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What does "Duplo" mean? "the Duplo economy" "Duplo world"

• alan-crowe 11y ago
  When pg writes "a Duplo world of a few giant companies dominating each big market." he is referring figuratively to double size lego bricks, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Duplo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Duplo Notice that Duplo bricks are twice as long, twice as wide, and twice as tall as ordinary Lego. I wrote "double size" but they are, in a sense, eight times the size of ordinary Lego. They appear hugely larger. Also one tends to have far fewer Duplo bricks than Lego bricks ( 1/8 ?), about the same total volume, limited by storage space in the toy cupboard. This lets the figurative use of the word Duplo serve double duty, both suggesting that the parts are eight times the size, while also suggesting that the grand total is about the same, there are just one eight as many of the big ones. It is literally a childish metaphor, but still an apt one.