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

Perhaps it comes from "aide de camp" They were often limp-wristed

For a whole lot of intuitive reasons and some little understanding of 19th century military maneouvering ..my money's on W.
A General in the field (Lord Wellington is Spain for example) would be surrounded by poofty majors from the upper classes. The young Lieutenants and battle scarred Captains would hold such tea-brewers in contempt.
~jwf~ (regimental sgt/mjr type and NCO forever)

Hi

I was wondering if there could be any association to 'camp followers'.

In looking for an acronym, all I could find was

Computer-Aided Mask Preparation,
and
Campaign Against Marijuana Planting.

I don't think these apply. Sorry, I'll go back to sleep.

176645

WAKE UP YOU 'ORRIBLE LOT....

Maybe it comes from when there were travelling Theatre troops (sp?) who lived in tents - I mean all those Actors.....

s away.......

Could there be a link to bells?

And Campanology????

Hmmmm.. You might have something there.... I'm not sure what...
And I really hope it isn't catching...

There is an extension to BB's:"as camp as a row of tent's" which goes:
"as camp as a row of pink tents".
This was frequently used by some friends, about their friends (and possibly vice versa).
One evening, as it was becoming dark, there was a crunching of heavy footsteps to our front door, then after a significant silence - several loud knocks. I opened it to find our two body-building friends in their new party outfits:
black leather trousers and shirts (sleeveless) with more chains than a tank regiment, knee high boots with steel at heels & toes, black peaked caps pulled down over their eyes and moustaches all of a droop. And handcuffs. They looked as though they'd just come from a Village People recording session. After looking around to see how many neighbours had been impressed, they came in and giggled for about an hour till it was time for them to go to their club. They seemed disappointed when we declined an invitation to accompany them. It must have been their turn to take along the "statutory straights".
Then they stomped out to the car, turned, clicked their heels and nodded their heads and away they went.

JWF

"Foster died drunk and hungover in Harlem, falling and banging his head on a porcelain sink. He was white."

That doesn't surprise me. It's enough to make anyone go pale.

Final answer? Procul Harem.

'..and her face had burst just ghostly
turned to a wider shayda pail..'

Go stand in the corner!

Take a break says the ad which is what I'm doing right now.
Some may call it a hiatus, I prefer resting, as in between jobs dahling
So where does hiatus come from? Don't look like a good old fashioned anglo saxon word to me.

Straight from Latin without any changes along the way, I think.

Mmm - now where can I get a KitKat at this time of night?

176645

As for British English... it's go AND stand in a corner! Go AND jump in a lake!

Hate missing out conjunctions. Hate it.

*and now another stray and random but entirely predictable thought*

Conjunctivitus ..? That's really is a disease or symptom or pathology or something isn't it?

It's conjunctivitis - it's the inflammation of the conjunctiva, one of the membranes of the surface of the eye. Your eye goes a rather nasty shade of red and itches like hell. <- soley to suggest hell...

" <- soley to suggest hell... "

Go! Stand in the corner!

Oops.
Solely, solely, solely, solely.

Just catching up on the backlog, as I am back from my holidays.

DJ asked the Irish for rashers. In English as spoken in Ireland, the word bacon is very rarely used, the items always being called rashers. I did not know what bacon was until I was 25, even though I regularly ate rashers. In Irish, I'm not sure. K was close to the mark with baykun. It is bágún pronounced baw-goon. But this is for boiled bacon. I'm not sure what the word for rashers is. I don't think Irish has anything to do with the English word rashers.

I always thought the past tense of wreak was wrought so I am one of those people who appear to be incorrect according to the dictionary. If anyone is really interested in past tenses, they should read the cognitive psychologist Stephen Pinker's book 'Words and Rules'. This is an entire book about irregular verbs. It is much more interesting than it sounds! Pinker says that common verbs have irregular past tenses. As they fall from use, people forget the past tense and start using the regular form. Eventually no-one can remember the irregular form and it becomes obsolete. A good example might be wrought as in wrought iron. The number of people who work iron these days is limited. At the same time, really common words with regular forms sometimes get converted to irregular forms by comparing with similar words and eventually become accepted in the irregular form. For example, dived and sneaked in America have become or are becoming dove and snook.