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

Well, I did look it up in several sources that didn't reference one another

See this, for example:

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/?date=20000517

Or this:

http://www.digitalhumanities.org/humanist/Archives/Virginia/v07/0412.html

Can't really cite offline sources here

By which I assume you mean one source that refers to other sources that refer back to it? I'd much rather get my facts from opinion pages on the internet

The professor in the first link seems not to have paid particular attention to Much Ado About Nothing- "My favorite harangue on the subject of women's infidelity is spouted by a suitably masculine and indignant Benedick". Benedick is arguably the least masculine of the three characters on stage, he is not indignant and he is not referring to women's infidelity. Benedick is replying to Don Pedro's comment that 'in time the savage bull doth wear the yoke.'

Of more interest to this thread would perhaps be Claudio's reply "If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn mad." ('Horn mad' is supposed to refer to cuckoldry.) Before I get to that, I must point out that Claudio's allusion to cuckoldry is dismissed by Don Pedro's next line "Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver..." (Don Pedro is telling the audience that Benedick isn't worried about adultery but he mistrusts women because he hasn't been in love.)

So, horn mad? Is it more likely that the expression came from horned animals on heat or from crazed, surgically-enhanced cockerels? Does the commonly accepted origin of 'wear the horns' (which doesn't seem to be mentioned in either of your internet sources) not make sense? I must also point out that, in the seventeenth century, metal spurs were attached to fighting-cocks.

None of which is said to disprove the theory of this thread but I think I've made some reasonable points. Do you not have any contemporary sources, Mala?

Van

PS why was the peasant on his way back from court and why did the judge show leniency?

Points here, too.

Robyn Hoode -5 "devil"
Bob -5 "egg tooth"
Robyn +1 "soup"
Taff -5 "cock fighting"
Teasswill -5 "breed of chicken"
Taff +1 "spurs"
Taff -5 "disease"
Taff -5 "mutant"
van-smeiter +1 summary
Taff +1 "surgically implanted"
Taff +1 "inserted into a cut in the chickens head"
Feisor +3 spurs transplanted to head
Robyn +1 "destined for the pot"#
Robyn +3 gelded rooster

Totals:
Robyn +/- 0
Bob -5
Taff -12
van-smeiter +1
Feisor +3

Ha ha! I cant believe I managed to scrape a 0 from that after hitting the klaxon with my forehead