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

Here's a worse one: billion (US) is translated as trillion / milliard (UK).

'Trillion' here reverses the scale. The old British (long) scale used a billion to name the US trillion (1,000,000,000,000), not the other way round. 'Milliard' was the old name for a US billion, and is still used in German-speaking and neighbouring countries, but not much in Britain.

Gnomon has pointed out that the British scientific community abandoned the long scale and sided with US usage over fifty years ago. The general, official, financial and government usage of 1 billion henceforth meaning 1 and 9 zeroes was established by Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey in 1975.

Luddites persist, but they need not be paid any attention.

Hey, but it´s opium to the peasants! Three digits off the national debt is

I agree about the bedspread. (It's too late to concentrate on counting noughts, so I'll deal with the easy topic)

1. A duvet is quilt and sheets all in one. It's usually all you have on the bed.

2. An eiderdown is a sort of duvet but is thrown over a traditionally made bed.

3. All might be covered with the bedspread (or counterpane). I think it was Bill Bryson who was thoroughly confused by the notice in a bed and breakfast which asked patrons to remove the counterpane at night. He thought it was something to do with the window. Where on earth does that word come from?

Crikey - I've just had a look at that "American-British english" list. It's very very misleading. I hope no Americans take it seriously.

Child-Minder = Babysitter? WTF?

Regarding duvets, when they arrived in the UK in the 70s they were known as 'continental quilts'. I know 'cos I had one.

Oh, and I still prefer to think of a billion as a million million.

TC, Eider ducks are a breed from somewhere cold in northern Europe (maybe Canada too?)
The softest feathers are what they insulate their ducklings´ nest with.
And please - even if you are the richest girl in the world, don´t ever think about an eiderdown parka.

The primary source of eider down is Iceland.

See the last item in the link below.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eiderdown




When I was still living on the farm, southwest Oklahoma, early 1950s, my grandma made her own mattress covers and quilts with chicken feathers.

They were simply called 'feather beds' or 'feather bolsters'.

Extremely warm, if somewhat prickly.

I didn't say they were made with eider down, just that they were called eiderdowns. As far as I know, they would have been stuffed with common or garden goose feathers.

The big difference between a duvet and an eiderdown is that in an eiderdown, the feathers or down is stuffed in very tightly into small pockets made by sowing the top sheet to the bottom sheet in a diamond pattern. It was thought mistakenly that the insulation was provided by the feathers so tge more of them the better. In the duvet., the pockets ate much bigger and there's less feathers allowing them to fluff up and have much more air around them. The insulation is much greater. This also means that the duvet moulds itself to your body and works better if there are no other blankets.

That's duvet I do it

uh huh
uh huh

Oh dear did somebody say bum?

So, as to "bum".
My neighbour´s daughter´s hearbreakingly pretty behind ( ) isn´t to be compared with how I look in the morning at the bus stop. Why same word?

That's the way English works. You use a noun to say what thing you're talking about, then use adjectival phrases such as "heartbreakingly pretty" to describe it.

Right. So, using my internal thesaurus, comparing her derrière to my looks, it´s OK to whistle "The Lady Is A Tramp".

I hope she's not underage, Pit.

Anyway, you can always say you look like the back of a if it makes you feel any better. Your point brings us back to the dog's b's in a way.

PS I had to write "b's" because the filter wouldn't let me post otherwise. Naughty words - moi?

As a founder member of this thread I have to hope that in time we can censor 'dogs' as well as b*******. Standards seem to be slipping(at long last)

I seem to remember that in the very post in the original British Thread, Kaeori mentioned her bum, as well as talking about our canine friends...

F19585?thread=46483

For those of you using the Pliny system:

http://www.h2g2.com/forum/F19585/thread/T46483/

Currently official with the America Dog Breeders Association, ADBA, a female canid is a 'bitch', pejorative co-notations of the term to be disregarded.

A healthy solution to a ticklish problem of linguistic drift.




Reminds me of a passage from Heinlein's juvenile novel, "The Star Beast", in which the star beast made a remark to a neighbor's barking dog, just before gulping it down, spiked collar and all.

Heinlein doesn't actually write the remark, merely states that was a remark about the dog's ancestry that was true enough.