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

>> *Thanking the gods there are no absolutes in language!*

What? None?

None that spring to mind.
It's a given that language is 'spoken' (but not always written)
but I can't think of any other constants.
I'm open to suggestions.

~jwf~

thanks all for the comments.
Offal is the the word. Thanks

Gimlet (hard g) is also a tool that the gimlet cocktail is named after (like 'screwdriver') It's a straight round rod with a pointed screw end, a short section of shank like a drill bit and a T handle. It is, or was, used to start holes for screws or to drill through fairly thin bits o'wood.

Oh boy, you´re somewhat oldish, aren´t you? Haven´t seen one of those for donkey´s years!
And as you mention "screwdrivers" - there´s a system of cannon breech called an "interrupted French screw".

>> *Thanking the gods there are no absolutes in language!*
>>> What? None?
>>>> None that spring to mind.

Sorry, me old china... twas merely a play on the words 'absolutes' and 'no' (an absolute)

I'll get me coat

Carry on

>>
Pit is right: an ingredients' list would belong to the ingredients, not merely list them.

'Ingredients list' is slightly preferable, but still awkward. Strangely, though a list of books would be a book list, 'an ingredient list' grates on the ear, however correct it may be.

A construction to avoid. No shame in that.
<<

Problem is that 'ingredients list' is a phrase in and of itself. I was talking about the ingredients list on a can of redbull. In NZ the term 'ingredients list' would be used alot when talking about that specific list on bottles and packets of food. 'List of ingredients' seems a more generic phrase to me.



Thanks for the apostrophe clarifications

>> It's a given that language is 'spoken'

Aside from the Sign Languages for the deaf. I'm not being clever-clever here. They were originally thought of as translations of specific languages into signs, but they've taken on a life of their own, with slang and vocabulary and rules developing separately from the spoken languages. Whoever wrote the Wikipedia article says: "Sign languages are not mime ... much as most spoken language is not onomatopoeic". Crucially, they also say "Many of the poetic mechanisms available to signing poets are not available to a speaking poet". You can see why this would be when you know that "Many unique linguistic features emerge from sign languages' ability to produce meaning in different parts of the visual field simultaneously. For example, the recipient of a signed message can read meanings carried by the hands, the facial expression and the body posture in the same moment." In fact the Wikipedia entry is excellent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language

Still unconvinced? - http://www.signedlanguage.co.uk/the-linguistics-of-sign-language.html
Which leads me to written Chinese - given that all spoken Chinese shares a single form of writing, is written Chinese a language in itself?

<> / Pit @ -85

I even have one. ... but haven't used it for donkey's years. Neither have I interrupted one for a similar number of years.

Rod, ! Young lady in my pub has got an apprenticeship as car mechanic...at Volkswagen´s Race&Research dept. of all places - after three years there I had to explain to her that one can recut bodged threads. O tempora o mores.

And re. sign language: Red Indians (mainly the prairie tribes IIRC) had a very complex sign language that could be used simultaneously with oral speech, allowing them to pass huge amounts of information in no time flat.

Of course, the Gimlet cocktail must be named after the Screwdriver! I just thought it was an aphetic form of "gin-lime" with a jaunty diminutive "-let" stuck on.

And indeed I also have several gimlets, some pointy and some with flat ends (like miniature screwdrivers). This tool gave rise to the verb "to gimble".

To my surprise Dictdotcom does not acknowledge 'to gimble', which for
a moment I thought was something to do with hinged hangers used on a boat to keep things vertical when the seas were rough. That turns out to be a gimbal.

But about gimlet it does say:
>> gimlet
early 15c., from Anglo-Fr. guimbelet, perhaps from M.Du. wimmelkijn, dim. of wimmel "auger, drill." The meaning "cocktail made with gin or vodka and lime juice" is first attested 1928, presumably from its "penetrating" effects on the drinker. <<


~jwf~

'Gimble' is one of Lewis Carroll's invented words. It appears in the poem Jabberwocky in Through the Looking Glass. Humpty Dumpty tells Alice that it means 'to make holes like a gimlet'.

Ha! The screwdriver comes after the gimlet!

Screwdriver (spirit + orange) dates from 1956 but gimlet (spirit + lime) from 1928.

The drinks are older than the names: the gimlet was known from 1895 as the gin rickey.

"A certain Col. Joseph Rickey used to frequent a drinking place in E Street known as Shoomaker's... The original Rickey, a la Shoo's, consisted of Bourbon, soda and lime juice. In time gin was substituted for the Bourbon and..[the Colonel's] name was forever attached."

"In course of time, the ‘rickey’ came to be referred to as the ‘gin rickey’, whereas it had always been a ‘whiskey rickey’." (OED)

I have been watching rather too much telly (especially the election coverage)It seems I have completely lost the fight re "an historic". I've even heard it with the h pronounced.
Odd plurals seem also to be disappearing. I have now heard 'crisisiz' and 'medias'. This does not worry me, but I'm glad I'm no longer responsible for teaching foreign students. The point of this post is to haul the thread back to the front page and ask for some proper language points to discuss.
Wand'rin star

Star,

*I'm glad I'm no longer responsible for teaching foreign students.*

Please feel as hugged as electronically possible.

Hello, alternate .

I would despair in your situation. The list of words that are pronounced differently from wot I remember is lengthening weekly.

See above - no, not up there, just my opening sentence to this post- : When did people start saying ORLternet, when we were quite content to say orlTERNet for decades? It's not that either is wrong or right, it's just that I find it unsettling.

This joins "contribute" "distribute" and a whole load of others which I'll have to start writing down because I'm getting a bit forgetful.

TC, in my time my best English prof expected "BBC English" - sadly, even BBC nowadays follows the crowd.

Yes - it's on the BBC that I'm hearing it. My entire listening diet these days consists of Radio 4 podcasts. And some Radio 5 and 6, too. But, even on Radio 4, people are getting confused.