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

How big a machine do you have to ride to be a biker? And did you know the Oz equivalent is a 'bikie'?
There's a "fun day" at the uni here tomorrow which includes a walkathon to be graced by "the fabulous Harleys bike team" I think, once again that "I am not understanding" but it might be worthwhile attending to clear the fog. Failing that I am asking the multitalented jwf for elucidation (How much faking is allowed when being hit over the head?)

Here jwf, you should try getting your picture on IMDB. There is a spot there for it, and then I'd be able to point at it and tell all my friends I know someone famous.

I have never been consulted about the imdb listing - it's independently created somewhere ..by someone. Haven't looked at it for some time but it is somewhat incomplete; the lack of picture (which I ought to remedy), and several credits.
I also ought to update my ACTRA page. That's Alliance of Canadian Television and Radio Artists and like most Canuck websites ends in a dot ca. The picture there is of me as a cop (at least five years old).

The chair was designed to fly apart and I had to wear body armour. Trouble was, the idjit who hit me missed my body and clipped me up the back o' the head. All in all I faired better than the girl on the shuffleboard when all was said and done.

Yes W size matters! That's why I -ed at the thought of Brit biker flicks. The first one I ever saw (c1965) was about 'mods' versus 'rockers' and all the mods rode 100cc Vespa scooters while 'rockers' tore round on 100cc trail bikes .
Best BBF(lick) ever has to be Marianne Faithful's "Naked Under Leather" - especially the final love scene in that solarium-Gazebo on the pier that sticks out into Lake Geneva (seen in several films).

Well, I've been lurking here for ages trying to understand half of what has been said, getting slightly better - but all this perfect tense and participles and stuff still gets me a tad confused!

Anyway, thought I'd de-cloak and ask a few questions whilst it was quiet in the hope no-one will notice all the mistooks!

First off, jwf used the word ought above and chimed with some thoughts idling through my head at the time. What is the origin of ought, and indeed aught? Are they related? Should there be more commas in that? Have I just made aught up? Or do they just seem odd as the vowels are all at one end and the consonants at t'other?

Other question is that I'm sure I remember during the gulf war one of the American generals refering to their troops as 'ert', presumably the opposite to inert. I'm assuming this isn't a word Does anyone else remember this? Could ert be a word, archaic or is inert lifted wholesale from some other language?

Right, I'm off back to obscurity (or the backlog as it is otherwise known)

p.s. 'I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle' - Definite classic biker movie!

Well, I've been lurking here for ages trying to understand half of what has been said, getting slightly better - but all this perfect tense and participles and stuff still gets me a tad confused!

Anyway, thought I'd de-cloak and ask a few questions whilst it was quiet in the hope no-one will notice all the mistooks!

First off, jwf used the word ought above and chimed with some thoughts idling through my head at the time. What is the origin of ought, and indeed aught? Are they related? Should there be more commas in that? Have I just made aught up? Or do they just seem odd as the vowels are all at one end and the consonants at t'other?

Other question is that I'm sure I remember during the gulf war one of the American generals refering to their troops as 'ert', presumably the opposite to inert. I'm assuming this isn't a word Does anyone else remember this? Could ert be a word, archaic or is inert lifted wholesale from some other language?

Right, I'm off back to obscurity (or the backlog as it is otherwise known)

p.s. 'I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle' - Definite classic biker movie!

Well, I've been lurking here for ages trying to understand half of what has been said, getting slightly better - but all this perfect tense and participles and stuff still gets me a tad confused!

Anyway, thought I'd de-cloak and ask a few questions whilst it was quiet in the hope no-one will notice all the mistooks!

First off, jwf used the word ought above and chimed with some thoughts idling through my head at the time. What is the origin of ought, and indeed aught? Are they related? Should there be more commas in that? Have I just made aught up? Or do they just seem odd as the vowels are all at one end and the consonants at t'other?

Other question is that I'm sure I remember during the gulf war one of the American generals refering to their troops as 'ert', presumably the opposite to inert. I'm assuming this isn't a word Does anyone else remember this? Could ert be a word, archaic or is inert lifted wholesale from some other language?

Right, I'm off back to obscurity (or the backlog as it is otherwise known).

p.s. 'I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle' - Definitely a classic biker movie!

Eeeek! Where did they all come from?

Sorry, sorry, sorry!

I swear it only submitted once!

How nice to have another pearl on this thread ! Greetings ! Now the question is, am I going to get the answer to you before Gnomon or Mycroft? Talk about hands on the buzzer !
aught - is practically obsolete, still used in "for aught I know" = for anything I know =AFAIK Anglo-Saxon, I think and definitely not connected with ought

Ought: definitely Anglo Saxon It was the past tense of agen, which meant "to owe". Thus it meant what you owed as an obligation, what you had to do. Nowadays it has several meanings: obligation - you ought to do your homework, advisability - you ought to see a dentist, probability - he ought to be at the party, and logic - the answer ought to be 42.
It's what I call a "defective verb" ie it doesn't exist in the past tenses . Nor can you say "I will ought". You have to use another verb - like 'I will have to".
The negative "you ought not to" seems to suggest moral disapproval

Inert: comes from the Latin "iners" which meant unskilled, thence idle. For aught I know there was a positive form in Latin, but there never has been in English. There are lots of English words that are like this. My favourite is "Be alert; the country needs lerts" But there are lots of joke back-formations (technical term )like kempt and shevelled from unkempt and dishevelled

Gruntled. We used to have an activity in our house which was known as "gruntling the cat". Anyone with a cat will now exactly what I mean.

k

How did that happen? That k jumped right out of the middle of that sentence into a separate posting! I swear I typed "know".

Ah, so it's not just me that does that then

Well, seems fairly friendly so far, so I'll try a couple more...

Does any one know of any study of onamata-wotsit words? you know, like glisten. I assume that most started off as dialect words, or slang terms and then gradually moved into main stream language?

The other one that has always fascinated me (and appologies if it is a bit silly) is orange. Were Oranges called Oranges becasue they are orange or is orange called orange because thats what colour Oranges are? I suspect the former. Serious (well, ish) question so sorry if its a well known newbie question or something.

p.s. 'another pearl', not quite sure what you mean ? But thanks for all the replies, most informative (dare I say erudite?).

It's them damn sprites I tells ya!
My fault really, for bringing up the subject of druidic cults and rites. Every post since George Saunders has been haunted!
Hopefully they'll settle down by sunset. But perhap we should consider adding druids and their magic to the list of banned topics, which so far (unless I missed something) includes only s and their s.

I think Ws right about 'alert' being the 'ert' the Gulf War soldats were at. Or it coulda been Emergency Response Teams - but that's more a police and fire and ambulance guys kinda thingy.

is one of the oldest words we know. Oranges (the fruit) existed thousands of years before English, and were called (in Sanskrit) 'naranga'. Like several words in English (how far have you got into the backlog?you need the bit on aprons etc) the n sound transferred from the beginning of the word to the end of the article (a) before it: ie people thought it was 'an orange' instead of 'a norange'. It's difficult to decide whether the egg came before the chicken; in all the languages I know(of) the word for the fruit and the colour is the same.
[What else would you like to be? What other things could be strung on a thread?]

>The picture there is of me as a cop (at least five years old).<

Well I thought the policemen seemed to be getting younger, but that's rather extreme

macaroni? drilled conkers?

My Mum has just asked me about the meaning of "Indian Summer".
She thinks she can remember reading once that it comes from 'Native Americans' having extra time to hunt???

Aught is definitely still used, oop 'ere. Both 'owt' AND 'nowt'

(Why hasn't my last post appeared yet?) (Dratted water-sprites)

Wand'rin star,

Ah, I understand you now! I thought maybe it was some 'in-joke' refering to pearls of wisdom, i.e. the posters to this thread being those who are building up the store of wisdom, and as such were refered to as pearls, some sort of collective noun for regular posters to the BritEng thread?
Not that I was adding any wisdom you understand

So you are saying that in all the languages you know that the word for a Norange (sic) is the same as the word for the colour Norange?

Is this some sort of conspiracy of languages or is it that all the languages you know take the word from the Sanskrit?