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

What the bloody hell does this mean?
I mean I know it means "it's all good", but WHY? Where's the logic behind it? Is it just that it was invented by someone who likes gravy quite a lot?

I looked it up in my dictionary some weeks ago, and it is listed in my dictionary as meaning 'money'. Sometimes I think I'm in favour of language evolving, but when I hear stupid phrases like this I wonder.

gravy is a means of making dried out, over-cooked turkey and boiled potatoes (for example) palatable for the 14th time that week. If a meal is all gravy it means you don't have to choke down the stuff that starving kids in (place your oppressed country here) would love to have, and so, it's supposed to be a good thing. It's not so much that someone liked gravy a lot; it's that the stuff the gravy was poured over was pretty awful.

I don't know, the logic seems pretty obvious.

It sounds a bit like Cockney rhyming slang, but I can't even guess what for.

...
Gravy > Bisto > OK
...

Well, DNA coined the phrase 'gravy train' to mean gainful employment, although I don't think he initiated it...

I always thought that if you got anything extra, beyond what you needed or expected, that was considered "gravy". Like if you held a yard sale, wanting to make $50, and actually made $75, the extra is gravy.

Using that theory, it's called "gravy" because you don't really need gravy to make a meal, it's just an extra for your meat and potatoes.

my best guess, anyway!

ah, so you're saying the $50 is the meat and potatoes and the $25 is the gravy?

Bloody hell, warrior ranger- where do you buy your groceries

Ahh..."American Slang"....

Not a pro on such things, and don't claim to have the answer, but.....

My take on it is that it is an extention of the old term "he/she is on the gravy train". This basically means that one is being well "taken care of". Lots of income for little effort.

Thus, its' all gravy" would be taken as "its' all easy and good".

Now, Anaga may be right on where the original comparison for "gravy" came from...but here in the southern US, gravy is considered great food in and of itself. I think that may be a more likely source.(note, gravy is "easy[to make] and good[to eat]")

NM

>Well, DNA coined the phrase 'gravy train' to mean gainful employment

Are you sure about that? It was already a well-known enough phrase to be included in the song "Have a Cigar" by Pink Floyd in 1975...

~

Hey, I make some DAMN fine gravy!

No, DNA did not coin the phrase "gravy train", though he did use it.

NM

The term 'gravy train' dates back to American slang in the early 1900's. It was used by railroad workers who found themselves on an easy job that paid well.

But "gravy train" is phrase apart from the "Black Twang" being used in the pop song in question...

Which song is that? The Pink Floyd one?

The title is the same as this thread... ["It's all gravy"] the "artistes" behind the song I do not recall as I haven't had the misfortune to hear it in some months... Not Pink Floyd, no.

Well, "it's all gravy" and "gravy train" are somewhat different expressions. The former has already been answered, so I took on the latter.

So the "artists" would not have used a previous phrase to base theirs off of?

Being a bit of an amature songwriter myself, I find that idea hard to accept.

NM

Where did anyone say the songwriters originated the phrase? "It's all gravy" has been in existence at least as long as "riding the gravy train."

Isn't coining a phrase another word for using it? I specifically said I didn't think DNA initiated the phrase.