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

Where's the thread gone? Surely 4,000 posts is too big to get lost? Yes, but it's also taking a long time to moderate, as threads are being dealt with in reverse order of their first postings. So could I suggest we kick off part two, while we're waiting with a discussion of the uses of the word "moderate"
Would you say you were more than moderately pleased to be bacK?

I bumped into a pair of pyshology students yesterday in the library at got sequestered into being a subject for a teat they were running. I will not go into the details of that now (unless you want me to) but suffice to say it involved selecting my mood from a list of oftions. There would be a list of emotional states, like " I am happy." I am nervous" and then four more evaluative statements by the side which we had to match to say how much we felt happy or nervous and so on. The four evaluative statements were these:
"No never..."
"Sometimes"
"Moderately so.."
Almost allways."

Am I being just overly suspicious, or is it important that the evaluative statements were so vague? (the test was a gauge of your optimisim/pessiamism apparently.) I thought it odd that "sometimes" and "moderately so" were used. I feel happy (right now.) ...sometimes. (?)

Well that was my RL 2 cents. To answer your question I am ecstatic to be back! no moderate about it!
*Wonders if any of the returning researchers will respond "moderately" to the new moderation?*

Clive (P.S - it's early and I've just got out of bed, also I never joined in the British English post marathon before, so please, be gentle.)

ohmigod! "TEAT" is supposed to be "TEST" That is SO embarrising...*pale and -faced...*

Someone else who has forgotten how to tyre (type) in the interim, I'm glad to see.Glad to have you aboard. The rest of the (in)mates don't seem to have realised that the doors are open again.In various parts of my life, I've been an exam moderator, but that usage doesn't appear in even a large dictionary. I wonder if this is a British use- like my American colleagues don't recognise the term "invigilator". Also, I can't find a reference for "moderate your language" meaning to cut out the asterisked words

WELCOME BACK EVERYONE!

I felt like shouting that from the hill tops.

Particularly, welcome back Wandrin' Star, who has been conspicuous by here absence from the Yahoo British English thread.

The H2G2 British English thread will no doubt be back when the moderators have trawled through all 4000 entries looking for naughty words.

In the meantime, we were discussing on the Yahoo site the origin of the phrase "a slap-up meal".

Any thoughts?

I wonder how they're gonna go about the first few hundred posts relating to a certain animals body parts?

If your memory is long and winding, like the captioned thread, you will recollect that we were very decorous in our references to the quadruped's privates - thus not contravening any rules of any kind anywhere.But it _did_ take a very long time to read.(It's worth it, dear moderator)
If you slap something on, you apply it thickly or lavishly. A really good meal would be lavish, hence slapped on. No idea how the on became up.Have you dealt with other slaps? (eg slap and tickle) and the differences between a slap in the face, a slap on the back and a slap on the wrist?
(It's wonderful to be back where such questions can be posed in public)

*blunders _slap_ into the middle of a conversation*

(trust Mark to open the sluice at lunch time when I had to cook for the family and miss the first hour)

And Curse Curse Curse Curse Curse (careful to remember those last "e"s so that no reprimanding is called for) I can't catalogue the old thread if it's not here.

Hi everyone

*starts unpacking teapot from Yahoo thread*

Assam? Darjeeling? Earl Grey?

May I take this opportunity to thank Trillian's Child for hosting the British English thread during the Interregnum. She provided us with a place to talk and cups of tea all round. I know TC hasn't posted here yet, but she'll be along shortly.

Pipped at the post! TC arrived just before I posted that!

pipped you to the post (ing)!!!

Hello all - we're going to have to weave this thread back together from it's disparate bits.
(Is weave right? What's the process of making rope called?)

Anyway - we had "slap-up" and decided it's origin was lost in the mists of time....but we got through "daft as a brush" and words for food: "tuck","nosh","scran","grub".
*goes off to copy it all down*

P.S. powers that beeb - you missed a sitter. When you click on the "complain" button it should play a sound clip of John Cleese in the parrot sketch: "I wish to register a complaint!".

Did great minds think alike?

Making ropes is cordwaining.Ask me another

If promotion is being moved to a job with more responsability, and demotion is being moved to a job with less responsability, what is it called if you are moved to a different job but with the same responsability?

(My S.O. suggests comotion, which is quite good )

Two dictionaries I have access to list cordwainer as a shoemaker. It comes from a 14th century word meaning a worker in corduvan leather.

If I may abuse the hospitality and digress for a moment, and go back a bit as well, may I just mention that I thought TC absolutely wonderful in keeping up all those yahoo things. Several gold stars.

I think they have a guild or somesuch (Cordwainers) At least I am sure they have a hall in the City of London (Cordwainers Hall) for functions and such. So there must be a fair number of them waining their cords.

Puts me in mind of wainscoting (The bit below the dado rail), probably something to do with waining scots.

The well known lisper, Jonathan Ross, may well singalong to "Its waining men" should he ever haunt a gay disco!

Its good to be back!

Ropes are made by ropemakers DJ. As you would know had you read that very interesting guide entry on fids and marline spikes wot i rote, and which may or may not have yet returned from the moderating moderators.

"Sideways Promotion", methinks is the term you seek. A little taut perhaps, but common usage.

It were Wandrin' wot mentioned the wainers, not DJ!

Wainscotting comes from waghenscot - the type of wood used to make wagons.

Similarily, one who fixes wagons is a wainwright.

After posting the question I thought about it and have come to the conclusion that rope is made by twining and therefore a rope maker is a twiner.

I too can only find the one description of "cordwainer" - a shoe maker. I can only assume that my dictionary is incomplete or this is an imposter of some kind.

Incidentally, as I found all this out in work time will I get "money for old rope"?