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

I'd forgotten about that. I'll have to cultivate it as another way of expressing my non-conformity to the rest of the world.

Very multi-faceted relationship with Trillian (your mother), child. And what have bedtime drinks got to do with it Lulu? Do you get the same effect with Ovaltine?

Sugar of course is another one.

just the remmnants of a tv fixated childhood
If u r British think duvet covers or post office queues
If not then ovaltine isn't half as good
Try shouting it as an expletive and you'll be enlightened!!

Oh Horlicks!

Ovaltine is no good because it starts with a vowel. It has to start with a consonant

like

Bother!
Dexterity!
Paleontology!
Boot polish!!

I'm all for proper profanity as a means of letting off steam but, like any commodity, if there is too much of it then it becomes less valuable. I think that 'Horlicks!' is perfectly acceptable for mildly irritating situations but when some idiot in a souped up VW golf tries to wipe out ones family one tends to use stronger language. The whole point of profanity is that it is a displacement activity for wreaking physical havoc.
My daughter (9) uses 'Gherkins' to express disgust or disbelief.

A phrase used by my mum and grangma a lot in place of an expletive is "hells bells". Is this used by anyone else or are my family freaks?!

A phrase used by my mum and grandma a lot in place of an expletive is "hells bells". Is this used by anyone else or are my family freaks?!

Yes, V&A it certainly is, and much revived in the last couple of years due to 'soccer am' a chaotic fotball magazine on Sky TV which features a splendid lady called Helen something held in great affection by the lads of the terraces up and down the country and referred to by crew & fellow presenters as 'Hell's Bells'.

Used in my family in the extended version "Hells bells and buckets of blood"

I can't stand the phrase myself, it winds me up. That's a point, is it a British thing to say "winds me up to high heaven" because I hear that around my area of the country a lot too. I was wondering if that was just the British or international.

{probably bossy English teachers like me jumping in every five minutes for a start)
I think "wind someone up" is the same as "pull their leg" or "take the p*ss"
Would you settle for "get on my wick", "get up my nose","p*sses me off" "gets my goat" or "rubs me up the wrong way" for irritate?

I know what winding someone up means!!! I was wondering if it was just us Brits that used it or whether it was used in the states too. And not just "wind someone up" but the concept of being wound up "to high heaven".

I love the fact that they can get
away with having Mr Burns
say Wankers in simpsons.
And in one eposode of mork
and mindy there is a couple
called MR and Mrs Wanker

Really? That's quite funny. But really unfare too, we can't get away with saying it. Is that because it doesn't mean anything in the States?

I'm not at all sure how you can connect the two, to wind someone up is surely to tease someone (to a singular purpose), to get someone thinking the wrong way etc. but 'to high heaven' means 'over the top' or to excess (in a plurality).

I'm not sure that I put that well, but, for me, the two phrases don't sit well together.

When the Aussie film Malcom was being translated into French by an American, "wanker" became "comedienne"

3

JOTD: "What's the time?"
"I don't know, it keeps changing!"

As I have a midly puerile streak, so I quite like 'Suffering Suckotash!' (sp.?) as a polite exclamation.

And Mutley (the dog who really is the dog's) has a good line in cusses - but it's kinda hard to reproduce.

It seems that 'Mother!' serves as both an exclamation and a cuss back home, but not here in London.

In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series they use "Blood and ashes!" a lot, and "bloody" as well. But they also have some more specialised ones, like "Oh, Light!" and "Shai'tan take you!" but that last is very dangerous as it's entirely possible for Shai'tan (Satan) to take someone.
Many stories invent new profanities. Hitchhiker's is one, of course
"Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish!"
"Dingo's Kidneys!"
and of course "Belgium!"
Red Dwarf famously invented "smeg"
While Anne McCaffrey's Pern books involve lots of egg-related expletives like "Shells!" and "By the first egg!" and suchlike.
All very interesting, but totally useless in real life.

Trillian's Child is right that migrations in Europe were generally from East to West. The Celts were called Gauls in what is now France, they came to Great Britain and eventuall became the Britons. Welsh and Cornish are descendants of the Ancient British language. But Breton is also descended from this same language, not from Gaulish, the language of the Gauls. This indicates that some people did cross from Great Britain to France, bringing their language with them.