h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Interesting to see the index, given the Neil Gaiman quote 'humanity is only 24 hours and two meals away from barbarism'.

If this works it is my first reply in Pliny that actually works for several years. Yay!

That's interesting! So I looked it up. Gaiman said 'somebody said' that. He was right - similar quotes go back to the 1890s, according to the Quote Investigator, which has the receipts, as usual. I note that the first science fiction writer to 'quote the quote' about food shortages causing anarchy did so in 1911.

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/05/02/nine-meals/#:~:text=Dear%20Quote%20Investigator%3A%20When%20the,meals%20between%20humanity%20and%20anarchy.

Modern people in the West seem to think they need to eat more these days. The original quote was, 'There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.' Said by Alfred Henry Lewis, investigative journalist and novelist, in 1896.

Thanks for checking. I may use that quote investigator in the future.

I don't suppose they had more meals back then? I clearly remember the six meals from Lord of the Rings: breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper.

In that case 24 hours and two meals only lasts you until after second breakfast (if the incident took place before breakfast the day before).

I can't answer for Professor Tolkien. But 'three square meals a day' was the norm in farm and working-class America. 'Second breakfast' was never a thing here.

Maybe the other three meals are round?

Full English breakfast makes any intermediate meals unnecessary, in my opinion. (It helps keep your feet to the ground in a gale for a few hours)

Personally I prepare six sandwiches and some fruit in the morning which are then consumed over the course of the working day or just breakfast and lunch in the weekend.

You can tell that quote originated with Europeans/North Americans. People have a lot of different eating habits around the world, from browsing like you to eating one big meal after dark.

In case you weren't just straining to make a pun - 'square meal' is an American phrase going back to 1804. 'Square' has an old meaning of 'honest, straightforward' - which might be why in the '40s the 'hepcats' contrasted themselves to the 'squares', as did the beatniks in the '50s.

If you look in a dictionary produced by English people, they will probably try to tell you the term goes back to the Royal Navy's square plates, but this is merely another futile attempt at linguistic hegemony. LOTS of plates were square on the frontier.

Not eating bread, for a start.

I was aware of that meaning (but not the origin) of 'square meals'. (the pun was intentional).

True about the bread.