World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

(www.theguardian.com)

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Duanemclemore ◴[15 Oct 24 05:49 UTC] No.41845323[source]▶

I learned about conkers when I was very young and read the Hitchhikers Guide for the first time...

"We bust our way into a megafreighter I still don't know how, marched on to the bridge waving toy pistols and demanded conkers. A wilder thing I have not known. Lost me a year's pocket money. For what? Conkers.

The captain was this really amazing guy, Yooden Vranx," said Zaphod. "He gave us food, booze - stuff from really weird parts of the Galaxy - lots of conkers, of course, and we had just the most incredible time."

Of course in this well pre-internet age I had to wait literal YEARS to find out what conkers actually WERE. Luckily my aunt was an anglophile and went there six or seven years later. Before she left I asked her to find out what conkers were for me. When she returned she told me what they were and... to be honest I was kinda bummed out it wasn't something more elaborate.

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1. Symbiote ◴[15 Oct 24 07:12 UTC] No.41845773[source]▶

>>41845323 #

Would the word not be in a dictionary?

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2. Sharlin ◴[15 Oct 24 09:29 UTC] No.41846696[source]▶

>>41845773 (TP) #

I guess it just wasn't worth the effort to check, compared to how easy googling is. Lots of things were like that back then.

3. dspillett ◴[15 Oct 24 09:35 UTC] No.41846733[source]▶

>>41845773 (TP) #

It would, but depending on the dictionary there might not be much, if any, context about the game.

You could get a simple “Concker(n), colloquial name for the seeds of the horse chestnut tree” or “Conckers(n), traditional game played mainly in the British Isles with seeds of the horse chestnut tree” – a concise definition of the what without any detail of the game or its cultural significance (it was a big thing for a short time each year back when I was of school age, and had been for generations).

“when I was very young and read the Hitchhikers Guide for the first time” suggests this was quite some time ago, so further lookups might have required a physical trip to a library, rather than just clicking a link or throwing a term at an online search engine.

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4. tsimionescu ◴[15 Oct 24 10:42 UTC] No.41847154[source]▶

>>41845773 (TP) #

You'd need an encyclopedia to have any real chance of understanding what kind of game it is, a dictionary typically only gives very small amounts of context.

5. pavon ◴[15 Oct 24 16:41 UTC] No.41850413[source]▶

>>41845773 (TP) #

I was curious, and looked in my paperback Merriam Webster american english dictionary that I used through out school and received about the time I first read HHGTTG. Conker is not present.

The big honking dictionary on a pedestal at the high school library probably would have had it, and if that was not enlightening then the library in the closest city that we visited monthly would have good encyclopedias that probably would have described it. But I don't remember the conkers reference catching my imagination, and probably wrote it off as a silly made-up sci-fi word.

6. Duanemclemore ◴[15 Oct 24 22:24 UTC] No.41853751[source]▶

>>41846733 #

This was actually before I started elementary school. Once I did start school I recall looking it up and not finding anything in the dictionaries to which I had access in a midwestern small town - school, local public library etc. I assume if I had checked the big pedestal dictionary in the public library I would have found it. But being very young I didn't think to. When I reread it a few years later (still very young) I just got the context that it was a kids game and moved on. I wasn't ever so desperate to know that I went avidly looking for an answer. But when my aunt went to London I did think to ask so I got an answer.

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