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

(The story about Roman soldiers swearing an oath on their testicles is just that, a story. The root of the word is the latin word 'testis' which just means 'witness').

Ahh bollocks.

I know... I was very disappointed as well.

Actually if you've ever wondered why there are women named after most flowers excepts orchids, it's because orchid actually means 'testicle'.

Hence orchidectomy, surgical removal of a testicle.

On the other hand....when a Roman boy of noble descent came of age, he would be presented with a 'bulla'. This was an amulet consisting of a cloth or leather bag to be hung around his neck and containing a small facsimile of his erect penis.

What did the girls get?

I'm not convinced that the Roman story is a load of balls. Testify comes from Latin "testis" meaning witness. But testicle comes from Latin "testis" as well. Does this mean that this word meant two different things, or were testicles called after witnesses?

It all stems from a horrendous mix at court of Gaius. Boy that juggling barrister never forgot his briefs again...

On the premise that you only remember what you want to, and even then it might be 'urban myth', the assertion by one of my latin teachers at school 30 years ago that "The descent of testicles is evidence that you are now a man" may be inaccurate - I thought it plausible at the time..........

Ahh bollocks! (Deja vu, I like this thread!)

When a new pope is annointed, part of the ceremony is a ritual checking that he is not either a woman or a castrato. He is sat in a chair with a hole in a seat, which is raised up and passed over the heads of the assembled cardinals, who declare:

"Testicula habet et bene pendentes"
(He has balls and they hang well)

There are places in the Bible where it says something like, "He placed his hand under his thigh." This is generally taken to mean, "He placed his hand on his testicles." I have also been told that the punishment for perjury in ancient Roman times was castration, but I don't know how true this is.

Oh, and testicle comes from testiculus, which is diminuitive of testis. Basically a man's testicles bore witness to his virility, rather than being used when he was a witness in court.

I was trying to remember what else I knew about the Bulla (see above) - and eventually it came to me:

The penile amulet it contained was called a 'fascinum'. Over time, this came to refer to any kind of charm - and subsequently to the process of being 'charmed' or 'fascinated'.

I'm sure you'll remember this etymology next time anyone says that something is 'fascinating'.

Source: http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,835404,00.html

Checking that the Pope is not a woman is said to date back to the time a woman became a priest, and later Pope. This was Pope Joan, who's existence is denied by the Catholic church and investigated in a book by Peter Stanford. (There are probably other books about her but that's the one I have.)

Pope Adrian IV (the only English pope) died from a bee sting.

Or was it a surfeit of lampreys?

Is that like a 'murder of crows'?

Oh, we've covered that already.

A surfeit of lampreys is said to be the cause of death of one of the King Henrys. Can't remember which one, though.

And the bee sting that killed Pope Adrian IV should not be confused with the beestings that is the first milk of a cow after calving - unless he happened to be allergic to this substance or somebody gave him some poison in it.

Henry I.

Rod Hull (cue for a Half Man Half Biscuit song....) died when he fell off his roof while trying to put up a TV arial.

Mama Cass died of a heart attack and NOT by choking on a ham sandwich as is widely believed.