesn’t, but would if it ‘did’.
Glint, for example. If light made a noise as it reflected off a distant window, it’d go ‘glint!’ And the light of tinsel, all those little glints chiming together, would make a noise like ‘glitterglitter’. ‘Gleam’ was a clean, smooth noise from a surface that intended to shine all day. And ‘glisten’ was the soft, almost greasy sound of something rich and oily. (WFM) There was a lot of mist around, but a few stars were visible overheard and there was a gibbous moon in the sky. Tiffany knew it was gibbous because she’d read in the Almanack that ‘gibbous’ meant what the moon looked like when it was just a bit fatter than half full, and so she made a point of paying attention to it around those times just so that she could say to herself: ‘Ah, I see the moon’s very gibbous tonight ...' (WFM)
'I would like a question answered today', said Tiffany.
‘Provided it’s not the one about how you get baby hedgehogs,’ said the man. ‘No,’ said Tiffany patiently. ‘It’s about zoology.’ ‘Zoology, eh? That’s a big word, isn’t it.’ ‘No, actually it isn’t,’ said Tiffany. ‘Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.' (WFM) Sussurrus…according to her grandmother’s dictionary, it meant ‘a low soft sound, as of whispering or muttering’. Tiffany liked the taste of the word. It made her think of mysterious people in long cloaks whispering important secrets behind a door…susurrususssurrusss... (WFM)
If Ankh-Morpork had a grid, there would have been gridlock. Since it did not it was, in the words of Sergeant Colon, ‘a case of no one being able to move because of everyone else’. Admittedly, this phrase, while accurate, did not have the same snap. (NW)
Just for a moment there was an unusual feeling of bliss. Strange word, he thought. It’s one of those words that describes something that does not make a noise, but if it did make a noise would sound just like that. Bliss. (TT)
Words resemble fish in that some specialist ones can survive only in a kind of reef, where their curious shapes and usages are protected from the hurly-burly of the open sea. ‘Rumpus’ and ‘fracas’ are found only in certain newspapers (in much the same way that ‘beverages’ are found only in certain menus). They are never used in normal conversation. (TT)
'D*mn!’ said Carrot, a difficult linguistic feat. (FC)
The Librarian of Unseen University had unilaterally decided to aid comprehension by producing an Orang-utan/Human Dictionary. He’d been working on it for three months. It wasn’t easy. He’d got as far as ‘Oook’. (MA)
Words are the litmus paper of the minds. If you find yourself in the power of someone who will use the word ‘commence’ in cold blood, go somewhere else very quickly. But if they say ‘Enter’, don’t stop to pack. (SG)
Granny Weatherwax wouldn’t know what a pattern of quantum inevitability was if she found it eating her dinner. If you mentioned the words ‘paradigm of space-time’ to her she’d just say ‘What?’ But that didn’t mean she was ignorant. It just meant that she didn’t have truck with words, especially gibberish. (WA)
Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling ‘banana’, but didn’t know how you stopped. (WA)
'Words have sex in foreign parts,’ said Nanny hopefully. (WA)
'I shall deal with the matter momentarily,’ he said. It was a good word. It always made people hesitate. They were never quite sure whether he meant he’d deal with it now, or just deal with it briefly. And no-one ever dared ask. (GG)
Granny had never had much time for words. They were so insubstantial. Now she wished that she had found the time. Words were indeed insubstantial. They were as soft as water, but they were also as powerful as water and now they were rushing over the audience, eroding the levees of veracity, and carrying away the past. (WS)
There should be a word for words that sound like things would sound like if they made a noise, he thought. The word ‘glisten’ does indeed gleam oilily, and if ever there was a word that sounded exactly the way sparks look as they creep across burned paper, or the way lights of cities would creep across the world if the whole of human civilization was crammed into one night, then you couldn’t do better than ‘coruscate’. (ER)
'... run away from any woman who pronounces “what” with two Hs.' (GP)
Wizards were rumored to be wise - in fact, that’s where the word came from.*
*From the Old wys-ars, lit.: one who, at bottom, is very smart. (SM) It was noon. Tiffany have invented the word noonlight, because she liked the sound of it. Anyone could be a witch at midnight, she’d thought, but you’d have to be really good to be a witch by noonlight. (W)
A witch relied too much on words ever to go back on them. (ER)
'He’s a man of few words, and he doesn’t know what either of them mean,’ people said, but not when he was within hearing. (CP)
... she was pleasant easygoing company, if you avoided allusion, irony, sarcasm, repartee, satire and words longer than ‘chicken’. (Th)
Picturesque meant – he decided after careful observation of the scenery that inspired Twoflower to use the word – that the landscape was horribly precipitous. Quaint, when used to describe the occasional village through which they passed, meant fever-ridden and tumbledown.
Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant ‘idiot’. (COM) Nanny could find an innuendo in ‘Good morning.’ She could certainly find one in ‘innuendo.' (CJ)
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The world has lost Sir Terry, and it's so much the poorer for that. Vale Sir Terry. Categories
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