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

To get onto a train or passing vehicle is surely just "board" . Don't you think? So basically if you want to walk from Hong Kong to Kowloon you can't change your mind half way there and hitch a ride in a passing car. Is the tunnel well ventilated? What if a fire breaks out?

All aboard!

What if a fire breaks out? You just do as it says on a sign seen in England: In the event of a fire, please alight.

"All 'board!" is what they always say in movies. Funny that the Hong Kong signs should balance 'aboard' and 'alight'. The verb 'board' of course comes from the noun 'board' which is another word for 'plank'

The plank is the 'gangplank' used to get on a ship. The gang bit (which has nothing to do with gangs, even Massive ones) must be a variant of 'going' as in Burns' line about the best laid plans of mice and men 'aft gang awry'. So maybe it means the 'going plank', or the 'getting on plank'. To go 'aboard' is getting on via the board. Hence to board.

~jwf~

But when walking the (gang)plank, does one tread the boards?

I thought the gangplank was the one they rigged up for naughty sailors to walk along when they wanted to dump them out at sea.

The way on to the ship is normally called the "gangway".

Sorry, I didn't make it clear that the spelling is 'abord' I unwittingly corrected it to aboard. Been an English teacher too long, WS?
Does anyone else call an adaptor that you can put four plugs into (like the one my computer,screen, radio and speakers are currently occupying) a gang plug?

But why, then, if you want people to get out of your road, do you shout "Gangway!"? I'm fairly certain you are not asking for a wooden plank to run down

And isn't it "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agly"? Most of Ayrshire would shoot me for saying I'm not sure


And on a side note, my favourite ever Burns poem;
"Ah've been tearin oot ma hair,
You'd think ah'd been moultin'
Tryin' to think of a thing
that rhymes wi' Tarbolton"

I'm not even going to start on the Mauchline poem

Where's the moderator? Quotation AND a foreign language!

jwf's right on the money about the origins of 'gang': it comes from the Old English verb gangan meaning to journey, and the verb gang is still used in Scotland. Additionally, the modern concept of gang does come from the same source: a gang came to mean the stuff you took on a journey, then a set of items, and ultimately a group of people.

, I call an power strip with four sockets a four-gang, so you're not alone .

By the way, using 'abord' is grammatically perfect in the context you quoted although I doubt the verb's seen the light of day for a couple of hundred years.

D'you think this pedant's hat suits me?


There has already been a gentle hint, but ... an electrical plug is the thing with the pointy bits sticking out of it. I don't actually disbelieve that you have an "n" gang plug, but if you have, it was installed by someone with a bizarre sense of humour, probably with an eye on your life insurance policies. It will let electricity leak all over the house - thank you James Thurber.
"Do not trust him, gentle maiden ..."

Munchkin
Is it not "aglae" that "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft"? I've been to Ayshire and seen the "Electric (or is it Magnetic) Brae" where water flows uphill. So I speak with some authority as well as confusion.

Socket to them plaguesville!

Nice hat by the way!

The use of 'awry' is a Canuck thing. The Church of England may have held onto control of our first public schools but drunken Scots owned all the publishing houses. Awry, they thought, would be more easily understood and the pun on rye was too much to bear. Most of Burns is already half-translated in Canadian editions. If only the English had done the same for Chaucer.

~jwf~

Three thousand miles and they still couldn't escape him.

"A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house."
Matt. 13:57

After "moderation" there'd be nowt left of Chaucer.

Sideburns are the things down the sides of your face if you're growing your hair. If you reply that you call them sideboards, I shall feel that you're ganging up on me

I'm still anxious to hear about 'cackleberries'. It rang a tiny rusty bell in the belfry of memory - there was a colourful 'yokel' word for eggs - and cackleberries certainly seems to fill the bill, but I can't be certain. DJ has a way of sounding so plausible betimes.

BTW is there a 'book titles' thread happening anywhere. I miss those.

peace
~jwf~

JWF,
I have heard "cackleberries" but I can't remember where. There is the alternative (more common to me) "henfruit".
Or it might be two words "henf ruit" perhaps?

Cackleberries, cackleberries knockin' at the door,
Cackleberries, cackleberries, two potato mo...

No that's not it.
Meanwhile, how about the expression 'he was wearing his heart on his sleeve'? What's that all about?

~jwf~

Actually `sideburns` began life as `burnsides` after the US General Ambrose Burnsides who sported a splendid set and who became synonymous with the style. As is the way with these things Burnside was forgotten over time and everyone assumed that because they were on the side of your face they were more correctly (but erroneously)called sideburns.

Red