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

At the weekend I was spending some tim walking round the North Yorkshire Moors (very nice and pretty place) taking a look at a foss (waterfall) and wondered where that came from. The other was what distinguishes a minster from another sort of church - say a cathedral or parish church?

According to the Oxford dictionary, 'minster' is the name applied to cathedrals or large churches associated with monasteries.

Tenuous link at best here, but could 'foss' be a version of 'fosse' which apparently derives from latin and means moat or ditch. As in, presumably, the Fosse Way Roman road.

OK, so it's only the water theme linking them but I've seen a lot worse on here

Foss comes directly from the Old Norse word for waterfall. In Icelandic which is very closely related to Old Norse, it is Voss. As far as I can remember, the word Voss also means waterfall in Norwegian. I wonder is it related to the Irish word for waterfall, Eas pronounced Ass. If's very easy to imagine the f becoming silent as it often does in Irish and oss becoming ass. The word Foss is often spelt Force in England.

I did wonder about that as there are the two falls on the Tees in England - High and Low Force.

I saw this and, as the advert goes, thought of you. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1883000/1883481.stm

Thanks, Munchkin. I'm nearly recovered from St Patrick's Day.

Apparently the word "Penguin" comes from Welsh. How so? Did they once have penguins then?

And in the 16th century, too. I would suspect some link to Patagonia, but have no idea when that was colonised (C16 seems too early). So, perhaps there's an unacknowledged Welsh Vasco da Gama or Magellan!

Yes, too early. Welsh settled in Patagonia in 1865 http://www.patagonia-argentina.com/i/content/la_gente_galesa.htm

I checked the words for 'drunk', and it seems they've missed a Cockney one that even I've heard: Mozart!

I always thought that was Brahms (but then I'm almost tone deaf)

The word penguin originally applied to a bird called the Great Auk. This was a black bird which in the winter had a white head. It lived on rocky islands around the coasts of the North Atlantic. "White head" in Welsh is "pen gwyn". Unfortunately, the Great Auk became extinct in 1844. Presumably the word penguin came into English as referring to these rare birds.

When explorers discovered the Antarctic penguins, they already had a ready-made word so they used it. This happens quite a bit with bird names. I was surprised on my one and only trip to the United States to find that an American robin is quite a big bird, about the size of an English thrush, and that he does go bob, bob, bobbin'.

Strangely, the list of words for drunk has "Brahms and Liszt", but it doesn't have "pissed".

Either I'm muddling my composers, or my Cockney isn't up to scratch. Or both!

Now, this phrase 'up to scratch' - is it somethng to do with golf? Why 'scratch'?

I had an interview this morning; my son left me a note last night, as I'd already gone to bed: "Dad - Good luck 4 2 moz" What do the panel think of text-messaging-speak?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I think it has its place in sending text messages, which take ages if you spell everything out in full. But I think it is easier to type the full sentence than to try and figure out a way of abbreviating it. What does your son's message mean?

Good luck for tomorrow - I think it's wonderful that he left you a note and I hope it added to your good feelings during the interview so that you got the job.I think it's an appropriate level of literacy for a Dad
Gnomon - stop being so curmudgeonly

Young people today! They've no respect for the language! When I was a young whippersnapper, we used to parse fifteen sentences before we were given any breakfast

Mmmm, yes. I was surprised a while ago to read a short piece decrying the ignorance of the young, only to find it was written by an ancient Greek a few thousand years ago. We've been saying it for almost as long as we have been able to read and write, or so it seems.

I think the problem is that the people who congregate here have a command of English which is well above average. Thus, to us, the average level of literacy in the younger generation seems lacking.

I suppose weblish - or whatever those abbreviated heiroglyphs are called - does encourage communication, and that can only improve language skills, can't it?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"