English term
ARSK
DONT *ARSK* US ABOUT:
rocks
troll’s with sticks
All sorts of dragons
Mrs Cake
Huje green things with teeth
Any kinds of black dogs with orange eyebrows
Rains of spaniel’s
fog
Mrs Cake
--quoted from Going Postal (2004, fantasy fiction) by Terry Pratchett (link: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=“DONT ARSK US ABOUT”...
Why is Ask spelt as Arsk here? Is it to show impatience?
Thank you for your help!
| 1 +4 | May be a portmanteau (may offend) |
Adam Warren
|
| 4 +9 | ask |
philgoddard
|
Non-PRO (1): Tony M
When entering new questions, KudoZ askers are given an opportunity* to classify the difficulty of their questions as 'easy' or 'pro'. If you feel a question marked 'easy' should actually be marked 'pro', and if you have earned more than 20 KudoZ points, you can click the "Vote PRO" button to recommend that change.
How to tell the difference between "easy" and "pro" questions:
An easy question is one that any bilingual person would be able to answer correctly. (Or in the case of monolingual questions, an easy question is one that any native speaker of the language would be able to answer correctly.)
A pro question is anything else... in other words, any question that requires knowledge or skills that are specialized (even slightly).
Another way to think of the difficulty levels is this: an easy question is one that deals with everyday conversation. A pro question is anything else.
When deciding between easy and pro, err on the side of pro. Most questions will be pro.
* Note: non-member askers are not given the option of entering 'pro' questions; the only way for their questions to be classified as 'pro' is for a ProZ.com member or members to re-classify it.
Responses
France
Working with words, working with people
Native in: English (Variant: British) 
Works in: French to English
May be a portmanteau (may offend)
| agree |
Charles Davis
: Even if the graffiti writer wasn't conscious of this, it could have been in the author's mind (Pratchett was British)
1 hr
|
| agree |
B D Finch
: I'm sure that Pratchett meant the double entendre. The graffiti writer, being fictional, wasn't conscious of anything.
1 hr
|
| agree |
Yvonne Gallagher
: Yes, Pratchett probably intended the double entendre. But for the (fictional) graffiti writer it was just bad spelling along with the other misspellings (that mean nothing)
2 hrs
|
| agree |
Oliver Simões
: It makes total sense. BD Finch posted some good references too.
9 hrs
|
United States
Six languages into flawless English
Native in: English
Works in: German to English, French to English, Spanish to English, and 4 more.
ask
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 24 mins (2018-08-20 04:14:01 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
The same goes for "huje" and "spaniel's".
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2018-08-20 05:03:20 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Yes!
| Oh, I see. Thank you! So "huje" should be "huge", and "spaniel’s" be "spaniels". Am I right? |
| Thank you very much! |
| agree |
Tony M
: Yes, deliberate misspellings like this are often used e.g. to highlight the illiteracy of the author of the graffiti
1 hr
|
| agree |
Peter Simon
1 hr
|
| agree |
Jack Doughty
1 hr
|
| agree |
Hilary McGrath
3 hrs
|
| agree |
Charles Davis
4 hrs
|
| neutral |
B D Finch
: I'm quite sure that Terry Pratchett intended the double meaning of "ask" and "arse", while also incuding deliberate misspellings and grocer's apostrophes. These aren't mutually exclusive.
5 hrs
|
|
I think you're reading too much into this.
|
|
| agree |
Yvonne Gallagher
6 hrs
|
| agree |
claude-andrew
: Just like to point out that the pronunciation "arsk" is used by, let us say, lesser educated people, especially from the south of the UK - just the sort of people who use the grocer's apostrophe etc.
8 hrs
|
| agree |
Rodrigo Elias
10 hrs
|
| agree |
JohnMcDove
10 hrs
|
Discussion
"Right, but we got to arsk. T'aint like it used to be, Nobby. This is modern policing. Detectoring." (Feet of Clay)
"Well here we are, cor what a lark so far, dont arsk ME about pumkins, still, no harm done." (Witches Abroad)
"They only had to arsk!” “Probably didn't want to bother you, said the horseman." (The Fifth Elephant).
It's part of the general, rather West Country, accent. However, when it's used in the collocation "don't arsk US/ME about", it seems as though Pratchett intended the pun to be noticed by the reader, but not to be thought of as intended, or even noticed, by the character.
I suspect it might be impossible to render an equivalent of a West Country accent in Chinese!
Yes, it is an interesting question. Of course fictional characters can "think" for themselves though the puppet master is the author. But I believe that this particular character was not capable of making the pun, and was just bad at spelling, simply by judging from the other misspellings on offer. So, I think it best for the Asker to just go with the fact it's a misspelling rather than try to include the author's potential intention (after all, that wouldn't even be noticed by the majority of readers) and I'm also sure it would be really difficult to try to include that wordplay in a translation.
If Ian's suggestion was in Pratchett's mind, as you apparently agree it was, the other question for a reader to consider is whether the (fictional) person who (fictionally) wrote this is understood to be (fictionally) conscious of making a pun, or just can't spell and is understood to be a vehicle for Pratchett to make a pun. It is a real question, potentially, though here I think most readers would decide it's clearly meant to be the latter.