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horlock

English translation: ideas

10:25 Mar 6, 2019
English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature
English term or phrase: horlock
‘You might want to think again, sir,’ he said. ‘Boris took a couple of fingers off a man last year. He’s a trampler, too, and a snaffler and a scraper and he’ll *horlock* if he can get away with it. He’s got demons in him, and that’s a fact.’
--quoted from Going Postal (2004, fantasy fiction) by Terry Pratchett (link: https://zingnovel.com/going-postal-discworld-33-page-26.html...

The boss of the stable took Boris, a "killer" horse, to retaliate against Moris, who had disparaged his horses.
Cannot figure out what "horlock" means.
Thank you!
updownK
China
Local time: 08:39
Selected answer:ideas
Explanation:
The easiest thing is to take "killer horse" at face value and say "horlock" means "kill" but I think that is far too simplistic and does not explore WHY Pratchett uses this (made-up) word.

So, better to explore possible origins and meanings for the word so you can perhaps invent a similar one when translating. I read the rest of the incident with the horse to get a better understanding.

The first word that springs to mind when I see "horlock" is "horlicks" the nourishing drink, which used to be given to children at nighttime to help them sleep, although it was also seen as an energy booster for athletes, explorers, the aged and infirm!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horlicks

Thus, you could say this is a horse full of energy and fast (which it quite obviously is as it takes 4 men to hold him) and there was a very fast race horse called just that Horlicks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horlicks_(horse)

"Horlicks (1983 – 24 August 2011) was an outstanding Thoroughbred racemare from New Zealand...." She won a lot of races!


The family name Horlicks gives a clue as to where the grey mare got her name

https://www.houseofnames.com/horlock-family-crest

The Horlo(i)ck surname comes from the Old English words "har," meaning "grey" and "locc," which refers to a lock of hair. Thus the surname was most likely formed from a nickname for someone with a patch of grey hair.

And the word "horlicks" is also used as a substitute for the profanity "bollocks".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horlicks
"This substitution in the form of a singular noun is also used to refer to a minor disaster or shambles, as in "to make a complete horlicks of something". For example in July 2003 British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described irregularities in the preparation and provenance of a dossier regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as "a complete horlicks"...

So, what does "horlock" mean here?
It can mean trample, or kill, or bolt (run away fast)
(Moist) "Will he run?’
Hobson) ‘Not so much run as bolt, sir...

"A mysterious stranger Hobson had tried Boris as a racehorse and he would have been a very good one were it not for his unbreakable habit, at the off, of attacking the horse next to him and jumping the railings at the first bend.”


or "bollocks" meaning (to put it politely) injure someone's manhood (genitals) as Hobson asks Moist ‘Had all the kids you want, have yer?’ when Moist asks for the saddle to be taken off so he can ride bareback.

When Moist is holding on as the horse bolts away it says "Carefully, he eased more of the blanket under him. Various organs were going numb..."

It's a fast horse, doesn't want riders (though Moist manges to hang on)
"Boris...wasn’t too bad a ride. He’d hit his rhythm, a natural single-footed gait, and his burning eyes were focused on the blueness. His hatred of everything was for the moment subsumed in the sheer joy of space. ..at least he was headed in the right direction, which was away from his stable. Boris didn’t want to spend the days kicking the bricks out of his wall while waiting to throw the next bumptious idiot. He wanted to bite the horizon. He wanted to run. .."

Hope all this helps you come up with an idea for transltion



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Note added at 3 hrs (2019-03-06 14:03:30 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

OOPS sorry! I meant to close off the BOLD


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Note added at 5 days (2019-03-11 10:54:41 GMT) Post-grading
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Glad to have helped
Selected response from:

Yvonne Gallagher
Ireland
Local time: 01:39
Grading comment
Thank you! Not only is your answer helpful to what I asked, but to what I didn't.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED
4horse witchery
B D Finch
4ideas
Yvonne Gallagher
3 -1Commit murder
Sina Salehi


Discussion entries: 11





  

Answers


11 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): -1
Commit murder


Explanation:
As the demonic characteristics are being one by one mentioned to describe Boris, I guess this last one must be the worst of all- commiting murder.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2019-03-06 12:07:55 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

You can instead use "kill" maybe since "murder" needs planning and it is more used in legal cases actually.

Sina Salehi
Germany
Local time: 02:39
Native speaker of: Native in Persian (Farsi)Persian (Farsi)
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thank you! I know what you mean. It's reasonable.


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  Sarah Lewis-Morgan: I would never say that an animal would "murder" a person.
1 hr
  -> Come on Sarah! This is the world of literature and imagination. Anything is possible when it comes to the world of imagination.
disagree  Yvonne Gallagher: a horse doesn't murder//yes, it might kill. But "murder" is the wrong word and not because of "legal cases" either. As Sarah said, we don't use the word with animals.
2 hrs
  -> This is a "killer horse." Maybe not "murder" but it can certainly "kill."
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3 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
horse witchery


Explanation:
While it is almost certainly an invented word, I'm sure that Pratchett was playing on the word "warlock" (a male witch) and horsifying it.

I imagine that no reference to Horlicks (a malted milk beverage given to kids at bedtime) was intended, unless it was to evoke nightmares.

B D Finch
France
Local time: 02:39
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 84
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thank you! Good guess!


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  Yvonne Gallagher: yes, I did think of that possibility of stemming from "warlock" as well but couldn't see how it would fit into the text here.//yes, but it's "demons" in the sense of madness, not in the sense of witchcraft
15 mins
  -> It goes on to mention "demons" and I think that links in with warlock. However, I think it's more of an allusion, not to be interpreted too strictly.
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3 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
ideas


Explanation:
The easiest thing is to take "killer horse" at face value and say "horlock" means "kill" but I think that is far too simplistic and does not explore WHY Pratchett uses this (made-up) word.

So, better to explore possible origins and meanings for the word so you can perhaps invent a similar one when translating. I read the rest of the incident with the horse to get a better understanding.

The first word that springs to mind when I see "horlock" is "horlicks" the nourishing drink, which used to be given to children at nighttime to help them sleep, although it was also seen as an energy booster for athletes, explorers, the aged and infirm!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horlicks

Thus, you could say this is a horse full of energy and fast (which it quite obviously is as it takes 4 men to hold him) and there was a very fast race horse called just that Horlicks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horlicks_(horse)

"Horlicks (1983 – 24 August 2011) was an outstanding Thoroughbred racemare from New Zealand...." She won a lot of races!


The family name Horlicks gives a clue as to where the grey mare got her name

https://www.houseofnames.com/horlock-family-crest

The Horlo(i)ck surname comes from the Old English words "har," meaning "grey" and "locc," which refers to a lock of hair. Thus the surname was most likely formed from a nickname for someone with a patch of grey hair.

And the word "horlicks" is also used as a substitute for the profanity "bollocks".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horlicks
"This substitution in the form of a singular noun is also used to refer to a minor disaster or shambles, as in "to make a complete horlicks of something". For example in July 2003 British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described irregularities in the preparation and provenance of a dossier regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as "a complete horlicks"...

So, what does "horlock" mean here?
It can mean trample, or kill, or bolt (run away fast)
(Moist) "Will he run?’
Hobson) ‘Not so much run as bolt, sir...

"A mysterious stranger Hobson had tried Boris as a racehorse and he would have been a very good one were it not for his unbreakable habit, at the off, of attacking the horse next to him and jumping the railings at the first bend.”


or "bollocks" meaning (to put it politely) injure someone's manhood (genitals) as Hobson asks Moist ‘Had all the kids you want, have yer?’ when Moist asks for the saddle to be taken off so he can ride bareback.

When Moist is holding on as the horse bolts away it says "Carefully, he eased more of the blanket under him. Various organs were going numb..."

It's a fast horse, doesn't want riders (though Moist manges to hang on)
"Boris...wasn’t too bad a ride. He’d hit his rhythm, a natural single-footed gait, and his burning eyes were focused on the blueness. His hatred of everything was for the moment subsumed in the sheer joy of space. ..at least he was headed in the right direction, which was away from his stable. Boris didn’t want to spend the days kicking the bricks out of his wall while waiting to throw the next bumptious idiot. He wanted to bite the horizon. He wanted to run. .."

Hope all this helps you come up with an idea for transltion



--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 3 hrs (2019-03-06 14:03:30 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

OOPS sorry! I meant to close off the BOLD


--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 5 days (2019-03-11 10:54:41 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------



Glad to have helped

Yvonne Gallagher
Ireland
Local time: 01:39
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 317
Grading comment
Thank you! Not only is your answer helpful to what I asked, but to what I didn't.
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thank you for your detailed research! It's definitely helpful, but I need time to read it carefully as well as the context.

Login to enter a peer comment (or grade)



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