Historical Re-creation, he thought glumly, as they picked their way across, under, over or through the boulders and insect-buzzing heaps of splintered timber, with streamlets running everywhere. Only we do it with people dressing up and running around with blunt weapons, and people selling hot dogs, and the girls all miserable because they can only dress up as wenches, wenching being the only job available to women in the olden days.
Interpretation
This quote humorously critiques the modern reenactment of historical events, highlighting how it trivializes the past.
Terry Pratchett's quote reflects on the absurdity of historical reenactments, pointing out the stark contrast between the serious nature of the past and the light-hearted, often commercialized way people engage with it today. He notes that while people attempt to recreate history, they do so with a comedic twist, involving costumes, food vendors, and limited roles for women, which underscores the historical limitations they faced. This blend of humor and grim reality invites readers to contemplate the authenticity, or lack thereof, in such reenactments.
In practice
During a history class discussion about how accurately we portray the past through modern lenses.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.
One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.
Some people have no idea what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.
Feminist humor raises consciousness. And the reason it's funny is because it stands something on its head. Goodness knows you've got to have a sense of humor if you do feminism full-time, I tell you.
Don't judge your taco by its price
I thought she'd make some comment about the bloodthirsty gods chasing us, but when she finally found her voice, she said, "That boy kissed you!" Leave it to Liz to have her priorities straight.
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