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

i'd use it to mean, trying very hard at something in much the same way as i'd say busting a gut.

wouldnt use it to mean a wind up at all

FABT

ok, i said i would add anything, sorry
the bit on smeg ( by the way)

you could also add that Red Dwarf also initally used the word 'goit' (as in 'you stupid goit') as another swear word. i read somewhere they dropped it because it sounded too medical.


FABT

Yeah sorry, that would be the british meaning of the phrase Busting my balls though.
The american useage is certainly something like what I said though - it's certainly used like that in Goodfellas anyhow.

I'd just like to say...

thankyouverymuch

That was a fun entry.



- X

It IS fun, isn't it?

One typo in there is my fault, because it first appeared in one of my postings about the word 'shag' and seems to have been copied straight into the Entry. It reads: '...the person behing the counter...' And that 'shag' section still ends very strangely, in the middle of a sentence!

Well, being a gal, and all, I like it when shags don't end too quick!

I'll get rid of the typos at the weekend, but in the meantime keep 'em rolling in.

B

With wonderful timing, 'The Guardian' has just published a whole article about the word 'pillock'! The h2g2 system seems to have a problem with URLs containing commas, so I can't post an effective link: but cut'n'paste this URL and you should get to it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4354888,00.html

Lets hope their spelling is better than mine!

Just had a scary thought - if we put in to many of the soft-swear words it will be easier for them to take out the real hard ones, like the c-word and the f-word.

(Imagine the conversation here: "I'll let you have xxxx if you give me yyyy...." - and even I bottle out from typing it!)

Whaddya reckon? Should we keep some of the later additions, or should we trade them?

Ben

I'd keep them. If the Editors don't think that the 'hard' swear words are acceptable, I think they'll take them out regardless of what else is in the Entry. If we limit the Entry to the 'hardcore' words, we may end up with no Edited Entry at all.

* arrives fashionably late *

I've now read the piece and the thread, and have in the past read the earlier versions on Geocities. And can I say, my hasn't it developed wonderfully. And have you noticed, not one negative comment in the whole thread?

A couple of suggestions/observations. I don't agree with your view that c**t is infrequently used in the media. I reckon I read that word at least weekly in the Guardian/Observer, usually in a features or review section, but now and again within a quote in a news item.

"C**t" is the title of rather a good novel by Stewart Home about the break down of a writer as he rather badly loses the plot, both literally and creatively. First published in the UK in 1999.

C**t also crops up on UK television with growing frequency. I can't recall individual instances, all I'll regsiter is, s/he just said c**t, and then get back to the show. But I do know the first use of the word c**t in a UK TV drama was in "Mosley", a drama about the rise and fall of the British facist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. This was first shown on Channel 4 in, I think, 1997.

And finally a medical acronym to add to your list of military ones.

FUNDY = F****d Up Not Dead Yet - as used on the notes of patients in hospitals who were, well... FUNDY.

Beating the deadline by a matter of minutes, may I suggest one last addition: 'minge'?

I've always understood it to be yet another word for female genitalia. In recent times, it has spawned the popular adjective 'minging', meaning 'very bad'. Which seems a bit misogynistic to me, but there it is.

What brought it to mind was a surprising use of the word 'minging' today by the Blackburn Rovers FC manager Graeme Souness, who used it in post-match interviews to describe the referee's performance in his team's FA Cup tie at Middlesbrough. Unfortunately, like many a middle-aged person trying to use youthspeak, he got the word wrong. He pronounced it to rhyme with 'ringing' rather than with 'whingeing'!

Well, I heard an East-sider middle-aged cleaning lady in Glasgow using 'minging' to describe a rubbish bin full of rotting food when I was there in 1999. So I just thought 'minging' was a northern word which had come to London to make its fortune.

Any Scots care to elucidate?

The deadline was midnight wherever you happen to be, by the way, to give some leeway to our American Correspondants.

And to give me a chance to get some kip.

a kipper called Ben

we've always said it to rhyme with sing not winge

maybe it's two different versions.

to ming (hard g) is to be completely off. like college food. or to be a complete minger is when a bloke is revolting and you wouldnt dream of dating him.....not used for girls though. or a new law that is unpopular could utterly ming. i guess you use it where an americn would use suck in some contexts.

but as we missed the dead line now it doesnt matter


fABT

Kipper? Is that as in or as in ?

I'm middle-aged too, so it could be me that's got the usage of 'minging' wrong. But I have usually heard 'minging' pronounced to rhyme with 'whingeing'!

Minging definitely matters, and the deadline is sometime tomorrow (UK time) when I press the button on 'Update Entry'.

Dunno exactly when it will be - depends on what time I get to bed tonight, what time I have to leave tomorrow, and how much RL stuff I can get through before I leave.

The midnight concept came in because it will be sometime after midnight on the West Coast.

So keep them coming in.

Kipper as in ; when I have finished watching the thing on censorship on C4. Very a propos, it seems to me.

Ben

Northern teenagers have been pronouncing minging and minger with a hard g for at least ten years.
'Mingy' on the other hand (meaning 'mean') has the soft g.

(Still haven't read it - looks as though I have a treat in store )

Omigod, I'm less hip than Graeme Souness...

I've only heard 'minging' (to rhyme with 'singing' and the way it was pronounced by Souness) over the past twelve months. To us in the Midlands, it means 'smelly' or 'whiffy'... I agree its use was a surprise - even if they did perform poorly, to be that negative about his club seems inappropriate to me.

x x Fenny (UT)

Souness was describing the ref's performance today in Blackburn's cup tie with Middlesbrough.