[mpalmer]

    The book has to be small enough to disappear when a teacher looks up. Pocket editions, as their name suggests, were engineered for this. Pratchett’s were small, fat, slightly battered, and printed on a kind of paper that already looked guilty.

Pratchett's Pocket editions were slightly battered? Pre-sale, even?

Not only does the paper "look guilty", but it's doing so "already"? As if guilty paper is normal, but not on THIS time scale.

It's nonsensical; even bad writers don't end up with stuff like this.

[petesergeant]

Presumably the ones from the library, which the author mentions was his source? Every Pratchett book I read as a kid matched this description, including being battered.

[mpalmer]

Tell me more about this already-guilty-looking paper, and how this kid was "sliding" an entire paperback book into a math textbook with "a centimetre to spare".

[petesergeant]

I think I could slide this into a maths text book?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2174439579599449/posts/23646...

[the_af]

You wouldn't be able to open it and keep it open flat against the textbook though, not without the teacher noticing. It simply doesn't work, now that the author has acknowledged they used AI to spruce up their blog post, we can agree this part (hiding pocketbooks in open textbooks) was 100% slop.

[watwut]

I dont know what kind of pockets you have, but most Pratchetts book did not fit into mine. And yes there were whole series of books that fit. But, pratchetts ones did not.

[the_af]

I found this odd too. And the notion you could hide a Pratchett pocket book inside an open textbook. Anyone who has read Pratchett, or knows pocketbooks, knows this wouldn't work. They are voluminous (regardless of their name) and won't stay open on their own.

In fact, it seems a uniquely AI mistake to make to believe pocketbooks go in pockets. Anyone knows they don't fit, unless you have really big pockets and don't mind the weight and bulge.

[Quarrelsome]

they battered if you put it in your pocket. The idea of paper looking guilty chimes with the idea that you're reading it in the back of the classroom when you're not supposed to be.

I mean seriously? We're so cooked if this is the "red flag".

[simonw]

I have never seen a printed Discworld book that would fit in a pocket. Have you?

EDIT: I stand corrected, turns out they DID have pocket sized editions in France: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48247127#48248586

[gorgmah]

In france, there was an edition of the discworld series literally called "pocket", and yes it sometimes fit in pockets (which had to be on the bigger end of pockets though), especially if you bended the book a little. Looked like this: https://www.babelio.com/livres/Pratchett-Les-annales-du-Disq...

The first books of the discworld were thin too.

[simonw]

Thanks, I didn't know that! Definitely smaller than the paperbacks we had in the UK, and pocket-sized.

[scubbo]

Not to say that the article doesn't have plenty of other flaws, but - yes, my original paperbacks certainly did.

[onraglanroad]

Yes. The original small ones would fit in my jacket pockets or the back pocket of my jeans.

[mpalmer]

There's like nine red flags. You are holding the English language to an incredibly low standard.

[Quarrelsome]

we can talk about the others if you like, but we were discussing this one and I am a little disappointed about us just moving elsewhere. Are you yielding, or do you still think guilty paper is somehow sus?

> You are holding the English language to an incredibly low standard.

I'm holding humans to a low standard. That's why editors exist.