Why was Slartibartfast hesitant to tell his name?

>>8388441
>Yes, I'm trying to make sense of a minor detail in HGTTG, don't judge me.


too late.

your name is Pizpot Gargravarr, isn't it?

>>8388441
He has a shitty name that's it

>>8388465
but it's shitty IN ENGLISH.
he's a Magrathean. why would he be shy to say his name to a member of nation whose rudeness conventions he has no idea of?

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>>8388441
Because his real name is Theta Sigma.

>>8388481
maybe it's even shittier in Magrathean.

>>8388521
>>8388481
>>8388465
>>8388441
He's based on the Doctor from Doctor Who if it's not already extremely obvious. The Doctor never shares his name and neither does Slarti.

It's extremely obvious when he says
>she'd be typing out this long and extraordinary name which would be quite an effort to type
And the Doctor's name is constantly referred to as long and unpronounceable (except when it is referred to as Theta Sigma but this is quickly decanonised)

Bistromath = a perception filtered TARDIS as well as references to time travel.
Both ships run on mathematics (the TARDIS runs on Block Transfer Mathematics to be precise.)

Adams was also a script director for Doctor Who and this isn't the first time that characters from Doctor Who intersect with his. For example, Professor Chronotis a Time Lord in his unpublished Doctor Who Serial Shada ends up in the Dirk Gently books. Adams recycles a lot.

>>8388546
>He's based on the Doctor from Doctor Who if it's not already extremely obvious. The Doctor never shares his name and neither does Slarti.
that's meta. i don't care about meta. i don't like meta. i'm talking in-universe.

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>>8388552
>not understanding what an expy/injoke is
There is no inuniverse explanation.

>>8388559
*
It's the same as if you were to write the most successfully selling book in history and decided to pump your next books with a few ebin /lit/ memes for the shits and giggles and no one except the hard core fans would understand what the fuck you're talking about because you're deliberately vague about it.

>>8388559
I understand what an expy/injoke is.
But that's a dolylist explanation. I need a watsonian.

>>8388568
A U T I S M

>>8388568
The only person who knows is deceased.

>>8388441
The babelfish is an idiomatic translator. It changed the name to something that sounds embarrising in English.

>>8388603
makes sense. thanks.

>>8388568
>I understand what an expy/injoke is.
>But that's a dolylist explanation. I need a watsonian.
Pls go and stay go

>>8388481
He literally says in t he book that he has a shitty name and is kind of embarrassed by it

What more do you want?

>>8388837
the name provided was shitty in english.
Slarti was Magrathean speaking Magrathean
I was wondering if his name was also supposed to be shitty in Magrathean
a kind anon reminded me that the Babel Fish was idiomatic translator, so the name needn't have sounded exactly "Slartibartfast" in Magrathean, it's just how Arthur Dent heard it

>>8388847
That's an interesting question. It seems likely that the Babel Fish works on names too because they may require different sounds in different languages. On Earth, different languages have different names for countries (e.g. "Germany" and "Deutschland").

>>8388546
>Adams recycles a lot.

although he doesn't recycle as much as he used to before he died.