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

'There is a saying on Earth to describe unhappiness which goes something like this:

'The other man's grass is always greener.'

The Jadravartids of Volks-Vogel VI have a similar saying, though as they are less well developed, botanically speaking, the best they could come up with was 'The other Jadravartid's pupelberry shrub is always are more mauvy shade of pinky russet', something which thus fell into disuse. So it was that the Jadravartids had no option to be terribly happy and contented with their lot, much to the surprise of the rest of the galaxy who hadn't realised that the best way not to be unhappy was not to have a word for it.'

This (probable mis-)quote is partly my paying respect to Peter Jones - I can only assume that, as I can remember such stretches of the Hitch Hiker radio series, it has left an inerasable imprint on my mind, which I'm sure is due in no small part to Mr Jones' delivery of the narration so cleverly incorporated into the story.


This (probable mis-)quote is also partly here in my forum as a request for some similarly contrived sayings. Could we have a contrived saying for Behind, please? Having just cleaned our (student) house, I would put forwards as good reasons for this: behind the taps, behind the fridge and behind the toilet. Without the word 'behind' I would have had far less cleaning to do. Then we could move onto, say, Inside (with reference in particular to the shed, microwave and fridge. Again.)


Of course, we could just change their spelling