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#4634 10/11/00 03:08 PM
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hoc genus omne

Is that Latin for "Beers all round!" ?

No, that would be "HIC genus omne"


#4635 10/11/00 09:56 PM
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old hand
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This news just in from last week's Time magazine:

"In your note on my new and happy marital partnership with David Bale, you credit me with the witticism 'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.' In fact, Irina Dunn, a distinguished Australian educator, journalist and politician, coined the phrase back in 1970 when she was a student at the University of Sydney. She paraphrased the philosopher who said, "Man needs God like fish needs a bicycle." Dunn deserves credit for creating such a popular and durable spoof of the old idea that women need men more than vice versa." -Gloria Steinem

It seems the board's most quoted feminist did not coin our favorite saying, but there is a plus to this! We now know that the phrase has a connection to the board's favorite country down under.



#4636 10/11/00 09:59 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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We now know that the phrase has a connection to the board's favorite country down under.

May I just say that I find my passionate supranationalism sorely tested by that statement?



#4637 10/11/00 10:18 PM
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I've got to reply to this one, Shanks -
"not even the rain...."
must be e.e.cummings, no?
He came out with many such goodies.

Love the rolled up pavements too.


#4638 10/11/00 10:22 PM
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Welcome, Adam, and may I say that I love your comment "now I have even less"? You would seem to be the perfect person to answer Marty's challenge - what is the collective noun for a group of fish on bicycles?


#4639 10/11/00 10:23 PM
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Wa hey!

I've been trying to get a definite suss on this for ages.
Thanks, Jazz.

Now I just need to find out who "the philosopher" was!
Must have been post Victorian to be talking about bicycles, I suppose.

Which narrows down the field about 2%.


#4640 10/11/00 10:51 PM
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Hi Max - aren't you another HGTTG character? Now, Douglas Adams would be able to answer all our questions!

Can't find Marty's challenge, but give me time.

Anyway. Hmmmm, tricky one.

Contrary to popular belief, the collective noun for fish on bikes is NOT a "shoal". And indeed, a group of fish on bikes does not behave like a shoal, which has something of the qualities of a single organism (if you see what i mean). The same, as I like to call it, "negatively-gestalt" quality actually applies to any group of creatures placed on bikes, however socially-orientated they were beforehand.
Many experiments by maladjusted animal behaviourists have firmly established this fact.

I have to answer this with another question - what do you call a collection of wheeled vehicles containg drivers?

Let me rephrase that, before you reply "a jam".

What do you call a collection of cyclists?



#4641 10/11/00 11:01 PM
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Marty, those are great!

I laughed like a drain.


#4642 10/11/00 11:10 PM
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>What do you call a collection of cyclists?

a mass? a rally? a peloton?
(hope you won't think I spoke out of turn...)



#4643 10/11/00 11:40 PM
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Over at the fish thread I voted for "pool" (a combination of Marty's "pack" + "school").

Fishman, I'm gonna give you fair warning. There's a member here, an old hand , in fact, who cannot abide the word "orientate." Forewarned is forearmed... or forefinned, in your case.


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