Honours and gongs

Question

Please, can someone tell me why national honours in the UK like knighthoods etc are called "gongs". I always thought a gong was bell to summon diners to their tables.

Alasdair Baxter, Nottingham, UK.Tel +44 115 9705100; Fax +44 115 9423263

"It's not what you say that matters but how you say it. It's not what you do that matters but how you do it"

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Please, can someone tell me why national honours in the UK like knighthoods etc are called "gongs". I always thought a gong was bell to summon diners to their tables.[/nq]
This is only a guess, but I think a dinner gong looks rather like a large medal.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Please, can someone tell me why national honours in the UK like knighthoods etc are called "gongs". I always thought a gong was bell to summon diners to their tables.[/nq]
Here's a copy of my response to more or less the same question in AEU. Cross-posting, in this instance, would be easier on the readers.
[nq:1]Things like knighthoods are not called gongs: medals are. If you look at a small gong (not the giant one ... as gongs not long after WWII, but it may date further back. I suspect it's definitely from the armed services.[/nq]
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Quiet part of Hertfordshire
England

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Please, can someone tell me why national honours in the UK like knighthoods etc are called "gongs". I always thought a gong was bell to summon diners to their tables.[/nq]
The dinner gong is merely one common (British) use of this percussion instrument. In some countries
whole orchestras of gongs play elaborate music.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Here's a copy of my response to more or less the same question in AEU. Cross-posting, in this instance, would be easier on the readers.[/nq]
How so? Cross-posting would be easier for the poster, I can see that, but why "easier" for the readers? (Or do you mean "readers" in a sense other than "people who read"?)
When something is cross-posted, I do not go to the other group(s) to see if there are any responses I haven't seen in aue. I wouldn't really care about responses in and to another group unless I were looking for answers to a question I had knowingly cross-posted myself.

YMMV.

Maria Conlon
Please send any email to the Hot Mail address.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Please, can someone tell me why national honours in the ... a gong was bell to summon diners to their tables.[/nq]
[nq:1]The dinner gong is merely one common (British) use of this percussion instrument. In some countries whole orchestras of gongs play elaborate music.[/nq]
Gongs will forever remind me Arthur J Rank.

Rob Bannister

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]The dinner gong is merely one common (British) use of this percussion instrument. In some countries whole orchestras of gongs play elaborate music.[/nq]
[nq:1]Gongs will forever remind me Arthur J Rank.[/nq]
Is he the dyslexic brother of J. Arthur Rank?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Gongs will forever remind me Arthur J Rank.[/nq]
[nq:1]Is he the dyslexic brother of J. Arthur Rank?[/nq]
Whoops! I think I just got gonged out.

Rob Bannister

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Here's a copy of my response to more or less the same question in AEU. Cross-posting, in this instance, would be easier on the readers.[/nq]
[nq:1]How so? Cross-posting would be easier for the poster, I can see that, but why "easier" for the readers? (Or do you mean "readers" in a sense other than "people who read"?)[/nq]
There are several reasons for preferring cross posting in a case like this. News readers recognise cross-posted articles and mark them as read in all newsgroups after you have viewed one of them. So those of us who read both AUE and AEU don't have to wade through two sets of correspondence. Replies get posted to all groups by default (even if you are not subscribed to the other groups), which means that everybody can see replies posted via both groups, so we don't get duplicated responses in different groups.

David
==

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Here's a copy of my response to more or less the same question in AEU. Cross-posting, in this instance, would be easier on the readers.[/nq]
[nq:1]How so? Cross-posting would be easier for the poster, I can see that, but why "easier" for the readers? (Or do you mean "readers" in a sense other than "people who read"?)[/nq]
I used the plural because I assumed that more than one person would read the post(s).
[nq:1]When something is cross-posted, I do not go to the other group(s) to see if there are any responses I ... responses in and to another group unless I were looking for answers to a question I had knowingly cross-posted myself.[/nq]
If you have a cross-post manager in your newsgroup client software, then a cross-posted post will only be visible in the first group of the set of groups, while the same post posted separately will usually be treated as two separate posts and show up twice. Many of us follow AEU and AUE (and some UCLE as well), my newsgroup client presents the groups in alphabetical order unless told otherwise, so I only see one copy of a post that has been cross-posted to the two groups, in AEU. The one in AUE is ignored.

If you have a question/comment that could be addressed in several very disparate groups, it may be wise to post separately to each group, otherwise threads crossposted to all of the groups can get wildly out of hand in any one group because of thread drift. But with what I call "the English community" of AEU, AUE and UCLE, cross-posting simply prevents copies being seen in each group.
I, personally, am not in favour of setting one group for follow-ups, because I've seen on occasions a group chosen which, after all of the responses are in, is not the one that most of the responders were actually subscribed to.

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Quiet part of Hertfordshire
England

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Please, can someone tell me why national honours in the UK like knighthoods etc are called "gongs". I always thought a gong was bell to summon diners to their tables.[/nq]
A metal disk that makes a big noise?
-skipka

Honours and gongs

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