As a fan of both authors I’d just like to point out the quote is from Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
I’ve never really thought about it and I don’t have the vocabulary to describe it, but they have similar humour in the way they look at humans and social interaction.
Likewise in one of the later books they visit “God’s last message to the universe” or something like that and if I recall correctly it’s “Sorry for the inconvenience”
Great great author.
I was listening to the audiobook and had tu de cypher it by writing onto the paper. Almost shat myself laughing when I realize what it said. You will be missed Douglas.
spoiler
sdfsaf
There’s a certain irony in using a Douglas Adams quote to support saying something is reminiscent of Terry Pratchett.
British humour, both lean into the absurd. I love them both, and can admit there are similarities.
I think that person just misremembered the author of the quote.
Those are two different people though. One thought or Terry Pratchett, the other of Douglas Adams.
Have you ever seen them both in the same room at the same time? I know I haven’t. :)
One of them wears glasses and the other doesn’t, so clearly they’re separate people.
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You’re mistaken unfortunately. The books don’t start that way. They start by describing Arthur Dent’s house.
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Terry Pratchett the Douglas Adams of Fantasy.
Both are legends!
Both had major insight in to the bureaucrats soul.
Why do people in the UK and US say “maths” vs “math”?
There should be a trail of
Us that have fallen off the ship.The rightmost one? The last of Us.
What about Z and S??
colour> color
spourts > sports
Because it’s the short form of “mathematics”
Although typically I’ve seen the UK call it maths and North Americans call it math.
Is the ending s kept on abbreviations of other singular nouns ending in s? Or is that unique to maths?
I would say we disagree with the premise of the question. Mathematics is not a singular noun. It’s a plural. It’s the field of all mathematics. Therefore you preserve the “s” because you abbreviate the singular and re-pluralise it.
So somebody in the UK might (not commonally) say “it’s a math(matic) concept”, but more likely to say “it’s a concept from math(ematic)s” or “it’s a mathematical concept”.
That’s interesting. What about talking about it as a subject or a class? Would you say maths are my favorite subject(s?) in school? Maths are my favorite class?
Good one, no way say maths is… I guess it’s the subject of mathematics is my favourite.
To the best of my understanding, mathematics isn’t referencing a singular object but is used as an encompassing term to refer to content from multiple schools of mathematics e.g. geometry, statistics, calculus, algebra etc. Or in other words, all the subjects covered in math/maths class! 😊
I prefer mafs
Maphs could be used here too…
There’s more than one type of math. Would you say physic?
Or sport?
C m8 they’res only 1 kinda reel sport nd thats footie.
Germans and French do
Do you guys also say Geographies? Or Histories? Do you take Arts classes? You take Physics, do you also have Chemistries and Biologies?
Yeah I get it, but I’m more curious why it’s said differently?
You should be asking yourself that. ;)
There’s usually a long explanation for these types of things which most of the time boils down to “because that’s how people have been saying it and it’s become the norm.”
Many linguistical mistakes have been overused to the point of them changing their meaning. Take “decimation”. It used to mean to kill 1 in every 10. Because it sounds cool and has been used in a lot of media, it now mainly means to kill or destroy a large part of something.
The meaning of “siege” has gone from sitting outside a castle or town until everyone starves to just about any kind of military action involving a building. Probably partly because the Iran embassy Siege off the 80s was endlessly represented on TV by footage of the SAS breaking the siege by abseiling through the windows.
Let me go count all my Lego.
Lego is the only correct version though, it is defined by the company that created it so its not ‘open to interpretation’ imo.
I agree with you. A sheep and some sheep are the same to me 😂
We can blame beer.
Growing beer demand using wild grain bread for the yeast source ⟩ settling permanently allowed increased agriculture ⟩ agriculture necessitated protection from thieves and raids ⟩ establishment of nobility (military) and temples (religion, math, and literacy ⟩ money is invented to facilitate the collection of taxes for protection and public works (yes, government and organized religion started as a parasitic voluntary protection racket) ⟩ life got harder, nourishment got worse, but hey, at least they had beer.
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Douglas Adams <3
