Chapter 33 That night they stayed Outside the Asylum and watched TV from inside it. This is what I wanted you to see, said Wonko the Sane when the news came around again, an old colleague of mine. He’s over in your country running an investigation. Just watch. It was a press conference. I’m afraid I can’t comment on the name Rain God at this present time, and we are calling him an example of a Spontaneous ParaCausal Meteorological Phenomenon. Can you tell us what that means? I’m not altogether sure. Let’s be straight here. If we find something we can’t understand we like to call it something you can’t understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don’t, and I’m afraid we couldn’t have that. No, first we have to call it something which says it’s ours, not yours, then we set about finding some way of proving it’s not what you said it is, but something we say it is. And if it turns out that you’re right, you’ll still be wrong, because we will simply call him a… er “Supernormal…” not paranormal or supernatural because you think you know what those mean now, no, a “Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer”. We’ll probably want to shove a “Quasi” in there somewhere to protect ourselves. Rain God! Huh, never heard such nonsense in my life. Admittedly, you wouldn’t catch me going on holiday with him. Thanks, that’ll be all for now, other than to say “Hi!” to Wonko if he’s watching. 第33章 晚上他們呆在庇護所的外面看庇護所裏面的電視。 “這就是我想讓你們看的。”又開始放新聞的時候獨醒客說，“我的一個老同事。現在在你們的國家做一個研究。看吧。” 那是一個新聞發佈會。 “恐怕目前我不能對‘雨神’這個名字發表任何意見，我們稱之爲‘原發性超因果氣候現象’的一個案例。” “您能告訴我們這是什麼意思嗎？” “整體上說我不是特別確定。直說了吧。如果我們發現了我們無法理解的東西，我們喜歡用你們無法理解，或者乾脆讀不出來的名字來稱呼它。我的意思是，如果我們就那麼讓你們隨隨便便叫他‘雨神’，那這就表面你們知道我們所不知道的一些東西，而恐怕我們不能接收這一點。 “那樣不行，首先我們要給這個東西一個名字表面那是我們的，不是你們的，然後我們去尋找某種方式證明它不是你們所說的那樣，而是我們所說的那樣。 “如果最後發現你們是對的，你們仍然是錯的，因爲我們會簡單的叫他……呃， ‘超典型……’而不是非典型或者超自然，因爲你們現在覺得自己明白那是什麼意思，那不行，得是‘超典型落體增益誘導者’。我們可能想在裏面什麼地方再塞一個‘類’的前綴來包含我們自己。‘雨神’！哈，我這輩子就沒聽過這麼荒唐的詞。不過無可否認，你們絕不會看到我跟他一塊度假。謝謝，就這些吧。另外我要和獨醒客說聲‘嗨！’，如果他正在看電視的話。”
