Hi all,

I'm new to posting here, though old to Jasper ffandom - been reading him since the week LIAGB came out and stumbled across a review of it, and met him during his US tour for WOLP, and am looking forward to his next return to the States.

Thought my first post, WriterGroupie that I am, should appropriately be in adoration of the word-creation.

In reviewing WOLP, I think my favorite pun would be a tie between "The Squire of High Potternews" which had me in stitches once I got it and "Ronan Empyre - A History of Gibbons". I'm sure there are others I missed completely - had to hear JFf's translation/explanation of 'Landen Park-Laine' at his signing or I never would have gotten that.

Any favorites here?

wg



Visit my Thursday Next webpage at: [www.writergroupie.com]

I still laugh at Millon Defloss. But the pills seem to be working now...

By the way, I'm still relatively new here, but as I seem to be the only one here at the moment can I offer you some cake? The christmas cookies have gone a bit soft now you see....



Post Edited (01-01-05 20:47)

^ Ooh, is it Mrs. Next's special Battenberg cake? I'd love a slice - thanks! :)

Millon De Floss took me until book four to figure out. I kept thinking it was some variation of the Candice De Floss joke (which I did get)! :D

wg



Visit my Thursday Next webpage at: [www.writergroupie.com]

I did get the Millon de Floss joke as soon as the novel Mill on the Floss was first mentioned, but as I'd never heard of the novel until that point, I didn't appreciate it as much as others. Math person that I am, I adore "The Squire of High Potternews", but am ashamed to say that I didn't get it until I read an explanation on this site. But I still don't get Ronan Empyre--A History of Gibbons.

MuseSusan wrote:
> Math person that I am, I adore "The Squire of High Potternews",

Non-math person, but musicals-fanatic that I am, as soon as I passed the line without consciously recognizing it, somewhere in the back of my head I heard a Gilbert & Sullivan Very Modern Major General singing 'With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse' - at which point I went back and reread the phrase and got it. But then of course I had the song stuck in my head the rest of that day. :)


> But I still don't get Ronan Empyre--A History of Gibbons.

Ooh, this one's a history joke - Edward Gibbons wrote a history of the Roman Empire. :) Hooray for useless trivia that runs round my head! :)

wg



Visit my Thursday Next webpage at: [www.writergroupie.com]

Yes, I feel very, very dense not to have gotten that one. But my excuse is that I know far less about Gilbert and Sullivan than I would like. If you've seen enough of my comments on this forum, you'll see what a musical-fanatic I am too. (My areas of expertise/greatest interest are Rodgers and Hammerstein, Steven Sondheim, a bit of Lloyd-Webber **hides under desk as projectiles fly**, and a growing knowledge of new musicals of the last few years. But anything that is sung in a theatrical context is good enough for me!) Now I'm going to track down that song!
I like that history joke. Useless trivia is the best!

I don't look for puns etc. so I had to post a few queries here to get the answers. One of them was the 'Miilon De Floss' pun. Another was 'Landen Parke-Laine'

Mind you, I didn't notice either of the others - "The Squire of High Potternews" and "Ronan Empyre - A History of Gibbons".



=)

Yes.... Uh, no.... Actually......I don't know.... Um, hang on.... What was the question again?

I got Landen Parke-Laine immediately, which was a little surprising since the American version of Monopoly has Park Place, I believe. But what was really surprising is that I DIDN'T get Houson and Bilden at all until I reread the book.

MuseSusan wrote:
> Now I'm going to track down that song!

Here's an URL where you can read the lyrics:
[www.zeitcom.com]

It's from G&S' Pirates of Penzance. But I actually knew the lyrics from the 1980's 'pop' version 'The Pirate Movie' *ducks and waits for things to come flying* :D

And oh, no, 'Houson and Bilden' - just got it when you pointed it out!

That's it! From now on, I'm strictly reading the books out loud - I miss too many puns otherwise!

wg



Visit my Thursday Next webpage at: [www.writergroupie.com]

That's so awesome! He even mentions conics (which is even more significant to me since no modern musical would mention such subjects of mathematics for fear of most of the audience not having a clue; this implies that audiences of Gilbert & Sullivan's day would have been familiar enough with these subjects to appreciate the reference!) Did I mention I'm a math geek?

My knowledge of G&S is sadly limited to a little bit of "I am a Pirate King", due to the Forbidden Broadway parody which goes "I am a Kevin Kline, and it is, it is a glorious thing to be a Kevin Kline…"

Come to think of it, I think I have read a little of the lyrics to the song about the hypotenuse--there's a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov in which the characters try to figure out when Pirates of Penzance was written and quote that song because of the reference to "that nonsense Pinafore".

MuseSusan wrote:
> My knowledge of G&S is sadly limited to a little bit of "I am a
> Pirate King", due to the Forbidden Broadway parody which goes
> "I am a Kevin Kline, and it is, it is a glorious thing to be a
> Kevin Kline…"

LOL That's 'cause Kevin Kline did the movie version of PofP which came out at the same time as (my preference) The Pirate Movie. For info on some of the controversy between those two films (not that anyone really cares except us diehard TPM fans), you can scroll towards the bottom of this article on my site:
[www.writergroupie.com]

But that reminds me I've REALLY got to check out Forbidden Broadway one of these days. :)

wg



Visit my Thursday Next webpage at: [www.writergroupie.com]

Thanks for the info--I didn't know there had even been a movie made of PoP.

Nice website, by the way, and a very well-written piece about Thursday Next. I'll be referencing your website for info on other books as well, so watch out!

MuseSusan wrote:
> Nice website, by the way, and a very well-written piece about
> Thursday Next. I'll be referencing your website for info on
> other books as well, so watch out!

:) Thanks for the kind words! My site is an ongoing project/labor of love/advertising for the writers I adore! :) I usually add something to it at least once a month - more often when I have the time - so keep checking back!

wg



Visit my Thursday Next webpage at: [www.writergroupie.com]

I love Fay Bentos from SR and Sturmy Archer feom TEA as that was the gears on my bike and I always read that as i rode!

I quite liked the obvious one ,and probably one of the only ones I noticed along with millon de floss, I think it was Edmund Capillary which I had a few laughs about.I, being from New Zealand, noticed it straight away as a pun on Edmund Hillary's name.

I never noticed all of the other puns, must re-read the books again.

I can't believe that so many people who read these books don't even get the most basic literary puns! That's the entire joy of the series! I have forced my teenage daughter to read Jane Eyre to at least have some inkling before she reads 'The Eyre Affair' (- which she has seen me enjoy, ie chuckle out loud)!! At least she has read Wuthering Heights, Anna Karenina, Pride & Predudice (and as a punky teenager, this was her choice!!)& was reared on a diet of Enid Blyton so aknowledges the parody (see Shadow Sheepdog adventure).
i'm apalled as one who does not consider themselves that well read that people here are floundeing over the most obvious & basic (Millon De Floss) puns. What the hell do you learn in school or where the hell have you been? get off your asses and read some classics! The Thursday Next books will be so much more hilarious and make much more sense. And people blame me for the state of children's literary knowledge - I'm an english teacher!! My kids know their stuff and they are only 11! What excuse do you lot have?! (Not all of you, obviously!)

I suppose it has already been noticed, but if you spell the name of the WOLP software-marketing oick, Libris, backwards, you get Sir Bil. And Bill Gates, the epitome of that breed, was recently so ennobled (but alas not knobbled) by Her Britannic Majesty.

This brilliant pun is made even more so in that it was made over a year *before* Gates was dubbed Sir William - proof that fforde, in ffact, is capable of temporal displacement - as evidenced by the dead giveaway of Sir Bil being spelt backwards. fforde was obviously travelling kcab ni emit nehw eh daer eht swen...

Which leads us to another interesting conclusion: these books are, quite simply, a factual account. After all, if Gates can be knighted, you have to admit that anything can happen. And probably will.

JohnE

Conspiracy of note....

That one I never found....

I found the Anna Karenina gossip a classic though....

libris backwards is sir bil ? hmmm, friend, libris is latin for books...

Just as a wee eighteen year old in the States, I haven't had the time to absorb enough books to understand all the puns in the Thursday Next series. It wasn't until I was passing through a bookstore (while in the middle of reading Something Rotten) that I got the Millon de Floss concept. (I knew Landen Parke-Laine must be a joke for something, but never got it until I read on here.)

That's the thing: I know I'm not getting half the jokes, but I can at least recognize that something is supposed to be poking fun at some such thing, I just can't see what.

But trust me, I'm working on it.

All through high school (and now college) I've been in the accelerated English classes, and it wasn't until I read these books that it made it all seem worth it. :-)