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

I mean, Hi Ictoan,

I don't think there is any difference between 'on' and 'upon', to be honest. 'Upon' seems to have some more specific connotations in Shakespeare (according to Chambers, upon which I often depend!), but I think in this case they are interchangeable in terms of meaning. As for 'rely on' as compared to 'depend' on... well, again, I'm not sure what the nuances are but both seem to communicate a similar idea in this context.

I find it interesting to note that in Modern French the verb 'dependre' takes the preposition 'de' - 'from'. The Latin origin (I should check this, but I'm pretty sure) is pendo -ere, to hang. It may well be that Latin also had 'dependere' - the prefix 'de-' indication downward movement (as in 'descendere'). French says 'That depends from something' rather than the English construction 'That depends on something'.

By extension, French also says a person 'depends *from* someone else' where English might say 'is dependent on'. Conversely, it seems we say, 'To be independent *from* '!?

By the way, whilst I'm on my favourite 'cheval de passe-temps', I was looking at the 'mincemeat' thing and noted that the French word 'émincé', much used in recipes and meaning something like 'thinly sliced' (although it depends what's being sliced - it can be applied to 'thin strips' of chicken or 'chopped' onions, for instance. It does *not* apply to what we would call 'mince' (boeuf haché), although it may have done in the past. I find (from my Petit Robert) 'émincé' is documented as far back as the 16th C, whereas the adjective, 'mince' dates back to the 14th C, at which time there was a verb 'mincier' - to cut into small pieces!

The word 'mince' is also used in Mod French as a child-friendly expletive, rather like English 'Sugar!'. Is it a co-incidence that the French for 'S**t!' is 'M**de!'? Although, no, 'mince' is in no way used to sweeten French bevarages.

Seeya
Spiff

PS Are you *sure* there used to meat in there with all that 'finely-chopped' dried fruit mixture? Ugh! Sherry and rotten meat pies wouldn't tempt Father Christmas much in *our* house! I bet people didn't get as many presents in those days. However, they were probably way ahead of us in the feeling sick after Xmas lunch stakes!

Yes, Spiff, I'm sure. In some parts of America, meat was used within living memory, but in Europe it has been gone much longer.

I was told (just the other day in fact) that the dried spiced fruit (mincemeat) was used as a preservative for meat, not just rotten meat.

That's probably true as well.

Well, there may be a whole bunch of pretty s***ty things about living in the 21st Century, but next time I eat a mince pie I sure am gonna enjoy the luxurious absence of rotten meat in there.

We can say independent from , but independent *of* sounds better.

Hi Spiff, thanks for the reply, I shall now hapopily interchange all 4 to everyones annoyance!

Speaking of 'up' and 'de' and 'on', as Spiff was at the top of the page here, here's another from Corry St.
They say a decision is 'down to' someone. In the sense of the final decision perhaps. IE, it has come 'down' to this.

In North America we would only say it's 'up to' them.
eg: "It's up to you if we're going to see LOTR."

Whereas in the BBC's version of Manchester, England: "It's down to you whether we see it."

"Over,Under,Sideways,Down"-the Yardbirds (1965/6)
peace
jwf

So long as no-one says dependent to.....

Mince pies still contain suet, which is the fat surrounding the kidneys, and which tastes completely different from other fat for some reason. This is why you find vegetarian mince pies, and vegetarian Christmas Puds. They contain hydrogenated vegetable fat which is actually far worse for you from a health point of view (trans fats and free radicals - not good news). But which is better for ethical vegitarians.

One year we couldn't get the Atora mineced suet, and had to muck about with the real stuff. Very messy.

Lamb suet ends up producing mincepies which taste of mutton, and which are truly disgusting. Not to be recommended.

Ben

Oh, I do hope some of the lady cooks come by soon and straighten out this 'Is there really meat in mincemeat?' question.
Gnomon's right. It was standard practise in the days before freezing and refrigeration to use up all the perishable provisions late in the year. That's part of what 'the Holidays' are all about! It was a feast to cook up anything that would not keep over winter.

(Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday usually meant the last of the flour before the spring weebles hatched but that's another story!)

In the solstice/xmas feasts, spices and sugars were used to cover the taste of meat that was already going off and most of the fruits and berries (even the well dried ones) were getting mushy too, so it all went into 'sweet mincemeat' which will then keep for some time afterward into the depths of winter.

And yes, even today, 'suet' the dried fat and sinew of animals, is still an important ingredient in 'sweetmincemeat'. That's what makes it so slippy and sticky. The grease resists penetration by bacteria much better than the fleshy proteins of raw red meat. Yum-yum!


~jwf~

~jwf~

In my experience, 'Up to you' varies between an indication of 'I dont care but you might' through to 'S*d you, do it your own way then'.

Whereas 'down to you' means I am shifting responsibility for the issue to you and it's your decision to take. I.e. 'This situation is down to you!' means it is your fault whereas 'This situation is up to you' is not really that meaningful. 'The solution is up to you' would have a meaning.

I guess its the difference between abdication of responsibility (up to) and delegation of responsibility (down to).

Or at least thats my understanding. OK, everyone elses turn to disagree now....

p.s.

Spiff, only just seen the heading on your post Mind not in it today.

Can you not escape the perfidious influence of Corry St even in far flung Canada jwf?

Can you not escape the perfidious influence of Corry St even in far flung Canada jwf?

Thankfully we don't just get the current series (four months late and getting three weeks later with every Olympics coverage interruption).
We also enjoy six year old programs on another channel (I saw them all first time round of course!) where it has just now turned to January 1996.
Roy Cropper has just turned up as the trivia-loving bachelor weirdo in Mike Bladwin's flats, Curly and Racquel are married, Steve McDonald is about to go to jail, Ken and Denise have a son, Fiona has just hired Maxine...
Those were the best years, before the writers tried to Americanise it into just another soap. The new characters have very little ..character. Jack & Vera are about all that remains of the old series. Oh, and Rita and Ken and...
Gotta hate the way they've been dealing with Internet Chat Rooms having poor Sarah Louise 'meet-up' with a predatory perv.
peace
jwf

Sorry, Ben, we musta almost simulposted about the suet question. I wouldn't want anyone to think mine was in anyway a reaction to yours.
I swear yours wasn't there when I set up a hue and cry for lady cooks.
The site is very slow today, and to avoid double-posting I have been losing a lot of posts (timing out) while waiting to refresh the lists.
I have waited an honest twenty minutes for the first version of this to show up before trying again.

~jwf~

I'm sure the writers of Corrie would be proud to know their scripts were worthy of discussion on BritEng

Ok, and the rest of that post was....

Quarrel, as in crossbow bolts. I have a note in the book i am reading (from 1903) with a possible derivation from quarreau, apparently carreau in modern french. Something to do with things with squared faces or diamond shaped.

Any ideas one way or t'other?

The French have "querelle" so I doubt if there's any connection to "quarreau". In colloquial French "les carreaux" are the windows, which I found out when I was au pairing in France, having deduced that it must mean "tiles" and painstakingly cleaning all the kitchen tiles, I discovered that I had been expected to clean the windows. I have just discovered an invaluable Larousse with etymologies and all sorts of interesting things in it on my husband's bookshelf. It gives the meaning of "carreau" first as the window pane, then as the tile. The rest disappeared from view as the heavy book snapped shut on my fingers.

I had loads of other stuff to mention on the backlog but got so carried away reading it all that I can't remember now. The mincemeat story Gnomon told is absolutely spot on. I read it somewhere and also related it myself in a very defunct thread on H2G2 many moons ago.

PS - thanks for the "hearse" explanations Mycroft. Amazing!

The two quarrels (whether in French or English) aren't related and both come from the same Latin roots. The argumentative sense comes from the Latin queri (to complain), and the other sense does indeed come from the quarrel's squared tip: quadrellus means little square in Latin. Carreau is etymologically the same as quarreau and quarrel: in English a quarrel is also a square or diamond-shaped window pane.

What about bodkins - don't they generally have a square-section tip as well?