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

Fair enough, must have missed the link.

<<"Should "The" in "The Bible" be capitalised?">>

My get feeling is Yes, although I cannot immediately think of a justification for it

get feeling >> gut feeling

Two words -

Curly apostrophes.



Nice to see you back in PR.

Uch. I forgot how crazy you all were about apostrophes and stuff. Anyways, I've gone through and tried to put the correct apostrophes in. I'm still rather impressed with myself that I used the single apostrophes.

Oh, I'm just crazy in general, nevermind about apostrophes and stuff.

They are often referenced --> They are often referred to

as a concerned parent may ask an obstetrician -->
as a concerned parent might ask an obstetrician

advice to help their rebelling teenager -->
advice to help deal with their rebelling teenager

the United States would have been better off to have started out founding a township -->
they would have been better off to have started out founding a township
(and move the link to "America" in the same sentence)

It is essentially by this criteria --> It is essentially by these criteria

quiet, but steady and strong leadership -- remove the comma

mythologized --> mythologised

through the beginning of the 19th Century -->
through to the beginning of the 19th Century

to cover them all in this entry --> to cover them all in this Entry

They were much worse. -- It's slightly unclear whether "They" here means the Founders or the smear campaigns etc. I think this sentence would be clearer if you said:

They themselves were much worse.

"also he had sex with a goat" -- did they really use the phrase "to have sex with" in the 18th Century? I doubt it.

I've fixed the comma and mythologized things. But to change the rest of them would be sacrificing my style and voice for yours, or for a guide-approved style, and since I have the luxury of not being youthfully over-eager to put more entries into the EG, that's not something I'm willing to do at this point.

They are often referenced -- I consider this a mistaken use of the word reference, which is a noun, not a verb, but this one is entirely up to you.

as a concerned parent may ask an obstetrician -->
as a concerned parent might ask an obstetrician

This is just wrong as it stands.

advice to help their rebelling teenager -->
advice to help deal with their rebelling teenager

Is it the teenager you want to help (leave it as it is) or the parent (change it)?

the United States would have been better off to have started out founding a township -->
they would have been better off to have started out founding a township
(and move the link to "America" in the same sentence)

Do you really mean the United States should have founded the township, or do you mean the Founding Fathers should have founded the township?

It is essentially by this criteria --> It is essentially by these criteria

"this criteria" is wrong. It should "this criterion" or "these criteria".

quiet, but steady and strong leadership -- remove the comma

No choice in this one - either you remove the comma or put one after strong.

mythologized --> mythologised
House rules

through the beginning of the 19th Century -->
through to the beginning of the 19th Century
House rules

to cover them all in this entry --> to cover them all in this Entry
House rules

They were much worse. -- It's slightly unclear whether "They" here means the Founders or the smear campaigns etc. I think this sentence would be clearer if you said:

They themselves were much worse.

Find your own way to make this clearer if you don't like mine.

"also he had sex with a goat" -- did they really use the phrase "to have sex with" in the 18th Century? I doubt it. This needs to be clarified.

Like I said, I fixed the 'quiet, but steady' comma issue and the word 'mythologised', and I've now fixed 'criteria', which you were right about as well. The teenager metaphor also works better with "deal with", so I've changed that as well.

But the rest, I don't think I will change. For most of these sentences, I don't think they are unclear, and contorting them to make them clearer, when any thinking being reading the thing would know what's going on, is doing a disservice to the guide. I just don't agree that Peer Review, or the subbing process (or EF for that matter) should make any attempt to change a writer's style or voice, even if it's just in the phrasing.

I realize that I have a very different view of h2g2 from you, Gnomon, and really from most people. Maybe my experience with the UnderGuide has made me more open to preserving the author's original work, as if the entry was a conversation with the reader. When we're called upon to write with élan , I think we should be focusing less on correcting a writer's style (wikipedia will beat h2g2 in amount of information and uniformity of style) and more on producing interesting entries that people want to read. I just don't care about that style crap anymore. If my entry doesn't get picked, oh well. Maybe I'll put a version of it in the AWW.

But nevertheless, even though I really don't want to, I'll go over just a few of my objections.

"to cover them all in this entry --> to cover them all in this Entry
House rules"

A266131
"We capitalise 'Edited Entry', 'Guide Entry' and the 'Guide', as we believe all of these are worthy of uppercase status. However, use lower case when talking about entries in general."

""also he had sex with a goat" -- did they really use the phrase "to have sex with" in the 18th Century? I doubt it. This needs to be clarified."

I don't know why I should use phrases that were common in the 1700s. They didn't use television attack ads either, it's a visualization of what the Founders' attacks would look like today, just as much as it's a visualization of how television ads would have worked in the 1700s.

"They themselves were much worse.

Find your own way to make this clearer if you don't like mine."

I think that would weaken it. I like the sentence as it is, and I don't think it's unclear. Hell, it works either way you think about it, logically and historically.

I'm not trying to change your style, other than keeping it in line with the House Rules. I also believe that writer's style is what makes h2g2 better than an any encyclopaedia. What we should end up with after Peer Review is a better article in your style.

The entry vs Entry thing is a difference in interpretation of the House Rules which I only noticed recently. I take it to mean that entries in general such as the entry of the Queen of Sheba into Jerusalem, or the entry into the my back yard should be lowercase, but that h2g2 entries should be in uppercase. I'll have to get the Eds to clarify that, because it has arisen in other places as well as here.

So the only thing we disagree on now is the goat thing. I thought that you were giving actual quotes from the 18th Century politicians. That's what it looks like. You've put them in italics and put their names after them. That's why I was disputing the fact that Pinckney said it. If you agree that he didn't say it, then you should make it clear that you are not in fact quoting him.

>>>"I think you need to mention at least once the strange lack of any Founding Mothers."

Why is that strange? There are a few women who dance around on the periphery of the Founding, like Abigail Adams or Betsey Ross, but none did anything really important - due to chauvinistic attitudes of the time. In that time, in that place, I'd have been more surprised if there were any women who were allowed to participate.<<<


hi... i know this is really just a witty look at the nongodhood of some of the greats of early United States History...and a very good one at that... but i saw the comments that there were not many founding mothers... and i disagree... so i thought i would say this... women have always had an influence on things that happen... they just don't always get credit for it... but then, most of their early influence has been quiet and subtle... and wily. Besides the women mentioned in the links down below here... i think its important to remember that there was an indian nation... 7 tribes? from the northeast... who parlayed with and actually advised our founding fathers... i think i have heard that our constitution has many of the same codes of conduct that this 7 nations group had... the point being.. here... is that women had equal say in the indian tribes.. in fact they were the social chiefs... and the men were the war chiefs... so our native american women were founding mothers too.



http://www.heroinesinhistory.com/revolut.html
http://www.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women/time/wh-1700.html
http://www.constitutioncenter.org/visiting/PublicPrograms/ProgramArchives/CokieRobertsDiscussestheFoundingMothers.shtml

perhaps it would be safe to say that if women were allowed a more active role in government, like their native american sisters, our country would have gotten off to an even better start than it did?



and yes hindsight is twenty-twenty... if women did have a more respected status, probably we wouldn't have had slavery or genocidal policies either... hey, we still have all three problems today!!

Mr Numbers person, it would be historically inaccurate to equate the contributions of the women who took part in the revolution to the men. Just can't do it. It's not their fault, it was society's, but it's the way history turned out.

The goat thing... well, it was a joke. I was definitely not giving any quotes from 18th century politicians. I didn't realize that anyone could actually draw that conclusion from the text, since it says "The television attack ads of today could easily be made out of the events of the late 1700s." right before going into them. If that's confusing, I'll add something to make it clear they are visualizations, rather than quotes.

I did find it confusing. Sorry.

If it's any consolation Jodan, I enjoyed the wit of the fake tv scaremongering - a nice way of lightening the tone and finishing on a hootoo highnote if you will. Perhaps you just need to clarify some how that they ARE pretend - maybe it's a style thing. The fact they're in blockquotes can confuse the literal reader.

Perhaps a lead along the lines of 'and before we take you to the live telecast of Franklin electrocuting himself with a kite and a key, we have a party political broadcast from...'

Or something like that. Plus maybe taking them out of blockquotes and italics.

I know it's a faff, but being clearer about the joke may help it come across better

Don't get me wrong, Jodan. I love the style of this Entry - it's exactly the sort of thing that people should be writing for the Guide, and the sort I try to write myself as often as I can.

that's Ms Numbers to you

>>it would be historically inaccurate to equate the contributions of the women who took part in the revolution to the men. Just can't do it. It's not their fault, it was society's, but it's the way history turned out.<<

yes... but not herstory... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herstory "When women in the movement use herstory, their purpose is to emphasize that women's lives, deeds, and participation in human affairs have been neglected or undervalued in standard histories." 1976, Casey Miller and Kate Swift, Words & Women.

just because it is harder to ferret out women's contributions doesn't mean they don't exist.
http://www.thelizlibrary.org/undelete/woa/

anyway, as i said before, this is just extra info for here... your entry is about something else.

maybe it is the title that needs to change? i dunno to what tho...

Hmmm... An excellent read!

This sentence confuses me a bit:
>>In fact, in the case of several of them, the United States would have been better off to have started out founding a township or a smaller country, and then working their way up to getting America on its feet.<<
I read it as saying that the United States were the ones doing the founding. Do you mean?
->In fact, in the case of several of them, it would have been better to have started out founding a township or a smaller country, and then to have worked their way up to getting America on its feet.<-

This is embarrassingly picky of me, but the following contains a redundancy:
>>an angry old curmudgeon in his later years<<
What else would he have been in his later years but old?

This is tremendously enjoyable.

Just so everyone knows, I'm not ignoring this, but I'm going to have to wait for a more opportune time to get into this entry some more... Sometime early this week, hopefully.