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

Give a man a yard and he'll put up a shed. Vestboy

Busy,busy,busy me ,Cant stop long or have a look ,so I stop to leave a



.

B4 I went i meant to say if you see Hype point her this way!

*posts quick before anyone notices 'b4' posted in the British English thread *

I was idly contemplating the phrase "common or garden" the other day. My conclusions were that it was a contraction of "common or garden variety". This lead me to the thought that it may have originated with gardening types, where you would get seeds that were common (or garden) variety and then get the more specialist display ones.

Of course that could well be so much codswallop, so I thought I'd post here and see what others thought!

I think I'd rather discuss why we say "codswallop".

I certainly wouldn't relish the thought of walloping a cod. Cooked, raw, alive or dead.

I think codswallop is in a group with words like 'twaddle' which just sound good

Codswallop i've heard some may tell, become's afore a fishey tail.
One swallow t'was does, not a summer make,Unlike this ale , from barley cake
T'is 'twaddle' thus spoken ,after merryment we make, Nowt common or garden
About comments soo good codswallopic twaddle auspicios'ality understood

Ah4hefindsout

I always assumed the cod in codswallop was the other meaning for cod, that is, the male member. This also appears in codpiece. But why it should be codswallop I don't know. I'll have to look it up. Tomorrow. It's too late now.

I beleive there was a company called Cod that produced an intoxicating brew. Booze was referred to as wallop as in, "I'll have a pint of wallop."
I assume the drink was of poor quality or was otherwise generally maligned.

The word 'codswallop' is younger than I am, being first recorded in 1963! But the dictionary doesn't know the origin.

It's a lot older than any of us. Some say that it's down to Hiram Cod's development of the self sealing soft drinks bottle (with a marble in the neck). That was in the C19. My dad would talk about the bottles that kids would break in order to get to the marble in the neck. He was born before the end of WW1.

Give the boy a halfpenny!(I think we've discussed such pop bottles before) Codswallop is also cod's roe or fish eggs. Hence the slightly rude meaning. Codpieces were connected with "to cod" meaning to trick. They were generally much larger than necessary.

What was the necessary size of a codpiece?
Fashionable might be better than necesary

I was reading an article on the upcoming new Sony Linux PDA to be released in the states (and hopefully over here!) and found the following in the review:
"Crystal clear, 4", transflective, high-density TFT LCD screen"

So, any guesses what 'transflective' means? My dictionary knows it not!

TRANSFLECTIVE
Transflective is a material which originally had a dull finish but following a long period of self reflection and anguish is undergoing counselling and surgery to become reflective.

"Transflective is a type of LCD flat-panel display. Transflective LCDs combine the best features of transmissive and reflective LCDs. Specifically, transflective displays are equally readable in both bright sunlight and low-light situations.

Normal frontlit reflective displays are easily readable in sunlight, but difficult to read in low-light situations. Normal transmissive displays are easily readable in low-light and typical indoor environments, but unusuable in bright light, such as direct sunlight."

That doesn't really explain what it is, though.

No but I actually understood what Gnomon said and guessed that was the meaning when reading Ictoan's post.
I'd need to look further into the technology before trying to translate though.

Thanks Gnomon. Although I liked Vestboy's version as well

Guess I could have googled it myself as well

Traveller in Time on his head
"Sorry to interrupt, but has anyone an idea what a 'bowtox' can be?

It was asked if I did spy such thing in a neigboring thread. Besides a wide variety of names I can not find what the word refer to."

Botox perhaps. That stuff that makes your lips swell!