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

What he said was...
I could get you all mixed up if I wrote everything I said down in Lancashire.
(or more properly, I could get you right mixed up for the opening part)

Time to bring up the link to the poem Bowton's Yard by Samuel Laycock. http://www.nyt.co.uk/seawndot.htm
Laycock was a poet from just outside Manchester and wrote in a Lancashire dialect. Boltons Yard really did exist in part of what is now Stalybridge (Tameside).

Translations for the cloth eared can be got from several of the posters to this forum.

Going back to 'dog' stuff, why is a cigarette butt called a dog-end? It's not rude, is it?

No, for once. Unless you have got a really filfthy imagination

I would disagree - you wouldn't want to suck on a dog's 'end' would you, just as you wouldn't want to suck on the end of a cigarette!

Ok, I'm naive, I'm innocent - or perhaps just plain stupid! But I still don't get why it's called a dog-end.

Never having smoked, that is beyond my imagination.

Hang on, RickD - people *do* suck on the end of cigarettes. So what's your point?

I meant End not end - as in 'The End' not 'the end'!?!?!

I think I must be stupid. Or perhaps, to bring in yet another doggie expression, I've gone to the dogs.

I think I need the weekend.

Yes, that's it!

20 minutes left at work then I'm dogging off!! ,-)

Going down to the dogs then?
Or is it the Dog and Pheasant first?

No. Girlfriend's up from London - off to...

Doggie fashion?????????????????????????????

Yup - been dogged by dumb-user and Micro$oft problems all week, I'm dog-tired now, so I'll go home and lie doggo for a while.

To avoid misunderstanding, my posting above relates back to one a few *earlier* than the one above it.

Anyone confirm the correct spelling of the plural of "Roof"?
I've always used "roofs" but I am told "rooves" is equally correct.

If you're expecting clarity and sense from colloquial slang, especially from stuff that's constantly evolving, you probably belong in a University studying this.

I keep wondering why the music and lyrics of rap stars (who usually speak the language of the American Black city experience) have such a huge appeal to young adults and teens that don't live in cities, aren't black or American.....None of the problems or solutions that I've overheard (I can't stand rap) ever have any connection with the lives of these other people.

>So just how are we supposed to understand the British? I'm trying, really I am.
I think you need to undergo a cultural shift; just picking up the slang terminology isn't going to cutit: you'll need a total-immersion experience and a deliberate stretch into another context.

There are a lot of bizarre Americanisms that I've heard which make no sense to me....and yet the rest of the world is steeped in American culture through its media. If you're genuinely interested, go looking for the reasons why the culture works as it does and you'll be closer to understanding it....

Fruitbat

This is similar to the problem Tolkein wrote about when talking about 'dwarfs' and dwarves'. If I remember well, he said that 'dwarves' is how the word's pronounced and he was going to use 'dwarfs' to eliminate confusion.....

but since people invariably make up their own rules for using language (just as they do with the rules of the road), this probably will be a moot point anyway.

Fruitbat

'Roofs' is correct. Never seen 'rooves' used anywhere.

The way I learned (at great pain) to spell the plural of roof, dwarf, hoof, calf, etc was ALWAYS with a VES. We never had any choice and I always thought people spelling FS just didn't know any better. Like people spelling judgment with an "e" in the middle.

When was the rule changed to "hoofs, dwarfs, etc". Or, as Tolkien was writing in the 30's, when was it changed to VES?