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

Thank you Marv.



You know, even though Marv was at my side when we went into Canada, not once did the Border Patrol stop us for a complete car and body cavity search!

[{Courtesy}]

FG you sound somewhat dissapointed at that.

What a beautiful place for a vacation. Lucky you.

I had never really thought much about Glacier prior to being drug through it with FG when I visited her a few years ago. Now I consider it one of the most beautiful places in the world. And having a tour guide who knew so much about teh palce was really excellent as well.

Drug?

Drug?

A version of the past tense of drag, modelled on the Anglo Saxon Vowel Shift:

viz:

the past tense of give is gave, not gived
the American past tense of dive is dove, not dived, as it is in the UK
the past tense of hide is hid, not hided
and my personal favourite, which is hard to write here, is that the past tense of s**t is s**t and not s****d, as one might expect.

So satisfying to be able to use bad language in the course of good education, don't you think?

Who'd'a thunk it, eh?

B

Oh, don't feel like it was in any way a waste of time. It was an amazing trip and one that really changed my outlook on Montana in general. Perhaps a different turn of speach would be in order.

Prior to accompanying FG through Glacier, I had not considered it as a destination by it's own accord. Now, I would take a trip up there *just* to visit glacier (with a lengthy stay in Missoula of course).

Can anyone see Phil & MC?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/glastonbury2003/glastocam.shtml

This is one American who was taught that dived is correct rather than dove. Also dragged instead of drug. Guess my age is showing again.

This is one American who ignored most of his basic English classes. It is quite likely I was taught "Dragged" instead of "drug", but I am rather lazy with my speach when typing.

I take the view that language is fluid, and usage is usage. It is useful to understand accurate usage, in the same way, and for the same reasons that it is useful to know boolean math(s). It makes clear thought easier.

But new usages come into place, and provide new ways of thinking. For example the form devised, or at least popularised, by Wayne's World provided a new, elegent and consise way of producing an emphatic negative, which simply was not available before. ("The weather here is great... Not!" is much more powerful and consise than any of the alternative negative forms.)

So I think that people should be taught to use language accurately, because it makes their lives better if they can. But I do not think there is anything even slightly reprehensible if you use langauge colloquially.

B

Actually, my consternation came from the fact that no one is happily "drug" anywhere...its hardly the word one uses when voluntary motion is the order of the day.

Lil, are you planning to draw one of those bat-winged black dragonian horses?

drugged up is a favorite phrase of mine.

Every day I get more confirmation that I have died and gone back to highschool.

This company is run like a very badly administered school for deliquint children.

No talking about HP book contents here! We don't want to spoil things for the salonistas that haven't had an opportunity to get ahold of the book yet.

I think the old vowel-shifted tenses are becoming obsolete, sadly. In my mind, the sun shone, not "the sun shined," but I see the latter all the time now, including in novels. Hm. Must ask my copy editor friend how she rules on such examples. The past perfect tense of 'get' -- i.e., "I had gotten the cats indoors before the tornado hit," is still in active use here but not, I understand, in England.

I posted here first thing this morning and got the bum's rush from one of the servers. Wouldn't post my post, and wouldn't let me back onto the site. And I had things to say in response to what I had read from the rest of you, stuff which is now buried behind a couple of LED's.

At school my defence of all spelling mistakes was to claim I was following Will Shakespears example

Lil, if we can't talk about the book in this thread could you phu-leeeeeeeze make us a new one so that we may chat in an unfettered manner about the 870 delicious pages that are Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix?

Nevermind, I just saw the new thread!