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

I've just tried to post a reply to Gnomon -only to be told "We are sorry, unknown researcher etc" "Unknown" as in "unknown warrior" do you think?

If it was to correct my spelling of "heros", I'll be really cross!

Star, I'm sure that you were the unknown researcher. You have been logged out for some reason.

No, that's the way I spell it. Wot I said woz:
"Only one fellow?
It doesn't sound very heroic to me. Rather spivvish - not spivvy, which seems to have been conflated with spiffy"

fellow's !!! Touché. Or maybe just touched.

Some research indicates that "sucking diesel" is an Irish phrase, meaning "making progress". I can't say I remember ever hearing it and have no idea what it is referring to.

Anything to do with a vehicle using more diesel when it goes faster?

If anyone's vaguely interested in caves, they could pop over to the Writing Workshop and have a look over my first real article. I'm not sure if I should try to condense it, or whether that's really possible without losing important meaning.

What an idea! Inviting a load of cantankerous pedants to the grand unveiling of your first real article.

I had a trawl thru Google, and it seems to confirm the Irish origin of 'sucking diesel'. It also appears to be something positive, which is surprising.

BTW, all you Google fans, the site is in a pleasantly Manet mood today!

My OED contains a quotation from 1815 in which the plural of roof is spelt roofs, it has hoofs in three different places (sounds painful) and it's too old to give an opinion on poof.

My rather more modern Collins gives both hoofs and hooves but only roofs. it doesn't give a plural for poof but spells the singular form either poof or poove.

Ditto the Readers Digest one. ( Well _I_ didn't buy it )

My Webster gives either for hoof but nowt for t'others.

The Longmans has both hoofs/hooves and roofs/rooves.

*Heads off to replace all the dictionaries before being seduced into reading them for the next three hours....*

This phrase also means smoking strong dope with a bong.
Either way, she means she's off her rocker

Just went to look at Google.
It is rather nice isn't it!

Bong?

That's what I said too! But then, I'm known for my impressions of musical instruments. A bong appears to be a hookah-like pipe for smoking dope. It has a water-filled chamber for cooling and filtering the smoke.

You two are fooling nobody

Ah, now I know which are Duncan's smileys:

Perhaps I should drink my cappuccino thru a bong!

Back to the roofs/rooves thing, I'd just like to point out to all those that put their faith in dictionaries on such matters that the recommended plurals for beef and turf in almost all such tomes are the execrable beeves and turves respectively. As with so many things, the dictionaries are far from up to date, having been swayed by turn of the century grammarians over-eager to make definitive statements: there are precious few dictionaries which even acknowledge the pronunciation 'rooves', even though it's manifestly been in widespread use for centuries. My bottom line is, if rooves are good enough for Kipling, they're good enough for me.

Earlier I used hooved not hoofed as an example to support the many-Kipled case for 'v', which I still agree is the best plural form of the noun rooves.
But as a verb I think roofed is better than rooved.
And yet, plurality might again figure into the sense, for one red roofed house, but many red rooved houses.
jwf

Ok, on the subject of plurals:

= sheep

= sheep

though I sometimes hear people say 'sheeps'. My dictionary gives only 'sheep' as the plural. Any thoughts?

Hi Kaeori,

Please, no . Surely no-one is going to back 'sheeps' over 'sheep'.

"Hello father Barleymow, how many sheeps do you have at the moment."

The only thing I can think of that you might have heard is 'A wolf in sheep's clothing.' But the wolf is only wearing the clothing of one sheep!

I can understand that the 'roof/rooves' question is a source of controversy, but surely no-one wants us to accept 'sheeps' as a valid plural form!

Spiff