SPOILERS Making Money Discussion *Spoilers*

[RathDarkblade]

Oh, that's right! He spends so much time trying to persuade people to move away from the gold standard.

There's another reason for him to be annoyed: if any watchmen turn up again and see the gold (as seems likely - maybe Colon and Nobby would be just checkin', your honour, don't mind us), then Moist would have a lot of new and unpleasant questions to answer. Possibly from Carrot, or Vimes, or (ultimately) Vetinari.

"And when did you say the gold appeared, sir? Didn't you say there was no gold in the vault at all? That's a very suspicious attitude ..." etc. - that sort of thing.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Sorry to raise this thread from the dead -- *wields his Staff of Necromancy and Skull Necklace* -- but something just occurred to me about this book.

(Usual disclaimer, please don't read unless you've read MM, blah blah etc.)




In this book, Adora Belle Dearheart finds golems in the ancient city of Um. (Moist interjects: "Um? Didn't they know what to call the place?" etc.) For the longest time, I thought this was simply a joke - i.e. "Um" is a play-on-words on the ancient city of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia, where (supposedly) Abram/Abraham, the founder of Judaism, came from.

But I just had a thought. In Hebrew, the letter "U" is always pronounced "Oo" (so "Ur" is pronounced "Oor"). What about Um? "Um" would become "Oom", which is the Hebrew abbreviation of "Oomot Meoohadot" -- or in English, the United Nations. If you're interested, see more here on wiki: Um-Shmum

I doubt this is what pTerry had in mind, but I thought it was amusing -- especially since, by the end of MM, the Umnian golems become a guarantee of peace and stability, which is exactly what the UN was supposed to be. Bilingual puns FTW!

Thoughts?

 

[raisindot]

A reallllllllllllllllll stretch. I always thought Um referred to Ur, which is the most logical Occams' razor explanation.

And, in fact, the gold golems themselves are NOT a guarantee of peace and stability. In fact, they represent the absolute opposite until Moist wisely decides to bury most, give some away, Vetinari leaks the "Golden Secret" to the other world leaders.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Ur... they're not gold golems. Please re-read Professor Flead's assertion: they're

Spoiler

four thousand golems.