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

Now what could THIS mean? Is it just a gratuitous use of the letter 'u' to start a word?

It's suncream that can be applied on the move.

A member of a Georgian minority political faction which split from the Mensheviks during the Stalinist era. (See also Uvarov, G.)

Hi kes,

Nice to be back. And a good start too.

I have come across the collective term 'ugrandite' which I believe is an acronym (technically here, a 'ugrandite'- see below) of the words 'uvarovite', 'grossular', and 'andradite'. If so there may be four very useful words here:

Uvarovite - literally is a gratuitous and obscure prefix
Grossular - gratuitous insertion of obscure abbreviations into the body of a word
Andradite - gratuitous addition of dyslexic suffices
Ugrandite - gratuitous formation of doggerel terminology by methods including but not limited to the above.

Ugranditing is clearly an extreme exercise of the heinous practise of acronymming, but restricts itself to components drawn from extremely obscure sources, such as the crystallography of the garnet group of minerals. Other popular sources are benthic microflora and the distaff branch of the Mussolini family.

Uvarovite: (n). A translucent mineral which reflects more ultra-violet light than falls upon it. When cut into thin slivers, it is highly prized for the manufacture of trendy sunglasses.

Uvarovite: Proprietory brand of relish made in Magnetogorsk from various slimy residues produced in brewing and meat rendering processes (cf Marmite,Vegemite)

Blitzkrieg: Sustained military offensive by massed regimental band performing leaden arrangements of the late romantics.

(Ugrandite of Brahms, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Grieg)

Schlimewarg: earlier form of Blitzkrieg (Schumann, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Wagner) popular until S and M died, and Wagner just got too damn difficult (Tannhauser, Meistersinger no problems but could you play Liebestod on a bugle?)

Is Sturm und Drang the sound made by a military band that's been out in the rain?

Professional marching band technique is to ditch the slow stuff (Dambusters, Bogey etc) when it starts raining and go on to the cavalry regiments. They're all compound time 180 beats per minute plus and you hit the refreshment tent half an hour ahead on the rest of the procession.

The musical term uttered to initiate this manoevre is "Bytheleft-waitforit-Cock'o't'NorthConFuoco"

The other tactic, employed where there are several marching bands in a column, is for the band at the back to play a piece with a slightly faster marking than that being played by the bands in front of them ........ The results are inevitably highly comic. In the UK military, this has become a tradition. Here, the Navy (the senior service) always marches off first, followed by the Army, finally the Air Force. This marching order explains the following:
1) The Air Force has no slow march
2) The standard Air Force quick march (Chocks Away) is marked at 140 rather than 120 .

Is that the one I remember as RAF March Past? Now you mention it Kes, that was a couple of steps faster than the standards.

Uv-a-rovite - Possessive - Of a Rovite(cf)

Rovite - A Roving Mite - one that roves between species sucking different blood types.