h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm delighted that my Sesame Street ending to this Entry didn't get removed during the Peer Review/Editing process.



And I got a picture as well!

I looked at it sternly for a long time, but couldn't bring myself to delete it...



Great little article.

The Apprentice

I'm glad of the humour too

Its what makes hootoo so good

"todays eppisode has been presented by the letters yogh and lamda and the number i"

Nice little Entry, Gnomon! (Though I didn't spot it in P.R., and I can find no trace of a PR thread. )

The Suppression 2nd para 4th line: [spelled]

The word 'spelt' is proscribed only (it seems) by h2g2 - it is included even in American dictionaries.

From 'English Usage in the Edited Guide':

"Please use the word spelled rather than spelt. There was a long-running discussion about it and 'spelled' won 10 votes to 8. Besides, loads of people thought that 'spelt' was a type of wheat. Schpelled and spellted were among the other suggestions. But no, you can't use them."

Time for another vote?



p.s. "loads of people thought that 'spelt' was a type of wheat" Spelt IS a type of wheat! Could this be a step towards the *suppression* of all homophones... with the simplification of English spelling in mind?

Rudest Elf - Publishing companies have style guides that tell writers and editors what spellings to use. It's not a case of declaring one spelling to be "wrong", merely ensuring consistency over several books (it would look a bit odd to switch between "spelled" and "spelt", "baptise" and "baptize" or "yogurt" and "yoghourt"). h2g2's guide is a bit half-hearted, but it seems that at some point there was a discussion on this particular inconsistency.

Another vote would be a bad idea - if we change the rule there's hundreds of entries to correct.

Good entry indeed.

Bagpuss - I agree that it's inconsistent when a word is spelt in different ways in the same Guide Entry - I often have to make the point in P.R.

However, if 'while' (for instance) is spelt 'whilst' in one entry, and 'while' in another, I see no reason for concern.

Incidentally, while the reason given for banning the word 'whilst' was that it "is considered to be antiquated now", the fact is that the word is in constant use - here at h2g2 at least. If the concern was for consistency, why didn't they say so?

My point about 'spelt' (wheat) stands: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/glossary/s.shtml?spelt

"While" and "whilst" aren't different spellings; they're two different but largely synonymous words. I wouldn't worry about both being used in the same entry.

While isn't spelled whilst in any Edited Entries, because I personally changed every whilst to while. (There were only about 50 of them).

When I feel like it, I'll do the same for spelt. I just missed this one in my own entry. Thanks for pointing it out.

"While isn't spelled whilst in any Edited Entries, because I personally changed every whilst to while. (There were only about 50 of them)."

Actually, you'll find that I signalled one or two myself - I try to play by the rules, though I may not agree with them.

"While isn't spelled whilst in any Edited Entries, because I personally changed every whilst to while. (There were only about 50 of them)."

There are four in this Edited Entry alone:
'Who Was Mohammed?' A22691559

It's a lenghthy piece, so I might as well point them out to you:

Lessons In Economics 1st line

The Treaty Of Hudaybiyya 6th line

The Treaty Of Hudaybiyya 7th line

Legacy 4th line

Of course, I might have missed one...

Thanks, Elf. You really didn't need to point out the exact locations, since I use the Find in the browser (Control-F) to track them down. They're all gone now.

Shall I go and ask for this conversation to be moved to EF, Gnomon?

No thanks, B'El. If someone wants to raise the issue of "whilst" and "spelt" with the Eds, they can do it in a separate conversation. In this one, I'm still Delighted.

That's good then, Gnomon - and you're right to be.

It's funny, when I saw the picture, I was confused for a moment, I wondered about the connection between Franz Beckenbauer and yogh

Oh, is "whilst" deprecated? I didn't realise that.

Anyway, back to being delighted.

Sorry about the drift, Gnomon.

Interesting, though, that you should have spelled 'spelled' "spelt" yerself.

Very nice, well done.