"Llareggub"="Buggerall"

[Iludium Phosdex]

Fans of the Dylan Thomas play Under Milk Wood may or may not know that the same is set in the mythical Welsh village of Llareggub.

But it turns out that "Llareggub" is "buggerall" spelled backwards ("buggerall" is a British colloquial expression meaning something like "fuggeddaboudit"), and was intended as a sly joke @ the BBC, who originally commissioned it as a radio drama.

Could this actually be?

Joke yes, at the BBC no. It's not exactly a monumental thing anyone can see it's buggerall backwards (even though its spelt llargyb I think) including the BBC.

[llewtrah]

It's the sort of word joke Brits enjoy with no need for it to be at anyone's expense. It's much copied, for example Pratchett used "Llamedos" (Sod em all). My own Welsh-looking username is my surname backwards.

The same style of word joke tells us that "Car park" = "krap rac" (crap rack) which describes some of the vehicles parked therein, while "air raid" = "diarria" (diarrhoea) and when the siren sounds, you could mess yourself in fear!

At school we used to do this all the time.

[Kamino Neko]

[hijack]

'Bugger all' and 'fuggeddaboudit' don't mean the same thing.

Fuggeddaboudit means...Forget about it.

Bugger all means...bugger all. Very little or nothing.

To use an example that yanks might be familiar with... The Galaxy Song from Monty Python's Meaning of Life... would the line
'And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth' make any sense if 'bugger all' was replaced with 'fuggeddaboudit'?

[/hijack]

[Ieuan ab Arthur]

Hi All:

On a slight hijack, I was in New Quay, Ceredigion, Wales this past summer. The town takes great pride in it's connection with Dylan Thomas and says that it is the model for Llareggub. It even has a Dylan Thomas Trail.

Ta ra 'wan,

Ieuan "'cliff-perched town at the far end of Wales" ab Arthur

[ThistleS]

Originally Posted by Kamino Neko

[hijack]

'Bugger all' and 'fuggeddaboudit' don't mean the same thing.

Fuggeddaboudit means...Forget about it.

Bugger all means...bugger all. Very little or nothing.

To use an example that yanks might be familiar with... The Galaxy Song from Monty Python's Meaning of Life... would the line
'And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth' make any sense if 'bugger all' was replaced with 'fuggeddaboudit'?

[/hijack]

Fuggeddaboudit doesn't necessarily mean "You should forget about it," it's an interjection and like most interjections has a range of meaning.

I do agree that it doesn't mean precisely the same thing as bugger all, but since they are both used as interjections it's possible they have some interlapping meaning.

Originally Posted by Kamino Neko

[hijack]

'Bugger all' and 'fuggeddaboudit' don't mean the same thing.

Fuggeddaboudit means...Forget about it.

Bugger all means...bugger all. Very little or nothing.

To use an example that yanks might be familiar with... The Galaxy Song from Monty Python's Meaning of Life... would the line
'And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth' make any sense if 'bugger all' was replaced with 'fuggeddaboudit'?

[/hijack]

I don't think it was intended as a direct translation. But, you could replace "bugger all" in the song if you re-worked the lyric only slightly:
'And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'cause (you can) fuggeddaboutit down here on Earth'

[Jay Tea]

"Forget about it is like if you agree with someone, you know, like Raquel Welch is one great piece of ass, forget about it. But then, if you disagree, like A Lincoln is better than a Cadillac? Forget about it! you know? But then, it's also like if something's the greatest thing in the world, like mingia those peppers, forget about it. But it's also like saying Go to hell! too. Like, you know, like "Hey Paulie, you got a one inch pecker?" and Paulie says "Forget about it!" Sometimes it just means forget about it."

5pts

[Phaedra]

Donnie Brasco maybe?

[Jay Tea]

Here's your 5...

[musicgeek]

Originally Posted by llewtrah

It's the sort of word joke Brits enjoy with no need for it to be at anyone's expense. It's much copied, for example Pratchett used "Llamedos" (Sod em all). My own Welsh-looking username is my surname backwards.

[ slight hijack] Here I was, so proud of myself for getting "Surreptitious Fabric" and the myriad Blues Brothers references in the novel, and I never thought to read the stupid town name backwards! (Ditto your username.) [ /hijack]

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by musicgeek

[ slight hijack] Here I was, so proud of myself for getting "Surreptitious Fabric" and the myriad Blues Brothers references in the novel, and I never thought to read the stupid town name backwards! (Ditto your username.) [ /hijack]

It's funny, when I spot an unusual name the first thing I do is read it backwards, the 2nd thing is check for anagrams! Yet I read a Sheri S Tepper novel and didn't get a linguistic joke that would be obvious to US schoolchildren - "pig Latin" I've never come across pig Latin in the UK. Yet talking backward (or at least knowing some words) seemed to be a required playground skill. One of my friends from years ago used "twenasadessip" to mean drunk, my mother drives an "ovlov" and my old car was an "olop".

[Kamino Neko]

Originally Posted by ThistleS

since they are both used as interjections it's possible they have some interlapping meaning.

No, it's not.

They're not exactly equivalent to the non-colloquial phrases they translate to as, but they have more restrictive meanings than the standard phrases.

Any time you'd use 'bugger all' or 'fuggeddabouddit' you can insert 'very little' or 'forget it', and still maintain the meaning, if not the level of dismissiveness. The reverse doesn't hold true.

[Edit - these last two paragraphs aren't non sequitur - they're meant to demonstrate that the phrases in question don't have overlapping meanings - the non-colloquial phrasings don't have overlapping meanings, and they've actually got broader meanings than the phrases in question.]

While there are contexts that both phrases would be useful for giving approximately the same information, they don't actually mean anything like the same thing.

'How much does it cost?' for example. But even when they both make semantic sense, while the same information is given - 'don't worry, you can afford it', in this case - they don't mean the same thing. If the non-colloquial words were used - 'forget it' or 'not much' - the same information would be given, but claiming the words had 'interlapping' meanings would be laughed at.

[Kamino Neko]

Originally Posted by llewtrah

It's funny, when I spot an unusual name the first thing I do is read it backwards, the 2nd thing is check for anagrams!

Same here.

Well, not all the time, just when I have reason to believe the person doing the naming in the work in question might be playing such games. Comic books, video games, and humour.

[Sister Ray]

Originally Posted by musicgeek

[ slight hijack] Here I was, so proud of myself for getting "Surreptitious Fabric" and the myriad Blues Brothers references in the novel, and I never thought to read the stupid town name backwards! (Ditto your username.) [ /hijack]

Are you talking about something other than "Under Milk Wood?"

Sister "because if you aren't, I've obviously got to reasess what Thomas is capable of" Ray

[musicgeek]

Originally Posted by Sister Ray

Are you talking about something other than "Under Milk Wood?"

Sister "because if you aren't, I've obviously got to reasess what Thomas is capable of" Ray

Sorry, my reference was to "Soul Music" by Terry Pratchett, in which the hero comes from the land of "Llamedos," alluded to in an earlier post. My Dylan Thomas knowledge, sadly, is limited mostly to "A Child's Christmas in Wales." (Gotta go read me some Dylan Thomas now!) Blues Brothers references in Thomas' work would have been odd, certainly, not to mention prescient!

[STF]

I immediately thought of Donnie Brasco when I saw the hijack as well.