@RUTGERS.ARPA:BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA (05/02/85)
From: Bard Bloom <BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA> > I am left with but one small question: does anyone have any idea why > Beelzebub speaks in Medieval English? Steve Brust can correct me on this, but I'll bet is's so that Beelzebub can say ``Get thee behind me, Satan!'' (instead of the modern ``Get behind me, man!'') toward the end. **** spoiler **** There were lots of cute touches like that; Satan inviting Yaweh and some angels for pin-dancing; a bunch of angels getting a committee together to design a variant of a horse that could live in the desert, and so on. More impressively, they didn't damage the plot of the book at all. Anthony's Xanth books are full of cute touches, to the detriment of anything serious about the books (I invoke flames, here) -- Xanth is made entirely of cute touches. I'm glad that some people can add this kind of humor to a serious book. > What in > blue blazes does :-) mean?? I've heard (-: and :-) called joke brackets. Rotate them a quarter-circle. (v: ... :^) are tongue-in-cheek signs. Anyone want to publish a list of useful symbols such as these? With all available sincerity, Bard -------