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

I mentioned to someone at choir that I was also in a "virtual choir" - she couldn't imagine that, either. That's more an example of the mentality here, though - normal chatrooms and forum pages probably don't have much of that sort of thing.

No contradiction in my statement TC, you may want to read it again.

Neugen, of course it depends on /where/ you post in slang. The 'british english' deals with it as the topic (call it slang or whatever). But as long as it's a universal topic, you should make yourself clear to anybody who has a common oxford dictionary.

Perhaps I wasn't making myself clear. Slang is just one issue, but falls under the greater issue of using different languages. To this we have two parts; the formal language and the coloquial language. (This is where TC pehaps was getting missled). The formal language is that taught at school and the coloquial is the one actually used. When I say formal language I mean any formal language (German, Spanish, English etc.). Now there are very clear differences in coloquial language, but also in formal language. Take for example the English taught in the USA and in Australia, the German taught in Germany and in Switzerland, the Spanish in Spain and in Chile. And here resides my initial objection: Don't assume everyone uses English as it is TAUGHT in England.

It's hard enough to try and understand alllusions to local events/politicians and the like, but when different meanings of words are added to that (like pants vs. trousers) then it's almost time for me to 'unsubscribe' from a conversation -- that's what I was trying to say.
The 'ambassador' thingy was a bit exaggerated anyway. After all it's /me/ here, and I don't get invitations to official banquets and receptions

How about "representative".

Neugen, I did read your posting several times before posting my bit (something I rarely do - although I should, otherwise it's not netiquette) to make sure I wasn't saying something wrong. Thank you for recognising that it could be interpreted that way.

Now I find myself asking, if even the formal version of a language can be so diverse and misleading among native speakers, where do we draw the line?

Sorry for interrupting the discussion of slang, but I wanted to comment on smileys and backlog issues raised earlier in the conversation...

I totally agree with Lear that smileys can be use d alittle too frequently now (since the new ones have been made available). I have seen some posts made up entirely of these, and they don't seem to add anything to a conversation except that the person posting thought it would be a good idea to test whether a heap of them worked!

With backlog, although I don't think a newcomer to a conversation needs to read two or three weeks worth of backlog, it would be couteous to read the past couple of days to get a gist of who has been there, what the topics were, get a "feel" for the place they are in.

Of course, a couple of days might represent ten or more "dots" on the conversation bar, so it would need to be up to an individual's judgement as to how far back he or she goes to get that feel for the conversation.

Okay, back to the slang discussion

Oops, just reading my post shows a lot of spelling errors - please don't correct them, I know I made them and what they are (I usually read through my posts before committing them forever to h2g2...)

We don't draw a line, or any lines for that matter TC. Instead, we simply recognise that everyone is differerent, appreciate that difference and maybe, if we're lucky, learn from it.

The zeroth law (Isaac Asimov - Robots & Empire) should be to reread at least twice before sending. It is important to realise that any web-based media is worse even than a telephone conversation or letter for conveying emotional content.

Face to face, we have the benefit of tonal inflection and facial expression; by telephone, we retain tonal inflection; by letter, we have the personal touch of hand writing but, by email, we have merely the bare words with perhaps a few of those attempts at emotion known as emoticons.

So, before sending anything, reread it twice. Better yet, get someone else to read it for you and the less they know, understand or like you the better. You will then rarely fall foul of the sin of offensive in cyberspace.

I doubt that anyone outside h2g2 will understand what 'posting to the PR' means

'Picking' has a very special meaning on h2g2, too.

I've been here since May '99, and *I* don't know what either of them mean!

I can hardly believe that, but just in case it's true :

PR is the Peer Review Page, where all the Entries have to be posted for a future inclusion in the Guide (the Queue does no longer exist).

The Scouts 'pick' some Entries from the PR and recommend them to the Subeditors, if they think that these Entries are suitable material for the Guide.

Hope this helps.

I rarely submit entries - I haven't done anything since Peer Review was introduced. As far as my time on the Guide is concerned, it's a very new concept...

About backlog: I've just read the ENTIRE thread! Not that /that/ says much. It's only two "dots" long so far. ("Dots" is another slang term.) If fora get too long, you might want to open a new thread of the same topic, adding "Part 2" to it or something. That has happened a lot.

To add to the confusion, here's another slang term: simulposting. It's when two people post at more or less the same time. About reading before you post, you should also read the thread AFTER you've posted, to make sure no one's made a post right after/before you did.

Hi!
Well,...

...what are 'the Italics'?

Just asking.

P.S.: Is that an overuse of Smileys?

The italics are the PTB.

To be more precise, Mark Moxon, 'Abi, Peta, anyone whose name appears bold, underlined and in italics. They sometimes find time to join in the normal conversations but are kept busy answering questions about the system and administrative stuff.

And the splitting of forums dates back to when you had to spend ages clicking through all the dots and they took ages to load. If you wanted to read the last postings you only had the choice of starting right from the beginning of a thread. This is no longer necessary.

PTB?

I have to admit that I have no idea what that means ...

"Powers That Be"

Sometimes also referred to as the PTWVH ("Powers That Work Very Hard")

Yes Dreamweaver, that was an overuse of smileys all right. A wanton display of emoticon abuse... (just joking)...