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

To go back to the "cut of the jib" and without checking any reference books, I must add that lots of expressions come from sailing. Sailors are noted for their "gift of the gab" - probably because you spend long times at sea and telling stories is a favourite pastime.

"To be clewed up" also comes from having properly set sails.
"to be under weigh" - means getting going with the weight of the wind in your sails.

And I would guess that "taking a jibe" at someone could also originate from there. Is it spelt "jibe" or "gybe", JD?. Gybe would certainly mean it came from sailing, and that the spelling got messed up on the way (as with "clewed up")

So my father told me - at least the first two. He went right through the second world war and claims he taught sailing in the Indian Ocean when they were just sitting around doing nothing.

Numerical one: He also told me that when they were in East Africa the locals who were hired to load the boats and spoke Swahili, picked up a few bits of English, resulting in their saying "one - two - six" to synchronise their lifting of crates etc. My Dad always used to say that when he picked us up and threw us about when we were little, because it so stuck in his mind.

Are you sure that wasn't "one, two, sex", which would seem more reasonable!

I don't know - I wasn't in Nairobi in 1942. I doubt it though.

I think it's a "jibe", Trillian. But like you said, the spelling of most words in the English language have evolved and changed over time.

Has anyone noticed the strangeness of nursery rhymes that children are taught? I know that

ring around the rosy,
pocket full of posies,
ashes, ashes,
we all fall down.

comes from the time of the Black Death, a simple rhyme to ward off Bubonic plague, and a summation of what was happening to Europe's population...how about "Red Rover, Red Rover, let come on over!"? Or that pie with four and twenty blackbirds baked in it--what kind of dessert is that???

One that would make PETA very angry?

Quart is *not* an archaic American word for two pints. It's an English word (from Old and Middle English), and is used over here in the UK! So there!

I think I can help with a couple of these without going off and looking them up.

'By hook or by crook' dates back to mediaeval times (I think) when the local peasants were allowed to go into their lords forest and collect as much wood as could be reached with a hook or a shepherd's crook. At least, that's as far as I can remember.

'Don't count your chickens' comes from one of Aesop's fables, which goes like this. A milkmaid was going to market, carrying a jug of milk on her head. As she walked, she imagined what she would do when she had sold her milk. "I'll buy some eggs and hatch them out. Then I'll sell the chicks and buy myself a beautiful dress. I'll look so fine that when the boys see me they'll try to start up a conversation with me. But I'll just toss my head and walk past." As she thought this she tossed her head. The jug of milk went flying and broke, spilling the milk and leaving the milkmaid with nothing to sell. The moral is: Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

"In for a penny, in for a pound" sounds like a gambling reference. Don't know about the others, I'll have to go and check.

I didn't say that quart was archaic American, I said it was archaic and American. I meant it is used currently in America, but considered archaic in Britain. Nobody orders milk in quarts in Britain. It's always two pints.

Ring a ring a rosie is commonly believed to be about the Black Death, but is almost definitely not.

Sing a song of sixpence has an even more ludicrous explanation, but this one is true, at least according to the people who delight in disproving urban myths. It is a song for secretly recruiting pirates!

Is ring-a-ring-a roses really nothing to do with the plague? The explanations I have heard tally on so many counts, you'll have a lot of unconvincing to do.

Ring a ring a roses - representing the red (circular?) rashes that appeared as a first symptom.

Pocket full of posies. The bunch of herbs that people carried in their pockets to ward off the plague

A-Tishoo - a tishoo: another symptom

We all fall down - everyone died of it.

The main evidence against "Ring a ring of roses" being a reference to the Black Death is that the plague happened in 1340 while the poem was not written down until 1880 and not linked to the plague in writing until 1960. It seems unlikely that children were reciting the poem for over 500 years without anybody recording it.

Considering that children were simply believed to be nothing more than small adults, and were to be seen and not heard, it's highly unlikely that anyone would have paid attention to their nonsense songs.

It wasn't until the Nineteenth Century that children were believed to be special and seperate from adults. It was part and parcel (another aphorism! origin anyone?) of the Victorian adoration of womanhood, hearth, and home. For the first time children were seen as innocents that had to be protected from the cruel world. Stories began to be specifically written for children, and more importantly, mass produced for public consumption. Prior to this, you would be sent out to support your family as soon as you could walk. You would be married off before you reached puberty. And you were considered to be filled with the stain of "original sin" just as much as any adult. Anything you sung would hardly cause a rush of people salivating to note down every word and nuance.

Anything is possible in urban legend and folklore.

Standard Royal Navy thing, AFAIK - "two - six - heave!"

Wait a minute - under weigh? I have that as under way, with way in it's old English meaning of passage (as in right of way)

A quart (two pints) being a quarter of a gallon. Which is eight pints. Eight Imperial pints, of 20 fl. oz. each. Listening, yanks?

Regarding 'Ring a ring of roses' (which is how I learnt it as a child), I once read that it was to do with the Great Plague of London of 1665. However, this would still give a gap of 200 years between its inception and it first being written down. As printing presses were pretty widespread by then, I would have expected to see it in writing sooner. Unless, of course, it was a folk song dating back further that nobody bothered to write down.

For those of you that want convincing that the song has nothing to do with the plague in any age, get hold of 'Who really killed Cock Robin?' by Norman Iles. In case you can't get hold of a copy, I'll summarise the key points. 'Ring a roses = plague rash' and 'Sneezing was a symptom of the plague'? No. The plague caused swollen glands in the armpits (the buboes of bubonic plague) and black, gangrenous patches because of haemorraging under the skin. There was no 'rosy rash', and sneezing was a way of *transmitting* "pneumonic plague", not a symptom of bubonic plague. Only two versions of the song collected before the late 19th century had the words 'Atishoo! Atishoo!'. At least 10 out of a dozen or so didn't. So the predominant version of the song had nothing to do with sneezing or plague. Other versions of the song have more verses, none of which have anything remotely to do with the plague. In fact, the song (according to Iles) was probably for a folk-dance that was danced in two rings, one of boys, one of girls.

Oh

I'm sure the Yanks are listening, but they already know what a quart is, since they use them all the time, unlike in Britain. Unfortunately they have a different sized pint, quart and gallon and telling them they're wrong won't persuade them of it.

I think we should all use litres. Although a litre of Guinness is quite a lot. In George Orwell's 1984, one old man complained that a half litre of beer wasn't quite enough to quench his thirst since he was expecting a pint, but a full litre was more than he could manage.

Yes, but then he ordered another half liter.

Yes, but then he ordered another half liter.