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

Excuse me, Dubya?

*jumps in randomly again*

(please ignore this...it is drivel)

i find it really strange to find people able to recite the pledge of alligence and the names of all the presidents so easily. if someone asked my the names of the british priministers i would be forced to go...

tony blair, margret thatcher...er...er...oh! john major and before him...well...was there one called winston churchill sometime?

a really have so little knowledge of them but for some reason i can recite all of henry viii's wives...dont ask me why

and i can do the first verse of the national anthem but then i drift into the eddie izzard version:"let big dogs come after her,
with big teeth and nashing jaws"

and i know the verse noone ever sings (im very ashamed of it)
6)Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King

A thing that's really funny is that a lot of Americans think that "My country 'tis of thee" was stolen by the British to make "God save the queen"

that is strange...but maybe we both stole it from the germans. its also the the tune to 'Heil Dir in Seigerkranz' ...probably unlikely though its been around in britain since 1740 (wandering around google sreches)

ive just descovered this verse

Nor on this land alone,
But be God's mercies known
From shore to shore.
Lord, make the nation see
That men should brothers be,
And form one family
The wide world o'er.

it was intended to replace the third verse in 18 something...but eventually just got added and not until 1946

good verse though

I read somewhere that "My country 'tis of thee" was written by a schoolteacher who got the music from a book of hymns and didn't know that it was also "god save the queen" and the german national anthem

http://www.fiftiesweb.com/usa/mycountr.htm

Words:Samuel Francis Smith (1831) He wasn't a school teacher, he was a pastor and a university professor.

Sorry, I read it about 10 years ago. I should have checked. THanks for the correction.

Izzybelle: Dubya= George W. Bush

God's work being done by HIM!?? Yeah.... right...

Apparently he did get it from a book of German songs he was translating for a friend.

Nothing's original anymore!!!!

As the preacher says in Ecclesiastes: "there's nothing new under the sun." Nothing's ever been original.

The old royal families of Europe are all related to each other, generations back they´ve been marrying each other. So if the national hyms had a lot in common -it might have made it easier to feel at home for the new queen, or prince...
Old rulers were regarded to have been chosen by God, but we don´t believe that any more, Who does?

"Old rulers were regarded to have been chosen by God, but we don´t believe that any more, Who does?"

Uh . . . George?

Dubya?!

"Dubya" is typically how some Texans say "W". Ya know? Cain ya git it? Very innerrestin ain't it?

Yeah, ok I got it.
English is not my native/first language, so I might sometimes be a bit slow... And sometimes I have trouble with finding the right expressions for what I want to say. I don´t use english everyday.
But since my first language is such a "small"(in the sence that we aren´t that many speaking it) language it´s essential to learn english -at least to be able to communicate with others on the globe.
Thank you for helping me out

I can relate to being small, Izzybelle, believe me! My native language is actually spoken by maybe just a few hundred people in the whole world. I don't speak it that well anymore, so in a way, English has replaced it for me. It's called "immersion" and it's hard not to lose a language when you're "immersed" in another.

What is your native language?

I think I can understand some of the difficulty in learning English, seeing as, although I'm a native speaker, I still don't understand the grammer. THe fact is, the English language is rediculous. Churchhill had a good idea in suggesting a simplified, logival version of it for internationall use. THe spellingit stupid and the grammer is weird