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

There's a Monkey Island on the Thames. The name is derived, not from the presence of one or more monkeys at any time in its history, but for the fact that there used to be a monastery on the island. It was full of monks. The island was therefore monk-y.

RF

Some unusual words:

Armsaye- the armhole in clothing

Boanthropy- a type of insanity in which a man thinks he is an ox

Defenestration- the act of throwing someone or something out a window

Dibble- to drink like a duck

Diphallic terata- a disease in which a man has two penises

Groak- to watch people eat hoping that they will offer you some of their food.

Scatophagy- religious practice of eating excrement

Zarf- a holder of a handless coffee cup

Doesn't France have a town called Condom?

Perhaps you should submit a few of those to the 'Cult of Dictionary Readers', A1004202.

P.S. I can imagine myself using a couple of these, like I could tell my pupils to stop defenestrating their maths books; or my son to stop groaking.

I thought defenestration was uninstalling Windows and getting a proper operating system instead.

RF

I think I prefer the definition given above - but maybe it should be 'to exofenestrate' to differentiate it from your version.

I'm a bit slow (or maybe a bit too fast) today. I've only just twigged what you meant. I like that as fell. I just had to do 'Supply Cover' to a class studying ICT. They have the luxury of a brand new computer suite with brand new computers. Within minutes (nay seconds) of the class entering the room, pupils were complaining that the keys had been switched on their keyboards. (So, I'm not sure whether they were already like this before the class entered the room, or that somebody in the class did it extremely quickly).Also one or two students thought it was funny to pull the cables out of other people's computers. I really cannot understand people with this kind of mentality - and Charles Clarke wants to 9inflict such pupils on high-achieving schools!

Anyway, I could tell them to stop defenestrating the OS.

That first line should have read "I like that as well".

I think it must be a sub-set of Murphy's Law which dictates that it's always the most important word in a sentence that gets misspelt.

There's also a group of villages along the River Piddle in Dorset, one of which is called Piddle Hinton (I think) One of these villages has a n industry collecting, filtering, purifying and bottling the river water which it sells under the name of ......... Piddle Water.

I also like the name of the village outside Bath called Limpley Stoke (which mentally I refer to as Limply Poke). I'm bound to make a faux pas with this at some point.

<>

That's my favourite...

<< Piddle Water>>

Tee hee...

If 'Piddle Water' amuses you, how about 'Piddle in the Hole' in Worcestershire.

Oh, and the number of MacDonalds in Redditch has dropped from 4 to 3. One of them has been closed down and is now being converted to a Chinese Restaurant.

Try not to giggle as you pass Bald Knob, Arkansas.

Or

Dry Prong, Louisiana.

I almost forgot ; my grandson (aged 2 at the time) defenestrated my daughters kitten from the first floor last year. It survived, but unfortunately was killed by a car some months later

Surely someone could have stepped out side to retrieve it.

They did I forgot to say that it lived happily inside as usual during those months

Queen Victoria ordered Royal Doctors to perscribe her pot to help ease her menstral cramps

The Beatles went through eight name changes before deciding on The Beatles

The song "Foom, Foom, Foom" is of Spanish origin, and "Foom, foom, foom" means "Foom, foom, foom"

Picasso has over 8000 works in existence

Blood makes up about 7% of your body weight

Here are some strange names given to children as recorded by the US's Social Security Administration:


Timberland (X 6!)

ESPN (X 2)

Morpheus (X 5)

Neo (X 113)

Dung (X 5..and all girls!)

Atom (X 11)

Adonis (X 244)

Casanova (X 6)

Famous (X 6)

Starsky (X 6)

Lucky (X 48)

Bubba

Scatman

Sh*thead

Surely the usefulness (or otherwise) of a fact, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Thus one persons useless fact is another person's meat.