Cats Sleep on SFF: Rivers of London

Hampus Eckerman shares a wide-awake cat in front of a wide variety of paperbacks:

Here’s Vlad, not sleeping and about 10 seconds from wrecking havoc among the SF-books I’m trying to pack for my Australia trip. Among 5-6 ended up on the floor and the dreaded toothbrush nemesis was defeated once again.


Photos of your felines resting on genre works are welcome. Send to mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com

30 thoughts on “Cats Sleep on SFF: Rivers of London

  1. Vlad is not happy you’re taking away so much of his potential sleeping material, along with inappropriately absenting yourself from his august presence.

  2. I notice the title of Joe Hill’s book has changed from NOS4A2 to NOS4R2. Aaaaaaaaannnnnd….. I note on Goodreads that the UK cover shown there (different than the one in Hampus’s pic) has NOS4R2 as well. Seriously, is the UK pronunciation really that different?

    Things that make ya go hmmmmmm.

  3. Contrarius: I notice the title of Joe Hill’s book has changed from NOS4A2 to NOS4R2. Aaaaaaaaannnnnd….. I note on Goodreads that the UK cover shown there (different than the one in Hampus’s pic) has NOS4R2 as well. Seriously, is the UK pronunciation really that different?

    I keep telling you people how dangerous those Superfluous Commonwealth Rs are!

  4. Arifel: Hang on, do USians pronounce it “Nosfer-ay-tu”???

    I pronounce it “Nos-fer-ah-tue” — which is neither “Nos-fer-ay-tue” nor *cough*Camestros*cough* “Nos-fer-ar-tue”.

    In the Netherlands, the Dutch version of the book is entitled “NOSFERA2”. I’m with them. 😉

  5. Ha! I wouldn’t like to speculate on what particular transcontinental form of “Commonwealth” Camestros speaks in, but it’s definitely “Nos-fer-ah-tue” for me as well. I’d also pronounce Luke Skywalker’s astromech’s name as “ah-tue dee-tue”. So yes, can confirm that the “R” is consistent and more intuitive than “A” at least for Southeastern English accents, though not so much more intuitive that I feel strongly about the title change…!

  6. I’d say NOS-fer-AH-tu. Where “nos” rhymes with toes. Although actually “toes” has a slightly z sound at the end. Um, “nos” rhymes with dose. I’m in Midwestern America.

  7. Arifel: I’d also pronounce Luke Skywalker’s astromech’s name as “ah-tue dee-tue”.

    And there it is, folks… this is from whence Commonwealthers get their Superfluous Rs — they steal them from words which actually have them!!! 😀

  8. I mean if you’d like to speculate about who stole whose language here, we can definitely do – that but I don’t fancy your odds 😉 😀

  9. I mean if you’d like to speculate about who stole whose language here, we can definitely do that – but I don’t fancy your odds 😉 😀

    (Edit: Haha, a duplicate comment with a misplaced hyphen isn’t going to help my personal case for using it!)

  10. @Mark —

    Pirate vampires, obviously.

    That’s what I was thinking!

    @Arifel —

    But if you saw the word spelled out Nosferatu, would you actually say “Nosferartu”?? Because that’s what the altered title spelling (NOS4R2) implies. Otherwise, why change it from the original (NOS4A2)?

    @JJ —

    In the Netherlands, the Dutch version of the book is entitled “NOSFERA2”.

    Would that actually fit on a Dutch license plate? This gets curiouser and curiouser….

  11. Arifel: I mean if you’d like to speculate about who stole whose language here, we can definitely do – that but I don’t fancy your odds.

    I’m not talking about stealing language. You lot are linguistical Robirn Hoods — you take Rs from your words which have them, and give them to your words which don’t. 😀

  12. @Contrarius in my (southeast English, similar to what you’d hear on the BBC) dialect, the letter “R”, as one would recite it in the alphabet, is pronounced as the open mouthed vowel “ah” – no pirate speak involved!

    NOS4A2 looks like “Nosferaytu” to me on first glance, though the intended pronunciation is obvious after about three seconds and would probably have worked just fine.

  13. I’m not talking about stealing language. You lot are linguistical Robirn Hoods — you take Rs from your words which have them, and give them to your words which don’t.

    Blimey! This redistribution of phonemes is trickier than I thought!

  14. @Arifel–

    Ha! I wouldn’t like to speculate on what particular transcontinental form of “Commonwealth” Camestros speaks in, but it’s definitely “Nos-fer-ah-tue” for me as well. I’d also pronounce Luke Skywalker’s astromech’s name as “ah-tue dee-tue”. So yes, can confirm that the “R” is consistent and more intuitive than “A” at least for Southeastern English accents, though not so much more intuitive that I feel strongly about the title change…!

    Here in New England, where the original European settlers came from southeastern England, this is how we pronounce things, too.

    There is a story about the Archdiocesan Boys Choir, and the new music director who was attempting to teach them to sing “Ave Maria,” and pronounce Maria correctly. He eventually figured out the problem, and marked up their music sheets so that they read “Ave Mariar.”

    The boys got it then, and started dropping that R newly present at the end of Maria.

    Please note that this is a story that was old when I was a wee bit of a high school student. It’s possible that it’s apocryphal. But for anyone that has grown up in the Greater Boston area, especially, it makes so much sense, why would anyone doubt it?

    As I’ve mentioned before, we speak correctly here.

  15. @JJ Hmm, I’m not sure I would naturally change my mouth into an “R” shape at any point except at the start of a syllable. So while the “R”s are definitely going somewhere, it’s not to the other words I’m saying… Does this mean the stereotypical West Country pirates have been stealing from their own this entire time??

    😀

  16. “I’m not talking about stealing language. You lot are linguistical Robirn Hoods — you take Rs from your words which have them, and give them to your words which don’t.”

    Shouldn’t it be Obin Hoord then?

  17. Tim Curry knows exactly how to teach you to pronounce your Rs, at 2:37:

    Which reminds me of when my friend had an interesting discussion once about the southern parts of Sweden. “It is funny with you americans”, he said, “that you always have big Rs. We have this place in southern Sweden where everyone also have big Rs.”

    Which got one person at the table upset which made him later complain: “How could you say such things about her! She hasn’t even got a big arse.”

  18. Would that actually fit on a Dutch license plate? This gets curiouser and curiouser….

    It might fit, but you wouldn’t find something like NOS4R2 on a Dutch license plate, because the Netherlands don’t allow custom license plates and instead sequentially number license plates based on the date of first registration. It doesn’t fit the current format for Dutch license plates either. Not to mention that the Dutch version comes out as Nosferatwe.

    Coincidentally, you wouldn’t get a German license plate with NOS4R2 or NOS4A2 either, even though we have custom license plates within limitations. However, the first two or three letters on a German license plate always indicate the place of registration. And there is no place of registration with the code NO or NOS.

    BTW, I had no idea what the title of that Joe Hill book was supposed to mean until this thread, so thanks to Vlad for deciding to sleep on it.

  19. It doesn’t make sense to me that German or Dutch would substitute out the 4; doesn’t “vier” sound close enough? But what is the title in French? (Quatre would be Right Out….)

  20. @Cora: Er, uh, Christmasland? WHAT?!?!?!

    I’m so confused. Thank goodness there’s a picture of a beautiful, though mischievous, kitty at the top of this post. 😀

    @Hampus Eckerman: Safe travels (and pretty kitty!). 🙂

    ETA: Oh, and nice reading material!

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