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

Enough of this talk of Prestat truffles and mint imperials, everyone knows "Uncle Joe's mint balls keep you all aglow, give 'em to your granny and watch the * go!"

It's not only sheep that have their fur shorn and spun to make thread. A few goats get it to.
Is the hair/fur difference to do with the softness of the individual hairs?

Percy, have you been at the liquors? What do they put in Prestat truffles? Apparently, the Queen Mum likes them.

How do I know that? Well, check out http://www.prestat.co.uk/

Seem to have copped a touch of the heebie jeebies there old chap. May I suggest a little R & R at a pleasant sanatorium somewhere.

Bunnies, Bloody Bunnies! What is all this? They are fabrications designed to keep the writers and designers of Greeting Cards in employment. They are a myth. Their existence is fictitious. Ever since the mixamatosis outbreaks in the fifties.

That and for the ad men at duracell not to have to think too hard

I just did a little internet hunting, and came up with the following:

"Fur is barbed (has scales along its length), hair is smooth: most mammals have fur except for primates."

Its good, except that I remember those electron micrograph cross sections of the human hair as cut by an electric shaver and it looked pretty barbed to me...sort of like the tightly wound leaves making the trunk of a banana "tree".

First results: Hair is smooth, fur is barbed (ie has little hooks on the strands to better bind together)

This implies that there is a biology trained scientist arbiter somewhere with a microscope who decides which animal has what, and somehow the mere mortals among us automatically know what his decisions are/were.

I'll be back with more.

Hey K, we must have same internet!!

I prefer cute little green frogs myself,proud dignified cats,pigs and funny little mice but not the bloody bunnies please defend me from them.

Please be sure to distinguish between barbed hair and split ends!

Catch you all tomorrow.

Incognitas, don't fret. They don't exist, at least not in Pascal's theory, not on simnal cakes, nor in Mr Macgregors garden.

Oxford dictionary defines hair as "any of the fine threadlike strands growing from the skin of mammals" whereas fur is "the short fine soft hair of certain animals, distinguished from the longer hair"

So thats clear then. Isnt it?

Clear as mud!!!!!

'G'

Anyone want a mud pie?!?

3

JOTD: I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere.

My grand-uncle used to go for a walk with his dog along the dunes behind the strand. It was a good walk if the dog got to "chase a few bunnies".

Someone a while back suggested sheep have fur or hair - but they're a special case (along with some goats) 'cos they've got wool instead.

So, fur is the soft stuff - got that at my favourite on-line dictionary (http://www.yourdictionary.com/).

It doesn't always work like that (isn't the language chock full of these exceptions). Some inanimate objects have fur (e.g. a kettle), and it isn't soft. Do any have hair ?

According to my children hair is found on Greek buildings. They mean the metal reinforcing rods which are always left projecting from the roof so that another storey can easily be added.
Might I suggest that hair is the generic term for the keratinous structures that grow from follicles in the skin of animals. Depending upon its precise qualities this stuff may be further defined as fur (short fine hair with lots of barbs) or wool (long fine hair). As with any biological phenomenon there will be a continuum of properties and in many cases whether something is referred to as hair, fur or wool will be a matter of tradition or opinion. There may be people who insist that their kettles get hairy, not furry.

I always thought a kettle got scales (as in limescale)?!

Or a wooly kettle. Or a wooly thread, as this is in danger of becoming!

To clarify:

Fur is a subset of hair, a special case if you like.

Wool is a subset of sheep and some other animals.

Prestat truffles are a subset of yummy chocs, towards the 'very' end of the 'yummy' scale, and too expensive for Pheroneous to mail us all a box.

But the kettle only has scales when it's furred up.