From: AfPhantom
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: [I] Apologies and translation... was Re: [I] Pratchettus Senex (was Re: Catapultam habeo...)
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 11:13:58 -0000
...Oops. Again. Sorry folks - I've once again fluffed up the formatting on a sent post, and I still appear to be having trouble with cancel requests.
Re-formatted post appears below.
Beth Winter wrote in message <3834188A.6064C38A@astercity.net>...
>AfPhantom wrote:
>
>> "Translation and explanation of Latatian punes available on request"
>
>Pretty please? People say it's so good, and over here people don't even
>learn *English* at school, not to mention the classical languages...
Okay, okay! As requested by my good friend Orlan Sundry, the words in Eng^W^Morporkian - but first, a public service announcement...
Warning: If you, Constant Reader, are one of those who actually reads the footnotes, you will find contained therein a dirty great big spoiler for Guards! Guards! and mild spoilers for Interesting Times and Maskerade. There's also a very mild spoiler for Soul Music in the following Disclaimer. No spoiler space has been included on the grounds that I've put this nice warning right at the beginning and besides, it would look silly.
Disclaimer: Any reference made to characters living, dead or 'fictional' (hereinafter known as 'made up') is entirely likely but cannot be 'attributed to' (hereinafter described as 'blamed on') the author (hereinafter referred to as the Author) for complicated and expensive legal reasons. The Author reserves the right to be dissociated from this work at the least hint of criticism. The Author further reserves the right to tremble, cower, gibber insanely and generally display other forms of unbecoming and panicky behaviour should any of the silicaceous members of the audience notice that the Author, being a rather common and greasy little oik, used the Latatian word for "rocks"in the second verse. This, in the words of Lias Bluestone, is "...a bad word for troll used by stupid humans," and the Author does not feel inclined to "spend some time looking for his head".
A certain amount of license has been taken with the translation, but if the Author can't tie his shoelaces on his own melon patch then who can, eh?
Old Man Pratchett...
Old Man Pratchett had a Disc,
E-I-E-I-O
And on that Disc he had some dwarves,
E-I-E-I-O
With a "Gold (gold)" here
And a "Gold (gold)" there
Here a "Gold"
There a "Gold"
Ev'rywhere a "Gold, gold, gold, gold..."
Old Man Pratchett had a Disc,
E-I-E-I-O
Old Man Pratchett had a Disc,
E-I-E-I-O
And on that Disc he had some trolls,
E-I-E-I-O
With an "Ooaagraha" here
And an "Ooaagraha" there
Here an "Ooaagraha"
There an "Ooaagraha"
Ev'rywhere a "Aaoograha hoa" [1]
Old Man Pratchett had a Disc,
E-I-E-I-O
Old Man Pratchett had a Disc,
E-I-E-I-O
And on that Disc he a dragon,
E-I-E-I-O
With a big fire here
And a big fire there
Here a fire
There a fire
Ev'rywhere a big fire [2]
Old Man Pratchett had a Disc,
E-I-E-I-O
Old Man Pratchett had a Disc,
E-I-E-I-O
And on that Disc he had some demons [3],
E-I-E-I-O
With a "Tick-tock" here
And a "Tick-tock" there
Here a "Tick"
There a "Tock"
Ev'rywhere a "Bingeley-beep"
Old Man Pratchett had a Disc,
E-I-E-I-O
I'm sort of hoping that the Rincewind verse is pretty obvious, however... [4]
Old Man Pratchett had a Disc,
E-I-E-I-O
And *under* that Disc he had a turtle,
E-I-E-I-O
With a ?? here [5]
And a ?? there
Here a ?
There a ?
Ev'rywhere a ??
Old Man Pratchett had a Disc,
E-I-E-I-O
AfPhantom
[1] No points collected on this then ;-) Granny learns of this affectionate Trollish sobriquet in Maskerade - literally "She Who Must Be Avoided". Presumably there is already a nod to H. Rider Haggard in the Holy Book of Annotations...
[2] I'm quite pleased with this one. There are several words for 'fire' or 'blaze' in Latatian. 'Ignis' does indeed mean 'big fire' or, more aesthetically, 'conflagration', but equally refers to a passionate love affair - such as the one that the Dragon has with young Errol. Good, innit? :-) The reason the quote-marks were around the "hic" in this verse, rather than around the "ignis" is, I'm hoping, obvious.
[3] _diabolicus chronodictus_ - literally "demon that speaks the time". Strictly speaking of course, the species famous for the "bingeley-beep" utterance - a member of which resides in Vimes' Dis-organiser - is the slightly more intelligent _diabolicus ordinarum_ (Linnaeus variation _psionicus_), literally "demon that organises".
Actually, I've been thinking about compiling a Discworld bestiary, possibly in song...
"When a twenty-foot eel
Wants to make you his meal
That's a-Moray..."
Or maybe not.
[4] "uxor tuus hippopotamus magnus est!!!" - a painful rendering of "your? wife is a big hippo!!!" as a nod to Mr. Pratchetts monograph on the dangers of screaming in foreign (Interesting Times). If sung in Morporkian, this should be simply rendered "Aaaagh!!!", as should the alternative offered in the footnote: "Celeriter! Plus oleum fervens!", which of course translates as "Quick! More boiling oil!" - which I *still* think would be a delightfully insane thing to put on a T-shirt. If pressed by curious passers-by, I shall claim that it was my old school motto.
After all, I *did* go to school in South Wales, so for all I know it might have been.
[5] I really don't have a clue what sound a planet-sized turtle makes; and especially not one that's sculling gently through a vacuum. It frankly all seems a bit "one hand clapping" to me...
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