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

Tá eascanna i mo sciorrárthach

(Not sure if eels are masculine or feminine - but then who (other than other eels) can say for sure)

Bravo!

On the theme of 'wacky' sites offering multilingual phrases, check out The I Can Eat Glass Project: http://www.geocities.com/nodotus/hbglass.html

'Tá mé in ann gloine a ithe; Ní chuireann sé isteach nó amach orm'

In 'Gallus', the language of Glasgow, it would be:
'See me? See glass? See eat? Ahm pure 'kin mental, by the way!'

Oh dear. Not only am I going to drag this back to Latin but I'm also doing to disagree with Edward again (non solum... sed etiam....).

The phrase is "de gustibus non (est) disputandum" (i.e. -um, not -em). It's the gerund or the gerundive (don't make me go and look up which one) which is always 2nd dec. neuter, if I remember correctly (hence corrigendum/corrigenda and the like).

A quick google shows that -em gets around 1200 hits and -um 10 times as many.

Oh dear!

But the original argument was over the inclusion (or otherwise) of 'est'. I'm failly sure that the verb 'to be' can be omitted (don't gerundives behave in a verb-like way?) - and anyway, it would have to be 'sunt' to agree with 'gustibus'.

Eels are probably hermaphrodites, but I haven't checked that anywhere.

Eels are fish. So there'll be some "girl" eels and some "boy" eels, surely?

RF

ah, I see. I believe it can be omitted. Indeed, I was first taught it in Latin without the 'est'. However, it is 'est' and not 'sunt' since the subject of the sentence is "it".

Google confirms that eels are male or female.

Duncan -- Sciorráthach is a nice word for hovercraft -- from sciorraim, I slip or slide. My dictionary gives simply árthach. I was going to suggest gluaisbhád by analogy with gluaisteán which used to bethe word for a car, it's the equivalent of "motor-car". It means literally "thing that glides"; gluais is pronounced "gloosh" which I think is wonderfully onomatopaeic. I see an image of Dev in his dark blue 1940s Rolls-Royce.

So, for the hovercraft full of eels, another version --

Tá m'árthach lán eascanna.

And funnily enough eels *are* feminine in Irish, it seems. Just as whales are feminine in French. The French for a male whale is "Une baleine mâle".

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Wow, that's so useful! It would be so good if English had a similar one..
So would this one...<>

Adelaide. <>: To play someone.

One who deceitfully pretends to love someone else: a player.

Where have you been by the way? Ani.

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True!
Hi, Ani, I've been around, as much as possible, but the site's been playing up.

For the non-Irish speakers - so there is a female and a male gender in Irish? Is there also a Neuter?

There is no neuter gender in Irish. My step-mother spoke only Irish until she was about 20. She's spoken only English since then, but still has a problem with the word 'it'. She tends to refer to all things as 'he'.

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It's the same with my Chinese students, and Pacific Islanders in NZ! This is so interesting..

Stereotyped French or Belgian characters in Agatha Christie books do too.

Not in any language I've ever studied.

In Canukistan, we use the pronoun 'buddy' for 'he.' See entry for 'buddy' in the Canadian English Guide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A881471

'Buddy' as well as being a pronoun is also a noun for anyone unimportant enough to have his name remembered; ie, anyone who doesn't own a Dodge Ram doublecab pickup with winch. Oops, topic drift. Ani.

In Canukistan, we use the pronoun 'buddy' for 'he.' See entry for 'buddy' in the Canadian English Guide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A881471

'Buddy' as well as being a pronoun is also a noun for anyone unimportant enough to have his name forgotten; ie, anyone who doesn't own a Dodge Ram doublecab pickup with winch. Oops, topic drift. Ani.

Sorry for the double post. I was trying to stop the first one from going through. 'Name forgotten' is correct, not 'name remembered.' Ani.