Akkadian Dictionary Complete

[El Mahdi]

What the hell is this reference that I'm missing?

Danny was referencing an episode of a BBC comedy series from the 80's that was about writing a dictionary (it starred Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie, and Miranda Richardson among others). That's where the "sausage" and "aardvark" part came from.

I was referencing that Akkadian is the original language of Zoroastrianism, of which Zarathustra was it's creator and primary prophet (a transliteration of Zoroaster). "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" is also the title of a piece of classical music by Richard Strauss (Also Sprach Zarathustra or Thus Spoke Zarathustra), and is most recognized as the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

As with most jokes, if it has to be explained it probably wasn't very funny, so we probably failed our Tell Joke skill checks. (Or at least I did...Danny's was pretty funny...)

 

[Scott DeWar]

that particular musical piece is quite awesome at high volume levels.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Danny was referencing an episode of a BBC comedy series

Specifically, Black Adder, series 3. The dictionary's writer- despite years of painstaking work- had forgotten the word "Sausage." There is some additional funny stuff when they believe the dictionary burned, so Blackadder tries to recreate it, starting with "a" and "aardvark."