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

There's a thing...a friend of mine had the question in her AS level English to "give 6 definitions of flat".

Flat - without bumps (land) , without electrical charge(battery), appartment, without gas(fizzy pop),too low a tone (music)...what am I missing here?

Can't think of a 6th (without cheating (or is it using my initiative) and looking it up )

Flat as in tyre (maybe same as water, ie without gas), flat as in perspective (A picture or photo can be described as flat), flat as in layed out flat on the floor (maybe same as land, without bumps)

Actually, there seem to be lots of usag (at tourdictionary.com), but this is my favourite:-

Main Entry: flat-hat
Pronunciation: 'flat-"hat
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: from an alleged incident in which a pedestrian's
hat was crushed by a low-flying plane
Date: 1940
: to fly low in an airplane in a reckless manner

A flat is part of a stage in a theatre. It think it is the large flat sheet of canvas used at the back of a stage, on which scenery is painted. Alternatively, it might be the flat bits at the side behind which prompters hide.

flat, as in lackluster boring, dull

flat broke

flatfoot

*ooh, cappuccino just arrived*

flat out...

Fixed rate/price (flat fee)?

Two dimensional lead/tin alloy toy soldier - a flat - I think that these were made in Germany between the wars and the German name (apologies for the spelling) was zinnfiguren.

Some here just said "Bob's your uncle". Well, actually, sport, he isn't!
Any idea how accurate this statement is ? How many people have got an uncle Bob ? (or an aunt Sally for that matter ?)

Flat - of a coloured material or the colouring agent (pigment or dyestuff)- lacking brightness. Low reflectivity at the desired wavelengths.

Wish I could type "Bob" the way Blackadder says "Bob" !

Queen Dido at her palace gate
Sat daring of her stocking -O
She sang and drew
The worsted through
While her foot was the cradle rocking-O

(Bear with me. The relevance will strike you eventually)

What a fool was I
To be cozened by
A fellow without a penny -O
When rich ones came
And asked the same
For I'd offers from never so many -O

(Drat -I've forgotten these two lines -can we say that this example fell flat, then?)

Though history passes it over -O
You tell-tale brat
I've been a flat
And your daddy has proved a rover -O
I'll darn my hose
Look out for beaux
And swiftly get a new lover -O
Come, lads, come
Love beats the drum
And a fig for Aeneas the rover -O

My spouse has a great uncle Bob. Robert is a fairly common name. Aunt Sally is a very entertaining pub game still played in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and possibly parts of the Royal County of Berkshire. The name has been borrowed for those plate smashing stalls (very cathartic) that one sees at village fetes and, in business, for a draft proposal which is, to use the vernacular, set up to be shot down.

Virgil eat your heart out!

-O

Area of swampy ground (salt flats,mud flats)
In a line (flat back four defense)

I've remembered. I knew if I did some of the stuff I'm paid for it would float up from 35 years and more ago :
For a babe she had
By a soldier lad
On that (flat) note, I'm going home

My cappuccino is flat, I think - yes, definitey flat.

Just as well, really. I couldn't do with round cappuccino, sharp cappuccino or even vertical cappuccino.

And nothing too colorful, either.

Didn't Wurzel Gummidge have an Aunt Sally ?
(I move in concentric circles)

I move in eccentric circles. Is a square an eccentric circle? Is hip hop hip? Is it square to be hip or hip to be square? Is Liberty tight? By Jove, the asylum beckons.

Wurzel Gummidge did have an Aunt Sally, who was meant to be a fairground dummy, and was played by Una Stubbs.
Also, we used to get bored in French classes and hence (spelling is most likely wonky) "Robert est ton oncle" and the old Scots favorite "Au secour mon Robert!"