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

Entry: Luke Howard, the namer of clouds - A2141498
Author: Pimms Lettuce - U219930

I have fiddled with this for some time, and think it is coherent enough to be in PR.

The linked entry on Lamarck should be in PR before long (I realise the link may have to be lost until both are at least recommended)
I gave up on writing an entry on Linnaeus and just provided a link to te Linnean Society.
Does this need a references section (it drew heavily on one source) or more information in any areas?

Pimms

Brilliant entry etc.

I only have one small nitpick - I think that the quote from hamlet should be in blockquote and italics.

As for references I have mixed feelings on there usefullness, but it's worth causally mentioning in passing "See XxXX (a book or webpage or something) for futher information.

Can't I use the preformatted text tag? I've had a fiddle and found that multiple line quotes with a speaker for each line are not straightforward to format in - how do I replace the tabs?

References will be added.

Pimms

Good entry!

In the sentence which first mentions the Askesian society, it is not clear whether it is Howard or the Society that has written "Essay on Modifications of Clouds".

I'd say "book on" rather than "book in":

textbook in weather
first book in urban climatology

meteorology, resulted --> meteorology resulted

The link to BBC Weather looks very lonely where it is!

The heading "Other Descriptive Cloud terms" just repeats the previous sentence.

Thanks Gnomon

References will be expanded shortly. I may drop the other descriptive cloud types (which can be found at the BBC weather link anyway)

Pimms

Hello Pimms

Great entry

Only one comment ... what about cumulo-nimbus? It's one of my favourite words which I remember from my Uni Geography days.

As I said - good stuff!


F/b

Cumulo-nimbus is my favourite as well I think it's one of those words that is intrinsically funny due to how it sounds.

Question: who were Robert and Elizabeth Howard? Should I have heard of them? If so, perhaps a footnote to explain them to daft people like myself?

I'm not sure how you'd replace the tabs in this sort of pre formating text. I'm sure a guru would be able to help.. I shall attmept to attact one.

*performs a strange ritual, that reminds you of s and scares you slightly*

I read this a while ago and have just looked it over. It looks better. Very good I still like the opening quote

Of course, if I'm here, it means quibbles-

"Quotation marks" should be replaced with 'apostrophes'. There are several quotes and quotation marks throughout the entry, so that should take a few minutes

I agree that the opening quote should be in blockquotes. I'd say that the dialogue should be in italics, but not the character names. Also, the attribution (Hamlet, Act iii Scene 2) should be inside of the blockquote tags (on a seperate line). Generally, a hyphen is used to show it's an attribution, but it's not important.

As I said, I like this entry a lot, and it's probably destined for the Edited Guide Good luck, Pimms

aloonie.

The way the quote appears to me is horrid. The font that those tags use is almost twice the size of normal text. Use a table with two items per row, and give the first item of the first row a width, to separate the speech from the speaker. Italicise each item if you wish. The improvement is well worth the effort, and the spoken text will line up perfectly. The one width is the only parameter you need, other than BORDER="0" for the table itself.

Thanks for all the comments.
Revised early life of Howard to remove some of the irrelevancy.

Lost the quotation marks - I hadn't realised there was a preference for apostrophes.

The initial quote has been reformatted as a TABLE, as that appears to keep the key parts of the appearance I wanted ( for the suggestion OH)

Mention of cumulonimbus rectified (I decided not to mention that it rolls also off the tongue nicely)

Added a bit to the references.

Pimms

'Hamlet, Act iii Scene 2.' under the quote shouldn't be in italics, I think...

Done Cyzaki

Nice entry Pimms.

Just two minor quibbles:-
In the footnote to the proverb, you have 'Sailor' and 'Shepherd', whereas in the proverb itself you have 'sailor'. The leading Capital needs to be the same throughout.

Could we have some examples are the rare adjectives (if that's what they are), as I've never heard of them. What about 'Capillatus' just for me?

You too find quotes overwhelming if done the recommended way? I think they could easily fix that, if they wanted to.

OH

Consistency established

I admit I lifted this list of cloud names from a BBC Weather site, deleting the ones already mentioned, but it doesn't provide illustrations. Should it be left out? I'm not even sure if they are Howard's designations or names suggested by other people.

I don't care either way on the quotation mark/apostrophe, so I've changed them all to apostrophes.

Pimms

In my question about quotes, I meant quotations with the recommended tags, rather than the table method which I you appear to have used now. That 'they' could fix it meant by not using the over-emphatic font.

Being totally stupid, I did not understand your last posting (the one that was only emoticons). I don't like 'em or use 'em, except for .

Entry looks good now.

OH (cumulus cappilatus?)

OH - I thought in post 10 you did suggest using TABLE tags, the BLOCKQUOTE tags don't allow speakers to be written on the left easily.

I changed the quotation marks to apostrophes in response to Jodan's suggestion (though I agree the quotation mark is instrusively emphatic in h2g2)

Apologies for the smiley posting. It is one I picked up from other impatient researchers in PR. It has the effect of reminding everyone subscribed to the thread that it isn't dead, and bounces it to the top of the PR list. It is a little cheeky I suppose, adding nothing to the conversation. Another you might come across is by itself, which is used by researchers wanting to bookmark the thread so they can return to the same place from their space later.

Keep or lose the 'rare' descriptive terms at the end?

Pimms

I'd say keep them.. this entry's pretty good, do you consider it to be finished

Beautifully written. One comma-related doubt:

"Unfortunately his classification system did not make an impression on the scientists and naturalists of the day, not even his countrymen and does not seem to have been used by anyone, except himself."

I'd prefer:

"Unfortunately his classification system did not make an impression on the scientists and naturalists of the day, not even his countrymen, and does not seem to have been used by anyone except himself."