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

Encouragement by Brits in tropical Africa

"Don't worry, it won't always be dark at seven"

I don't take it literally but philosophically.

The Mamas and the Papas can't take the blame entirely - well, maybe they can for using hackneyed cliches that have been around for hundreds of years:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/darkest-hour.html

'You're a better man than I am Gunga Din'...

Well, I need an expression like that to be correct in order to be useful as a metaphor. "Every rose has it´s thorns" works, exactly because all roses have thorns. Or at least did untill recently. The saying wouldn´t work as well if it was "No plane without snakes", since they generally don´t have any.

Without artsy philosophical pooh, the Gunga Din one is very straight forward in understanding.

>Well, I need an expression like that to be correct in order to be useful as a metaphor.<

Fair enough. I don't.

>> 'best' implies more than two feet; we should really use 'better' <<

Indeed! Well spotted. That may well be why the expression
has always bothered me.

And yet, because I would count neither of my feet as better
than t'other the whole notion still doesn't make sense.

~jwf~

It wouldn't be an issue for me. It would be my right foot. But then I played footie as a youngster..It is the one I have most co-ordination and control over.

Also as a child I did a lot of funny stuff using it to pick up things..a little bit like a hand.

Post 21:
>>...the way we can say "his"or"her" but have to use "their"
if we don't know the sex of the person. Why do we persist in
using such an ambiguous term? <<

It's not really ambiguous in any sense of being deliberately
unclear, but rather it allows for possibilities we might not
anticipate. It is the proper form when gender and number are
unknown. I use it regularly and have no difficulty with it.

It sure beats the clumsiness of he/she/it.
Or, god forbid the s/he device that really rankles my mind.
Neither of which allow for number.


~jwf~

>>Also as a child I did a lot of funny stuff using it to pick up things..a little bit like a hand.

I still do that now that I'm more senior, because it saves having to stoop down to the floor, thus saving my aching back.

>>>Feet are not like hands.
We may be right handed or left handed.
But feet aren't that differentiated

Mine are; I use my left foot as a 'hand', and in martial arts, being right-handed meant I stood with my left foot forward, which co-incidentally makes some sort of sense of the old saying.


>>>>It is the proper form when gender and number are
unknown. I use it regularly and have no difficulty with it.

I often find it unsatisfactory, when my prose involves both a group of people and (separately) a single person, gender unknown, for whom "their" has to be used. The use of "their" can become confusing because it sounds like we're talking about the group; so this has to be avoided by less elegant sentence structure.

Anyone who's ever been involved in hand to hand combat knows you've always got a better foot to put forward. It's not to do with the foot, per se, but with which hand you'll lead with when fighting.

"If the wind changes you'll stay like that"

I know it's not really mean to be serious, but I was always a bit nonplussed. Basically because our faces never stay the same. If I pulled a funny face and it became the norm, wouldn't I be able to just 'pull' a normal face until the wind changed again?

Only if you were the very first person ever to know what 'normal' is.

one's 'normal' face is individual but still recognisable. I don't think there's too much confusion in this particular case

"You'll be laughing on the other side of your face in a minute."


Now *that* is odd

nick, I've got a nasty cricket hangover and I've got another long day of it ahead. I completely missed that in my grump.

I suppose that the other side of your face could be the lower side, so you'd have to do an upside-down smile into that region; which would indicate displeasure.

re: #15

"'I couldn't care less'
& the US version
'I could care less'


Another one of those that bugs me is the US dropping of the word 'to'

'he wrote to me'
'he wrote me'

example during election caucuses you'll here candidates say, "a lady from Ohio wrote me. She said ..."

It's most odd.