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

Condo, short for condominium, or is it really condominum

I have heard of condominiums, but always thought they sounded like something granny would keep under the bed !

I believe that the British English for "condo" is bungalow.

"Pent" is probably a contraction/variant of penned? as in pent up frustration?

my dictionary fails me guess i need a new one,its done alright up till now.this thing i navigate the web with,who gets credit for coining the word cursor? could cursory now be used to describe a dot com?the sound of earth moveing machinery is very distracting

Pents live in a pent house
Condoms live in a condominium
Cursors live in a cursory
Caterpillars live in a hole in the road

Possibly.

Pheroneous, you are so sweet - but have you been taking medication?

So why don't monarchs live in a monastry?

The mona bird lives in a monastree.

(Its like a minah bird, but without the melody)

I am managing very well without the medicine thank you, which is more than can be said for you and your capuccino. And don't call me sweet. It is the second most patronising word in English, the first being 'bless!'

**stumps off in high dudgeon**

A cursor is internally identical to an icon, except in that it has two fields which represent the "hot-point" of the cursor, which is the pixel within the cursor which represents its position.
Actually an icon is not just one bitmap, but is in fact two. The first holds an image that will be combined with the display surface in an XOR (exclusive OR) operation and the second is a bitmap which will be combined with the image in an AND operation before it is combined with the XOR bitmap to form the image when the bitmap is drawn.
This allows the icon or cursor to have one or more pixels set to be transparent so that it can appear to be non-rectangular.
A caret, on the other hand, is a cursor but with yet another extra filed which specifies the "blink rate" of the caret. This allows flashing lines which are commonly used to indicate the insert position of text within an edit box....
So now you know

iconoclasts live /work in cursorys

Now then young Jim, as a representative of your nation, perhaps you would explain exactly, in words of one syllable, to your decrepit Brit cousins, what exactly a condominium is. (I would ask K, but I've been rude to her today, and it will take at least two cappucinos and a fair amount of grovelling before she speaks to me again!)

stone tomb with two or more shared floors,hope that helps.young?why thanks.adds touch of grey

really does mean shed, if it's a shed on a roof. Originally a structure that leant (leaned) against another and so did not need a back wall.
The word then crossed the sea, was probably first used ironically,and now means the posh living quarters on the roof.
Loft also seems to be going up in the world

Condo - nearest British equivalent is Privately owned Apartment. The important thing about a condominium is that the individual units are owned by the occupier but the whole site is owned by all the occupiers as a group. Each owner contributes towards the upkeep of the whole. Unlike a block of apartments, a condo can also be small separate units.

Cursor - this word comes from the Latin word "cursi" meaning "running", because it runs along the screen.

The original cursors were on slide rules, a type of mechanical analogue calculator, where the cursor physical slid along the rule to mark your place. It was easy for the slide rule bearing engineers that designed the first computers with VDUs to transfer this word to the computer screen.

Firstly, must apologise to Pheroneous for being *inadvertently* patronising, during one of my many failed attempts at humor. (I am making a mental note never to say "you're so sweet, bless you!", just in case you're tempted to commence deportation proceedings.)

Secondly, thank you to you all, my teachers! Last night I was listening to one of my favorite shows - Radio 4's "I'm sorry I haven't a clue". One of the jokes concerned an advert for someone to run the Dome, I think. Failed whelk store owners were welcome to apply!

I am so pleased to report that I got the joke.

On the contrary, lofts seem to be going down in the world. There is an apartment complex (remember when they were called blocks of flats?) and each and every flat is described as a loft.
So the building goes Lobby->Loft->Loft->Loft->Loft->Penthouse.

My own theory about penthouses is that the name came about because they cost as much as five houses .

As a by-the-by, I'm not sure I would have got the whelk joke prior to yesterday

Perhaps Nikki ought to look under her grandmother's bed again.

Just read a backlog of about 60 postings and am speechless - how do we/you do it?

Wonko .. I'll come back on that one later. Will make it an entirely new entry.

K, R4 listening is a true mark of Britness, and you should now get a Rt. in front of your hon Brit status. I am sure R4, in all its dullness, good bits, nonsense, info & humour, has much to do with any definition of Britness. Is there an equivalent anywhere else?

Are pidgeon lofts so-called because pidgeons used to live in peoples' lofts ?

TC - stopped looking under Granny's bed when, as a youngster, bumped into a large white china thing and slopped unmentionables onto the carpet !

A follow up from a previous sub-thread about babies ...
- baby pidgeons are swabs (thanks to WWTBAM & Chris Tarrant)
- baby mice are pups (info from article in New Scientist)

Theory on postings and backlogs ... to follow