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

Thinking of medieval exclamations, is 'Gadzooks' a real one, or a later invention. If real, I guess it's probably 'God-something?'

While on the topic of invention, do any or the Norse languages or Old English actually use phrases like 'sister-daughter' instead of 'niece', or is that a Tolkeinish authentic-sounding creation. It certainly has a olde-worlde Norse 'feel' to it.?

Any *of* the Norse languages.

Gadzooks is actually God's Hooks referring, as so many of these blashpemies do, to the Crucifixion, specifically the nails used to hang Christ.
All the holy relics were a big deal in the middle ages and were held very sacred. I go back to 'cor' as short for corpus as in cristi as the primary example.
The 'swearing' of 'oaths' (in a pre-literate society with no written contracts and warranties) was an important part of life and business and the most solemn 'oaths' were taken upon the most sacred icons of religion, the body of Christ, his Blood, the nails that held him...

That's why swearing is called 'swearing'.
I swear it.

~jwf~ really, -I needed a break from editing the AGG/GAG page, saw a chance to explain further, wrote about 'swearing' and realised too late I had not changed my ID back to jwf. Please forgive a Harmless Duplicity for the sin of sloth and laziness.

I thought it'd be something like that.

I presume the reference to H.D. was in light of recent site troubles (or yet another odd coincidence)?

Potholer asked whether Tolkien's sister-son and sister-daughter were inventions or came directly from Old English or other Germanic/Nordic languages.

Old English did use different words for Father's Brother, Mother's Brother, Father's Sister, Mother's Sister. These were, respectively, Fædera, Eam, Faþu, Modrige. There was not a separate word for Nephew on the mother's side as opposed to Nephew on the father's side; they were both Nefena. Similarly Nefa meant both sorts of Niece. This unfortunately does not shed any light on the word cousin.

So Tolkien's words were inventions but in the spirit of Old English.

I don't know if this is the place, but can I take the opportunity to ask someone to explain all this 'first', 'second', 'twice-removed' cousin stuff to me?

A first cousin is when your parent and their parent are brothers/sisters.

A second cousin is when your grandparent and their grandparent are brothers/sisters.

A third cousing is when your great-grandparent and their great-grandparent are brothers/sisters.

If your parent and the person in question are first cousins, then they are a first cousin once removed of you.

This is also the case if their parent is your first cousin. So the "once removed" means removed by one generation from a first cousin.

Twice removed would mean removed by two generations, so if your grandparent was a first cousin of Mr X, then Mr X is your first cousin twice removed.

Whoah! Now that *is* a can of worms! I may be no , but that's a place I fear to tread.

I'm by no means suggesting that this thread is somehow *not the place*, far be it from me. However, a search reveals no guide entry explaining this thorny problem and it could be a good subject for a collaborative piece. Just a thought.

PS, I will be delighted if anyone can give a clear explanation of how all that stuff works, and one that I can *remember* afterwards! People have expained it to me before, but I am none the wiser.

Come on then, this is a real challenge, I reckon. I look forward to seeing some words of wisdom.

Seeya
Spiff

To give a concrete example:

Doris and Enid are two sisters.
Doris's daughter is Denise.
Denise's daughter is Diana.

Enid's daughter is Edwina.
Edwina's daughter is Eowyn.

With me so far?

Denise and Edwina are first cousins, because they are one step from being sisters.

Diana and Eowyn are second cousins, because they are two steps from being sisters.

Diana and Edwina are first cousins once removed, because the parent of one is the first cousin of the other.

Eowyn and Denise are also first cousins once removed, for the same reason.

Brilliant, G!

And, I suspect, the beginning of a soap opera. How did Denise feel when she found out her cousin Eowyn had once been removed?

And for bonus points, how about who can marry who?

And how is this affected by living in Louisiana?

Oh while I'm here, contributing little and basking in the reflected genius, how come sterling? As in "He did a sterling job." I know about sterling silver, and pounds sterling, but I don't really see the connection.

Presumably because Sterling Silver was a standard purity, therefore if something was Sterling Silver it was of the best quality. Hence sterling job, a job done to the best standards.

Apparently there are links to old english for Star, thus it could be starling

Talking of idle useless info, it was only 2 years ago I realised that an 'apeth (as in 'you daft apeth') was a shortening of half-penny worth, and therefore should presumably have a lot more punctuation!

Wasn't it once a Pound of Sterling Silver?

wasn't what once a Pound of Sterling Silver?

Not a ha'penny I hope!

A Pound Sterling. Ha'Penny ('apeth) would have been 1/480th of that (240 old pennies in the pound wasn't it?)

Yes, the unit of currency was originally a pound of sterling silver, hence the name. Before that it was a pennyweight of something (gold/silver, I don't know), hence the penny. Before French Francs they had Livres, which is, of course, French for pound, for the same reason.

Should anyone wish to do an entry on Cousins (Gnomon has pretty well laid out the basics) you would have to include the taboos of incest which prohibit marriage of first and sometimes second and even third cousins.

These taboos, and in some countries actual laws, are based on observed results of incestual parentage. From a more scientific biological point of view, however, they are quite wrong to be so sweeping and general by forbidding all cousins to procreate.

The key to avoiding 'mutation' in procreation by cousins is quite simple once you get the hang of it. The cousins must be separated by a cross gender of their parents, and this applies to at least the fourth removed.

For example. I could not safely procreate with my mother's sisters' daughters or my father's brothers' daughters, but my father's sisters' daughters and I would produce supermen (and women).

This 'cross-breeding' is well know by animal breeders to improve the species. And the fact is, it is practised very successfully by several human cultures while it remains a taboo in the modern western world. Another example of 'rules for own good' not really doing the job as intended. In fact, the evolution of Western Persons may be stalled.

jwf

According to an article in last week's New Scientist on mate choice, as long as a group of humans isn't too small, and there's enough outbreeding going on as well, a bit of inbreeding can be a good thing for evolution. It can help good mutations become established.

I guess the cross-gender thing must be related to X chromosomes?

Therefore, I think :

Mother's sister and mother herself share one X chromosome from grandfather (Xgf), and 50% chance of the other one from grandmother being the same betwen two sisters (Xgf1 or Xgf2). Mother's son will get one of hers, and an unrelated X from his father.
So, Mother's son will either carry Xgf (50%), Xgm1 (25%) or Xgm2 (25%)

Mother's sister's daughter will inherit one from mother's sister, (Xgf (50%), Xgm1 (25%) or Xgm2 (25%)) and an unrelated X from her father.
If mother's son marries mother's sister's daughter, there's a 3/8 chance the couple both carry an identical X, and so female offspring will have a 3/16 chance of having two identical X chromosomes.

Mother's brother's daughter will be a no-no, since mother and her brother have a 50% chance of his X being the same as the one his she inherited from granny, and he will pass his to all his daughters. Mother's son has a 50% chance of inheriting the X she got from granny, and so the X he carries has a 25% chance of being the same as one his cousin carries, giving a 1/8 chance of a daughter carrying 2 identical X chromosomes.
(Actually, a 1/4 chance of relation between son and cousin, and if the are related, a 1/2 chance of daughters inheriting 2 identical Xs)

However, father's brother has a 50% chance of inheriting the same X from granny as father did. Father's brother's daughter is guaranteed to inherit her X from father's brother. Father's son's X will be from his mother, so will be unrelated to the one that father's brother's daughter carries, and there should be no problem there, even if they marry and have daughters. The same should hold for father's sister's daughter.

Effectively, X-wise, it's OK for a boy to marry his father's brother *or* sister's offspring, since the boy's X will be different to hers, but marrying mother's brother's (or sister's) daughters runs the risk of X inbreeding.

For all the other chromosomes, the risks are even (1/16 chance of offspring having identical copies of any one chromosome) however the cousin is related, and gender in the inheritance path has no influence.

Maybe that's the reason that the Latin 'cousin' applied to relatives specifically on the female side?

>Maybe that's the reason that the Latin 'cousin' applied to relatives specifically on the female side?.<

Your reasoning may be intuitive but I think you may well have hit upon the formation of the strange gender-lessness of cousins. Perhaps, by custom, all 'cousins' - ie: relatives of the mothers side - were considered taboo and the word 'cousin' identified those on the no-no list. It would certainly explain why Shakespeare's kings called their nobles 'cousin'. They were close, could get closer but not THAT close. They were 'Kissin cousins' as W mentioned. Somewhere along the line, with subsequent religious taboos on sex talk generally, the distinction was lost and all cousins became 'cousins'. Even the good breeders.

Apparently there is more to the biology of it than sex specific chromosomes. Other dna attributes put the kink in the helix as well. It is not just gender results but other physiological factors that improve or mutate the stock. I am not enough of a biologist to even fully follow your chart above, but in spite of it, I still maintain that mother's brothers' daughters are just fine. It goes without saying (and your chart supports) that father's sisters' daughters are even better.

My opinion comes from reading at UNI (a quarter century since) several anthropological observations of cultures that quite 'religiously' practice this form of breeding to improve themselves. Their knowledge comes from observed results and is passed on by oral traditions. I wouldn't dare now to suggest my memory could clearly recall exactly which cultures these were, but look for the big strong good looking ones with matriarchal control in such matters.

Way off topic ..sorry folks.
jwf