DeDanaan

Grian : (Gaeilge - Irish) pron. “GREE-uhn”
an ghrian “un YREE-uhn”
1. Sun
2. Paragon; epitome
3. Grean = (Of the sea, lake) Bottom

Great Green Arkleseizure, The : The Jatravartid People of Viltvodle Six firmly believe that the entire universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called The Great Green Arkleseizure. They live in perpetual fear of the time they call The Coming Of The Great White Handkerchief.

Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster, The : The Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster of Gal. /Sid./ Year 03758 which wiped out all the old Praxibetel communities on Betelgeuse Seven is shrouded in deep mystery: in fact no one ever knew what a Hrung was nor why it had chosen to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven particularly. Ford Prefect’s father was the only man on the entire planet to survive the Great Collapsing Hrung disaster, by an extraordinary coincidence that he was never able satisfactorily to explain.

Gradam : (Gaeilge-Irish) pron. “GRAH-duhm”
1. Esteem
2. Mark of honor
3. Respect; regard

Grá, ghrá, gráigh : (Gaeilge-Irish) pron. “graw*”
1. Love
2. Charity (neighborly love)
3. Beloved person

Government : To all intents and purposes, the Milky Way Galaxy is currently ruled by Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox. However, there are two reasons why this is actually a lie.

1. Zaphod has recently stolen a large and very valuable spaceship, the starship Heart of Gold. This will doubtless terminate his term as President.

2. The best person to rule the galaxy is someone who doesn’t want to do it. The person who is actually in charge is not aware of his pivotal role in galactic politics, and spends much of his time talking to a cat.

Zaphod Beeblebrox may have figured this out, and it may have something to do with point one above, and his subsequent visit to the dead planet of Magrathea.

Goth : 1. A subculture of ancient Earth which grew out of the Punk Rock subculture of the early 1980’s in Northern Europe and English-speaking countries. England and Germany were the two cultural focii of this subculture. Its members were diverse but were characterized by their extreme dislike of being defined as possessing any similar characteristics (and they would hate any attempt at a definition here in the Guide, but since they’re mostly unhappy anyway… this will give them one more reason to be depressed).

The Goth subculture unashamedly celebrated the dark recesses of the human psyche. A fascination with medieval, Victorian and Edwardian history, music, and literature. Dark sensuality, sweeping sadness, morbid fascination, forbidden love, the beauty of enduring pain, the moribund fascination with cemetaries, excessive Romanticism… They also tended to spout a lot of fishnet (more usually on the arms for men) and had a distinctive style of makeup, with very white faces and lots of black eyeliner (for both men and women). Hair was usually dyed black, crimped and backcombed. Picture a room full of morose people dressed in black with white face paint, and you can’t help but laugh… it was a self-deflating culture that, on observing such a scene, would have laughed at itself as the Goth subculture delighted in self-parody and in ridiculing itself.

Goth made angst and depression a lifestyle and was adopted mostly by young under-achievers. Marvin the Paranoid Android, if painted black, might have fit right in. “Ohhh… the pain….”

2. The words “Goth” and “Gothic” have had many, largely unrelated meanings throughout Earth history:
- the name of the Germanic Visigoth tribes that overthrew the Roman Empire. From this source arose the concept of a Goth as an uncivilized person, a barbarian.
- a style of architecture in Western Europe which was popular from the 12th to the 16th century.
- a style of horror/mystery literature that is dark, eerie and gloomy.

Gorm : (Gaeilge-Irish) pron. “GUH-ruhm”
1. Blue (color)

Golgafrincham : The planet Golgafrincham creatively solved the problem of middle managers: it blasted them into space. Golgafrincham Telephone Sanitizers, Management Consultants and Marketing executives were persuaded that the planet was under threat from an enormous mutant star goat. The useless third of their population was then packed in Ark spaceships and sent to an insignificant planet. That planet turned out to be Earth, where the arrival of the Golgafrincham B Ark rather disrupted an experiment designed to find the question to the ultimate Answer. Golgafrincham is also famous for its circling poets.