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

Entry: Women And Children First - A25605146
Author: SWL™ ' - U1775547

An interesting historical snippet?

Nice.

There's some EG style to tidy up, but content wise I think it's just fine

If noone else comments on EG style I'll come back later

Although, I have to admit, w*k* offers more

Hah! Does Wiki name all 638 people involved?

This is a worthwhile contrast to the more familiar Titanic story.

Some corrections:

14th April 1912 -> 14 April, 1912

Add a comma after 'to come out of the disaster'

Add a comma after '138 ship's officers and crew'

26th February -> 26 February

one hundred soldiers -> 100 soldiers

thirty meters -> 30 metres

Four hundred and forty five men -> 445 men

One hundred and ninety three people -> 193 people

Add a comma after 'became known as the Birkenhead Drill'

Put a colon instead of a comma before the Kipling quotation

'The women and children were loaded into the boats and rowed to safety. At this point Captain Salmond ordered ‘every man for himself’ and the horses were cut free to try and swim the two miles to shore. However, Lieutenant-Colonel Seton of the 74th Foot immediately ordered the men to stand fast. He knew that hundreds of men trying to climb into the boats would swamp them and the women and children would be drowned...'

The first sentence of this implies that the women and children had already reached safety; however the rest of the passage conflicts with this.

Suggest a re-phraing of the first sentence

Perhaps:

The women and children were loaded into the boats and rowed to safety
-->
The women and children were loaded into the boats and started to be rowed to safety

Good Entry, by the way

or:

'The women and children were loaded into the boats ready to be rowed to safety.'

As far as I understood it, the boats were underway - it's just that the men would probably have caught up and tried to drag themselves out of the water.

So perhaps:

The women and children were loaded into the boats and, once they were underway, Captain Salmond ordered ‘every man for himself'...'

That looks good to me

So I've changed it

Over 400 men died swimming in shark infested waters... just out of curiosity, how many from sharks, and how many from exhaustion?

Here's a question for the entry: why women and children first?

And how many sharks died from exhaustion?

Nothing to critique, I like it.

>>Here's a question for the entry: why women and children first?<<

I would guess that women and children were first because they would be considered weaker and less likely to be able to fend for themselves, leaving them behind would be equivelant to sentencing them to death; while the men - especially the troops - would be the most likely to make their own way.

Nice idea for an entry. If you could expand the phrase's history a bit more, it would make for a more complete piece. As it is now, it's more about one particular ship than anything else.

I think delving into the idea of *why* women and children went first would be worthwhile. Perhaps the other historical occasions when it is recorded as having happened, and maybe even when Hollywood first took the phrase over. I assume "Titanic" wasn't the first movie?

These are just suggestions for you to look into, if you haven't. If there's nothing up those alleys, or others, it's a tidy, illuminating little entry

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