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

"Have you told me what time the car park shuts?" means a different thing from "Have you told me what time the car park shut".

One means the time it shuts every day, while the other is the time it shut at some time in the past.

Shut is the past tense of shut, hence Nikki's confusion. I shut the door every day at 6:30, but yesterday I shut it at 6:00. She felt that "shut" wasn't past enough, so she felt the need to use a regular past tense, "shutted", even though it is wrong.

The same thing happens with words like put. The golfer putted the ball into the hole, but my golfing skills are nil, so I put it in the hole.

Ooh, simul-genius!

Reminds me of a tounge twister we used to say,

Shut up the shutters and sit in the shop.

Repeat this line as fast as you can without messing up.

You go first!

TC suggests I go first. I have gone. Or was it that I went?

I can only think that went exists as a past form. Is there a present or future form of went? Has there been one. If it's go why does it work like that.

"Will went"!

Went comes from an old verb *wend* (as in 'to wend your way'). Wend itself now has a regular past tense (wended), since the old irregular past tense was aquired by the more commonly used verb 'go'

Similarly, in the case of 'be' the three Old English verbs for 'be' : beon, esan and wesan (probably with subtly different meanings) gave rise to be/been, am/is/are, and was/were

Didn't Douglas Adams cover this sort of thing in one of his books? He came up with things like "willon haven been" for tenses which get mucked about by the antics of time travellers.

"antic". Now there is a funny old word.

It seems 'antic' was imported from Italian in medieval times.
The seemingly similar 'frolic' is of Dutch origin.

I always thought antic was like doric. Some sort of defining style from a specific time/space, hence a locator type reference.
Or was that attic and arctic.

jwf

Ah Doric. Always leaves me with impressions of Aberdonian farmers in giant wellies and togas slogging round damp fields shifting sheep so they can build temples
*Doric - pertaining to ancient Greece and Doric columns OR the language of rural Aberdeenshire*

There are a lot of dorks in New Scotland as well.

I assume that you are referring to the government and not yourself.

I can't come up with an origin for 'dork' though. Something i came across suggested something to do with a cartoon character but not one that I know.

Beth

Beth assumes correctly.

Dork means someone with the brains of a male organ. It may be a contraction/corruption of dickhead. Sometimes it refers directly to the male organ but more usually to the man behind the music.
The word conjurs a visual image of a huge penishead (see: Aubrey Beardsley) poking up from the shirt collar where a human head should be. The meaning being that not only is there very little thought going on but certain standards of decorum and taste are also violated, albiet perhaps, in complete ignorance of such standards.
Dork lacks the deliberately nasty-meanness implied by p***k or, to a lesser extent, the aforementioned dickhead, who may well be obstinant or careless. A dork is just thick. P***k is to snake as dork is to worm.

excuse my ignorance.

Beth

PS did you notice that someone is bombing Kabul?

No. Perhaps I ought to stop wasting time online and go watch CNN!


jwf

I think they're bombing Kabul and several other targets, trying to limit themselves to targets clearly belonging to the Taliban or the Al Qaeda (sp?) 'movement'. I suppose it was unavoidable, as the Taliban have given active support to the nutters who perpetrated the Twin Towers atrocity. It's still a shame, though.

IMO, the effect of the attack has been the opposite of what (I assume) was intended. America is less likely to moderate/change its foreign policy as a result of what happened. To do so would be to bow to terrorism, and I agree with the general opinion that this is a Bad Thing to do.

God, what a mess! Osama bin Laden will have some explaining to do when he and his God finally meet, whether he thinks so or not.

I hope I'm not waxing too political for this forum, am I? If so, I apologise.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I wrote "I hope I'm not waxing too political for this forum, am I?"

Oh damn! - on an English language thread too.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Is there a connection?