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

the old day names are Viking and you don't want your new ones to be the same I'm sure. With this in mind you should be worried to find that I found out yesterday 'Blood of the Vikings' that the name-ending 'by', as in Darby, is a Viking ending and Doobry and dontbry come dangerously close to this. I suggest you go for the non-viking 'ton'ending, same meaning, different language. So here's to dooton and don'tton

That's right. By (pronounced almost like Boo) means 'village'.
Mind you, I think that 'bry' is a shortened form of 'bury', from the German and French 'Burg' or 'Bourg' (also the origins of borough).

Bry gets my vote.

I must agree with the Speaker. I believe we will stay with -bry.

Oh, please!

It was an interesting point you had there Quixotic but you know I think we'll stick with the one's we got.

Thank you for contributing, would you like to sign up and join the Thingite Revolution?

Quixotic! are you not in??

We need men of your learning and intuition! Get yourself on the roster right away.

It will be considered

You know you want to

I know it's hard to do, but I must be a keeper of something if I am to join

And what's wrong with the word "by", if I may ask? Are you trying to get a job as moderator, deleting every trace of anything not British English?

(If Inkwash was right, if by sounded like boo - it doesn't - I'd say by now! )

Good luck! Held og lykke!

Alas The keepers are another group on H2G2, who give out their own titles. I try my best to avoid "keeper" or "muse" titles for this reason.

Check out the link to the manifesto at the top of the page It has a pull down menu with a list of every thingite title thus far awarded. it may help with inspiration!

Clive

And it *is* an award to be gabbled!

Well, you say 'Bee' in your mouth and 'boo' with your lips. I find it quite tricky.
I'm thinking Swedish though. Perhaps you're thinking dansk or norsk.

Yes, you're right, it's somewhere between bee and boo, but the vowel is shorter. It's a word of Old Norse origin, býr, meaning farm or village, and it's cognated(?) with "bo" (O.N. búa) meaning "(to) live (somewhere)", recognized in English: (to) be (at).

I have cleared it with the keepers and am now the keeper of the lovely bunch of coconuts for all of h2g2. Now this means they wont object if I'm given this title for the thingite cause

What's wrong with being a viking anyway?

Apart from the rape and pillage? Nothing that I can see, they were good traders and explorers and seemed to welcome new technologies from their conquered lands, unlike the romans

Apart from the rape and pillage? Nothing that I can see, they were good traders and explorers and seemed to welcome new technologies from their conquered lands, unlike the romans

Absolutely. Top marks to those men. And the thing with the oak trees too.

If you're guarding the coconuts (glad someone owned up to that task finally, they were getting a bit wild), could you remember to call them "loverly" a lot? They like praise.