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

Or its the mutts nuts.

Stay lucky.............threesecodnemory

I think they say the "dogs bollocks" is good as most pet dogs have their nuts chopped off to stop them making little dogs, so a dog with bollocks would think they are pretty dam marvellous and that he was lucky to have them. Any clearer? clear as mud.....stay lucky.

Just be careful if you go stateside and you're offered a pot plant. You'll have the feds crawling all over you.

My husband - a Scot - once walked into a room of Americans, South Africans, Ozzies and Kiwis and said:

"Can I bum a fag off anyone?"

Not a question he asked twice!

The embarrassment can work both ways.

Where I come from we call your ass ('bottom' for the Brits) your 'fanny'.

Yeah - I remember a comedy program in which one character threatened to kick another in the fanny...I was deeply confused and shocked...and we've already had the fact that Mrs. Bundy's parents in "Married with Children" are the Wanker family.

I am told (it may be apochrapyl (sp?)) that Phil Collins once appeared on Miami Vice. During the programme he shouts, at the top of his lungs "You W**nker!". Apparently he got away with it as the producers wanted him to say something Londony, and they didn't know what it meant.
I suppose the bum/fanny thing can lead to sniggers in both senses when applied to Fanny Craddock and her famous doughnuts. (She was an old TV cook and, after making some doughnuts, her husband turned to camera and said; "May all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny's." Indeed!)

I hope no-one is offended by the above, I'd think of some better way of saying it if I was even vaguely eloquent.

Of course there's the famous cricket one: "Tha batsman's 'Holding', the bowler's 'Willey'"

And the clssic sketch, Who's on first, What's on second...

I think the point is that you are not meant to understand it. We speak in a kind of code, just to baffle foreigners! It even works within Britain too. When I worked in London, I could have a private telephone conversation with my wife, even in a crowded room, by speaking in "broad Yorkshire," my native dialect. Likewise, I still have trouble understanding Scouse, Geordie and Cockney.

I still sometimes forget that here in Britain you call the second floor of a building the first floor!

I think you will find we call the first floor of a building the first floor.

Yeah
It's calling the ground floor the first floor that is wrong - don't you realise that buildings are zero-based?

Perhaps, then, a simple '0' instead of a 'G' might be more appropriate in British elevators ('lifts', if you must).

And '-1' instead of 'B', of course.

But you could put an 'S' in lifts in the US (or wherever they use 1 to be the ground floor) for street level...

If ground is 1 and basement is -1, where's 0?

Hi Phil,

Yes, you are right. Exactly the same simple logic can be applied to dating the MILLENNIUM. 1BC and then straight to 1AD - there is no year 0. That's why centuries end on the hundred, and millenniums end on the thousand. So the twenty-first century and the 'new' millennium both start next year. Sorry to disrupt the thread.

Walter.

heard of a mayor wanda (furguson)on the evening news last night.some town out west somewhere. the anchor bearly kept from laughing.dont try too hard to understand we yanks some maybe yankers

*in best British accent*

Sorry but would you awfully mind explaining that so we can share the joke?

How would you Septics number your stairs then?
Would you call the ground the first step and the first raised platform the second step, just as you do with floors?

From Kaeori: 'Just like you call jelly 'jam'.'

As I understand it, we have jam AND jelly that can be spread on your toast/scone. 'Jam' is the whole fruit boiled up with lots of sugar then put into a jar, e.g., Raspberry jam, strawberry jam, etc. 'Jelly', in addition to the stuff served up at childrens parties, is also stuff that is made in the same way as jam, but has all the bits strained out of it before being put into the jar, e.g, Bramble jelly.