It's a terrible thing for a man when his woman gangs up on him wi' a toad

Vimes had got around to a Clean Desk policy. It was a Clean Floor strategy that eluded him at the moment.

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.

"Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, "are a sure sign of a diseased mind."

No, what he didn't like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk.

They were indeed what was known as 'old money', which meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds which had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that: a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of.

People's whole lives do pass in front of their eye before they die. The process is called "Living".