Talk:Mayhap Street
Now you're asking!
It seems logical that Mayhap Street may once have been located fairly nearby to the University, possibly adjacent to the Unreal Estate and therefore Ground Zero for any magical accidents going on. Zooming in on that area and using the three full or part maps of the City which have so far been published, The Streets of Ankh-Morpork displays a whole maze of so far un-named minor streets bordered by The Fronts, the Plaza of Broken Moons, and Esoteric Street.
Going from there to our next reference source, the detailed city street map shown in the endplates of the original The Discworld Companion, streets on the fringes of this area are named as Ruffin Street, Lanthorn Street, Jauks, The Bordage, Hoppet Street, Basket Way, Broad Marsh, Thammaty*, Sorterly Street**, the Sickle, Comfrey Street, Ossy Walk*** and Widdy. Aggravatingly, two thirds of our target area are missing - they fall off the left-hand page of this expanded Mappe.
And the city mappe published in Night Watch doesn't even cover this area... although it does have a Stephen Briggs Street on it... my best guess is look close to the university in the Unreal Estate area. --AgProv 15:30, 31 March 2011 (CEST)
- Thammaty - corruption of a magical term like Thaumatology?
- (double-starred)"Sorterley Street - corruption of "sortilege"?
- (triple-starred) Ossy Walk - corruption of "ossify", for turning into bone - a place where bones walk, linked to zombies, necromancy and mobile skelatage?
I have to say i'm impressed with your reasoning behind some of the time-corrupted names! Although Sorterley could also come from a Feeglish version of "Sort of, like" - "Sorta, li'": in fact, doesn't one of them use this in reference to Verence - "Y'mean he's oor king noo, sortaley?" - I'll check it up--Knmatt 16:59, 31 March 2011 (CEST).
Found it:
- '...he's oor kingie noo?'
- 'Aye, sortaley.'
(Carpe Jugulum Corgi edition, p306.)--Knmatt 17:02, 31 March 2011 (CEST)
Ah. There is a lecturer in Approximate Accuracy, is there not? Maybe his offices are on Sorterly Street.. Looking again at the additional lists of names:
Hoppet Street - as in the hopping of newly-minted frogs who are learning the amphibian lifestyle?
Sickle Street, Comfrey Street - sickles at the essential tool of Druidism. Well, those and heavy earth-moving equipment. Comfrey is a healing herb used in Druidism and witchcraft. Perhaps the Faculty of Hedge-Magic, Witchcraft and Druidism was once based here, perhaps still is?
No idea about Jauks, Widdy or the Bordage, though. --AgProv 19:48, 1 April 2011 (CEST)
There is, though, a Elsewhere Alley near Goosegate. In fact, five of them are marked, as if to confuse the visitor or map-reader. As these appear to occupy the location that later became the site of the Lady Sybil Free Hospital, this may no longer be a problem, unless it's a comment on the spatially confusing and sprawled Gormenghast-like ground-plans of typical hospitals... either that, or a play on the old American hospital soap opera, St. Elsewhere...--AgProv 19:52, 1 April 2011 (CEST)
"Jauks" is apparently a variant on "jakes", a communal toilet where there was no such thing as privacy or seperate cubicles, just a long bench over a gully with strategic holes cut through... the said gully might slope down in the rough direction of a gutter or stream or a river, and gravity assisted by irregular flushing through from barrels of water might flush the deposited contents away. Think of it as a ground-level garderobe. More sophisticated models used gravity plus diverted river or stream water to do the flushing. Or a Harry King might have the contract to shovel up and take away. Eithe way, this cannot be a salubrious address. --AgProv 09:58, 6 April 2011 (CEST)