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

Also one can can eat pizza, which doesn't reveal how many slices one consumes. But you can purcase two or three pizzas, when you want more than one pie.

Bacon and Porridge both refer to the food itself, and could be regarded as collective nouns.

It would be a different story for cornflakes if they were called Flaked Corn.

Would you eat a bowl of Flaked Corn for breakfast?

No,no, no... cornflakes are discrete, so you can have one or more, whereas porridge is, er, continuous (which is why mathematicians like it!).

Bacon is neither, but needs a qualifier just like toast, i.e. 3 rashers of bacon and two slices of toast.

Now, just where does the word 'rasher' come from - my dictionary doesn't know?

Ooh, ooh, mine does!

Rasher is of Scandinavian origin, from rasch meaning quick or rash. Rasher refers to something that is hastily cooked or roasted. Also people used to say something was rashed, if it was burnt in cooking.

*shreds useless dictionary*

I think the rahser of bacon is unlikely to be related to the word "rash"...does anyone know what the Irish word for bacon is?

Sorry, DJ, but Gnomon's on his hols!

Baykun, perhaps?

Well ! It's obvious that 'rhaser' doesn't come from rash - the letters are in the wrong order.

It's like saying goally is related to jail ... no, that's not right ...

*shreds useless brain* (thanks for the idea Kaeori)

I think I'm in h2g2 heaven - look:



The smiley world has exploeded into life!

Ooh, must have been a quiet weekend.

Thanks to typhoon Utor, I left Thursday evening at 7pm and got in today(Monday) at mid-day, having spent the morning going round the wholesale haberdashery market, Wonderful - I've been here nearly 3 years and have only just discovered the three streets of buttin-makers and sequin makers and ribbon makers. I bought five quidsworth and now have to return to the silk market in Shenzhen to get some material to put the notions on. God, life's hard!

Er, let me see if I've understood you, WS: you get hit by a raging typhoon, which sends you into a sewing frenzy?

Notions?

Yes, that's it in one.
The typhoon actually missed by enough to make it possible to go out and shop (having wreaked havoc on the porch plants)
Notions is a collective term for buttons and bows.
*muses I wonder if any other verb can be used with havoc*

Caused havoc?

My stupid dictionary doesn't mention this meaning of 'notions'. Ah, that's the beauty of this thread - always learning new things.

"cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war?"

Create havoc?

Play havoc, even!

And DJ, I noticed your little indiscretion!

I meant...

Havoc ensued...

Notions is one of them words that has an associated pairing word like salt and pepper, buttons and bows, notions and ???? (We, that is to say, I may be basing this on 40 year old North American retail memories of Woolworth's and Kresge's type five and ten cent department stores, where notions and ???? would be a separate department. Buttons and bows would be in this department. So would thread, needles, wool...)
Arrgghhh.

PS: While havoc may have other verbs, I believe wreaked is lost without havoc.