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

We take a liberal stance on utility.

As I've stated deep in the back log of this thread, any fact could be useful...


You could be captured by a deranged terrorist who would cut you into small bits and feed them to her cat unless you can tell her that on Gilligan's Island, the Skipper's name was Jonas Grumby, or that The 'bumpers' on the bottom of toilet seats are called 'buculets'.

You just never know when you might need to know these things.

ooooo buculets! Avec accent francaise, je presume?

Yo no se. Es un hecho inútil de otra persona.

huh

~*~Harry S. Truman had no middle name, only a middle initial.~*~

So does my father, come to that. I, however, DO have a middle name. It's the first name of my favorite extended relative, and he hated it too.

Old names never die, they just get passed around like white elephants.

"Avec accent francaise, je presume?"

You have a French accent, I presume?


"Yo no se. Es un hecho inútil de otra persona."

I don't know. It's a useless fact of another person.


I think.

Unfortunately, those simpost emoticons are dancing in sync with the polka music playing on the Mollie B Polka Party (a truly authentic piece of Americana, airing on RFDTV rural farm something tv)

My grandfather at some point in his young adulthood legally changed his name to initials; B. T.

Very few of the living relatives before he died knew his original given name. He insisted it was just B.T. but he pronounced it "Buddy". I found out after he died that he was originally named Beulah Thurmon. Yeah. I don't blame Grampa Buddy one bit.

Mine went by his last name.



That sounds like BJ Hunnicut from M*A*S*H.

Hawkeye: "This is ridiculous. What does 'BJ' stand for?!"

BJ: "Whatever you want."

My Mother's father was named Kenneth Henderson. In RL I bear his name as my middle name. He was raised in an orphanage, although we all knew he was Irish in background, no one knew anything more. He spent most of his life as a Rail Road Engineer (Engine Driver in the UK). The Rail Road had their own retirement system (separate from the US Social Security System). When he decided to apply for his pension at age 65, he had to send to the orphanage for his records. For the first time in his life he learned that his legal name was 'Kennedy Henderson' (This was at the time John F. Kennedy was president of the US.) I never got to learn what his own reaction was, but most of the family was shocked.

FS

Ronly Bonly Jones?

I have a... I hesitate to call him a relative, but he's my sister's widower... Anyways... When he and my sister got married, my mother took it upon herself to help him get several years of unpaid taxes straightened out. It was while doing so that they discovered that his first name was spelt "Louis", not "Lewis" as he'd been spelling it his entire life.

Not as nifty as finding out you're a "Kennedy", of course.


Oh, while we're on names .

In my life I've met a Harry Dick, a Rock Musick, a girl named Dorcas (biblical) and a baby named Guana (feminine for bat pooh?). In Houston in the 80's, a noted local news traffic reporter was named Anita Martini. Never name your child Anita. While Martini is a good name, the child could end up marrying a Koch, Dick or Wang.

Meanwhile... The earliest reference to Groundhog Day comes from a storekeeper in Berks County Pennsylvania on February 4th 1841. James Morris wrote that February 2nd was Candlemas Day, celebrated by local Germans who waited to see if groundhogs would appear from their burrows. If the animals saw their shadows, they would retreat for a six week nap, but, “if the day be cloudy, they remain out, as they weather is to be moderate."


~jwf~

That's the earliest reference in *English*, of course.

People talked about it all the time. But they referred to the beast as 'der Grundsau'.

The idea was for the men to wake up the Grundsau, let it fuss at them, make a decision, then go back to the 'Grundsau Lodge' to drink beer and tell jokes in funny German.

These people refer to everyone in Philadephia as 'the English'. Even if they're Italian, say, or African American...

"Sau" is feminine, so it would be "die Grundsau" (If such a word existed)

OK - so wiki says it does exist (in Pennsylvanian Dutch, or whatever that is)

The Pennsylvania Dutch are not sticklers for accuracy...

Very popular song, in various forms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvIefmFEu2U

According to today's Google Doodle, Jackie Robinson's player number was 42.