One of the reasons I love Pratchett's writing is the layers.
William de Worde is a great name for a reporter - William riffs on Shakespeare, and de Worde? William of the Word? Like Jones the Steam or John the Smith, it's a surname that could easily evolve.
Then I went walking down Fleet Street and I found a little blue plaque on one of the pubs there, dedicated to Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's apprentice and successor, who was the first publisher to establish a print shop there.
Beautiful. Doesn't matter if you don't know that - de Worde is a great surname for a journalist. But if you do, it's a lovely in-joke.
Especially because "though not skilful as a printer, de Worde was not idle" - the continual spelling mistakes in the Times motto suddenly make sense.
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Date: 2004-01-30 04:16 am (UTC)William de Worde is a great name for a reporter - William riffs on Shakespeare, and de Worde? William of the Word? Like Jones the Steam or John the Smith, it's a surname that could easily evolve.
Then I went walking down Fleet Street and I found a little blue plaque on one of the pubs there, dedicated to Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's apprentice and successor, who was the first publisher to establish a print shop there.
Beautiful. Doesn't matter if you don't know that - de Worde is a great surname for a journalist. But if you do, it's a lovely in-joke.
Especially because "though not skilful as a printer, de Worde was not idle" - the continual spelling mistakes in the Times motto suddenly make sense.
http://www.bartleby.com/212/1315.html