# Discworld: Where to start? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [April 30, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724 "2025-04-30T19:30:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2026, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/121 "2026-04-12T22:42:39Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I guess it helps if you know something about British football culture and how it intersects with the British fashion scene. I don’t know much about either of them, so most of the jokes in the book didn’t really land for me. What really sunk it for me was that it presented football as the Biggest Thing Ever and Always Had Been in Ankh-Morpork, but we’d never really seen any hint of it at all, before that book. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2026, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/122 "2026-04-12T23:31:34Z")
Except for in _Jingo_. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/123 "2026-04-13T09:57:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What really sunk it for me was that it presented football as the Biggest Thing Ever and Always Had Been in Ankh-Morpork, but we’d never really seen any hint of it at all, before that book. Isn’t the story of effectively the formal game being invented? Rather than a violent street version? I guess it doesn’t work as well if you’re not from a soccer country, and indeed, the UK did have a blow up of teams formed in the late 1880s when the leagues were setup. But I suppose Fever Pitch got Pratchett inspired to do something on the misery and tribalism that the UK football scene is. And that doesn’t work half as well in the US. I enjoyed Unseen Academicals, personally, but I can’t remember a Pratchett book I didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/124 "2026-04-13T12:20:36Z")
Or football culture in general, I liked the book (specially because there’s a thinly veiled Maradona-based character). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/125 "2026-04-13T22:33:35Z")
At the start of the book, there was already an organized league with a team for each\* of the guilds. \*Well, mostly. I’m pretty sure the Seamstresses didn’t field a team, and I’m not sure about Beggars, Assassins, or Thieves. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/126 "2026-04-14T03:21:38Z")
_Unseen Academicals_ is the one Discworld book I hate. Mainly because I hate soccer (football) with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns. But hey, if others love the book, then it’s all good. ---
**Author:** ![Lare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Lare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lare)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2026, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/127 "2026-05-12T23:15:26Z")
Since people are talking about specifics of the books, I have a question. How do you pronounce the word “crivens\*”? With a soft i (like in “crib”) or a hard i (like in “giant”)? And I know a somewhat Scottish accent is required, but it’s not required for this question. \*= A general purpose , exclamation, possibly vulgar or profane, appears mostly in conversations with the Nac Mac Feegle.\*\* \*\*= Also known as the Wee Free Men–who are mostly seen (when they are seen at all) in the Tiffany Aching stories. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2026, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/128 "2026-05-12T23:22:42Z")
> [@Lare](#): > > crivens [How to pronounce “crivens.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8zV1Rek3M0) ---
**Author:** ![Lare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Lare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lare)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2026, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/129 "2026-05-12T23:25:56Z")
Thank you, **Miller.** (The link has it pronounced with a long i.) Although I feel obligated to point out that one of the 7 responses on that YouTube page is “That’s not how you say it at all.” ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2026, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/130 "2026-05-13T00:42:48Z")
I think it’s a minced oath, so it’s pronounced like “Christ”. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2026, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/131 "2026-05-13T07:46:32Z")
It’s not a word Pratchett made up, it’s Scots dialect, specifically Dundonian, though a little out of fashion. It’s often used in the comic ‘[Oor Wullie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oor_Wullie)’, where it’s part of his catchphrase standard exclamation of surprise. It’s spelled ‘crivvens’ in the ‘Oor Wullie’ comic, but both spellings are used more or less interchangably. Although it is supposedly a minced oath, it’s not said with the ‘i’ in Christ, but the one in ‘Christmas’, or in ‘crib’, if you prefer. [cite](https://youtu.be/zQLGVLJWidM?t=251) (youtube video, a few seconds before said catchphrase). ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2026, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/132 "2026-05-13T10:14:58Z")
Yeah, @filbert has it right. Further cite below but also, that’s how all the Scots I’ve ever known say it, say it. > **[15 reactions · 18 shares | Remember this? Now you can see Scotland's...](https://www.facebook.com/reel/1207360249298474/)** > > Remember this? Now you can see Scotland's favourite family on stage: thesun.uk/6017BluHR ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2026, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724/133 "2026-05-13T13:36:22Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > It’s not a word Pratchett made up, it’s Scots dialect, specifically Dundonian, though a little out of fashion. It’s often used in the comic ‘[Oor Wullie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oor_Wullie)’, where it’s part of his catchphrase standard exclamation of surprise. The normal phrase often being “Jings, Crivens, Help ma Boab”, shock, surprise and help me. I have both the characters Jings and Crivens on World of Warcraft for the last 20 odd years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-where-to-start/1017724.md?page=6)