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

And a muff, of course is a furry thing you put your hands in when its cold outside, but I'm not sure what it has to do with the sport of diving.

they took what you were trying to tell them as twattle huh....

Actually, in the context of H2G2 and this thread, LOL = Lots Of Loonies

Here speaks someone who wanders around Wimbledon Common in a big furry costume singing silly songs.

And has an original way of spelling Orinoco, which if I am not mistaken is also the name of a river on the continent of South America.
Still no ideas as to the origin of mollycoddle? The word sounds rather pleasant, as if it would be rather nice to coddle a molly. Molly used to be a fairly common name among British women and coddle can mean to pamper. Alternatively a molly is a kind of tropical fish and coddle can also mean to boil gently!
I suspect that arty-farty is merely onamatopeic doggerel.
I am sure that you have all seen a horse fly, but has anybody seen a_bun_dance?

Doggerel !! - curses - the doggy thread again !!

Can someone tell me what Doggerel means because I don't know! Maybe I'm just really thick...

Strictly, poor or trivial verse. Pathetic rhymes. And V&A, thick people are the ones who do not ask.

bad poetry...unlike "cockrel" which is dad poultry

For our American readers, he means a rooster.
Strictly speaking, a cockerel (spelt thusly: remind me to put a desk dictionary in your Crimbo sock) is a young cock, not more than one year old.

Why am I reminded of the shipping forecast? (Please don't cast aspersions on my sanity.)

Pheroneous, I wonder where Woody Woodpecker got his name...

Dogger Bank is one of the areas referred to in the shipping forecast. How could we cast doubts on your sanity? You the one who started this doggone conversation.

I reamember when I did geography in school we had to learn how to understand the shipping forcast, that meant learning the regions. Needless to say it was very pointless, as we were as inland as you can get in Britain and I had no intention of doing any sailing!

There isn't really any point to this posting, I just thought you might like some pointless information about my schooling! I guess my main point was, do they have the shipping forcast over in America or is it a Brit thing? I know it is broadcast on the World Service, but what is the point in letting people on the other side of the world know what the sea is like aroung Britain?!

... Dogger, German Bite, Thames ... winds light to variable ...

I used to be confused by the reports from coastal stations as it was in short hand, thus ...
"north by north-west, 5, heavy showers, good"
I later found out that the "good" referred to the visibility rather than a general commentary on the weather (as it obviously wasn't "good" sometimes).

The last component of the shorthand version was often the barometer change thus if it said "slight rain falling" it meant seas were slight, it was raining and the pressure was falling.
Madness!

I'd better send a dictionary to Orinocco as well. That's German bight (a long inward curve in a coast)

Ah - but dogger and bite go together with the start of this thread better...perhaps it was a pun?

There is also the use of terms like soon and imminent in the shipping forecast, meaning in the next few hours and in the next hour (I think).

It's the madness of the (our) language as well as the weather that keeps me sane.

It's probably a sign of age, but I am a great fan of (the now deceased) Johnny Morris, he of "Animal Magic" fame.
However, my admiration for him is as an observer of human behaviour, rather than the children's animal programs.
He spent some time living and working on a farm in Wiltshire in the 1930s, and his work is full of dialectic words and phrases. Let me treat you to some ...
If someone was ill (nothing specific, just under the weather {origins for that?}), they were said to feal "wheemish" and often their "waters were all spudly".
If reversing (tractor etc.) you would "back backwards", or even for more emphasis "back back backwards" - no way could that be confused with going forwards.
Last one for now, if everything was sorted out and tickaty-boo (!) they were said to be "up together".
Enjoy.

wg, I did indeed, in all innocence, start this conversation. And all thru you guys have enlightened and entertained me.

And now we are approaching the 1000-postings mark. Would that set some sort of h2g2 record for a thread?

If so, I think we deserve a front-page splash!

If not, let's press on for 10,000, so long as it's as fun and friendly as it has been so far.