Lists & hierarchies

Fire in Ankh-Morpork

Is this a list? If so, what can we say about it?

(The word 'bifurcated' means 'split in two'—in this case, by a river.)

Fire roared through the bifurcated city of Ankh-Morpork. Where it licked the Wizards’ Quarter it burned blue and green and was even laced with strange sparks of the eighth color, octarine; where its outriders found their way into the vats and oil stores all along Merchant Street it progressed in a series of blazing fountains and explosions; in the streets of the perfume blenders it burned with a sweetness; where it touched bundles of rare and dry herbs in the storerooms of the drugmasters it made men go mad and talk to God.

The Colour of Magic(1985)

Fire roared through the bifurcated city of Ankh-Morpork. Where it licked the Wizards’ Quarter it burned blue and green and was even laced with strange sparks of the eighth color, octarine; where its outriders found their way into the vats and oil stores all along Merchant Street it progressed in a series of blazing fountains and explosions; in the streets of the perfume blenders it burned with a sweetness; where it touched bundles of rare and dry herbs in the storerooms of the drugmasters it made men go mad and talk to God.

The Colour of Magic(1985)

Fire roared through the bifurcated city of Ankh-Morpork. Where it licked the Wizards’ Quarter it burned blue and green and was even laced with strange sparks of the eighth color, octarine; where its outriders found their way into the vats and oil stores all along Merchant Street it progressed in a series of blazing fountains and explosions; in the streets of the perfume blenders it burned with a sweetness; where it touched bundles of rare and dry herbs in the storerooms of the drugmasters it made men go mad and talk to God.

The Colour of Magic(1985)
Vertical, horizontal, or matrix? Ordered or unordered? How many levels? What are the list items? How much detail in each item?
  • It's a horizontal or inline list (look at the semicolons!).
  • It's unordered.
  • It's 2-level:
    • Locations are the categories.
    • Effects of fire are the list items.

This is a good example of a list in a fictional narrative.

Terry Pratchett needed to burn his fantasy city of Ankh-Morpork and describe that in a way that sounded realistic.

So he lists the effects that the fire has when it burns different parts of the city.

(Note: If you wanted, you could make a case that this is a matrix because each location has the same two properties: fuel & effect.)

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