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

Didn´t it actually last 30 years?

Oh, and carpool isn´t a skoda filled with water where you enter through the sunroof.

No, I don't think that was misnamed... I think there was a 100 years war which lasted the 100 years between 1339 and 1453, and a 30 years war (around Europe) which started in 1618 and lasted 30 years...

But I'm no historian, and I'm not saying that these were the only wars of those names...

x x Fenny

And what was so Great about the so-called Great War?

And what is French about French windows? Or French mustard, come to that?

or French Fries or French Toast or French Kissing?
Actually, I'm not too bothered about where the last one came from,
just glad it exists!

My sister has french windows in her house but they don't work properly. You definately can't see France through them.

Surely, Lost Property offices are filled with FOUND property?

Re earlier posts: Peking Duck is a duck dish (but I bet the ducks don't all come from Peking)
Bombay Duck is dried fish which is usually eaten along with curry.(Bombay Duck was banned for a while by EU countries because the fish wasn't always getting dried in an approved fish drying factory).

Dare I mention here - apropos of the "French kissing" post - that once upon a time venereal disease was called "the French disease" in England and "the English disease" in France

And what is a PIN number?? Is it a Personal Identification Number number??

see ... I didn't even mention the "French letter"

And Danish Pastry isn´t Danish, in fact we call it Vienna Bread here.

as long as we're on the subject of food with innappropriate country-labels, why is there an expression "as American as apple pie"? i thought that was a British thing(the pie not the expression)(or so i've been told).

on a different thread...

What really bothers me are these new politically correct creations for various people.

Physically challanged - what was so bad about "handicapped" and "disabled"?
Vertically challanged - well, dwarfs *is* a bad thing to say, but this sounds like a parody.

If you follow that system, will you call "big" people (what a euphemism, some of them are plain FAT) "massively challanged"?

Yelbakk

Political Correctness is neither political, nor correct-
It is an attempt at semantic adjustment.

Minesweep Goddess,

Over on the British English thread, they discussed the apple pie question. (I found it while lurking there).

There, they said that the apple pie is NOT an american invention and also that the Romans brought apples to britain (someone has a 14th century English recipe for apple pie but it could be much older!).
I am sure that the americans could have independantly come up with the idea though. Anyway, for some reason it has become "a very american thing" in peoples minds whether or not they invented it.
(Similary, a lot of people think of bagpipes and Scotland together but the pipes are not actually a Scottish invention).

But haven´t the Scottish after all had bag pipes a lot longer than Americans have had apple pie? And are there any one besides Americans that think of apple pie as something very American?

Political correctness is just daft. Leave it to the politicians who doesn´t want to offend any possible voters, and let the rest of us use the language we want.

But what would be the politically correct expression for being skinny?

Negatively Organically Excessed?

I don´t think that sounds right, there must be something better. What is the latin word for fat? As in the material fat.

I'd go for
"inversely dimensionally challanged"



Yelbakk

i'd say, "unlike a hippo"

The latin word for lard is "arvina." Thank Zog for online latin dictionaries.

As for being skinny, how about "uncorpulent"?

Wampus

How about adiposally challenged?