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

Count again

>>but there's only one i in "it"<< That's true - and what's more,

there are two 'e's in "please", but no 'f' in "payrise".

Banana's spelt with a B, but usually with a U.

Damn you bloody pedants

Originally the Latin alphabet consisted of the following 21 letters:

A B C D E F Z H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X
About 250 BC the letter Z was dropped because in the Latin of this period there was not a specific sound that would require its usage. On the other hand, a new letter, G, made by adding a bar to the lower end of C, was placed in the position of Z.

We're not pedants, we're pedanticists.

After the 1st century BC, when the Greek-speaking world was incorporated into the orbis Romanum, a large number of Greek words penetrated the Latin language. At the time of Cicero and Caesar the symbols Y and Z were introduced from the contemporary Greek alphabet and were placed at the end of the alphabet. Their usage was initially restricted to transliterate Greek words only, as the popular Latin name for Y – i graeca – suggests (this name is preserved in modern French i grecque and modern Spanish i griega, for instance), and thay do not appear in ordinary Latin inscriptions. Thus, at the beginning of the Christian era the Latin script had 23 letters:
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z

http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin/Grammar/Latin-Alphabet.html

Three new letters were permanently added to the alphabet during the Middle Ages. The semivocal pronunciation of I and V before vowels like [j] and [w] became clearly consonantic – [dJ] and [v] respectively – and this change was reflected in the writing. For long time there was a practice among the scribes to write I and V with some modifications like J and U, though they used them interchangeably for either the vowel or the consonant sound. At last this practice was conventionalized, so that U and I were written for the vowels and V and J for the consonants. Before the establishing of this conventionalization Spanish and French introduced an unpronounceable h at the beginning of words whose first letter v, followed by a vowel, was to be read [u], and in this manner there was formed a syllable and the reading of [u] and not of [v] assured; this usage is still preserved in the modern orthography, cf. Sp. huevo < L. ovum or F. huite < L. octo. W was invented by Norman scribes to represent the Anglo-Saxon sound [w] (a semivowel) and to differentiate it from the [v] sound. At the end of the 15th c. the alphabet was finally fixed as consisting of 26 letters:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The dates 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10 and 12/12 in any year all fall on the same day.


For example 8th August just gone was a Sunday, and so will be the 10th October and 12th December.

Last Monday, folks in the U.S. who abbreviate dates differently than everyone else, might have noticed the time of 05:06:07 08/09/10.
The rest of the world can look forward next month to 05:06:07 08.09.10.

Then there's this one for next year, which looks the same no matter what notation you use: 11:11:11 11/11/11

Oooh, that one won't matter that we 'Merkins don't do our dates right.

<>

That's right, you don't.
Doing dates dd/mm/yy goes from smallest unit to largest.

Doing dates mm/dd/yy is a bit like running a marathon and saying you did it in 3 hours 35 seconds and 10 minutes.

Ah, but doing it yy/mm/dd (or yyyy/mm/dd) is the ansi to the problem - and it sorts itself in folders.

Yes yy/mm/dd is good for cataloguing photos and stuff chronologically.

Penguins can't walk backwards.

The forbidden fruit in the Bible is never actually named as an apple, or anything else in particular.

Wasn't it referred to as 'the fruit of knowledge'? Seeing what the Bible means by 'knowing', I wouldn't really be surprised if it was a banana. And that would tie up neatly with the theory of evolution, too

PH - headaches The non-alcohol induced ones, that is.

Thy're just as bad.

A lot of headaches around at the moment due to the weather - at least there is in these parts. You, being nearer the sea, may not have quite such an oppressive, humid atmosphere.