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

GT, was that "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years of Pogo"? They sure don't make comics like that anymore. Or if they do, not syndicated.

I'm not sure about ETAOIN, but I'm pretty sure SHRDLU was just a set of letters that was helpful for printers or type-setters to remember in the old days, because the letters in SHRDLU are equally wide in some fonts. (Letters like M or W are sometimes wider, "i" or "1" sometimes narrower.) Anybody know about old-time printing process, to back me up on this?

Yeah, I'd like to see you try to use "SHRDLU" in a game of Scrabble, and try to convince your opponents it's a real word.

Now if someone could just explain why they used to throw around the name "Potrzebie" (or is it "Portzebie"?) as an in-joke in Mad Magazine, then my life will be complete.

Whoa. Typesetting? I read somewhere (Cecil Adams' Straight Dope maybe?) that "etaoin shrdlu" are the twelve most commonly used letters in English, in order. Use them when playing hangman and you'll usually win.

PS - Mad Magazine ROCKS MY WORLD!!!! - off to change my screenname to 'GTBacchus says, "What, me worry?"'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A544213 SHRDLU

Maybe later I'll write an entry on it. Just the sort of thing you expect to find in the Guide. If anyone wants to beat me to it, please, feel free. A google search will reveal everything.

Still working on... "potrzebie" Polish or Yiddish, and hidden in every issue of Mad, apparently.

Getting somewhere: "...several words to stand for anything the publishers thought would be unintelligible to U.S.A. readers. 'Potrzebie", "veeblefetzer", "fershlugginer", and "axolotl" were among them, as I reacall." [sic]

This was copied and pasted [Moderator: unsubstantial little bit! fair use! veeblefetzer!] from the digest of a newsgroup where programmers chat. The writer goes on to say that he doesn't know what any of the words mean except for "axolotl" which is some kind of salamander or something found in Mexico.

Apparently, the consensus at that list is that 'potrzebie' is Polish, meaning not provided. I remember 'fershlugginer' appearing quite commonly in Dave Berg's 'The Lighter Side Of'. Ah... those were the days.

Ooh! I just hit paydirt! Dig it:

"POTRZEBIE ("poTREBZyeh") Word popularized by Mad Comics, in which it is used for any convenient part of speech and some that wouldn't occur to the unimaginative. It's actually a Polish word which in negative construction has the sense of "desire"; non-potrzebie, for instance, means unwanted."

Cool. I'll link to that page from my externals. Still doesn't explain how the Usual Gang of Idiots latched onto it though...

"w potrzebie" - "The Use" of something/to Use something
"potrzebasz" and "potzeba ci" - both mean "do you need"

Just asked a flat-mate of mine...

Damn it, Tube, you're providing evidence that h2g2 is still awesome in spite of restrictions! Search for something all day and night across the web, turn up a few tidbits, and then have it answered by a researcher on h2g2, that's exactly what DNA was talking about.

[if that post gets moderated for containing language other than English, it will prove how clearly BBC's restrictions kill the original intent of this site. Unless we're accidentally running across a Polish moderator, they have no way of knowing that the word "potrzebie" is not a naughty word for smegma or felching or a lump of green putty I found under my armpit one midsummer's morn.]

Moderator: please see other posts earlier in this thread if you judge "potrzebie" to be problematic. Consistency, darlings.

I love the word "felching". It's a word which describes an activity which is quite unbelievably rude and unpleasant (at least, *I* think it's unpleasant - presumably there must be something pleasant about it or people wouldn't do it. Excuse me, I'm just going to take a shower...) and yet so few people know what it means that you can get away with saying it when you could NEVER say "f**k", "s**t", or worst of all for some reason, "c**t". It's like it's swearing on a frequency so high that censors can't hear it.

FELCH! FELCH! FELCH!

See? If anyone knew what it actually means there's NO WAY I could get away with saying that. Isn't it great?

H.

Bluffer!

You are the Man from the Mirror, and I claim my five hundred pounds.

B

This is getting too friggin weird for me. Someone on Lifetime Suspension thread quoted from The Prisoner. If anybody says, "The owls are not what they seem," I'll have to make like a baby and head-out.

Eeww...

Dittoo.

Arright, now that we got rid of them, let's get this party started right!!!!!!!! (kidding)

Errr, Subcom.... I think is the opposite of and thus they are here...

tube, that would make sense, technically. However, when I went to agcB's user space and Hoovooloo's space, I couldn't find "falling like flies" in their conversations, even when I clicked through to older conversations. I think they really have unsubscribed.

But you're right. It probably ought to be to mean that you unsubscribe.