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

updated

Earthquakes happen no mater what the season.

Earthquakes happen in Japan year in and year out, not just on those two dates.

Ruled by an emperor...->not true

Periods layed foundations...->howabout using the word 'era' instead? You mention specifically three, but there are many important eras in the formation of Japan, so I am still not sure what you could be meaning here.

During Showa->technically correct usage of the word 'during' which has two possible meanings. But very misleading, as this was happening in only a small part of the Showa. Why not just say just before and during WWII? That those dates fell in the Showa era is easily findable a few paragraphs above.

Forcing America->probably not true. We would have joined the war anyways, this was just the pretext.

Truman, ->Truman

2nd largest economy->since you seem to be having difficulty switching back and forth between the present and the past througout this article, this statement seems very suspect. Was Japan literally the 2nd largest just after the war, or has it become so nowadays?

Kanji-> The Japanese writing system is not called kanji, it is called kana. Kanji are part of it, as are hiragana and katakana.

grammatically correct-> this whole section with the etymology on konnichiwa is stragely detailed and doesn't seem to say anything specific *about Japan* or connect to anything else. Because of this it is easy to infer from it that the author considers that the Japanese are inferior somehow because they ignore their own grammar. Even Esperanto speakers regularly defy its own grammar sometimes, such an action is rather unremarkable. This is better omitted.

Katakana is used for all foreign words. There's nothing special about Western ones.

Sokka Gakkai is a kind of buddhism. There's no particular reason to separate it out in an article that's supposedly about Japan, unless you wish to describe all of the buddhist traditions, of which it is only one.

devour->DO NOT use this word-animals devour things, human beings eat. Many Japanese are quite proficient with western-style silverware.

comb is->This sentence doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything around it. Are you sure you are writing this and not just piecing it together from somwhere(s)?

You are expressing too many ideas at once in the Technology section. I doubt very much everything listed there has put something notable out of business.

where's the link to the entry?
Nother

A12590462 - Japan - for ease of loading the entry

mate
Nother

Ref 'Technology' section:

'Over the years the Japanese have invented many different products for using all over the world...'

Dunno about this. IMO they're more famous for pinching other people's ideas and mass-producing them.

I used to work for a company that manufactured a certain high-tech product, from stainless steel panels which had to be welded together such that the unit was hermetically sealed.

We had these on exhibition in Tokyo once. In the evening, the exhibition hall was locked up for security reasons.

One evening, my colleague, who had been on duty at the exhibtion, realised he'd left s'thing behind and returned to collect it. As he approached the exhibition hall, which was in darkness, he was astonished to see intense lght flashes coming from the hall. Quickening his pace, he arrived to find a couple of Japanese photographing our equipment. The next year, a Japanese company had on display a unit identical to ours in shape and dimensions, replete with fake hexagonal bolts, to hold the panels together before welding - except that this one was made of moulded plastic!!!

Do the Japs still kill whales for their blubber? I think use the whale oil as well but am not sure about that
Nother

'fraid they do:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4436231.stm

I know they offically only whale of scientific porpoises, but as far as anybody actually knows the only science experiements involved are what happens when a harpoon interacts with a whale.

And of course any whale that was killed in a science experiment has to be disposed off. They tend to dispose of them via resturants

does this mean an animal section is needed now?

updated

Have you written about whaling? I can't find it.

"ka" - should be 'ka' (single quotes = house-style)

Neither could I. I was going to ask F what she HAD updated

Excuse me what do you think posting number 51 was for?

opti

... but that was an hour earlier than poating 52!!

so in my mind it explains why I haven't put in whales yet

Opti, do you do this deliberately? We do try to help, but you would try the patience of a Saint!

I'm not trying to annoy anyone. I'm simply saying whats on my mind.

OK Opti, let us know when you've written something about the whales, there's plenty of info in BigAl's link above