Footnotes*
- Thread starter Dotsie
- Start date
Tonyblack said:
He often uses them as a method of making a joke. The very fact that the reader has to break off from the narrative to look at a footnote is very much like feeding a line in a joke and then getting the punchline from the footnote. 
My theory is that when Pterry started, he was trying to be the fantasy version of Douglas Adams', whose influence is all over the first two DW books. I think Pterry's use of footnotes was meant to be his version of the narrative-interrupting "callouts from the Galactic Encyclopedia" Adams used extensively through the Hitchhiker's books.
As far as I can see, the footnotes are:
1. Terry's way to include a joke that he couldn't otherwise include in the main text, because it would ruin the flow; or
2. Terry's way to include a philosophical musing that he couldn't otherwise include in the main text, because it would ruin the flow.
I've been writing† for over 20 years now, and I've sto- "adopted" the footnote method into my own stories - either to make jokes or to include explanatory notes.
Anyway, another footnote that always made me laugh...
Guess what book this is from?
______________________________________________________________________
† I started out writing comic fantasy when I graduated from high school. Over the years, I've graduated to writing poetry, haiku, comic skits, top ten lists, parodies, short stories, and horror, and am now specialising in comic history - i.e. a blend of comedy and history.
1. Terry's way to include a joke that he couldn't otherwise include in the main text, because it would ruin the flow; or
2. Terry's way to include a philosophical musing that he couldn't otherwise include in the main text, because it would ruin the flow.
I've been writing† for over 20 years now, and I've sto- "adopted" the footnote method into my own stories - either to make jokes or to include explanatory notes.
Anyway, another footnote that always made me laugh...
Guess what book this is from?
______________________________________________________________________
† I started out writing comic fantasy when I graduated from high school. Over the years, I've graduated to writing poetry, haiku, comic skits, top ten lists, parodies, short stories, and horror, and am now specialising in comic history - i.e. a blend of comedy and history.
They are the icing on the cake! Nearly imperceptible but with so much presence.
Whoopsy! I missed this thread for a while. Here's another footnote...
It's amazing how good governments are, given their track record in almost every other field, at hushing up things like alien encounters.
One reason may be that the aliens themselves are too emberrassed to talk about it.
It's not known why most of the space-going races of the universe want to undertake rummaging in Earthling underwear as a prelude to formal contact. But representatives of several hundred races have taken to hanging out, unsuspected by one another, in rural corners of the planet and, as a result of this, keep on abducting other would-be-abductees. Some have in fact abducted while waiting to carry out an abduction on a couple of other aliens trying to abduct the aliens who were, as a result of misunderstood instructions, trying to form cattle into circles and mutilate crops.
The planet Earth is now banned to all alien races until they can compare notes and find out how many, if any, real humans they have actually got. It is gloomily suspected that there is only one - who is big, hairy and has very large feet.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.
Here's another footnote...It's amazing how good governments are, given their track record in almost every other field, at hushing up things like alien encounters.
One reason may be that the aliens themselves are too emberrassed to talk about it.
It's not known why most of the space-going races of the universe want to undertake rummaging in Earthling underwear as a prelude to formal contact. But representatives of several hundred races have taken to hanging out, unsuspected by one another, in rural corners of the planet and, as a result of this, keep on abducting other would-be-abductees. Some have in fact abducted while waiting to carry out an abduction on a couple of other aliens trying to abduct the aliens who were, as a result of misunderstood instructions, trying to form cattle into circles and mutilate crops.
The planet Earth is now banned to all alien races until they can compare notes and find out how many, if any, real humans they have actually got. It is gloomily suspected that there is only one - who is big, hairy and has very large feet.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.