USAGE: Belgium in H2G2 (was Re: USAGE: number concord in AmE, again)

Saturday, June 22, 2002, 1:55:35 PM, Muke Tever wrote:

MT> From: "Philip Newton" <Philip.Newton@...>
>> On 22 Jun 02, at 7:48, Christopher B Wright wrote:
>>
>> > Reminds me of the Rory award for the most gratuitous use of the word
>> > "Belgium" in a serious film. (Read _Life, the Universe, and Everything_
>> > by Douglas Adams if you didn't recognize that, and if you did, well, um,
>> > read it again.)
>>
>> I've seen at lease two versions. One uses "Belgium", another uses a
>> "four-letter word". (Not sure whether those correspond to UK and US
>> editions of the book; and I don't remember which version was the
>> bowdlerised one.)
MT> The Americans got "Belgium".  I havent seen the UK version but I understand it
MT> uses 'f*ck' directly.

It does. The use of 'Belgium' in the US version (which I wasn't aware
of) must be a nod to an idea from the second series of _The
Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy_ on BBC Radio 4 -- the original version
of Hitch-Hiker, and my personal favourite. In a digression devoted to
outlandish Galactic expletives, reference is made to a word that denotes
a concept so disgusting that even Zaphod Beeblebrox will only use it at
times of great stress, and which is taboo on all planets in the Galaxy
except one -- where they don't know what it means. That word is...

... BELGIUM.

Attempting to turn this back on-topic, does anyone have conlangs in
which an innocent natlang word means something abominable -- or vice
versa?
--
Matthew

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