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

One of the very first things I learned from joining in to h2g2 is that simple and common words really DO have so many different meanings in different parts of the world. For instance, here 'fanny' is a silly and polite term referring to a seating fundamental. And often those silly little strap-on pounch things are called fanny-packs for just that reason. But the first time I employed the word, in a light and fun thread of friends, I was gently taken aside and, (with bits of , stammering and ,) an English lady told me it's meaning to her. Whoops...

There have been very heated threads in <./>TheForum</.> about some words, again simple things that are totally innocuous in one part of the world but the ultimate slur or insult in another. One word I often see bandied about, between friends, is the calling of each other a "cow". Apparently in the UK, this has some kind of light-hearted connotations, where-as here, it's usually said with a sneer and indicating that someone thinks the person in question is slow, fat and stupid. Literally, like a cow ...

This may be a short-lived journal, but any thoughts or novel terms to share the amusing 'misinterpretations' of?

Hehe - I'm too embarrassed to say!

Awww, go on ... So long as the profanity filther allows it, we may all get a little chuckle. And some of us may simply scratch our heads, wondering what-ever could be wrong with that?


* ...>>>>>>>>>>>>s away to work, to watch silently for 8 or 9 hours*

My south african and dutch friends are always shocked when I say bugger here in Australia its common to hear that word it's equivelent to saying blast .... it's not offensive .... we have a commercial that depicts several situations such as a woman hanging out washing that gets covered in mud, a man who gets stuck in a ditch with mud and a dog going to jump in a ute and missing ending up in a puddle of mud they all say the b word and aussies think its hysterical...you have to see the add....meanwhile I have friends that have a company that makes and installs lifts in canada and they were telling me the names of some of the different types they sell one of them was called a pro I burst out laughing and when asked why I said that was what we called a prostitute in Australia they then concluded that was probabley the reason that particular lift didn't sell well in Australia...

Ummm... South Africans use the word bugger a LOT.

It's like a Brit saying "I'm just nipping outside for a fag" in America

Fag being slang for a cigarette in Britain and Fag being slang for Homosexual in the US

well.. good that English isn't my first language.. so I can pretend not to understand

my preferred response to shoutings like "b*gger", or the f-word which is blocked by the filter, or similar is "not right now, thank you".

this thread is useful though. I always misunderstood the term "fanny-packs"..

Im probably going to spoil the story but Mike Harding, the folk singer and comedian, tells the story of how on a tour of North America he was missing things from home. He missed English beer and *English* food such as curries. He was telling the touring party and other friends they had met about this in a bar on a Native American reservation.

As a deathly silence fell he really regretted using the Rochdale vernacular "I could murder and Indian"

Murder meaning to devour with gusto and Indian being any food prepared in the Indian style.

The English term 'To lay the table caused him some trouble as well'

I must be getting just too 'cosmopolitan', because to me all of the assorted terms are recognized for their different meanings. It's just a bit of an art, knowing with whom you can say one thing and NOT get your face slapped off.

A friend on another thread, who is a bit shy and bashful, reminded me of a few common enough words as well.

One relates to the carpet that was in our master bedroom when we bought this house. It was the most grape-coloured, deep-pile shag rug I have ever seen. When I mentioned this to a lad in Manchester, he was astounded that we have rug for that specific purpose.

Another term he mentioned, being a handiman, is a particularly coarse file that I have two of ... But the name of it, in some company, makes folks wonder how a file could be the illegitimate offspring of anything?

As to the earlier, I have heard the expressions "I could murder an Indian", or other times "an Italian" ... I can imagine the reaction that would receive on any Canadian reservations, especially with the enhanced sensitivity and short-fused militancy that has developed here over the past 16 years.

As for 'laying a table' ... well, to each their own.

Oh, and to more "other" mentions, ... I could not count how many tasks have become a serious b*gger of a job here. Without the least flinch or consideration of what the term means in the legal contexts.

*giggles*

>

No worries, dear Weirdo07 ... You'll understand when you are older.

*PS: Please do check your e-mails *

As my children are fond of telling me mum it's a living language and meanings change and words appear.....do you want to go back to latin at which point they then qoute latin at me

Oy, ... despite my first years of the church services in Latin and a year of it in school, that would annoy me. Because the spoken language would lose me in seconds.

Indeed, it is a growing and flexible language. It seems not very long ago that "gay" described Doris Day, not Rock Hudson.

can now be seen giggling her way out to the balconey to do homework while the children read