Hacker News Reader

Comment by Y_Y | Hacker News Reader

For the benefit of non- German speakers,

    MENSCHENJAGER MARK ELF

    HUMAN-HUNTER MARK ELEVEN

like it's a pun on the word "mark" indicating a version of something. Feels weird that it's not rendered as MARK XI, but that's not as cute a name I suppose.

View on HN

What’s the pun?

Mark Elf sounds like a name (in fact there is a famous guitarist with this name). I assumed that the purpose was to misdirect us so that there was an "a-ha" when you discovered the real meaning of the words, a-la a garden-path joke.

I might be reading too far into it though, apparently the story _was_ originally published as MARK XI[0].

[0] http://mporcius.blogspot.ca/2014/05/three-stories-by-cordwai...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com