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

Thanks for the clarification Jack Naples, I would like to add (as someone who goes to the IOM often and knows Manx speakers) that it never died and was reborn. It has been used constantly, to the point that people are still alive who have always spoken Manx and never learnt English.

We tried to do a rolled up towel being held by a smiley character, and it looked more like the sort of thing that happens in coffee shops in Amsterdam...

I rather liked it, to be honest.

Just read something in Private Eye which will scare the beeb off of foreign languages for a while in an article about the Italian for f*** off being heard rather loudly during the Ten O'Clock News:


'Footage showed an Italian crowd watching the match outdoors on a giant screen. When the golden goal went in for Korea a furious Italian fan yelled "V* f*****o". Did the editors of the item suffer a concentration lapse or is there no one at BBC news who speaks Italian?'

Mark, what about a smiley above a slightly curved towel, or would that resemble an arabic flying carpet too much?

>> resemble an arabic flying carpet too much? <<

All Freudian analysis of DNA imagery should be yikesed.

Or next thing y'know we'll be getting weird interpretations of the birds-living-in-a-giant-ear scene. Or scatalogical analysis of falling whales that smell like petunias. As for the sexual innuendo of a telepathic coffee machine..
The mind boggles. Nip this in the bud.


~j~

Jeremy, the researchers that I know of who use dialect, obsolete English words and deliberate miss-spellings have been doing so in forgotten corners such as The Snug, The BOG and their own journals since the site returned - and never bothering all the nice normal people who don't choose to frequent those dens of iniquity. We also willingly provide translations when requested.

The only reason the dialect was posted in this thread was to test the water - and it has left a very bad taste.

As someone said up there somewhere, conversations on some parts of this site are analogous to private chats in pubs. Anyone can lurk within earshot, and can even ask for clarification should they wish, but why should the participants be banned from using perfectly acceptable words just because lurkers may not understand all of them.

I've come across conversations about subjects as diverse as bands, films, places, computers... that I don't have any prospect of deciphering. Why should I? They're semi-private conversations.

I read the OED from cover to cover as a small child so my normal mode of speech is peppered with outmoded esoterica and I have to be extremely careful to dumb it down in RL - or be mocked.
Likewise, I don't grok most of the modern slang or most off-colour allusions and have had to request clarification on innumerable occasions (which is summat one can safely do on this site without fear of ridicule). (Well, , OK, but it isn't nasty ridicule...)

Personally I couldn't care less - for myself. Most of my friends here frequent other sites wherein natural expression is permitted - nay encouraged, though there are many others I'll miss (but c'est la vie!).

My beef is that the PTB seem to be using this foreign language rule as a pretext to homogenise our speech and impose the lowest possible standards on us.

To repeat the question I asked 3 days ago (and have, as yet, received no answer to): If I use words such as deipnosophist or antediluvian can I expect to be moderated?

As ~jwf~ so succinctly put it, will it be the blue-eyed people next? Or those with kinky hair?
The druids p'raps? The s?

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."

—Martin Niemoeller

Just reached Post 454.

Has anyone got any Hellmans to spread on my words please? (Or at least a couple of slices of bread and butter?)

Thanks Mark. You're a canny bairn

Hey Tefkat,

FWIW I personally would say that the combination of "the PTB seem to be using this foreign language rule as a pretext to homogenise our speech and impose the lowest possible standards on us" and the Niemoeller quote amounts to an unwarranted and offensive exaggeration.

just my reaction, but if i was among the hard-working, competent and approachable editors of this site, I wouldn't take very kindly to being compared to the Nazi totalitarian regime.

Indeed, it might also be said that you do the quotation an injustice by applying it to a situation that bears *no* resemblence to the terrible events that 'inspired' those words in the first place.




spiff

What I was trying to say was that things like that always start out in a very small way and creep upwards so gradually that all the reasonable folks cannot see why others are fussing - and why push against the traces if it doesn't directly impact your life?

Tefkat, who's hoping to escape this country voluntarily BEFORE being deported (again).

What does FWIW mean please?

Hi Tefkat,

don't worry, I saw what you meant. Just felt the allusion was a bit strong under the circumstances...

FWIW For what it's worth

I don't just randomly decide which phrases to abbreviate, honest!

Perhaps these postings will be removed pending!



seeya
spiff

Bad news - they've started pulling Bubblish posts again

To Ploxie

Geeze. Get over it.. and yourself.

Oh fer...

Talk about a Eurocentric site made out of a world-wide idea. Do you -really- think DNA would approve?? True, I didn't know him personally, but if the true answer to the above -implied- question (ie, -would- he approve) is 'yes', then my respect has just done an about flip to zilch. Fortunately, I don't believe he would. Perhaps the 'escalation in the number of Postings of this type' is due to the expansion of interest in h2g2.com? More people joining from non-english-speaking nations? Although why they would have joined when all their posts would have to go dead til moderation got a clue is beyond me. And I was under the impression he got a little kick out of bubblish himself.

I think he'd be as embarassed about this turn of events as I am. He left while we were being promised this was only a temporary situation. This is a travesty.

Anonymouse, I learned long ago that there is nothing so permanent as a temporary measure

g302, we've always hidden bubblish pending decoding, is that what you mean?

What's all this Bubblish nonsense all about anyway?

.ooo..oOOo..oO..OoOo..o..OO..oO..Oo.. ..ooo..oOOo..oo..ooOo..ooOo.

Hmm, a toke smiley....wow!

Let's see, well, you could wrap the towel around the smiley's head or put the smiley on the towel, kinda perspective-flattened and sideways, like a shark or a ufo..or a hotdog.
Or, you could put the towel under a rock...
or drape it over the smiley's head and just have the arms sticking out...
Or, well, I like the rack idea, because it has a double entendre attached...
Or, you could do it like a flag, with the proper colored stripes...
Or do a Frood smiley and have the towel like a little bib?