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

ahhh like so
thx v much i will sus it eventually.............

You're welcome, I'm happy to help. We researchers are a very friendly bunch.

Enjoy wandering around the site.

Gods, I'm glad everyone else just hits the last reply bbutton. I was suddenly overcome by hideous doubt, there...

I find that I like to Do Things Properly, until I have got comfortable enough to improvise. I'm not very good at winging it straight off, but then I am an older sibling...

Ancient Brit, though, does seem a bit argumentitive, and, dare I say it, rude. But then, I distinctly remember that it took me quite a while to realise that if I posted what I fondly imagined was a dry witty kind of response, without smileys and what have you, even though I was grinning at the computer and all, it didn't come accross like that always here. Sometimes I find myself now conciously posting something that in my head sounds terribly perky and fluffy, but turns up on screeen with much less bounce. It's the same way, I think, that a Russian freind of mine says he has to make a concious effort to get his voice to make the full range of English intonation (Russian has a smaller range) so that he doesn't sound bored or unfreindly. He says he feels as though he sounds totally overexcited, but to me he sounds normal. I expect AB will get the hang eventually.

What else... OH YES: Congrats on the results, Chris! And you stikll have a year to pull a spectacular mark out of computer science, don't you? It was hardly a bad mark, was it?

And, yesterday I started reading my book again, and went trawling for your chap, MR. My chap rather likes your chap. Why 'Yuk'? Or is it just the navel gazing thing? Personally, the problem I have with Marxist or Feminist history is it is so limiting, and I suspect such determination to stick with an overreaching theory can blind people to anything which doesn't fit...

Yes, that would be my problem too. Oh, that doesn't fit my scheme? Well, then, let's leave it out! The yuck comes partially from the navel-gazing, indeed. I've always rather detested books on professions, written by those in it. They seem to be trying to justify the profession's faults: see, look, we had a reason to completely ignore non-white, non-male history! The other reason I tend to dislike historiography/ intellectual history is because there's just SO MUCH name-dropping. The proverbial , as it were. I keep hearing that sing-song in my head, "I know better than you do."

Thank you for explaining that about the Russian language, Sol. I have a Bulgarian friend who always seems depressed or bored. Perhaps it's the same problem but she finds it harder to keep up the English way of speaking for long conversations.

{[caer csd] No2 son got creditable grades for his A levels and is now beginning to give soemthuoght to his future. As he has got his best grades in Film Studies and Media Studies, that seems the first area to investigate so have pointed him to the BBC's job pages.

Another hot day here forcasted. Summer isn't quite done yet }

Congrats to your son, too. I bet you had fun helping him with his homework (watching the films)...

Even if Bulgarian isn't similar to Russian in that way, Amy, it's hard when speaking a foreign language to juggle all the aspects at once, I think. Plus the fact that pron teaching tends to focus on individual sounds (not, actually that big a deal in reality: does it really matter if they say 'v' instead of 'th'? No. But it's easy to teach) and ignore other areas, which means that half the time they don't know how weird it sounds.

Mind you, I, apparently, do sound tragically overexcited when speaking Russian...

Oh, and MR, there is the name dropping thing, yes. I rather like that, though: bit of bitchy infighting and gossip livens the place up... One of our proffessors at Uni seemed incapable of making a passing referance to the work of some other historian without giving us some little peice of scandal attached to him "Wonderful scholorship. Pity about the drinking."

[Munchkin] I do enjoy reading historical novels. This is partly for the history (George MacDonald Fraser taught me everything I know about the Victorian world) but mostly because, as the rules are slightly different it is easier to suspend disbelief. I've read the odd plain history text (I used to share a flat with a History student) and coule get lost in them for a while, but they were never as much fun as the fition.

Amy - the new s!! Can't wait!

::jumps up and down excitedly::

Talking of historical novels: Tom Holt (who also writes very silly but very entertaining fantasy books) has written a few excellent Ancient Greek historical novels...full of wit and humour and as far as I can tell, very well researched. His first "The Walled Orchard" is one of my favourite books of the last few years

That Tom Baker autobiography sounds interesting, Munchkin - I will get that out of the library soon - always liked Tom Baker's brand of ness!

Oh, and I pronounce them Qui-hot-ay and Huan as well - I've only heard Americans say them the other way......

About regional differences in places quite close together:

Fish and chip shops in Halifax area serve "bits" whereas those in other parts of West Yorkshire I've come accross serve "scraps" (small pieces of batter that fall off the fish - they don't charge for them)

In West Yorkshire a fish cake is a flat thing containing two layers of sliced potato with a layer of fish in between covered in batter, not the mushy breadcrumbed thing you get elsewhere, but in Lancashire (or at least in Barnoldswick ) they call it a fish /scone/ - rhymes with gone......and the fish /cakes/ they serve are the mashed up kind.....

okay - so I got carried away with the details

::scampers away, embarrassed::

(can you tell why P gave me a new nickname: Wafflemeister?!!)

{[caer csd] Well researched historical fiction is as fascinating as the factual stuff, I'm thinking particuarly of Dorothy Dunnet, Ellis Peters (aka Edith Pargeter) Alexander Kent, Edward Rutherford, Bernard Cornwell et al.

Although often well written the 'softer' side of historical fiction i.e. Georgette Heyer, Norah Lofts or hysterical fiction as my mother called it, makes for a good read too, especially in a deckchair.

Prof, well done on your grades, onwards and upwards!

Sol, I remember being told that the Russians shared a similar sense of humour as the Brits. Is that something you've found?}

Mind you 'The Walled Orchard' isn't exactly a barrel of laughs. Black humour, dry as dust, but not 'dico, dico, dico, habeas mea femina...'

I wonder if that is why Brits in particular have a reputation for being emotionless among mediterranian nations. Do you think it might be because our usual way of speaking involves less tonal change?

Interesting stuff.

I always find it easier to pick up pronounciation of a word or phrase spoken at normal speed,

than
if
it
is
brok - no listen - broke - oke - oh-k - got it yet?
en
down
in
to
sep
ar
ate
syl
ab
les.

B

It's apparently hard-wired into the human brain to be able to distinguish the breaks between words, even though there is no real audible break between them when we speak. It drives computer scientists who are working on speech recognition insane. Breaking down the words into syllables interferes with our natural ability to hear the words in the first place.

I find foreign intonation always feels odd.

Oh, and I also tried once to mark my place in reading the backlog by clicking the button to the post where I left off reading. Then when I came back, I clicked the button, and thought it didn't work, so I gave up. I might try again now that I realize you're supposed to click the "this posting" link".

And I've been replying to my own posts a lot lately. For shame.

[LIL]
can't wait for other salonistas to find out how much Amy has been contributing to new schemes of things

*the card flips over several times, trying to wave to Chris*

I did hog the smiley list a bit . But fortunately there's no way of telling which are mine .

Unless you tell us, Amy.

Oh, and I pronounce them Don Quicks-o-tee and Don Jew-ann.












Just kidding.

And don't worry about replying to yourself, d'E. I do it all the time.

I think there may be hope for Ancient Brit. Although I agree, Witty - this conversation would take him a lot of working up to.

[{Courtesy}]

Sorry for the delay. I have been finnishing up training for my new technology. And as it is dealing with routers I will address the rowt root question from a western USian who is in the networking industry.

It seems that only the meaning of the word route dealing with motorways is pronounced root in the common vernacular in Utah. The devices that I work with are uniformly rowters not rooters. Our antipodial friends giggle with mirth when they hear about rooting et al, but most of our commonwealth friends seem to say root.

Confuzzling enough?