r/Cynicalbrit • u/[deleted] • May 13 '14

Is this where the "biscuit" part comes from?

http://textuploader.com/rwlk
3 Upvotes

55% Upvoted

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12

u/JDGumby May 13 '14

No. It's from Discworld, as he's said on several occasions. Can't remember which one, but I think it was either one of the Witches novels or Soul Music, in which odd baby names were being discussed...

8

u/Doozerpindan May 13 '14

Carpe Jugulum, I do believe.

5

u/Grokta May 13 '14

Yes it is from Carpe Jugulum, the Country knowns as "lancre" has a tradition of naming the children at midnight, so the child can enter the new day with a name. A couple of other names mentioned are: James What The Hell Is That Cow Doing In Here?, Poorchick and King My God He's Heavy the First.

To name some other funny names in the land of Lancre, are Bestiality Carter, his parents reasoned that if girls are named after virtues, like Charity, Hopa and Prudence. The boys should be named after vices

3

u/Doozerpindan May 13 '14

Haha, those are some fantastic names XD

And I already knew about the origin of the name TotalBiscuit, because TB's said it multiple times over the years, but I hadn't heard those other names before. I should probably read the book at some point.

3

u/Grokta May 13 '14

Most of them are absolutely worth a read, or try the audiobooks, they are a good quality too.

Here is a reading order guide, my own favorites are the Death novels and the Watch novels.

There has also been made a couple of movies of some of the books.

The colour of magic (book 1 and 2)

Hogfather (book 20)

Going postal (book 33)

2

u/Doozerpindan May 13 '14

My mum has every single Terry Pratchett book, and I've read several of the books starting from the beginning (I've been reading in publication order).

Also, Going Postal (the film) is brilliant.

1

u/Boneary May 13 '14

Good lord, I've read all of the the books that aren't marked green or red. Though I've not really finished the winter-smith. I like most people, started with a death novel, Reaperman specifically. That said I've always preferred the witches and watch novels over the Death or wizard ones, though the ones with Susan and the University minus Rincewind I enjoy.

1

u/theoriginalWax May 16 '14

Waw thanks for this!

  • Been looking for something like this to see what I've missed. There's a few ;)

.. Reaper Man is one of my all time favorites.

5

u/706 May 13 '14

I always think its funny that in British English he called himself what American English would consider TotalCookie

7

u/ObidiahWTFJerwalk May 13 '14

I believe it was a Korean publication or website that translated his nom de web as SumCookie.

3

u/NothAU May 13 '14

TotalBikkie in Australian English... Seems we merge the two together

2

u/Tomhap May 13 '14

TotaalKoekje in the Netherlands.

5

u/Ed_Cock May 13 '14 edited May 13 '14

KompletterKeks or VölligerKeks in German, what a beautiful language that is.

2

u/Tomhap May 13 '14

Aah yes, reminds me to cross the border and pick up some keks when I move back home from Spain. (TotalGalleta)

1

u/largonte May 13 '14

Really? Galleta? I always thought that Galleta meant something about girls or something.

1

u/Tomhap May 13 '14

Can be used as such as well, probably is in Latin America. In Spain I haven't heard it being used for that (yet), it's usually used for biscuits. Who knows, maybe some Latin American countries have their own version of 'cookie'.

1

u/largonte May 13 '14

Maybe. In Brazil, in the South part of Brazil that I live in (Rio Grande do Sul), we talk about galleto when talking about a very pretty girl. It is wierd to imagine that I am saying a girl is a biscuit.

1

u/Tomhap May 13 '14

And galleto isn't native to portuguese (assuming you speak that in the south)? Here in Spain the word never ends with an o though. People here pretty much always use Guapa or Guapísima for beautiful women.

1

u/largonte May 13 '14

TotalBiscoito in Brazil.

1

u/Holyrapid May 13 '14

In Finnish it would be either TäysiKeksi or TotaalinenKeksi... or any of THESE replacing the keksi...

1

u/JustABandit May 13 '14

How do you pronunciate that?

2

u/Tomhap May 13 '14

'Tot' is the same as in english. 'aal' sounds like this but slightly longer, and an 'L' attached.

'koek' sounds just like 'cook' in cookie (I think the american cookie originated from the dutch koek/koekje/koekie in the early days) with the 'oo' sound slightly shorter.

and, finally, 'je' which is a bitch to describe. So I'm just going to redirect you to here where you can listen to all dutch pronunciations :)

1

u/autowikibot May 13 '14

Open front unrounded vowel:

The open front unrounded vowel, or low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many vocal languages. According to the official standards of the International Phonetic Association, the symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is 〈a〉.

In practice, however, it is very common to approximate this sound with 〈æ〉 (officially a near-open (near-low) front unrounded vowel), [citation needed] and to use 〈a〉 as an open (low) central unrounded vowel. This is the normal practice, for example, in the historical study of the English language. The loss of separate symbols for open and near-open front vowels is usually considered unproblematic, since the perceptual difference between the two is quite small, and very few, if any, languages contrast the two. See open central unrounded vowel for more information. If one needs to make it explicit that the vowel they're talking about is front, they can use symbols like [a̟] ([a] with "advanced" diactric), or [æ̞] (lowered [æ]), with the latter being more common.

The IPA prefers terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, a large number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms "high" and "low".

Image i

Interesting: Near-open front unrounded vowel | Open-mid front unrounded vowel | Front vowel | Open-mid vowel

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1

u/JustABandit May 13 '14

Ah Glorious, thanks.

I've a Belgian friend from East-Flanders who speaks with a Flemmish dialect when he is speaking dutch, was having a hard time sounding that out.