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

Given that a "wonk"(US) is "one who studies obsessively",
a willy wonker would probably not be an ideal male

NOW we're getting somewhere... It seems a versatile name...

I don't want to be a bore, but I'm not sure I would like Helen! If all she's got to offer is a face (even it it did launch all those ships), that's just not enough for me...

Oh great! I leave you for half a day, and this is what you get up to...

So, the women have to be compared with the classic Helen, while the men want us to compare them with the likes of Alan Titmarsh or Willie Wonka.

I don't recall Helen getting the job for her sensitivity or intelligence - just the looks.

It follows that the 'looks' of a man must be measured against someone very, very attractive - not a beer-swilling, chocolate-making, garden-digging ****.

We're talking Sean Connery, Clark Gable, Russell Crowe.

Well, if it's only the looks, we should take someone we've never actually SEEN (like Helen), but has legendary beauty:
let's drop Greek mythology and consider Gilgamesh...
A milli-gilgamesh, a kilo-gilgamesh, a nano-gilgamesh: it works, doesn't it? And the "heroics" are included...
(should have thought of this before...)

I've heard of Gilgamesh, but don't know anything about him. Sounds nice, though.

Skipping back (iof I'm allowed) does the pair read/read work ?

or process/process

process/process fits into the same category as perfect/perfect because it is the verb and the noun relating to the same idea.

read/read - Can't argue - they do fit the category, if only by a back door. Do we have to tap the English Dept of Oxford University to find out what these things are called? Or just wait for the Chinese New Year to finish?

You may have to wait until after the Chinese new year.
In order to look it up in a dictionary, you would need to know what word you were looking up...

Hmm, I'm pooting too(http://www.h2g2.com/A481745).

Or this could be it:
het·er·o·nym (htr--nm)
n.

One of two or more words that have identical spellings but different meanings and pronunciations, such as row (a series of objects arranged in a line), pronounced (r), and row (a fight), pronounced (rou).

------------------------------------------------------------------
[Back-formation from heteronymous.]

Brilliant DJ. Have one on me!

I looked up POOT. Have commented there.

Come to think of it, heterophone would mean that they sound the same, or am I wrong?

I can't remember if this phrase has come up in the thread before, if it has please forgive me.

Why is it that "he's gone for a burton" is used as a euphemisum for someone dying

The best suggestion I've heard so far is that it relates to a first world war advert for Burton beer.

Anyone got any better ideas...



At the moment the h2g2 servers seem to be going for a burton, this is my third attempt to post

Well I've heard several different stories behinddthis one. One in particular is the idea of the demob suit being supplied by Burtons Tailors (still to be found in many a high street). So when you're pensioned off (or sent home from the front and de-mobilised) you're sent for a burton.
I do like the beer idea though!

Ah! Burtons the tailors now that opens some other possibilities.
But the usage of the phrase I've heard seems to relate more to people, (or things , or ideas) landing up as per the parrot in the Monty Python sketch.

ie more than just "Resting"

... relay & relay (pass on, lay again)

A question ... which came first ... the Kleenex (tissue) or the sneeze (atishu) ?

Most people I know sneeze with an "ah-choo" sound. I have only once heard someone sneezing with an "a-tish-oo" sound. Is this something we learn? The worst sound is the "eardrum popping mmpphh" sound of a supressed sneeze. When did the description "atishoo" start being applied to sneezes?

The word tissue comes from French, where it was pronounced "tiss-you". For many people, it is still pronounced that way. But most now pronounce it "tishoo". The word was used for cloth until recently. People would have sneezed into handkerchiefs. Paper tissues must be a recent invention (I feel 20th century).

My gut feeling is that this one is a coincidence.

I would think so too. Tisser means (I think) to weave in French. At least, it's something along those lines, and that's where the word comes from. Which is strange, when one thinks that "Tissue" is used in the paper industry for a whole branch of that industry.

Why do we say "To chivvy someone along"?

Hetero means different, homo means the same. Hence heterophone sounds different and homophone sounds the same.

Crikey, something useful from my education!

chivvy (source: 178 dictionaries meta-search):
chivy, chivvy [tv]
or chevy Brit.
vb. chivies, chivying, chivied, chivvies, chivvying, chivvied, or chevies,
chevying. chevied.
1. (tr.) to harass or nag.
2. (tr.) to hunt.
3. (intr.) to run about.
n., pl. chivies, chivvies, or chevies.
4. a hunt.
5. Obsolete. a hunting cry.
[variant of chevy, probably from Chevy Chase, title of a Scottish border ballad]

Gilgamesh: Persian mythology, "it is thought" Gilgamesh was the origin for the Hercules (Heracles) myths...

The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest stories written down. Gilgamesh was a god king of the city of Uruk in Sumer, later known as Mesopotamia, now Iraq. Gilgamesh was a human but with some of the powers of a god. He won every competition he entered, could throw a spear equally well with either hand (striking fear into his enemies with this feat) and slept with all the ladies of the city (whether they liked it or not). When his great friend Enkidu died, Gilgamesh was overcome with sorrow and despair because he knew that someday he too would die. He went on a long quest to try and find eternal life, meeting Noah along the way, but eventually had to accept the fact of his own mortality.

Doesn't that sound just right to measure male perfection? /

What, scaring people with your feet? I can do that!