Talk:zatch

Definition of "zatch"

"Zatch" (in "from guggle to zatch" or "from your guggle to your zatch") comes originally, as far as I know, from the book "The 13 Clocks" and is actually defined there. Many will initially assume "from guggle to zatch" means something like "from top to bottom" or "from head to tail", which in some loose sense it does, but the whole book is a sort of language game, in a way, and this is an inexact rendering. It means "throat", with "guggle" meaning "stomach". This line confirms:

• "Even if you were the mighty Zorn of Zorna," said the man, "you could not escape the fury of the Duke. He'll slit you from your guggle to your zatch, from here to here." He touched the minstrel's stomach and his throat.

Given the order here it seems, at least in its original context, that the word means "throat", with "guggle" being stomach. Moonithil (talk) 01:54, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

What the coiner meant is irrelevant if the the actual speakers of of the language mean something different. I'm inclined to think that for most people it doesn't mean anything at all- the total lack of correspondence to any identifiable feature of the anatomy is part of the joke. Chuck Entz (talk) 09:01, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

But do speakers more widely use it to mean stomach (or something else) over throat? If so, fair enough, though in that case I think both definitions should be mentioned. Moonithil (talk) 20:56, 22 December 2020 (UTC)