That's interesting MissP, I though Redmond van de Poste was a cross between Redmond O'Hanlon and Laurens van der Post, explorers/travellers.

But I much prefer your theory



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Some days I see the point

Well, I thought about the two explorers, they seemed the more clever, intellectual reference. But the Postman Pat thing sprang unbidden to my mind the first time I read it, and I haven't been able to shake it off.

pg 110, to add to your note about street lamps

Sodium orange street lamps are very efficient; 200 lumen per watt. Colour rendering is not as important in lighting streets as the ability to see contrasts clearly, and sodium lamps provide this at low cost. A little mercury is addded to the sodium to provide slightly better colour differentiation.

Here side streets are more likely to still have orange streetlights and main roads have the newer white lights.

pg 281

This uncommon pedant would add that, strictly speaking, the bird we call the Cormorant is the Great Cormorant, and the Shag is a member of the Cormorant family, more numerous than the (Great) Cormorant, so could be considered to be a more common Cormorant. However, you're more likely to see a Cormorant than a Shag, because the Cormorant will come inland, whereas the Shag sticks to its preferred costal breeding grounds. But I'd not want to get into a fight with the above mentioned common pedant, nor would I like to have to type Cormorant or Shag again. So, that's okay, isn't it?


Anyone telling me to get a life, or go to bed, at this point would be entirely justified.

Vi_
Oh. I'm sure that I'd read or been told, at some point in the past (and from a source that, although I don't now recall its identity, seemed to me then to be likely to be reliable), that the v in von should be capitalised when it was part of an aristocratic surname but not when it was part of a commoner's one...
Could it be that this was an old usage that's been dropped by now (as you say) but that still applied in Bismarck's own lifetime? Or maybe a regional (perhaps specifically Prussian?) one?


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"Customers are advied that this product may
contain meat from re-engineered species."



Post Edited (08-14-04 13:08)

Ah, right, so we're basically arguing about who knows best - an un-named single source from many years ago, or German history books, written by Germans, in German, about a German...

Can we return to useful points now, please?






ps - can't believe I forgot to put Neat-Fit in. In fact. there's a couple of things I can't believe I failed to spot, flag or otherwise squeeze in (viz. Wittgenstein being Hamlet's uni). Ah well, I never claimed to be good at this sort of thing...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Well done on the guide; excellent job.

I thought Hels' knowledge of Durham was spot on, tho' I always found Hatfield bar worst for Rahs. As for Mary's boys - wish there'd been a few more around when I was there!!!

The Postman Pat idea had struck me too.

Simon,

there's no commoner's name with a "von" on it. A "von" always indicates aristocracy.
And it's a preposition. Prepositions are never capitalised. And never where. Please don't throw the Germans' funny habit of reforming their spelling rules every 5 years at me now, as capitalisation was never a part of these reforms.

Sorry for bringing up the useless discussion again, but I had to answer that.

And now back to the interesting stuff.



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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

(N. Chomsky 1957)

Makes sense to me Vi. And you'd know.

Re: Pg 294 – Cairngorm yeti’s foot

I think he may be talking about the Old Grey Man of Ben Macdhui, Ben - it's a story that's been around for centuries (though only in print since early this century).

Climbers and hillwalkers near the summit of Ben MacDhui (2nd highest mountain in Scotland) have often reported hearing mysterious footsteps following them and/or seeing a huge grey man-like figure walking near them on the mountain. None of them that I know of has actually stopped to chat...



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Oh and Ben, I suspect that you know this, but, just for pedantry's sake, malapropisms are 'mal apropos' something, which is where, rumour has it, Sheridan got the name for his character from, so the derivation of malapropism comes two ways, which it wouldn't if we had 'dogberryism'.



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Some days I see the point

This may be me making links unbeknown to Jasper when he wrote it (just like most English teachers' analysises of Shakespeare then), but Spike's uncompleted line "He lost his head" was said (in full) by Kenau Reeves at the end of "Speed" after defeating the bad guy.

The link's probably complete and utter fabrication, but I thought I'd mention it....



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Well, because it is submersed in a marine environment, I've always called it the Going-Under-The-Water-Safely-Device.

In Chapter 29 pg260 (US) Where Thursday and the Cat are discussing Kaine, 'Get it?', 'Got it.', 'Good', is a running gag in the film The Court Jester.

Chapter 29 pg 282, is another Star Wars parody with Thursday using the Ovinator in place of the old Jedi mind trick.

Okay, cats and kitties, hold on to your brains. I have read the Guide. Isn't it good! So here goes with the comments :- Some have already been covered by others,
I know, but...
Joan of Arc. Burgundians.
Long John Silver. No. Pity, but it was the left leg he lost, so perhaps that explains his bitterness?
Englands mountains green. Enland's [as opposed to Britain's] highest mountain is in Cumbria. It is really hard
to smuggle mountains. The Norfolk Mountain Rescue unit exists to rescue proto-mountains from the flatlands.
Edith Cavell sneaked in to that bit on the martyr ticket,
rather than under the haircut. Well, where else but under?
DH 82. I'm prepared to essay a small wager that the DH 82 has something to do with the De Haviland aeroplane
manufacturer, knowing Mr. Ff's liking for aeronautics. Hats off to Annie.biblio for her more factually accurate comment [Just ordered another parcel of books. Thanks Annie, keep up the good work.]
Brunel. The last sentence doesn't have anything to do with the hat then?
I made a note about Redmond van der Poste. I say Yay! for the Postman Pat theory, particularly as the post office where he worked was based on the post office that used to be just down the hill.
Arkwright. The 'fork candles' sketch was the 2 Ronnies, you know Biggs and Reagan, Jobbing comics to the masses.
Saveloy. Presumption Unjustified. [Or, Not Verifiable by Mastication.] A sort of funless pun, loosely based on a Non-proven verdict.
I will post this bit; may the threat of more to follow lie heavy on you all!

Part Deux ::
Orange Street Lights, So that you can't tell zombies from live-ies.
Teco's. Just say 'Walmart' and US readers will understand. [I think?]
Hundreds and thousands. Or vermicelli. 'Little worms.' Lovely!
Rumplunkett. Let Occam's razor cut.
OFGOD. I thought [but we all kno how simpel I am.] that it stood for [O]mbudsman [F]or Whatnot. Well, it fits,
dunnit?
Wilson Lonsdale etc. Could be a Hotblack Desiato deal. From Douglas Adams' 'Restaurant at the End of the Universe.' A firm of estate agents. Douglas just liked the look and sound of it and used it as a character name.
What does Mr. Ff say?
Longfellow. Wishful thinking. Knickerbockers are trousers, not undies. Pity really. Ho, hum.
Area 21. Significance of number? That there are, or were, at least 20 others?
Martin Piffco. Possibly a play on Pifco, an electrical goods company from before the dawn of time. That is, before you were born, dear boy.
Nacelle. The text clearly states the former case?
Wheeltappers tapped railway stock wheels; iffn they went
'ting' they were alright, if they went 'clop' they were cracked, and so marked for replacement.
p 343 'Spike' should this be 'Snake'?
The teams. Tim O'Fathens; Timon of Athens, eponymous
hero of a play by somene whose name escapes me.
Well. That's it. [Muffled cries of 'Thank GSD', 'Getoff', 'Has he gone yet', and the like might be heard from various parts of the auditorium

Cheers boffin. Could people please add page references so I know where to look, though - I remember from the last guide that I spent ages with ctrl-f jumping back and forth, and reckon it'd be faster to be able to skim through things in order.

Ta everyone - keep examples of my stupidity rolling in



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Sorry to bring it back, I tend to read things too late... In the 5 years I studyed German at school and the 4 in the Goethe Institut, never did I hear anyone saying Von should be capitalised...

So I think Vi, the German native speaker is right...

*back to my lurky box*

A few notes on the guide:

p4: Eckley's Livery Stables. Eckley would be the name of the owner of the livery stables. I don't know why Jasper would choose that particular name, unless he saw it on a map of Colorado and liked it.

If you want detail about the guns in Thursday's western adventure:

p6: Any Colt 45's used in 'Death at the Double-X Ranch' should be either the Army model of 1860, or the Single-Action Army Model (Peacemaker) of 1873. Being a pulp novel, accuracy is probably not its strongest point, and Thursday is only speaking generally. Chances are that low-grade, generic gunmen will all have Peacemakers/Colts, as the author can't be bothered to think of anything else.

p10: The gunmen are more likely to be using the Winchester 73, 'The Gun That Won The West'. It was more popular than the 76 Centennial. It depends on when their own books were set, as 'Death at the Double-X' is 1875


p19: Norfolk Mountain Rescue - I recall hearing about the Waveny Valley Mountain Rescue Club - the River Waveney is in Norfolk. They don't do a lot of rescuing, but they meet in the pub every week, anyway.

p25. Nurse Edith Cavell was, if I remember rightly, born in Swardeston, Norfolk, and is buried in (or just outside) Norwich Cathedral. There is a memorial there to her. Legend has it that the soldiers ordered to execute her, could not bring themselves to pull the trigger on this brave woman, so the officer in charge had to shoot her.

More detail on Tesla beams on p269. Tesla invented a wireless power transmission system. He spent some of the later years of his life trying to get funding to create a global network of free electricity transmission systems. Whether it would have worked I have no idea, it sounds insane, but he did invent AC power, fluorescent lights, rotary engines...
In this context Tesla beams are likely to be energy transmission beams.



Post Edited (08-15-04 23:07)

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Could Cousin Eddie be Lucky Eddie, first mate of Hägar the Horrible (comic strip by Dik Browne)? A synopsis is here: [www.fact-index.com]
Btw, Hägar has a son called Hamlet...

Your title "Something Rotten Decomposed" makes me think of "An anatomy of Something Rotten" as more appropriate. I am not an native Engish speaker though so I could be wrong here.

Best regards



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P180: I think the reference to potting sheds maybe should be explained, as I'm fairly sure that they are a distinctively British thing. No doubt sheds exist in other parts of the world, but I find it difficult to visualize, say, an American garden with a classic potting shed at the far end.

I'm sure PSD knows enough about potting sheds to be able to summarize them in his own particular way.