“The sound of running feet indicated that Sergeant Detritus was bringing some of the latest trainees back from their morning run. He could hear the jody Detritus had taught them. Somehow, you could tell it was made up by a troll: "Now we sing dis stupid song! Sing it as we run along! Why we sing dis we don't know! We can't make der words rhyme prop'ly!" "Sound off!" "One! Two!" "Sound off!" "Many! Lots!" "Sound off!" "Er...what?"”
—Terry Pratchett, Night Watch, p. 12 (mass market paperback, American)Detritus
a : a product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away : debris b : miscellaneous remnants : odds and ends <sifting through the detritus of his childhood — Michael Tomasky> (Merriam Webster)
It’s the weirdest thing. Almost every book I’ve read for the last month or so has detritus in it. It’s a great word; I like it a lot. But what’s with its sudden popularity. Kind of like how baby names spread throughout the country. Anyone who reads should test this out…see if you run across it also.
(Submitted by russann:)
“Detritus was particularly good when it came to asking questions. He had three basic ones. They were the direct ('Did you do it?'), the persistent ('Are you sure it wasn't you what done it?') and the subtle ('It was you what done it, wasn't it?'). Although they were not the most cunning of questions ever devised, Detritus's talent was to go on patiently asking them for hours on end, until he got the right answer, which was generally something like: 'Yes! Yes! I did it! I did it! Now please tell me what I did!'”
—Feet of Clay, Terry Pratchett.
Detritus is one of my favourite characters from the Discworld series :)
