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Post by todd on Jan 20, 2009 11:35:45 GMT
Note that Robot also called Annie "mommy" rather than "mummy".
Maybe Tom just wants to make the webcomic accessible for American readers as well as British readers.
Also, we know that Kat goes in for a lot of American pop culture, and maybe it's affected her speech patterns.
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picaro
Junior Member
Dandy Highwayman
Posts: 66
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Post by picaro on Jan 20, 2009 12:59:46 GMT
Actually I'm English and I refer to my mother-figure as Mom, mostly when I'm being annoying. And she does the same for her mother.
It might be a regional variation, most people I know in Solihull say "mom", most people I know in the leafy depths of the Oxfordshire say it differently.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jan 20, 2009 13:35:56 GMT
Lookie here. Sometimes Kat says mum, sometimes she says mom. See also Annie.Thank you, Tom, for reminding us Yanks that British vocabulary is not monolithic.
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ecomono
Junior Member
like tuning in a radio
Posts: 83
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Post by ecomono on Jan 20, 2009 18:59:42 GMT
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science." - Agatha Heterodyne Of course, that only works in a universe where magic lets itself be analyzed.
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Post by todd on Jan 20, 2009 23:23:55 GMT
Another likely reason why Kat says "mom" rather than "mum".
"Mom" fits the tone of a highly sceptical young girl confronting her mother over her mother's claim far better than "mum" does.
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Post by King Mir on Jan 21, 2009 4:09:42 GMT
Aha, an object that responds to abstract notions of ownership! Hmm, actually, reading the comic again, the only thing that implies "ownership" may have any relevance here is Anja talking about "my" and "your" blinker stone. That's rather thin. Anja was able to retreive Annies stone after she made the floaty sky thingie. Granted, Annie lent it to her, which could be considered a temporary transfer of ownership. But, Anja was also able to retreive her own stone from Kat. If Annie giving her stone to Anja counts as transfer of ownership, Anja giving hers to Kat has to count, too. Now we might of course start to nitpick about the words used and the intentions behind them: Anja expressly asked Annie if she could "borrow" her stone, but merely told Kat to "hold on to it"... In the end "it just does, okay?" is the version I like best. Presumably you can't summon just any blinker stone. Therefore a blinker stone has to have a connection to you. Ownership seems the most narrow condition that fits. But you bring up a good point. It could be that the blinker stone simply remembers who it's touched or some other condition that happens to coincide with ownership. The former theory seems to fit better though. Regarding Anja summoning Annie's stone, my theory is that there is an ownership hierarchy. So you can lend a stone to a friend, and they would be able to use it just like you, but you could summon it back anytime. But there is nothing to directly support this.
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Post by warrl on Jan 24, 2009 9:33:04 GMT
It was modified quite a bit more than that, but still clearly based on Clarke's comment - and Clarke very well might have said it that way, if he had lived in the Heterodyne universe.
My favorite is:
Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
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