16 Feb 2009
Your clinching Hudson Ford discography
One of the classic Half Man Half Biscuit titles. Styx Gig (Seen By My Mates Coming Out Of A) is probably a feeling we’ve all felt at one time or another. The lazy sods at the national dailies have all lifted a story today from the HMHB-approving Word magazine about Gerry Rafferty having disappeared. He was in Stealers Wheel, who shared a drummer with Strawbs, you know. Now who’s the reigning county champion huh? Thanks to gNick, Jon F and Martin
See lyrics to Styx Gig (Seen By My Mates Coming Out Of A)
18 Letters Sent:
Charles Exford
Doesn’t feel right just getting stuck right in with the pedantry Chris, so may I just paraphrase Styx themselves and say:
“Whenever I get weary and I’ve had enough, feel like giving up, you know it’s your site, Chris, giving me the courage and the strength I need to get through the day”.
Ah.
Down to business, then: that’s not how I would spell “kecks”; it’s not how I’d spell “stripy” either, but Dictionary Corner tells me that yours is a perfectly acceptable alternative.
Exford.
Feb 16th, 2009
Bill Stow
Ah – the Strawbs. Formed by Dave Cousins and Tony Hooper. Had both Sandy Denny and Rick Wakeman as members in the early days before Hudson and Ford came along. One suggested change to the lyrics. The band Hudson Ford were hyphenated (it wasn’t terminal) so should read Hudson-Ford. Rod Coombes who was the shared Stealers Wheel drummer replaced Hudson in Strawbs having previously been in Juicy Lucy. It’s a short step from pedantry to trivia.
regards
Bill
Feb 16th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
@Exford: Yeah, kecks is preferable of course, thanks. I thought I’d do the “how many Google results” test for “stripey” and “stripy”, and would you believe, they come out almost identical. So I’ll stick with stripey.
@Bill: I actually went to the effort of looking up Hudson Ford on Wikipedia to check the hyphenation, and it didn’t have one! So intrigued, I’ve now found their record sleeves, and we find “Hudson & Ford”, Hudson-Ford”, “Hudson Ford” and “Hudson/Ford”! What’s a pedant to do, eh?
Feb 16th, 2009
Neil G
I think I would plump for ‘keks’. I’ve just done a search on Google for ‘keks’, which gave over 2 million references. ‘Kecks’ got only 138000. Perhaps ‘keks’ means something in another language, which gives it more entries. I don’t know. I like the look of keks though.
Feb 17th, 2009
Poolio
I’ve worn “keks” all my life and I lived in L40 for a good period of that!
It’s just not a C word!
Feb 18th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
And the results from the Google jury are:
Stripey kecks = 13
Stripey keks = 5
Stripy kecks = 1
Stripy keks = 1
So on the Stephen Fry-approved basis that whatever people use is the correct usage, we go for “stripey kecks”. One thing’s for sure, this page will be number one on Google for all versions of the phrase soon.
Feb 18th, 2009
Charles Exford
Sigh – not so much at the idea of you all Googling rather than asking a good dictionary (which as a language teacher does grate a bit), but even more at your citation of Wikipedia’s main rival as the fount of all knowledge these days – Stephen “I’m dead good at reading and taking notes for the Dave generation (and so are my researchers)” Fry. He’s right, of course, but it’s just getting annoying how oft-cited he is as the paragon of cleverness, just because that’s what the format of his vehicle is designed to showcase.
“Whatever people use” has increasingly formed the database of most modern dictionaries and grammar books for the past 15 years, and it’s nice that Stevie has picked up on what most of us (the non-fudd-duddies in the English language biz) have been arguing for decades. Fry used to be more of a fuddy-duddy himself, so it’s nice that he’s come round.
The Oxford English Dictionary computer, for example, scours usage ravenously, including the internet – and takes a certain percentage of mis-spellings into account of course. If a particular mis-spelling becomes commonly used in reasonably educated varieties of English it will become an accepted alternative. The mis-spelling “keks”, for example, does not yet seem to fall into that category, whereas the acceptable variant “stripey” does. Newspaper articles that apear in a Google search using “keks” are from the Mirror and Metro – say no more. Well OK, I will say more – as an example of their editing within the last year I’ve read the words “should of” in the sports pages of both those papers (usually as in “XXXX should have made it two/extended their lead/etc” ), but it doesn’t mean that particular execration will get in the grammar book.
Unfortuately the OED online edition would set you back £200 a year to subscribe and use, but the Concise Oxford at http://www.askoxford.com is a decent resource based on its database. Check it out for “kecks” and “stripy” -also “stripey” – under the entry for “stripe”).
Unfortunately a regional word like “jarg” does not yet appear in the dictionary (bit like this site really, then
). It won’t be long I’m sure, but meanwhile, I suppose the researcher could always Google.
[It's at moments like this when I realise why I latched onto the pompous persona of "Charles Exford" within hours of "Achtung Bono" hitting the streets. An ideal figurehead for a career in interweb pedantry.]
Feb 18th, 2009
Neil G
Charles,
I did look at several online dictionaries for both words. Both spellings were used. That’s why I did the Google count – to see which was more commonly used. I wouldn’t dream of grating you.
Feb 18th, 2009
Blue Badge Abuser
Keks means “biscuit” or “cake” in German, which might explain a handful of the 2 million references, and also provides a neat link back to the whole “biscuit” thing.
Feb 27th, 2009
Charles Exford
And the transmogrification of the English plural “cakes” into the German single “ein Keks” is a dreadful warning from history that we may be forever stuck in English with the nauseating distortion of the Italian plural that is “a panini”.
Feb 27th, 2009
Tonto's Expanding Waist Band
Quite apart from all the striped trouser debate (still raging on?), I’ve always heard the very first word as “Strops”… after all, a strop is what I’d be throwing if I’d been spotted by my mates sneaking out of a dodgy Wuss-Rock nostalgia fest instead of been seen arriving fashionably late at our cred-assured watering hole (“I got a free ticket from me sister, honest!”) Just a thought…
Aug 15th, 2009
Dave F.
Oh dear,
Tonto, you need to read Bill’s post from back in Feb. or…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Ford
Aug 16th, 2009
Tonto's Expanding Waist Band
Point taken! Next time I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t oughta, I’ll say “OK guys, I’ve been Strawb’d!”
Aug 16th, 2009
Tonto's Expanding Waist Band
Whether it’s Strawbs or strops in the ear of the listener, it’s all about the grin on your face as the lyrics evoke imagery of humourous episodes in life in the way only HMHB can – we can’t be stern-faced all the time! Apologies in advance if I irk any purists out there…
Aug 19th, 2009
simon smith
As regards the Strawbs/strops debate; for as long as i can remember the word `strawb` has been indicative of a blush, as in strawberry. In the same way as `Jimmy Hill` or `chinny reckon (or reck-ON) was used as for any whiff of bullshit, `strawb` was used for any hint of embarrassment. Given the following line about `you have embarrassed me with your clinching HF discog`, I think it must be (Ss)trawb.
Oh, and it is Striye Pecheks, tricky right winger for also ran Rhodesian side, Burnleyarejizzfarts. He was briefly popular in the 1946 World Cup in Martinique.
Aug 22nd, 2009
Tonto's Expanding Waist Band
Striye Pecheks eh? Nice one! And here’s me thinkin’ Hudson Ford was Harrison’s musical brother!
Aug 24th, 2009
Ben
Is the “Do it!, Do it!” chant, a piss take of the Judas Priest (and others), incitement to commit suicide by pre-Columbine tits, farrago?
The term “do it!” was supposedly hidden as a message when one of the songs was played backwards, or summat.
Apologies for this rather tenuous snippet. Confession time, whilst a long standing devotee since HMHB first appeared, I only got my hands on ‘Godcore’ at the Sheffield gig.
Dec 7th, 2009
simon smith
I always hoped it was a delightful throwaway ref. by NB, I still hope it is.
I have never mentioned it to anyone (much like the twelve minute aberration behind Preston Mill with the girl who looked like Craig Short) as we HMHB fans can be accused of reading too much into these things, can`t we? *looks askance at self in mirror and others through webcam*
Dec 11th, 2009
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