Well-Known Facts

Many things on the Discworld are so patently obvious and self-evident that they come under the heading of Well-Known Facts, which are usually emphatically presented in spoken discourse and dogmatically topped off with a statement along the lines of "That's a Well-Known Fact, that is!"

A well-known proponent of using Well-Known Facts is Fred Colon, a man who had been to the School of My Dad Always Said, the College of It Stands to Reason, and is now a post-graduate student at the University of What Some Bloke In the Pub Told Me, and is thus extremely well-educated.

Most people are susceptible to using these Well-Known Facts in dire situations, as demonstrated by Susan Sto Helit's use of them to overcome certain difficulties with nougat.

A Well-Known Fact may also make serfect pense after a few tinnies of Roo Beer.

Well-Known Facts include such axioms as:-

• A Million-to-one chance comes up nine times out of ten.
• A chocolate you do not want to eat does not count as chocolate; and indeed, like food consumed whilst walking, contains no calories.
• Everybody knows the thing about Dwarfs - (Dwarfs are naturally well-endowed);
• Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things;
• The pen is mightier than the sword (but only if it's a very small sword and it's a large well-sharpened pen);
• The more geography you've got, the less history you have;
• When you've got enemies at large, you do not get into the first cab that obligingly presents itself;
• Everyone knows that at the end of the week, you've never got quite as much money left as you think you should;
• Women should never be taught to read or write, nor indeed to attempt anything overly intellectual, as the effort involved, on a brain quite unsuited for it, will cause it to overheat and explode. A Well-Known Fact to a certain minority of the other half of the human (or Nomish) race...
• Hedgehogs do it very carefully, and indeed the prospect of sodomy is not one which exercises the spiny erinaceid mind very much. Well-known fact, and song.
• Where you get personality, you get irregularities. (This is stipulated even by the Auditors of Reality, who know their facts.)
• All anyone gets in a mirror is themselves, but what you gets in a good gumbo is everything.
• In times of trouble, the best thing to do is panic.

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