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

Even as we speak people are hanging themselves with their stalkings. NORAD is tracking Santa. And I'm wishing everyone a Merry Crispness and a Joyeux Noel.


~jwf~

>>NORAD<< (parenthetical translation request)

Hoist by ones own petard ~jfw~

turvy

>> Hoist by ones own petard <<

Yay, for I am the very Jean Luc of Petards.


http://www.noradsanta.org/english/norad/honoraryTracker.htm

To paraphrase a Beatles' tune:
"You Can Work It Out" from there.


~jwf~

Thanks for the welcome!

Isn't it great that we still have new people joining us?

*waves to 'Star*

That was 'NorAid'

NORAD I associate vaguely with North America and space or missiles or summat.

B

I can think of two 'negative' forms which have seem to have no readily apparent positive source.

UNcouth - without a justifying couth?
gormLESS - lacking in gorm?

Are there any others, or any similarly orphaned words?


~jwf~

Oh loads, though I can only think of two at the moment - Bereft and Forecast.

Mind you - I have used couth for years, but I am not sure if that is family affectation or real usage.

Ben

abcB,

You are not alone. Frank Muir used the expression "He distinctly lacked couth."
I fancy he also used the verb "to gruntle".

Both of them appear at dictionary.com but I can't get to the OED as have a cat on my knee.

Oh, my mother spent hours trying to gruntle my father. A sweet and dedicated woman, my mother!

Ben

An obsolete meaning given for gruntle is to grunt repeatedly.
That obviously applies to fathers but not to mothers. Not even when they are trying to read a newspaper and being addressed by a spouse.

Though I have certainly had sex with guys who gruntled a lot throughout!



B

I have heard couth used - although not ever felt the need to do so myself.

We also have ruthless

I rode on my motor bike
Ruth rode aback of me.
I hit a bump at sixty-five
and rode on Ruthlessly

abcB,

Lucky them, I say.
Gruntling, whether mutual or otherwise, seems to be your family trait. 'Tis not so in all families.

TC
(Happy New Year)

Reckless is not a word I'd associate with you although your motor cycling was obviously wreckless.

Dictionary.com gives both "reck" and "ruth" respectively and "take heed" and "compassion".

Bereft.

Same source, reft past participle of reave - carry off forcibly. Also possible association with rift.

~jwf~

Same source: gorm - axle grease for cart; to daub with grease. Presumably if you haven't the sense to apply any, you are gormless. There appears to be no accolade for being gormful.

There was a Danish / English King called Gorm the Old, unfortunately his son was not called Gorm the Less.

http://www.archaeology.org/0011/newsbriefs/gorm.html

Actually, reading the page there I get 'interred' which is another one. I know the root is terra, but we don't use it by itself these days.

Ben

PS - love the rhyme TC. In Swallows and Amazons, Nancy's real name was Ruth, but the pirates were ruthless, hence the nom de guerre.

Can't remember where I read it, but a character was descibed as "an entirely gorm-free individual".