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

I thought it was an abbreviation for "You great 'a'p'ny" (half-pennyworth)

I always thought gibberish was onomatopoeic (?sp). Certainly I have actually met someone who, on being surprised, said "Gibber" i.e. gibbered i.e. was talking nonsense or gibberish due to being given a fright.
On a side note, the bad guy in Mission Impossible 2 drives a Triumph motorcycle, so I assume they are still made.

I wonder, does doing the Funky Gibbon count as gibberish?

no, wait a minute, we used to say "ap'orth" pronounced sort of Aperth.

We have "silly ha'peths" in our family...also "silly puddings" which is frankly odd.

Now - what is a "garfish"? My dictionary (yes - that one) has "Aigule" which I thought meant needle - so what kind of needle is it?

I see the gibberish thread has declined and fallen! (Sorry!)

In my neck of the woods (How do woods get necks?) ha'peths were daft, not silly.

My first thought about garfish/aigule was something to do with eels. There is a whole lot of words describing the eel in different life-phases. (As with salmon) But maybe its the French sidetracking me.(Anguille)

the sort of needle that is used for sewing herringbone stitch?
I guessed garfish (which I first misread as garish) to be a swordfish and, since I'm in the library,went to look it up.
"garfish (gar'fish)n.pl.(esp.collectively)-fish (esp. referring to two or more kinds or species)-fishes gar1[1400-50;late ME;cf OE gar spear]"
Then of course, you have to look up gar 1:
"(gar)n.pl.(esp collectively) gar (esp.referring to two or more kinds or species) gars.1 also called garfish,garpike. any predacious freshwater fish of the genus Lepisosteus, of North America, covered with hard, diamond-shaped scales and having long jaws with needlelike teeth.2.needlefish[1755-65.Amer}
Fishes'teeth and American at that! Question doesn't belong in this thread at all sir, and I shall be somewhat P.O'd if someone else has beaten me to this one

The garfish is a North American fresh water fish. The needlefish is a type of garfish. We are straying from the topic of British English. On the other hand, if we accept the neologism garfish to mean "similar to a garf", then all we have to do is to find a suitable definition for garf.

Incidentally, the word neologism has two meanings in my dictionary, both relevant to this forum:

1. a new word, usage or expression
2. a meaningless word coined by a psychotic

Enough said!

Have you seen a garfish or a picture of one? They belong to a family that also includes pipefish. They have an emaciated look about them that is entirely consistent with being called 'needlefish', perhaps this is the reason for the french appellation. Appellation being one of the few things that the English and the French have in common - now that they have BSE and we do not.

It turns out that it is indeed a fish, yes. When I was remarking on how confusing it must be for a French person to have an animal simply known as a "needle", it was put to me that us English have a dog called a "pointer". Touch�, I believe is the term. Incidentally - I saw this: http://www.h2g2.com/F24289?thread=89370 and thought of you all ;-)

What a great wee poem! I hope you don't expect anyone to read it out loud though, they could make a right arse of themselves.

He got it from : http://www.h2g2.com/F19585?thread=72158&post=553207 post 20

Actually I got it from dictionary.com, and it is attributed to "unknown" there, so the estate of Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946) is probably on to the lawyers as we speak....

Listening to the news of Radio 4 last night, a commentator on the American election fiasco coined a lovely nonce.

He was complaining that events were developing so rapidly that, having gone out for lunch, all the 'isms' had become 'wasms'.

Well, it was funny when he said it.

Halloooooo! Is there anybody out there?

Hallooooooooooo!

It has gone all quiet hasn't it?

Must have been K's killer quote!

OK - I've got a question/topic: demarkations.

When does a brook become a burn, is a burn a stream? When does a stream become a river? Is there an actual definition...
What about a hamlet - if I add three hosues, does it become a village?

For hosues, read houses *sigh*

A brook becomes a burn when it travels to Scotland or the very N of england, otherwise it might well be a beck.
This is assuming that the brook in question isn't an advisory clinic.

Don't villages have churches and hamlets not?

I use words like "polymorphism" in my work all the time as they have a quite tightly defined menaing - but od they mean anything (else) outside of programming?

For example:
Overloading = Performing the same function on different types of data
Polymorphism = Allows objects at different levels of an object hierarchy to implement the same method