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

How have you managed to learn these terms with out being sufficiciently in the gang to know where they come from?

Can I suggest the new on-line OED, now appearing in quarterly instalments (which may mean you have to wait a bit before they get to 'm") I quote"The joint editor John Simpson says that broadlt speaking there will be between 1 and 1.5 million words defined"
That's the widest leeway I've ever heard of.
They've also doubled the number of words they've labelled 'obsolete'. I'm just sitting here boggling ()

And I bet "broadlit" wasn't one of the 1.5 million. Sorry ()

It's rather nice though - this time we have a word we are looking for a meaning to.

Broadlit - P.Pt. of Broadlight. Extravagant lighting arrangement, thought to be a corruption of "the lights on Broadway" - but as they're probably pretty corrupt anyway, who cares!

After hearing it a few times, 'massive' sounds normal. But then, I'm starting to get used to people saying 'later' or 'latest' in a strange new way. Worrying!

Who came first? The gangs called "massives", or the very influential (and fantastic, imho) British band "Massive Attack", who dropped the "attack" from their name during the Gulf-war (and picked it up again afterwards), and who also use rappers?

massive does sound cooler than massiness,would like to cacth up on some of this massy backlog,later maybe.the medium is the massage

I'm pretty sure that 'massive' in this context hasn't been exported from the USA, so it's possible that it may have something to do with the band, although the term was probably already in use as part of the canon of hyperbolic adjectives for music e.g. "The massive sounds of...", implying simultaneously good, power (both in terms of amplitude and effect), and renown. There may also be a technical aspect to it, denoting an amalgamation of gangs in the same way that football teams use "United", but I'm just guessing here.

I quite like the term though, as I find it entertaining and not in the least bit threatening. It has always struck me as protesting a little too much, in the same way that countries whose names contain the word "Democratic" frequently aren't, and Ali G always uses the term to good effect .

Incidentally, never, EVER, use the terms 'cool' or 'with it' in the presence of a gang member - in their eyes such phrases place you firmly in that set of people (parents, teachers, cardigan-wearers, etc.) who are fundamentally incapable of understanding their world and should be treated with derision or condescension.

I try to avoid speaking directly to gang members or in fact anyone whose membership in a group is the most important and most defining part of their public persona. This would include all those who present themselves primarily as being representatives of any cause, club, political party, sexual preference, religion, musical taste, art movement...
From masons to car enthusiasts and Boy Scouts to Borg - when an individual becomes just another head of the Hydra, they are not to be encountered. All their thought and action is dictated by foregone conclusions and standards unaffected by any present reality.

W ..you've aroused my hope of an accessible OED. Last time I looked it was several hundred dollars more than I spend on rum and cigarettes in a year. While I am more a Cambridge clown, the iconoclastic devil's advocate type (and I like little about Auden's Oxford), there is no better source for understanding the language and its whence than the Oxford English Dictionary. The Cambridge online is best described as thin. The OED is the mulch, the black earth, the compost and fertilizer of my wordly (sic) garden.

TC: (Rudely whispering in front of you all about another conversation TC and I are having.) Your last two entries here are the kind of thing I aspire to. To amuse and enlighten is my goal and nothing more, as I have elsewhere tried to assure you.

On that note let me take this opportunity to thank you all for your patience with my ramblings.

~jwf~ still trying to cultivate his 'voice'

Well, we have the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary bending one end of a chipboard (and therefore not massive) shelf. It's a con though, as the words in it are still as long as the other dictionaries.

Oh ..but I do so love to wallow in the chronological historical examples and follow a word up through the centuries... 'tis the only way to really know a word, methinks.

My feeling on massive would be that it has some rapping background to it - a section of the youngster population (10 - 17 ?) seems to be much influenced by the rap in music.

I have tried asking some of these people questions, but have often found it difficult to express myself in a way which is simple enough for them to understand. I'm not being patronising, just truthful about the relatively small overlap between their version of the spoken langauage and mine.

Could we have a non-rhetorical or un-rhetorical question that *does* require an answer ? The use of compounds is pretty well established in our language. Does this fully fulfill P's requirements ?

I like the idea of a rhetorical answer - an answer that doesn't require a question .... perhaps "42" is the finest example of this.

For trivial pursuit fans, you can play the game "trivial answers", where the answer is provided and you have to come up with the question:

In the rings of Saturn.
Islas Malvinas.
Julius Caesar, when he crossed the Rubicon.
The Pantheon in Rome.
etc.

I can do some of them, in reverse order...

What entry did Gnomon recently author for the Guide about a large (nearly concrete) building in the capital of Italy?

Who said "Is that it, then?"

What do the Argentinians call the Falkland Islands, apart from 'ours'.

The first temporarily stumps me!

Do I detect the faint echo of the Two Ronnies?

Of course, with the word 'massive' I was assuming it was an English word. I wonder if it's used by gangs outside the Bangladeshi community. It could be a hybrid word from Sylheti, I suppose.

I should like to use this (curiously dead today) forum to congratulate...you know who you are...step forward the great...the one and only, the erudite Gnomon. Two front page entries. My word.

I think "Massive" is a UK phrase as it was a word that crossed over from garage to mainstream around about the time I was in college in Birmingham and it was a counter to the US "Crew" which never really took hold in the UK.

Thanks, Pheroneous!

And the question to the answer you were looking for was: "Where would you find the Cassini Division?"

May I add my congratulations, Gnomon - came here specifically to do so.

Fellow threaders - Gnomon wrote both the Dublin entry AND the sundials entry which appeared today.

A sundial-entry couldn't have been written by anyone else! Without Gnomon, a sundial wouldn't exist.

I think the problem with trying to understand "yoof" words is that they are probably the quickest changing part of the language. For instance, when I was at school those who hung around street corners, wearing pink v. necks, slicked hair and earings (well they did in my part of the world) and drinking cheap, underage cider were known as casuals. Yet, by the time I had become well ensconsced in university the same age group and mental attitude was embodied by those who hung around street corners, wearing shell suits and baseball caps and drinking Buckfast Tonic Wine, who were known as neds. They are now being ridiculed on BBC Scotland comedies, which almost undoubtedly means they don't exist anymore. So, no doubt by the time we have worked out where Massive comes from it will no longer apply. Hence I think I will forget all about it and settle down with a nice malt to chastise the television coverage of the election, clearly being far too old (at least mentally) for anything else .