Assume v. Presume

[MikeSh]

Cavum nigrum

Capital 'n'?

 

[Deleted member 473]

Scratus acornibus, you mean?

 

[Deleted member 473]

Capital 'n'?

Definitely not!

 

[Black Hole]

Ergo Black Hole

Or maybe ergot

As for Erg Black Hole, a fag-packet calculation suggests the M87 black hole (as imaged last year), which is "6.5 billion solar masses", has a rest-mass energy of 10^64 ergs. Or, on the other hand, none:

An isolated black hole is a vacuum solution of general relativity, so in a very direct sense it does not contain any energy anywhere in spacetime.

 

[gomezz]

however I would expect "never in a month of Sundays"

Surely never in a month of Sundays would be very unexpected?

 

[EEPhil]

"Winter" is clear enough: winter vegetables, winter weather, the name of the season is Winter.

Never thought of it like that.
North, South, East and West are others that confuse me. Probably if I apply the logic of your winter example I might get it right.

 

[Black Hole]

Glad to be of service [sound of lift doors closing]

 

[EEPhil]

Argh! The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation get everywhere. A Black Hole with a GPP feature.

 

[MikeSh]

Somewhere (several wheres probably) between #4,501 and here I've lost the plot entirely

 

[EEPhil]

Can't blame you for that. There appear to be several conversations taking place. For my part, I was expressing difficulty with what words to capitalise. BH made a suggestion. I worked out what he meant. Then he made a reference to (what I think is) doors closing in The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. I then made the comment 2 posts ago. Are you any the wiser about that conversation?

 

[Black Hole]

what I think is

Correct. This is banter in the 'Arms, not a technical thing.

 

[MikeSh]

Are you any the wiser about that conversation?

Not really. Not being a HHGTTG superfan a lot of those references pass me by.

 

[EEPhil]

superfan

Certainly not. I've listened to it once or twice, read the books (once) and remembered the quote.

 

[Deleted member 473]

Not really. Not being a HHGTTG superfan a lot of those references pass me by.

I guess, you being in the Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B, they would.

 

[gomezz]

"Fit as a butcher's dog!"

Now that is a strange saying. I always think of a butcher's dog as fat and waddling with all that easy access to scraps but it is generally taken to mean the opposite.

 

[Trev]

Stranger still is the fact that I used that very saying in a text yesterday

 

[Black Hole]

Maybe, just maybe, the phrase was originally coined with sarcasm in mind but has since become lost in translation.

 

[MikeSh]

Fit as a butcher's dog!"

Never heard that one before.

But it has to make more sense than "Fit as a fiddle"

 

[Black Hole]

Never heard that one before.

Topically, Boris used the phrase to describe his recovery from Covid.

 

[gomezz]

And here is an alternative meaning which I had never heard of before but rings so true

John Camden Hotten, in A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words, 1859, defined 'butcher's dog' this way:

"To be like a butcher's dog, that is, lie by the beef without touching it; a simile often applicable to married men."