Talk:Quirm College for Young Ladies

Having deduced in a roundabout way that Serafine von Überwald attended the QCYL, the question arises: Angua von Überwald had to go to school somewhere. She is intelligent and literate. We know, for the upper classes, the preferred family schools also run down the generations - if Mummy went to Roedean, she'll send her daughters there; if Grandad and Dad went to Winchester, then I will in my turn attend Winchester College. So there is a high logical possibility (although so far unsupported by the books, hence not noted in the main article) that Angua also went to QCYL.

The logic for Serafine's attendance at QCYL:

i) in The Fifth Elephant we are told that Sybil Ramkin and Serafine von Überwald are contemporaries who attended the same school together. In The Fifth Elephant this school remains un-named. ii) In Thud!, Sybil's alma mater is conclusively identified, in her own words, as QCYL. iii) Ergo, Serafine also attended QCYL.

--AgProv 10:57, 19 September 2007 (CEST)

Angua was undoubtedly a difficult child, for a Werewolf family, like Flanders' & Swann's young cannibal. Her family's alternatives for her education might have influenced her to try Ankh-Morpork.--Old Dickens 04:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

It's a test of the style policy when the same contributor spells "organise" with an "s" and a "z". --Old Dickens 04:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Whoops... the same contributor (me) at widely seperated intervals in time, having a senior moment over whether British English usage of the "-ise" suffix should really be an "-ize" or vice-versa...

Come to think of it, the other alternative for the upper classes, when it comes to educating their kids, is to keep them at home and employ a governess/private tutor, or a series of same. (As per Pteppic's early education). We tend to forget in Britain that the first British monarch to break from the private tutor system, and send their kids to any sort of school at all, was Elizabeth II... This does lead to wondering over the sort of private tutors who might have educated Angua and Wolfgang, though! --AgProv 00:24, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Different tutors for bipedal and quadrupedal skills, perhaps. --Old Dickens 02:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The late Clement Freud, speaking in the British Parliament, responded to a young woman minister that something she was proposing was impractical because she had no idea how disorganised the world could be, since her schooling had been at Cheltenham Ladies College, "the potting shed of the English Rose." Afterwards she met him in the lobby and told him to go away in robust, even vulgar, terms. A good candidate for QCYL equivalence. (unsigned comment by User:Emen 11 Oct 2009)

Note on Iron Lilies

HarperCollins' idiosyncratic edits can be hard to follow. The recent edit doesn't fix the problem, either. My Harper Torch Soul Music features Iron Lily; did the hb have "Ronnie"? "Get some ball" and "get some stick" also appear in both editions. I can't find "Get stuck in" in either, although I remember it from somewhere, but it's a Briticism unlikely to be inserted by Harper. (Maybe from the original Gollancz?) --Old Dickens (talk) 18:27, 22 March 2018 (UTC)