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

The Deeperdoo version was rather good.

According to the BBC researchers have found that the oldest words in english are probably tens of thousands of years old. The group includes I, We, Two, Three, Who.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7911645.stm

>> "We use a computer to fit a range of models that tell us how rapidly these words evolve," said Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading. <<

Having read a bit about the new understanding of evolutionary biology - it's big in America these days - I was amazed to see they now believe that all critters have certain built-in variables that may or not be triggered by environment and other circumstances.

For example what was until recently seen as 'several species' of long horned dung beetle is now seen as only one species with variations being a the direct result of untimely triggers by assorted environmental circumstances. The size, shape and even position of the 'horn' is determined by whatever extant circumstances occur at each stage of any individual beetle's growth.

In another example tanks of certain fish will maintain a standard balance of a few large colorful males, many female and several 'subdued' or stunted males who look just like the females. But if one of the developed males is removed one of the stunted males will suddenly 'evolve' into a larger, more colorful and combative male.

And while all this is very wonderful, I don't think we can safely allow their new computer models to be arbitrarily applied to the evolution of language. It's a different pile of dung altogether. There are just too many variables.


~jwf~

I didn't understand what they were talking about. They say "I" is one of the oldest words in the English language dating back thousands of years. But "I" was not "I" 900 years ago, it was ic, pronounced "itch". So the word has changed. Do they mean there was a word for "I" thousands of years ago, although it is not the one we use now? That's not very surprising, is it?

Thank heavens for that. I thought it was just me being thick. I didn't really understand the article either.
Obviously some words are older than others, but I cannot think of one that has stayed the same for even one thousand years, let alone longer. I can think of one or two that have changed in my lifetime("wireless for example")

Ah the cult of the computer model.
(All models - computer or otherwise are hypothesis not proof)

Computer models supposedly show that bumble bees cannot fly - there are bugs somewhere

Nobody ever told the bumble bee about computer models... and it makes a little honey for itself too.

t.

Shame about their sensitivity to electromagnetic waves, what with all our phones and tvs and radars and stuff... I mean we owe them a lot for enslaving us to build satellite navigation systems and for letting us eat honey and everything but we are not bears, we are...
~j~

I was stung by a bee yesterday. £10 for a jar of honey!

And I paid someone else £200 for a pair of binoculars. He saw me coming.

From a great distance I'd wager...

t.

Honey is expensive stuff these days what with the Varroa mite and colony collapse disorder.

And I do love a smackerel of honey now and then, especially on white toast...

"Nearly eleven o'clock," said Pooh happily.
"You're just in time for a little smackerel of something," and he put his head into
the cupboard. "And we'll go out, Piglet, and sing my song to Eeyore."

t.

On March 25, 2005. Wandrin wrote:

>> Now that we seem totally overwhelmed by questions not related to language, there doesn't seem much point in hanging on. <<

I was recently reminded of this quite by accident thru the sudden re-appearance of six7s, you know, the Aussie who made an anagram of my name, John W Fulton, and put it in a speech balloon above a comic John Wayne cowboy taking tickets at a cinema: "WHOA INJUN FILM TOLL".

He took me back 4 years. He had reappeared late March 2005 after a two year absence and started up a conversation we began in 2001.

2005 was a hard old winter. The snow was deep and the body count in Iraq was high. And my point is? Oh yeah, U96784.

My reply to six7s Mar 31, 2005 was:
"It's true that there seem to be a lot more disruptive people and a lot more useless nonsense going on around here. Oh yes, there were always threads that got taken over by trouble makers and they usually got an earful from the faithful, and a boot from the Italics.

We've lost a lot of the old guard over the past five years. Your name would have been near the top of any list of my favourite old researchers who had gone missing. Glad to see you're still browsing.

I guess some people just get tired of fighting the same old fight in thread after thread. Me, I just carry on with my foolishness and in the case of the Brit Eng thread I just carry on. Tazmanian devils be damned!"

Now he's back again! And he's gonna hate me for going walkabout like this.


~jwf~

I think I managed to stay away for two weeks. In the intervening four years I've had longer holidays than that. (I'm not deliberately ignoring n2g2;it seems to be shutting me out)
smackerel - how wonderful to make up a word that finds its way into idiolects worldwide nearly a hundred years later! I can't find a dictionary definition but we all know immediately what is meant.
smack - seems to have seven distinct meanings, all pretty old.
and as for, 'smacker'......

> Now he's back again!
If lurking since Jan 17, 2006 qualifies as being away, then yes, I am

Therefore I think

> And he's gonna hate me for going walkabout like this.
Going walkabout is the least of your crimes:

I didn't draw a cartoon of The Duke - merely put words in his mouth

I ain't an Aussie

Cartoon may not be 100% accurate, but you painted a picture with words. And it was comical. You described, therefore I saw.
peace
jwf

The OED says we've been wrong all along.
I always thought it was derogatory but now they say it's a good thing.

http://www.oed.com/bbcwords/dog-bollocks-new.html

This is earth shattering!

~jwf~

We didn't have it wrong ?!?! - At least, Duncan didn't:

F19585?thread=46483

If something is 'bollocks' then it's rubbish, nonsense. If it's the 'dog's bollocks' it's good.

This idea of associating something animal with something good isn't modern. Think of 'the bee's knees', 'the cat's whiskers'. I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

>>If something is 'bollocks' then it's rubbish, nonsense. If it's the 'dog's bollocks' it's good.

Except that...sometimes 'the dog's bollocks' is abbreviated, so 'it's the bollocks' means something is good. The 'the' makes all the difference.