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

I've got 7 in PR but they'll never make it in time. By my calculations the 8000th entry will be displayed on Tuesday.

There's a 9th of November, and indeed an 11th of September, every year, by my reckoning.

I've checked. Twice.

RF

Finally! An answer to that age-old question: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?


And the answer is...


A woodchuck would chuck as much as he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood!!

Finally?... I knew that in grade school.


Maybe this was posted here already... maybe not... I think I heard it on some show or in a movie...


The leading cause of death for beavers?.... falling trees.

In 1386AD Grand Duke Jogaila of Lithuania became the last european head of state to convert to christianity.

Could somebody please tell me what a grade school is? It can't be a school that tells you what a grade is.

It's one where all the teachers are quite old

An American term usually refering to the first 5-6 years of school past kindergarten (grades 1-5). Grades k - 5 are also referred to as "Elementary School". Even though the following six years are also refered to by grade (7-12) these tend to be called "Junior High" or "Middle school" (grades 6 or 7 to 8) and "High School" (grades 9 - 12).
High School grades are also named as college years, ie Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior.


Sadly they've begun to have "graduations" not only at the transitions between elementary and middle, middle and high but even for specific grades. I and many others consider this to be excessive coddling and a result of over-emphasis regarding the self esteem of children. They have to be given attention and rewards for every achievement no matter how small or illusory. When I was in school the reward I got was NOT FAILING! That was plenty.

I need to ask some friend who has a kid going through these "graduations" what these incremental "diplomas" represent... Can they be presented to prospective employers as proof of partial educational achievement? Hey... does a middle school diploma count for 9/13s of a high school diploma?

I prefer my description

Crivvens. I get confused by UK young'ns talking about year 4, year 5 etc. When I were a lad it were 2 years in Primary school, 4 years in Junior school and 5 - 8 years in secondary/grammar/comprehensive school. Now it's all years and techincal colleges.

Anyway, thanks for the definition Count Zero.

And yeah, SWL, I'm right with ya' there!

Oops - 2 years in infant school, 4 years in Junior/Primary school.

There is a city called Rome in every continent.
Including Anarctica.

Oooh, nice one.

John Lennon's first girlfriend was called Thelma Pickles. She also went out with Paul McCartney. John Lennon's mother was killed by a drunk off duty policeman when he ran over her as she was walking down a sidewalk in Liverpool. John Lennon was the only Beatle who couldn't tune a sitar.

John Lennon was legally blind.

This just in... Elephants can now run.


They didn't run before, but now they do.

The definition of running has been changed from having all feet off the ground at once to merely having a bounciness of stride rather than the stiff-leggedness of walking.

I always thought having all four feet off the ground at once was galloping rather than running. Mind you, I suppose an elephant's gait is speed-walking rather than running.

Galloping is just running on four legs ...

The previous definition of any kind of running was all legs off the ground at some point during a pace. This goes all they way back before Eadweard Muybridges famous stop motion footage of a horse's gallop proving that all four of a horses hooves came off the ground. (See it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge )

Good UF-ing there Count.

But what does all that mean for the (captivating) sport of walking?

In response to post 3592, there are no cities in Antarctica - unless your definition of a city includes research bases. I certainly don't know a research base called Rome. As for Australasia, there's Roma in Queensland, but that was named after Lady Roma Bowen rather than Rome, Italy. I don't know of a Rome in Africa, Asia or South America, but I'm happy to stand corrected on that one. So that leaves Rome in Italy, Europe and Rome somewhere in North America.

Erm, I think that may have been an urban myth, even if I couldn't find it on snopes.com