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

I don't mind. I'm not one of the original posters anyway. The thread was already 4 months old when I joined it.

I think it might be fun to have two going at once. We could take bets on which gets to 5k first. The way things are going, it'll be this one. No sign of the original. Incidentally we've had very few newbies telling me that cordwainers are cobblers (used by me and many other SE Brits as a synonym for b******s for reasons exhaustively discussed passim

G, how long after the start you joined does not in any way diminish the value of your opinion. You have made a sustained and unrivalled contribution.

Hi folks, it's been a while since I've been on this thread but if you remember the "last ditch effort" discussion from last year I ran across the source a few days ago in Churchills history of the english speaking peoples.

It comes from an address made in 1672 by William of Orange (later William III) to the people of the United Provinces (now the Netherlands) in their bitter fight against Louis XIV. He defied Louis by urging the populace to "die in the last ditch" - there being plenty of them in the low lying Dutch countryside of course. The Dutch opened the sluice gates to let the sea in and maintained their independance from the French.

Hopefully worth waiting for

Of course, if they were tacked together it would play merry hell with the replies which specifically refer to a numbered post!

I think BritEng needs (and deserves) a whole area to itself with themed threads. I propose names such as "Off Topic", "Further Off Topic", "What is the Topic, anyway?", "Etymology", "Phrase and Fable" (do you think the term is copyright?), "A Return to Off Topic".

Someone (TC?) could then index this thread and the original to fit in the new structure. We could enjoy conversations about whether such-and-such was "Off Topic" or "Further Off Topic".

Unfortunately we would lose some of the delight of having three or more conversations running in parallel.

Speaking of the Netherlands, is the term "dyke" for a Lesbian considered offensive?

You know Gnomon, that's so good a set up I'm nearly tempted to go for the witty, obvious and probably very bad taste reply

Hi all,

Has the phrase 'Needs must when the devil drives' ever been covered on the BE thread?

It is something that I have been wondering about for literally years without finding a satisfactory explanation. I *have* looked in all kinds of places and I figured this thread might provide an answer.

When thinking about this one I am often reminded of that other peculiar usage of two of the words involved: 'I must needs travel to London' (or 'I must needs' + any verb).

'needs' in this second example appears to be an adverb qualifying 'I must' and intensifying its meaning, but 'needs' is not *usually* an adverb.

Just curious to see whether anyone can enlighten me.

Seeya
Spiff

I must needs travel to London. In this sense, needs is an adverb meaning "of necessity". This usage is very old, dating all the way back to Anglo-Saxon "nedes". I don't understand its use in "Needs must", however.

Thanks Gnomon, for confirming that one for me (although I am still a little confused about how the word 'needs' comes to be an adverb).

I *think* the 'needs' which must when the devil bites your *ss is simply the plural noun. My theory is that 'necessity forces you to act when there is external pressure to do so, particularly some kind of potential danger.

Anyone agree/disagree/have an explanation or origin?

Seeya
Spiff

*chooses only one from three concurrent topics*

The notion of moving this and the original conversation to a specific and new Brit/Eng Forum with several new threads dedicated to specific topics and non-topics is quite appealing.

I suggested something similar recently BUT I have had Second Thoughts which are based soley on this thread being the heart and soul of 'Ask h2g2'. This thread is the one constant of the 'ask h2g2' Forum and it keeps the area alive.

To move away from the mean streets of 'ask h2g2' could be considered eletist and it would certainly cut us off from fresh newbie blood. Establishment of a Brit/Eng Forum and multiple topic threads has much appeal, but not at the cost of cutting out the heart of 'ask h2g2'.


As K was the founder of the first thread perhaps a compromise can be imagined where the two threads would be moved to a new Brit/Eng Forum while a Third Edition Brit/Eng conversation is started and maintained here in the more public area of 'ask h2g2'.

Then each time it reached 1000 or 4000 or whatever, it could be moved to the new Forum area for indexing and cataloging while yet another Volume of the Brit/Eng thread would start here. The new forum could include other resources and discussions as well as the ongoing task of organising the info from past conversations.

Obviously, I'm thinking longer term than my own mortal coil could promise to particpate but it would fall to the elders and experts to keep an eye on the 'ask h2g' thread as each new generation of newbies comes along.

~jwf~

Ah, you see; the great rolling prairies produce the expansive ideas.

Provoked by W 's and Kaeori's recent comments, my memory has recalled a jazz musician friend who was an early(ish) English exponent of be-bop scat singing. One of his favourite (obviously nonsense) phrases was "Hoo bopped a drollock".

scat, n. a form of jazz singing
scat, v. sing wordlessly

The ghetto etymology is obscure but some suggest it is a short form of scatology. Scat, meaning feces, is a high falutin substitute for the more vulgar word 'S**T'.
'S**T' is commonly used to refer to almost anything. Drugs, the scene, someone's behavior, music, art, any social activity - could all be referenced in the question "Wuz dis s**t?" or the statements "Let's do some s**t" or "I ain't inta dat s**t".

Unlike the British fondness for the word 'C**p' to describe something negatively, the 's' word on the streets of America is not value laden. It is neither good nor bad. It just is.
Because the 's' word is frowned upon as vulgar (it is for example moderated here) heroin addicted jazz musicians would substitute the more sophisticated word 'scat' and no one outside the in-group would know what-the-scat they wuz saying, y'know what I'm saying.

peace brother
~jwf~

On the topic of what to do if the original thread returns, clearly all the solutions have their merits. I still favor adding the sequel to the original to make a gargantuan thread, keeing it here in Ask h2g2 for the good reasons given above.

I suspect, though, that we may not have all the choices we would like. Perhaps someone could have a friendly word with TPTB to clarify the situation (not me, I wouldn't put it right).

The original meaning of 'scat' was to go away in haste - no signs of the origin of this. I thought it might be related to scatter, but the etymology suggests the latter might be a variation of shatter.

So, where does 'scatterbrain' come in? This term is frequently applied to me!

If scat meant 'go away in haste', possibly it was connected to scatter or scuttle.

Scat meaning "go away" does not appear to be connected to scatter, although no-one is sure. It was used as long ago as 1838 as something shouted at cats. It may be connect to "scoot" meaning to move quickly, also of unknown origin and used as far back as 1758.

Doesn't it seem plausible that 'scat' meaning 'skee-daddle' ( word!) is just a sudden violent sound that will tend to send cats and other unwanted fauna skuttling off into some side alley or hedgerow?

The hiss of the 's' followed by that hard 'k' finishing up with a suitably elongated vowel 'aggghhhh', then perhaps later a final 't' to make it a 'word'.

In many Uk English-speakers that final 't' is not 'really' pronounced anyway, giving way to the glorious Great British glottal stop!

Just a thought.

Seeya
Spiff

> In many Uk English-speakers that final 't' is not 'really'
> pronounced anyway <

That would be 'ska', which is something else altogether.

jwf

I saw the term 'lo fidelity' on a poster yesterday, and it got me thinking about the word 'fidelity'. It seems so pleasing. Yet other than a plural, it doesn't offer any other part of speech to language that I can think of.

I suppose there's 'infidel', and the adopted Latin 'bona fides'.