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

Something else that's a load of old cobblers (tangent: why are the cobblers "old"?), is this "first day of sping/summer" nonsense.
It seems as arbitary as the Queen's "official" birthday.
Nobody has told the weather.
The flora and fauna don't know anything about it.
Are the same dates used around the world (obviously out by 6 months in the southern hemisphere)?
I presume this is all to do with pagan rites.
Where does pagan come from?

The night of 1st of May was a solar festival (Wiccan religious ritual), and it is still known in many countries as "Beltane" (actually, it's on 30 April).
The catholics have done a fine job taking over most "pagan" holidays as their own: there are a lot of those festivals: beginning with Samhain or Halloween (October 31) and continuing with Yule (December 21), Oimelc or Candlemas (February 2), Spring Equinox (March 21), Beltane (April 30), Summer Solstice (June 21), Lammas (August 1), and Fall Equinox (September 21).

is what pagans were (from Latin paganus -a villager)Presumably they weren't up to the new monotheistic gods that were fashionable in the towns.
One of the wonderful things about English grammar (as we may have just reminded ourselves) is that any word can be used as any part of speech if necessary. Sometimes they get fancy Latin names. Present particples of verbs (ending in -ing) are commonly used as nouns (in which case they're called gerunds) I call them nouns, however, as in my book anything that functions as a noun is a noun.
But, since the first day of Spring for me is the solstice in March, perhaps you'e prefer to consult another volume.()

From paganus - C14 a civilian (hence not a soldier of Christ); and from the Latin pagus meaning village.

On the other side of the world as it were, we use similar dates, we just adapt to different seasons.

Though I believe American and Canadian Thanksgivings are held on different days because of different harvest times.

"we use similar dates, we just adapt to different seasons."

Except of course when they're seasonally related.

Calling someone a rustic is much more polite than calling them a peasant.
It has also come to mean not smoothe or machined (e.g. a rustic bench), and somehow more natural in form or use of material.

It might be *more* polite than 'peasant', but I'd think twice before wandering around the rural areas calling everyone a 'rustic'.

A rustic chair might have some quaint charm about it, but to call a person rustic means they're uncouth, crude, awkward and/or unsophisticated.

Sophisticated started as an insult, meaning adulterated. I think I'd rather be rustic ()

Doesn't sophistry describe what we're doing here? People who use clever but unsound arguments? People who launch into any given debate no matter how specious?

So, where does 'yokel' come on the rustic-peasant scale?

A rustic-peasent scale. It sounds like one of those Monty Python things for comparing the relative weights of witches to ducks
I would have put yokel as mildly offensive. They all strike me as words used by townies to do down those from the country, so unlikely to be received well in the back of beyond.

I think 'yokel' is a more serious affront, meriting a headbutt, whereas 'peasant' and 'rustic' are only blackeye offences.

Apparently a yokel is a small green woodpecker. So is the insult related to the American 'peckerhead'?

K's original question at the start of British English (the original) thread did not mention cobblers or any of their related terms. It was post number 20 that started the problems, because all newcomers thought it was the latest question and answered it, not realising there were 3000+ other posts in between.

Does anyone know where the term
*Rich as Creasus* comes from?
I was wondering if it had anything to do with Crassus - who was an extremely rich Roman

The seasons in Ireland do in fact correspond well with the 1 Feb, 1 May, 1 Aug and 1 Nov start dates, but not as well as they did before the 11 days were chopped out of the calendar in 17 something. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny warm day and in sharp contrast to the previous few weeks, so it really did seem like summer has arrived.

The four Celtic festivals were 1 Feb Imbolc, 1 May Bealtaine, 1 Aug Lughnasa and 1 Nov Samhain. 1 Feb was taken over by the Church as St Brigid's Day (one of the three patron saints of Ireland) while 1 Nov is All Saints Day.

I believe that in continental climates, the seasons take longer to arrive as the landmass takes a while to warm up or cool down, so the seasons start later. This explains why the 21 Mar, 21 Jun, 21 Sep, 21 Dec start dates are used in America and Italy (perhaps in other European countries as well).

As I recall the original question concerned 'the dog's b******s', which while related in a testicular fashion, is of a different tenor to 'a load of old cobbler's awls'.

No, it was from Croesus, King of Lydia (Western Anatolia, Turkey) who was very rich.

Kaeori's original question is paraphrased in post 362 of this thread. It did not mention animals or testicles although it did mention bums.

Cool thanks Gnomon

Apologies, it must have been a tangent of conversation concerning dogs and their various usage in British English that I was recalling. (From British English I)