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

Ok, Chip, noun, related to Old English ending cippian. Dated Circa 14th Century.
Verb form from the Mid English chippen (also related to cippian) dated 15th Century.

cippian is, apparently, as in forcippian to cut off.

Or so it say 'ere!

So it took 100 years before its use was developed to be a verb. Hmmm.

That's my first attempt at etymological investigation on this thread!

From cippus, Latin for beam? which is where the usage for Carpenter may arise.

Well, actually, the French word 'chip' means what Uk English-speakers would call a 'crisp'. Since Belgium is not all French-speaking, however, that doesn't mean to say 'all' Belgians would call a UK 'chip' (fried potato 'chipping') a 'frite', but that is indeed the French word for the UK 'chip'. It is really short for 'pomme (de terre) frite' literally 'fried potato'.

As an aside, I've always rather liked the way the French refer unselfconsciously to potatos as 'earth-apples', or 'apples of the earth'.

*wonders if that looks a bit French for the B E Th*

Seeya
Spiff
*chip off the old block*

So, do we call french fries 'fries' because they are fried or is this some marketing obfuscation of frites?

In Old English, is there any connection between chip and chop?

>~jwf~
>Did you seriously not get the 'before a certain form of dog' gag?
*ahem*
Never one to ignore a direct question and always willing to admit to ignorance and even occassional drug induced stupidity, I feel obliged to say my thought process got caught up on 'Pre-toria'.
I was desparately trying to determine how some variant of the Spanish 'Toro' might have stretched to Bulldog, that most famous English breed.
Terriers and I have never seen eye-to-eye and a million years might have passed before I brought one of them to mind.
Being of a more mellow and cuddly nature myself, I favour the collies, shepherds, alsatians, St Bernards, retreivers and husky/wolf breeds to any of the smaller, yappie, 'go for the throat', 'my brain is trapped in such a small head and I wanna kill something', types of dogs and people.
Terriers, chows, chihuahuas, poodles... Thsspppppptt...

~jwf~

Actually, it's 'Thhhrrrrrppppppptttt!'

~jwf~
fair dinkum

Chip / Chop, can't find any history on chop other than the OE 'choppen' (as the villagers in Age of Empires are wont to say). Although 'chop' is also dated to 14th century.

Was looking at 'carpenter' earlier and this appears to be related to 'car', carpenter coming from the latin, meaning a carriage maker, derived from the word for carriage, which itself apparently has roots or relations in the old irish / welsh for carriage, which car does as well.

This etymology malarky is a bit complicated isn't it?

fascinating though....

Aaaaah A bill the Cat Afficonado!!!

Actually, that was *hack*

Hmmm. What will our experts have to say about marlarky? Is it spelt correctly?

And, talking of British English, I think I have decided that the most British - or even English - or all words in the Eng. Lang. is

"utter"

(the adjective, not the verb)

Where does it come from, how on earth did it come to mean "absolute" or "very" or whatever you choose it to mean, and why does it sound so ridiculously upper class?

Or am I making an utter idiot of myself and displaying gross ignorance?

UTTER BARRISTER - English law, Those barristers who plead without the bar, and are distinguished from benchers, or those who have been readers and who are allowed to plead within the bar, as the king's counsel are. The same as ouster barrister.



And from dictionary dot com

ut·ter2 (tr)
adj.
Complete; absolute; entire: utter nonsense; utter darkness.
[Middle English, from Old English tera, outer. See ud- in Indo-European Roots.]


So, *outer* it is then.
Which isn't much help in answering your question, really.

*utterly confused for a moment and then*

Oh I see, it's like that television program

'The Utter Limits'


No. That really wouldn't explain the upper class thing at all would it?

Very posh aliens/undead perhaps?

Not sure I'd say it sounded upper class or posh to me. Not very common, perhaps due to that it has overtones of being 'intellectual' and hence by association posh / upper class.

I suppose there may also be some residual from its audible relation to 'utterance' which has (correct me id I'm wrong Spiff) very specific meanings in linguistics, and again isn't terribly common, and therefore, posh.

Just my thoughts anyway. Somehow it's a word that doesn't seem to have had it's edges blurred. Thinking about it, a lot of supposedly posh words seem to be those which have specific meanings, as opposed to the more common words which have more blurred meanings meanings. How's that sound then?

(p.s. it's Malarky!)

I believe (if I may interject in a slightly more comprehensible manner) that 'Utter' suffered and suffers the same redundant usage as the word 'literally' currently suffers. It is along the same lines as that literally utterly deplorable utterance by the literal minded:
"This is funny! You'll like it!" Thus, assuming the veracity of the statement to come. Y'now, like the latterday translators of that stand-up guy JC and that manner they have imparted to him of saying 'Verily' before any unquestionable utterance. Or, in some translations 'in truth'.

Of course, my own use of the terms 'of course' and 'actually' fall under the same onus, but I shall not literally repent of their utterance any time soon. A bloke 'as to 'ave standards, y'know.

We now return you to the regularly scheduled pedantry.....

Hi! Sorry for being a bit away-ish.

I was perusing the DNA 1.0 page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/Versions-DNA-1-0) that appeared today, and discovered our thread has been used to illustrate a bug fix for something called 'Too Many LEDs in Frame view'. We're described as a 'huge' thread. Huge!

Tomorrow, the world...

Cool!

Only another 343 to go for the 4000, isn't that where the old thread got to?

Wait a minute...chip comes from chip pan (cippan)? Surely that is a wind up.

Where does "wind up" come from in that context?

For a moment, being the incurable romantic and optimist I are (all evidence to the contarary notwithstanding), I dared to hope that the editors sample link to a 'huge' thread would point to the original Brit Eng.

I had only read up to about 1500 last January when it disappeared. There are gems in that original which reflect earlier enthusiams. The supporting cast of this long running 'hit' has turned over several times and many of the original players have moved on, but their words are immortalised there, 'somewhere'.

If it was re-instated would anyone notice? It's such a long time since anyone posted to it, I wonder if it wouldn't just quietly re-appear so far back in 'other conversations' no one would see it.

peace
jwf

Is it not the same as putting the wind up someone's kilt. A vortex of air is swirled mightily and aimed to cause embarassment.
~j~