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

I wonder what these puritan folks make of the cross breed dog bred from a cocker spaniel and a poodle

Roosterer Spaniel, thus a roosterapoo.


OK... I'm done.

I meant to post this here last week, but I couldn't find this thread. (I was looking the hard way through MY Convos list rather than going directly to ASK H2G2 and looking back through there. I guess I was expecting a longer backlog like back in the good ol' days when ASK was much, much busier.

Anyway, Here's what I learned the other day.




In cartoons and old films, a jug of moonshine was recognizable by the "XXX" marked on it.

But what did those Xes actually indicate.

Well, today I learned that this goes back to the early days of moonshine when most of it was distilled in simple pot stills. Pot stills aren't very efficient so what comes out of it after a single distilling isn't very pure and requires repeat distillings.

To get proper moonshine, nearly pure alcohol at around 80% ABV, the 'shine would need to be run through the still 3 times. The XXXes indicated the times the moonshine had been run through the still.

Would it have been all right to use a turkey rather than a chicken for the recipe?

Mathematically speaking: Turkey = bigger = better?

Just don't confuse the bird and the country.

Dinde au vin - does have a certain "je ne sais quoi"

Actually, I do know. It's assonance, before some pedant interrupts.

However, I don't think turkey would be as good in a coq au vin. Rabbit, maybe.

"Lapin au vin"

....there I go again!

In certain French restaurants I encountered "Chagrin au vin".
Never order that.

To be fair to that restaurant owner over in Texas, he didn't invent drunken chicken either, I've seen it called that loads of times over here in Blighty.

Given the influence Marks and Spencers ads and Masterchef are having on the pretentiousness of food menus I'm all for a bit of Englishing up in English speaking countries, so that the uninitiated actually know what they're eating

Like, you can't have a gravy any more - it's a 'jus'. etc...

Can I have an orange gravy please?

No.

But you may have a Freshly Squeezed Mandarin Zhou, served in a potash doped silicon oxide goblet.

Quite a while back I learned (QAWBIL?) of the circuitous route the modern domesticated turkey came to be known as such. The bird (already domesticated) was introduced to the Spanish as they invaded what's now Mexico. They brought them back to Europe and introduced them to England. Around this time, at the height of the Ottoman empire, anything considered exotic was likely to be associated with Turkey (the country). Pumpkins were known as "Turkish cucumbers" and maize as "Turkish wheat. When originally introduced to the English, the bird was known as the Turkey-cock (Turkey-rooster!) The English then RE-introduced the bird to the New World bringing the domesticated bird to the Northeast coast of North America (there were plenty of wild turkeys there already).

This may have inspired P D Q Bach to write his "Rondo a la turkey lurkey."

That was Mozart.

Mozart's Rondo a la turca was parodied by P D Q Bach.

Sometimes I like the parodies as much as the originals.

Oh sorry - I didn't get that reference

It's from the Concerto for bassoon versus orchestra.

The first movement is Break allegro.

I love the puns

YIL (yesterday, just occurred to me that this is a good place for such a thing).

The guy who sings Mna Mna on the original version (y'know the Muppet Show ultimate ear worm, only the Italian original) is the same guy who went AYEAYEE AAHH, WAH WAH WAAAAAAH! in the them tune to the Good the Bad and the Ugly.

Seems his talent was using his vocals for weird noises....

Yes, that is quite an earworm.