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

In which case, dear Gnomon, here's a little light laughter for you:

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Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To have a lot of fun.
Stupid Jill
Forgot the pill
So now they have a son.

How's that for a nursery rhyme for you!

It's always the woman's fault!

yeah, well...
Jack doesn't rhyme with pill. And call it 'poets' freedom' to be sexistic.

...
Stupid Jack
Could not hold back
...

Apparently when I sneeze, I say 'ecu'. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say 'a-tissue'.

ah, an old Tory sneeze then.

I'd like to be under the sea in an octopodean garden in the shade

Sorry - I've just been catching up on the backlog.

"I'd like to be under the sea .."

That's a phrase that has bothered me these several decades.

"At the bottom of the sea" I can comprehend, but "under" the sea I find difficult. I feel that it should be in a place where the sea cannot get, although "underground" doesn't provoke that concept because it suggests (apart from burial) being in a locality surrounded by air.

my tablets please.

Ebola, scary stuff! There is Marburg somewhere in Africa at the moment, is there not?

<< I'd like to be under the sea in an octopodean garden in the shade >>

For some strange reason, my son's class learned that song in primary school. (Well, with the other words, octopuses' ...)

Probably the teacher thought the parents would like it. Mine used to sit in the bath and sing We all live inna ella ubmaree

Why are we drifitng, have we completely covered the English language?

Under the sea ... below the sea ... in the sea.

I don't think you actually say "under the sea" do you? Unless you're Ringo Starr and looking for something fit the music better.

How many odd expressions have evolved because someone was doing just that, I wonder (Shakespeare, Milton, writers of hymns)

PS - my children sat in the bath singing - not my parents or teachers!

"under the sea" is the normal phrase to mean "in the sea", probably because "in the sea" means "on top of the sea". Is a ship in the sea or on it?

The ship is usually "at sea" or "in the water," maybe the captain is "out to lunch" in which case the ship may end up "beneath the waves."

Meanwhile, a non-sexist version of the bucket filling saga:

Jill and Jack
Were broke. A lack
Of funds decreed their labour.
Said Jack to Jill
"We have to fill
This bucket for the neighbour."
Said Jill,"Oh hell
The blasted well
Is halfway up the mountain."
"Sod that," said Jack,
"I'll take it back,
And fill it at the fountain."

Oh dear I'm all at sea now.

A little brainstorming:

My father went to sea when the war started. After that we spent our holidays by the sea. Sometimes we even spent them on a boat. On the sea. A diver is said to be under water. Is he under the sea? Or in the sea? Could he ever be under a river or a lake? There are plenty of fish in the sea. Are they under it? I live over the sea from most of you. Over two seas from some.

Is there any preposition that you can't put with "sea"? Sorry about that - you may have noticed that I tend to get obsessed about the sea.

Ramble over. Or.... I could go on with "in the ground" and "under the ground" .... same sort of odd uses. If you're under the ground, at what depth has it stopped being ground, and what are the layers "under the ground"?

Seems like you're all at sea, TC!

Captian Nemo was under the sea (by 20,000 Leagues according to Jules Verne).
Travelling from London to Paris by the tunnel certainly makes you go under the sea.
When diving, I'd be under water, while I might be in the sea waiting to be picked up after the dive.

To me, under the sea = on the seabed
at sea = in the sea, far out from land
in the sea - in the top bit of the sea like a swimmer would be

I would never really talk about "on" the sea. It might be used in poems or songs from time to time, but in reality, very rarely is something "on" the water without being at least partly "in" it. Perhaps the big lad, when he walked on water, but not much else.

Under the sea, under the sea
Life is much better
Down where it's wetter
Take it from me!

Weren't the 20,000 leagues supposed to be a distance travelled under the (surface of the) sea, rather than a (rather impossible) depth?