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

It seems a bit prejudicial to me to require english spellings. I live in the United States and have written a lovely guide entry on breastfeeding a subject no one else has written on at all but am not sure whether I should even bother to submit it for peer review being that I have no idea whether I've mispelled things using american english, it's really the only kind I know aside from a few basic things like color is colour in englnd. Could somone please advise? I really don't think it's practical to run all the words through a dictionary in order to maybe find out if they are spelled correctly in the editors oppinions. It would take hours and I have a baby so I really don't have that kind of time.

Many people use the site that dont have English as a first language so it does make sense to have a uniform standard of spelling/English to reduce confusion.

As this is a British based website then UK English is the obvious choice.

If an entry gets picked for the Edited Guide then a sub-editor like myself will check spelling, grammar and make sure that the GuideML coding is ok etc.

We do ask that as much is done to check them by the author as possible, but since a sub will go through the entry then any that have been missed will be picked up then.

I agree, breast feeeding is a very worthy topic to have in the guide. If you find you are really struggling with time to do the changes suggested in peer review then perhaps you could take on a co-author that could help you out?

Anyway good luck with it.

*waves* Hi Mort

Hi emi

Another option is you could post a message with the Entry ID Anumber on A1022897 a spell checker with the human touch.

Though, as you've already submitted it in Peer Review you'll get lots of advice about the spelling there.

Emmily

That's a very useful service, Emmily. What a good idea!

Hi emi. You may be interested to know that there was once a plan to make the American way of spelling the standard for h2g2. But, at the time, the majority of Researchers supported keeping things the way the were for a variety of reasons including simple sentimentality.

JTG

The decision to limit the number of commas to three and diberately leave the y off 'they' was entirely mine.

JTG

I'm an Anglophile if there ever was one, but being from the United States, I'm not sure of all of the proper English spellings and language. I know a lot about it, but there are always those few words, phrases, and spellings that suprise the heck out of me.

I came across this while browsing hootoo last night ~ A Guide to British-English Spelling for Americans A1006507 thought it might be useful.

( for the Named Entry info. in the other PR thread Mort)

Emmily

Very good.

And very interesting. Thank you for pointing that out.

Rather reminds me of an Eddie Izzard bit on Dressed to Kill.

I enjoy British English. The spelling, pronuciations, and the descriptive usage. Unfortunately I do not have a British English Dictionary. I will have to check my bookstore to see if they carry a British English version of the dictionary. Meanwhile I am curious as to why there would be an objection to American English. After all, someday, when Canada merges with us as several additional U S States, and of course we set the French Providence straight that English is the only way to go, we may give the British the option of joining as well. Then we will need to settle on one English.

Hey! Steady on there! I'm British & we've spent years trying to get the French to adopt OUR language , to no avail!

I think you must be in league with a certain MS gentleman (BG) - Word UK English is STILL sometimes in americanese - very confusing for our youngsters.

Speaking from an English point of view (excuse the pun) - it IS a very difficult language. There are rules, but they are nearly always exceptions - this makes it such a "challenge" to learn.

Aside: My 82 year old mother - staying here at present - just wanted to say that as the US is a younger country than England, then the language would be more childlike, ie: phonetical. I DIDN'T SAY THAT, JUST PASSING IT ON She loves to stir ...

Hey, I love the mother already.

I remember a long time ago arguing with my "English" teacher that we do not speak English but American. In reality I realize now that we do speak English but we speak American Enlish. I do not know if there are other countries that have bastardized the English language as much as we have. What I don't understand is why we spell words differently and pronouce them differently than the way they are spelled. For example when I read a British published book the word is colour but we use color. We say 'skedjool' or 'skejjel' listening to Canadian radio or TV it is pronounce 'sched ule.' It is not a dialect difference. Our dictionaries say that is the way we are supposed to pronounce the word schedule. Now if it were dialectic then we would change the pronunciation differently than advised by the dictionary. Sort of like a person from Massachusettes would say 'Americer, for American or some one from Texas saying 'all' for oil.

Any way, I don't notice that many words spelled differently in a British published book. Maybe there aren't, or maybe I just don't notice. My favorite -- we turn on a flashlight but you seem to use an electric torch or just a torch. If I am mistaken on any of the above let me know. I don't want to be your usual uppity American tourist.

Thanks, mofolo

I guess I am a little slow. I just realized I was communicating with the same person under two or more topics. Well, me. But I am learning. So bear with me and I will try not to repeat myself. Whizzer wants to go outside and I need to .

Mo

I remember once, I was with my father in London, & a US lady asked us the way to "Lie sess ter Square" (phonetically). We always used to laugh about it, BUT the word Leicester if it was spelt more phonetically would have been "Lester". There goes an example of some of our strange dialect.

I don't reckon there are many pure languages left around the world - even Russia has learned the Englishese word McDonalds!! English is actually a hotch potch of languages - there are words derived from France, Germany, Italy and probably Scandanavia. England has had its fair share of invaders - Vikings, Saxons, Normans, etc.

The universal language used to be Latin, which mostly the clergy learned (to keep the people under their thumbs - but that's a different story!). It wasn't really until the King James Bible, which was written in the English language, that ordinary people began to learn to read.

That makes me wonder about the US - the English went out "in force" around the 17th century & were Puritans - I wonder which Bible they used?? Did they use Latin & find their own way of spelling the spoken word (thereby using phonetics more)? Or did they base spelling on Olde English?

Mo: Ha! You found me out!! Other people will be reading only certain threads so don't worry about repeating in different threads. I log on while my other half takes Holly out for her morning walk - I prefer this sort of exercise

I am taking a sneak break at work. Don't know if you will get this today or tomorrow. What kind is Holly? I found a message above that may help my spelling in UK English if I can figure out how to utilize the site. At least I think it was a site. I'll work on that when I get home. Meanwhile I will also go to half.com for a look-see for what may be available in UK English dictionary. The thing is unless I can process my words first through a spell check I really won't know what words are strictly American. So I guess that is something I really should be looking at.

I remember once a Mid-West newsman said Will a mette River. Had I not spend 9 months in state of Oregon I would never have laughed because it is pronounced Wil lam et. One of our problems here is a lot of our rivers, cities and other natural resources have Indian (Native American) names and German names and French names and so on and so forth which do not follow the rules of any English.
gotta go,

Mo

Hi MoFoLO

No need to worry so much about British English/American English spelling

This thread is on the coversation page for Researchers looking for advice on English usage in Guide Entries that they wish to submit to PeerReview part of the process of getting Entries into the Edited Guide.

If you're writing/intending to write an Entry which you'd like to go through the Peer Review process, great they'll be plenty of Researchers willing to help you with any difficulties with spelling if you find the British/American confusing, no problem

And if you are writing/intending to write a Guide Entry that you'd like to end up as an Edited Entry, you may find <./>Writing-guidelines</.> useful.

Emmily

Woops! I think we got carried away Mo! If you want to chat go to my page & open up a new thread - give it any title you want! Speak soon when I've heard from you.
Apologies to others!!

Hi , if I may shorten your name some. Thank you for the advice. I havn't looked at the Peer Review subject matter yet. I don't think I any thing new or exciting to present to the world. I mostly just wander about in thought, not always making sense and when I do have something to say I inevitably leave out key words or phrases. My boss almost always has to ask me what is it I am trying to tell her when I send a suggestion or question an account. But after reading the Peer Review maybe I may think I have something to submit. That last sentence I just can not get it to say what I want. I really should have studied in English class. I can not tell you what the difference between transive and intransive verb, the use of proper syntax when structuring a sentence, or when I am ending a sentence incorrectly. For a while I thought I had to pay a tax if I sinned. (Old Joke) See, the thing is I have always been hard of hearing and so it was much easier to daydream my way through classes than to try and make sense out of what little I heard. But anyway. I will check it out.

Oh yeah. I couldn't even set up my screen name correctly. It really should have read MoFoLo but I guess I hit a zero on the end when signing on. Mo

I don't know anyone from Texas that says "all" instead of oil. Keep in mind George W. Bush doesn't count.

Hi Mo, most people shorten my name to Em

What ever you decide to do on h2g2, the important thing is to enjoy yourself

Emmily