History Literature / ToSayNothingOfTheDog

* TemporalSickness: "Time-lag", caused by having too many jumps over too short a period. Effects include forgetfulness, visual and auditory hallucinations and an absolute conviction you haven't got time-lag. In the beginning of the novel [[BlatantLies Ned is of course is most certainly not experiencing any time-lag]], as he explains to his supervisor [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers and the glowing white angel]].

* ForWantOfANail: Small items, like cats, can have huge impacts on history. At one point, when ruminating on just how much trouble he's in, Ned quotes the TropeNamer poem directly. More frequently, though, the narrative instead cites [[MadLibsCatchPhrase "This is the (X) that (Y)'d the (Z) that (W)'d the house that Jack built"]] as an equivalent phrase.

The novel's name is a reference to the subtitle of Jerome K. Jerome's Victorian comic classic ''Literature/ThreeMenInABoat'', to which is makes a few references.

** One of the most notable symptoms of [[TemporalSickness time-lag]] is really poor decision-making, and the main characters rag each other mercilessly about it whenever the other does anything strange, such as [[AcceptableTargets expressing an appreciation for Victorian art]].

* TheButlerDidIt: Invoked by name by Verity, after it's discovered that [[spoiler: Biane and Tossie eloped, meaning Baine was Tossie's unnamed husband.]]

** Multiple mystery novels, especially including ''The Moonstone'' (one of the few to exist when much of the story is set), Franchise/HerculePoirot, and Lord Peter Wimsey.

** Multiple mystery novels, especially including ''The Moonstone'' (one of the few to exist when much of the story is set), Hercule Poirot, and Lord Peter Wimsey.

''To Say Nothing of the Dog'' is a 1997 novel by Creator/ConnieWillis. The story is set in Oxford, England, about 60 years into the future, after TimeTravel has not only been invented, but pretty much everyone except historians has lost interest in it. This is mainly because it turns out that you can't bring things from the past to the future, or at least, you aren't ''supposed'' to be able to. Most of the history of this period and rules of time travel are laid out in Willis' earlier novel ''Literature/DoomsdayBook'', which takes place in the same universe.

In ''To Say Nothing of the Dog'', the History Department of Balliol, [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Oxford University]], has been thrown into chaos by the pet project of a rich donor: to rebuild a cathedral that was destroyed during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, exactly as it was at the moment it was bombed. Ned Henry is charged with finding out what happened to the [[MacGuffin Bishop's Bird Stump]] (a bird stump, incidentally, is a kind of flower vase; this particular bird stump is cast iron, and extremely UsefulNotes/{{Victorian|Britain}}), and is having some unexpected difficulty with the task. Then another historian, Verity Kindle, accidentally brings a cat from Victorian England to the present. Ned and Verity go back to Victorian England to try to sort out the problems caused by the missing cat, before history begins to change. And the bird stump is still missing. . .

* BabyTalk: Tossie, to her cat Princess Arjumand (aka. "Dearum Dearum Juju"). Which, to Ned, TastesLikeDiabetes