Towards a new medical language

Both Frances and I really enjoy the discworld ooks by Terry Pratchett.  That should, of course have been 'discworld books' but anyone familiar with the Librarian of Unseen University will appreciate the monkey ape reference.

This led to discussion on our ascent of Mount Widgiewa (the hill we go up on our morning dog walks) of how we could emulate Sir Terry and twist words to come up with a new meaning.  This does of course get us into the world of puns (or as one of the characters - possibly Nanny Ogg - in discworld calls them 'punes').

I suggested that the words of medicine might prove a fruitful source of humour. That came from two angles:
  • As far as I am aware there has never been a discworld story about medicine (they rely on headology and other forms of witchcraft); and 
  • I had recently described someone as "an enema of the people, as they gave everyone the shits".
So this led to a challenge.  What other words related to medicine could make suitable puns to weave into a story?  We'd welcome contributions and will put ours here as we discover/develop them.  Here is the list so far.
  • Somewhat distastefully, but being in the vicinity with the enema, we could start off with a "dire rear". 
  • Another simple offering is 'sore' which offers scope through the homophone 'saw'.  That has great possibilities with references to both the implement for cutting wood and the synonym for cliched adage (ie an 'old saw').
  • Such things could give you a headache which might turn into a migraine.  Hmm: how about  "your grain", "our grain" or their grain"?
I haven't yet given any attention to the story into which this might be woven.

To slightly change the literary timeframe, and to go for metaphor rather than pune, Frances has decided that Mount Widgiewa should be renamed Pudding Hill, after Norman Lindsay's famous dessert.  No matter how far up the hill you get there seems to be the same amount left to scale!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A tour of the West (part 1)

Insects from pine trees

Maslins beach rules