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

While doing an internet search for "slubberdegullion" I discovered a list of all the curses used by Captain Haddock during the course of Tintin. Anyone who believes swearing is the important component of invective should be exposed to the rich and delicious melange perfected by Captain Haddock.

Blue blistering barnacles! Ten thousand thundering typhoons! Swine! Jellyfish! Tramps! Troglodytes! Toffee-noses! Savages! Aztecs! Toads! Carpetsellers! Iconoclasts! Rats! Ectoplasms! Freshwater swabs! Bashi-bazouks! Pockmarks! Cannibals! Caterpillars! Cowards! Baboons! Parasites! Blistering blundering birdbrain! Beast! Baby-snatchers! Brigands! Belemnite! Bougainvillea! Steamroller! Bully! Twister! Heretic! Slavetrader! Technocrat! Bucaneers! Vegetarian! Politican! Gangsters! Bandits! Filibusters! Pirates! Corsair! Woodlice! Turncoats! Shipwreckers! Moujiks! Rhizopods! Bagpipers! Gallows-fodder! Dogs! Sea-lice! Lubberscum! Saucy tramp! Centipede! Miserable earth worms! Black beetles! Artichokes! Vermicellis! Phylloxera! Pyrographers! Crabapples! Goosecaps! Gogglers! Jellyfish! Crooks! Sparrows! Doryphore! Gobbledegook! Bald-headed budgerigar! Blackamoor! Anthracite! Dunderheaded coconuts! Fuzzy wuzzy! Raggle taggle ruminants! Cushion footed quadrupeds! Morons! Weevils! Slubberdegullions! Patagonians! Kleptomaniacs! Harlequin! Hydrocarbon! Aborigine! Polynesian! Gyroscope! Blackbird! Anthropithecus! Roadhogs! Traitors! Bloodsuckers! Pithecanthropic montebanks! Gibbering anthropoids! Fourlegged Cyrano! Loathsome brute! Butcher! Anachronisms! Zapotecs! Pithecanthropuses! Sea-gherkins! Poltroons! Doryphores! Terrorists! Tin hatted tyrants! Misguided missiles! Nitwitted ninepins! Blackguards! Egoists! Polygraphs! Autocrats! Profiteers! Fatfaces! Anthropophagus! Highwayman! Rapscallion! Brat! Iconoclasts! Visigoths! Anacoluthons! Pickled herrings! Addle-pated lumps of anthracite! Viper! Duck-billed platypus! Jellied eel! Cercopithecus! Psychopath! Coelcanth! Vulture! Bodysnatcher! Ostrogoth! Vandal! Stoolpigeon! Nyctalops! Parasites! Miserable molecule of mildew! Wildcat! Spitfire! Blunderbuss! Whippersnapper! Cachinnating cockatoo! Terrapins! Two-timing Troglodytes! Orangoutang! Breathalyser! Bootlegger! Miserable miser! Purple profiteering jellyfish! Aardvark!

"Fourlegged Cyrano" alone deserves to be embedded in a brass plate and put above the door of Number Ten Downing Street as a reminder to all Prime Ministers of just where power ultimately rests (Marlinspike, that's where).

For other languages (fruitier still than English) try http://www.daimi.aau.dk/~jjuhne/COT/characters/char_h.html

Crikey! That is a lot of curses...

Ach ja.

And the Dutch ones are even funnier, if only phonetically.

Not helpful to a uni-lingual English girl though!

I suppose not, unless someone Dutch attempts to molest you. Unless you like him, of course.

I need to learn other languages ... French and English aren't enough ....

I can speak basic french. I want to learn Italian. Having been to Italy I realise what a beautiful language it is, but all I can say is 'posso avere piu aqua per favore' and assorted musical terms!

do you?



I can't get over how cool that is! For I am TowelMan(TM)!

(got to get that trademarked)

Isnt there a sign for that? Look in the GudeML Clinic. I'm sure there is a tag for it.

My language skills leave a lot to be desired. The spirit is willing, that brain is not...

Can't use guideml in conversations! But I think it's an escaped entity, you go where I can't remember what it is. I'll look it up on an html page on the web ....

That should actually be because it's a closed element. Oops ... sooorry ....

So how are you this morning, my sweet?

Okay. All caffiened-up, and putting invoices through the system. Joy.

You aren't doing data entry, are you? [remembers a particularly painful time working at a 14" monitor running at 56 Hz in an office with flickery fluorescent lights]

Poor princess ....

Nah, it's just one aspect of this job. I also get to pack boxes, answer the telephone and spend a lot of time on hootoo!

Is it one of those jobs where they put you in an office at the back of the building and forget about you? I had one of those once. I got paid for basically revising my Quantum Mechanics notes I also knew more about Microsoft Office than anyone else there ....

Slightly depressing when you think about it.

That was also the place with the 10 kV carpet. I swear I'm not kidding: I took to carrying a letter-opener with me and discharging on the aluminium doorframe to spread the shock around so it didn't hurt so much. The longest spark I ever got was a little over half a centimetre.

That is impressive. No, I'm not forgotten, I just hide as much as I can. Difficult in an open plan office, but it's worked so far...

Ah yes.

[hides from the boss two desks down]

It won't be too long before someone finds me something to do but i've been okay for three weeks!

My job is as exciting as breathing oatmeal. And that's the exciting bits.

Still, the cool ideas about information theory are starting to stack up against the inside of my brain! Millions of dollars of computer money, here I come ... (finally got my mathMojo back, baby!)

'(finally got my mathMojo back, baby!)'

Quoi??

The ability to have new ideas deserted me entirely at university, as did any enthusiasm for either maths or for physics. Just recently, it's started to come back, and I've finaly come to believe that I did have some talent all along, and am trying to do something with it ...

... mathMojo being the electronic Mojo dealing with mathematics and physics. Or something.