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

It would be so great if this was a record thread. That was all I wanted to say. Nothing interessting, sorry!

Several threads have passed the 1000th post mark already. The Forum and Firkin and one of the conversations at Lil's Atelier. I don't know of others though.

We should make 10,000 easily - there's such variety and richness in the language

They say English is one of the most complex languages in the world. I thing we have prooved that!! Especialy with the dog obsession...

Its not just dogs...in a pet shop you can carp on about fish, rabbit on about hamsters whilst your kids hare round the place. I was going to buy an upside-down terrapin but it had just turned turtle.

Weak pun:
We were going to go to the fancy dress party at the pet shop as a a couple of magnificent goldfish but in the end we were too coy

Do you get the feeling that this thread is going to get a very large number of postings today? English is certainly a very complex language when confronted with 'prooved' rather than 'proven' and 'Especialy' rather than 'especially'. I do not mean to be unpleasant. I just think that when we pontificate about our wonderful mother tongue we ought to take a little care with its spelling.
I was born in Wiltshire and I can vouch for the examples of dialect. My grandmother often used the phrase 'up together'. She also used the word 'shrammed', which I do not seem to hear nowadays - yes, she used 'nowadays' a lot as well.

Why is "abbreviation" such a long word ?

I will listen to some of my Johhny Morris tapes this weekend, and bring some more gems to this forum. The dialect he describes is almost lyrical - I get real pleasure from listening to him and it.

In the museum of Lincolnshire Life (in Lincoln, surprisingly) there is a recording of someone talking in a Lincolnshire dialect before everything was homogenised (is that a word?) by the BBC home service.
It is nearly incomprehensible to the modern inhabitants of Lincolnshire despite being less than 100 years old...what a lot we have lost!

Kaeori, as you started this thread with posting no. 1, I think it would be fitting if you were able to add no. 1000 (on the subject of dogs, of course!)

'Homogenised' is a 'proper' word. In the certainty of being pedantic I would suggest that not everything is homogenised, although my brain might be. If anybody thinks that dialect is no longer used in English I suggest they spend a few days in Wakefield or Barnsley.
Two Koi - groan.

What a nice suggestion - thank you! Unfortunately, as my h2g2 access is only Mon-Fri 9-5, I'm likely to miss that golden opportunity.

But don't get too excited, guys. When 999 comes up, if you all try and post 1000 at the same time, you may bring the www to a standstill.

Getting back to the subject of dogs, I recall some years ago in the soccer world cup, one of the Arab teams was described before a match as the 'underdogs'. Due to a problem in translation, this led to expressions of outrage back in that Arab country, incensed at being described as 'lower than dogs'!

Perosnally I think we are all not only lower than dogs but lower than all animals. We are savvage creatures pretending to be civilized. Aaaahhhh this world is going to kill me soon. But seriously, the arab society think that dogs are dicustingly dirty creatures, but most arabs refuse to have a shower unless they've just had sex. I mean really, who's dirtier!

It depends, Deni, on how often they have sex!

I am inclined to ignore dialects. Lets look for words that are recognised and understood by ALL within and no-one outside these sceptred isles.

And lets not get pedantic about spelling. Not everyone's fingers are as lithe as they were.

Is it possible that there is a single word that is known throughout and nowhere else? I don't think it is possible. Knackered is probubly one of the closest we are going to find.

OK, thats true it does depend on how often they have sex. But having vivited a lot of the Arab countries. They are either not allowed to have sex or they have been married for so long that they don't have sex very often.

You've probably done most of these to death already but how about the following British words which don't exist in America or don't always mean the same in Britain as they would in America:

arse, ass, bumper, butt, car, casket, check, crib, cute, fag, faggot, fender, footpath, goose pimple, jam, jelly, jock, lorry, nappy, pants, pong, pram, revise, shop, store, tram, subway, sweets, tap,
treacle, vest and water pistol.

I beg to differ, Deni, but you can't keep some Arabs out of the shower. And they think Westerners aren't so clean, because Arabs use water to clean themselves after going to the toilet, whereas most Westerners (myself excluded) smudge everything around with paper. Yuch!

As for dogs, we must with all humility remember they made it into space before us!

Some of the typing and spelling errors liven things up around here. At least, that's my excuse...

By all means I am not saying that westeners are cleaner in anyway than arabs. (I use water myself). But they are not especialy cleaner than dogs. I live in Holland (but I am not a westener) and I see some dogs, like poodles, that are white and completely spotles. Now try wearing a white pair of jeans and a white T-shirt for a day and see how long it stays shiny white for. I have a pekingese myself and he's white. I wash around once every two weeks, but he's never dirty or smelly.

By the way if you're trying to find a word that nobody else know, why don't you just make one up, so only the people in this forum know what it means and nobody else. Like shignik could mean "what's up" but in one word.