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

I think we are there, more of less.

Anybody want have a go?
I don't expect you to get the exact wording, but if you have the right concept you'll get the points.


Geggs

This slow-going now. If there's no more interest today, I'll call it dead, and put you all out of your misery.


Geggs

I think we are ready for you to reveal the details and give the scores.

Yes, please, Geggs.

Okay, I'll collate and sum up tonight, if I have the time.


Geggs

In 2005 Adam Jacot de Boinod wrote the quite interesting book 'The Meaning of Tingo'. In this book he collated the words that he had uncovered from the various languages around the world which would take a sentence to define in English.

For example, ghiqq is a persian word meaning 'the sound made by a boiling kettle' and a gorrero is a Spanish word meaning 'a person who always allows others to pay'.

Which leads us nicely into a couple of words from the Pascuense language of Easter Island - hakamaroo means 'to keep borrowed objects until the owner has to ask for them back' and tingo is 'to borrow things from a friend's house, one by one, until there's nothing left'.

So, how would you know if you are a victim of tingo? Your house is empty!

If I remember my LOTR correctly, Bilbo Baggins had a friend like that - he liked to borrow books but never returned them - and so Bilbo gave him a bookshelf as a birthday present.

Apparently our author became interested in the oddities of foreign languages while working as a real and actual QI elf, and Mr Fry obligingly gave a couple of quotes for the cover, "A book no well-stocked bookshelf, cistern-top or handbag should be without. At last we know those Eskimo words for snow and how the Dutch render the sound of Rice Krispies."

I heartily recommend this book to the house.

Scores will have to wait a while, I'm off out for a couple of hours.

See you in a bit.


Geggs

-5 awarded to:

Taff - "infection"
Robyn Hoode - "metal"
Superfrenchie - "pain"

DGI +1 awarded to:

Shagbark - "you would know if something is not where you left it"
gandalfstwin - "more than one item"
Taff - "TWOC"
bobstafford - "borrowing"
hygienicdispenser - "house"
shagbark - A memory of a friend who borrowed a sofa and never returned it
bobstafford - "the borrower is a friend"

Correct +3 awarded to:

hygienicdispenser - "All the contents of your house go missing"
bobstafford - "Easter Island"

Elf +2:

geggs - your humble servant

Totals:

bobstafford 5
hygienicdispenser 4
Shagbark 2
geggs 2
gandalfstwin 1
Taff -4
Robyn Hoode -5
Superfrenchie -5

Summary:

Sitting safe inside his fortess-like residence with all his possessions firmly tucked away is bobstafford on 5 points

Kind and generous, though still keeping a sharp eye on light-fingered friends is hygienicdispenser on 4 points

Generous to a fault, but yet still retaining enough presence of mind to occasionally say 'No' to an inopportune request are Shagbark and geggs on 2 points.

Sitting of the floor, sleeping on the floor, and doing everything else on the floor in the wake of a particularly insistent tingoist, bereft of all except the four walls in which they live are Robyn Hoode and superfrenchie both have -5 points.

So ends my first QI as QM. How did I do?


Geggs

!!

Well done geggs!



GT

That was a good one, Geggs!
Thank you very much.

Very well done geggs more please

Thanks everyone!

I do have another one that I am ruminating on. I'll come out with it soon, I promise.


Geggs

Unfortunately I will be away from my computer for a few days. So If it happens this weekend I will not be present.

Well, it's not quite yet, and I'll be busy this weekend too, so there's no need to worry, Shagbark.


Geggs