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

And what is "dismay" the opposite of?

"datmay" ?

and to appologise for that, something i found whilst trawling the on line estate agents:
"The property is entranced from beneath a canopy and...".

This building is alarmed!

and being the slow person I am I have just realised the alternative pronunciation there. The house is en-tranced such a charming property

The Apple ][ computer used to have a "power on" light on the keyboard which looked like a button. According to the manual, "the Power On light is an indicator, not a button, and cannot be depressed".

Well, it was part of an Apple computer, so by definition it is always going to be happy

And now, if I may, a brief detour.
The word "gaff" or "gaffe". An interesting little word with a plethora of meanings. It appears to have it's root in French, or Provencal (?) with meanings like a fish spear, butchers hook, large fish hook. It can also mean a hook used by telephone engineers for climging telegraph poles.
But what interests me is its use to mean an embarresing social mistake. This also seems to come from the french. But it seems to have come over only as 'gaffe' rather than 'gaff'. But the words are interchangeable in French (or so it implies here!).

So, how does a word for a fish spear come to mean a social mistake or error? And would you spell it 'gaffe'? I would but that doesn;t mean anything.

Also, where I grew up, your 'gaff' was your house (or flat or whatever). As in "Fancy coming round my gaff for a couple of beers?". Anyone else know it in that usage? (not mention in Miriam Webster as house btw).

4th line, it's = its. Haven't done that for ages !
last line, mention = mentioned.
and sorry for the rest of them as well!

Preview, preview, preview!!

Then there's the "Gaffer" - the foreman, the boss, or whatever.

Gaffer in the movie sense definitely comes from the French (gaffers held screens on poles to reduce glare), but in the socially inept sense, I think it comes from OE gaf-spreac, which means to talk lewdly or blasphemously.

Dismember - to leave a club?
Does anyone ever get embowled?

I always thought the gaff was named after the sailing term - where a sail has a pole along the top as well as the bottom, it's gaff-rigged - the top pole is the gaff, as opposed to the boom at the bottom. The boom is also found in film makers' jargon, so it fits somehow!

BTW, no one seems to have asked, so perhaps everyone knows that the opposite of 'distaff' is 'spear'.

The interesting thing about the word "gaffe" is that it seems to carry much more weight in newspaper headlines than say "mistake" or "error". Or maybe they use it because it's only one syllable.

Manolan, no I didn't know that, but now I'll have to try to work it into a sentence.

What does the word opposite mean?

It stikes me that it is usually used to describe two things which have just about everything in common except for one aspect.

E.g. what is the opposite of tall?
It's another height related term but it is not a negative height, a hole in the ground of equal depth, but a term that is relative to the first. Short is just less tall than tall. If you started with the short one and found a shorter one the short one suddenly becomes the tall one!

My favourite has always been expert.

What were they before they were ex-perts?

turvy

Oh...

...and the opposite of expert would be novice.

(In my admittedly feeble mind the word opposite refers to scalar extremes.)

turvy

When lovely ladies of the well-endowed persuasion turn the wrong side of 30, they find out exactly what ex-pert means...

RF

Lovely example of opposites told to me tonight by a theatre director, who was working with a Japanese choreographer. The latter at one stage asked for the lights to be turned to "maximum dim"


She thought for a moment.


"Do you mean 'off'? " she ventured.