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

Entry: HRH Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. - A5769985
Author: Galaxy Babe - U128652

(for the Scouts)



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Removed.


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It was difficult to word as Anne wasn't born to a reigning monarch, as the two younger princes were, but I've reworded it to include her.



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I have to disagree, Charles has stated he wants to be known as Defender of the Faiths. That is relevant to the entry on him.



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Removed



<> When referring to a couple who are both HRH the title changes to "TRH" - Their Royal Highnesses. That is what Charles & Camilla are called on Buck House's website and also Charles's official website. So I can only assume that is what Elizabeth & Philip were called "TRH" before she became Queen. But I wasn't born then, so I stand to be contradicted.



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Changed.



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On a tour of Australia, Prince Charles and Princess Diana insisted they take the infant Prince William with them>>
Changed.



Punctuation: all done.
Typos done.
mis-spelling done.
h2g2 Style: done (although I am sure I have been told to remove commas in dates before)
<<The list of the prince's books does not need the and tags around each element, as they are single lines>> Done, although I am sure I have been told to "space out" lists, just recently.



<> I am really struggling with the word to describe Dodi. I think of "partner" as someone you live with but aren't married to. I have put boyfriend for now, until someone can suggest a better word. I put 'special friend' for Camilla because Charles has loved her for so long, I can't bring myself to call her his mistress.


Re: Post 20, not sure whether you're joking about the pearl, I will elaborate on Charles's view of modern architecture.

Thanks for the review Gnomon

Thanks Demon Drawer, added your points.

Azara - <>

We will have to agree to disagree, as I believe she will be crowned Queen alongside Charles. **As the law stands** when Charles becomes King, Camilla, as his wife, automatically becomes Queen Camilla, whether or not she is crowned. They will be known as TM the King and Queen.

I will remove it though, as you say it's in the entry on their romance.

Now I never knew about the 'TRH' tag. Might you be able to explain this in the entry, as it does appear somewhat confusing... Cheers!

Paully

Thanks for all those changes, GB. I wasn't joking about the pearl, but I did get it wrong. For reference, a carbuncle means (a) a red precious stone and (b) a type of sore which sometimes oozes pus.

No problem Gnomon, I appreciate everything you do for my entries (not just mine!) and I will add some more about Prince Charles's love of modern architecture
I was always under the impression a carbuncle was something which grew unbidden, like a barnacle on a ship's hull, below the waterline, maybe it's a dialect thing

By the way should I use the word "repatriate" in reference to Charles collecting Diana's body and escorting her on the journey from Paris? It really was unprescedented, it should have been her brother doing that job.

Paully, I will make the reference to "TRH" quite clear

A little apology here - when I suggested that including material from other entries being bad form, what I meant was that simply repeating the sections word for word was bad form, but that a reworded reference was perfectly okay if it means the entry makes more sense with the material included. Sorry if I just confused matters there.

On House Style, the commas in dates thing has been the done thing for at least as long as I've been here.

For lists, we include tags if the information within the tag is longer than a few words. So, a book title should be okay without tags, while anything more than about six or seven words should be within tags as well. However, if it means that you have a lot of lists, but only one of them doesn't have tags, you might choose to include them for the sake of uniformity.

And yes, we frown upon tags when they're used to break up the page in place of tags. However, it's okay to use them in addresses or lines of poetry / lyrics.

TRH - this should be spelled out Their Royal Highnesses in the first paragraph as it does seem to be causing confusion.

I think this is is impressive, but it will need another revision really. Some of the 'paragraphs' seem a little random and unconnected, so there are large sections that could do with either joining up or pruning out. An easier way to do this would be to look at each line or section and work out its place chronologically or thematically. Question why you've incorporated it there and whether it might be better suited somewhere else. For instance, the line about his maiden speech seems to come from no-where.

I'm sure you know that a topic this huge is going to take a fair bit of time to get 'right', so I hope you're not put off by the comments here. I'm just doing the usual trick of doing one wave of comments that can be fixed now.

This might be an entry that would benefit from a more chronological point of view though. Family, School life, Military Service, The Royal Wedding, Charles and Diana, Marriage Breakdown (ending in the references to Diana's death) and Remarriage. Then anything that hasn't been covered could be added to the final round-up section.

A teensy bit more could be made of his love oft he Goons. He was fan enough to make his own spoof film while in the air force (where he showed himself capable of a confident impression of one of Spike Milligan's characters) and later leapt to write a letter of congratulations to Spike when he was given a lifetime achievement award (a letter Spike responded to by calling him a 'grovelling little s**t').

One other thing - I really feel uncomfortable with the use of the term 'love life' in an entry on this subject. It's too intrusive realy. hat paragraph could be used to introduce the section on his first marriage, to explain how his batchelor lifestyle caused concern to the State, who felt that as heir apparent he must provide an heir.

Might be worth mentioning that The Old Man of Lochnagar was illustrated by paitingins by the Prince as well as the writing.

Ref Gnomon's comment:

Dates should be in the following format: 12 December, 1960. Note the comma after the month'.


Like GB, I'm sure somebody recently asked me to remove the comma in the date. I remember this because I would naturally always put the comma just there.

(Paully/Jimster: I think there's a case for PRers not to suggest changes in punctuation relating to House Style, as it just causes confusion. Apart from obviously having the info in the Writing Guidelines, I think incorrect use should be left to the Editors to correct - unless a PRer has a 'special badge' to indicate that (s)he is qualified to comment on House Style).

I'm baffled as to why anyone would say we don't put commas in when we do - and the Writing Guidelines say as much.



Whatever, they were wrong to say that.

Sip[s the chmapers while Jimster ain't looking

Big Al, have you ever known me to give wrong advice with respect to punctuation?

GB, there's a sentence in this which is completely out of place:

Prince Charles made a maiden speech ...

It describes events in 1974 and is in a section about Charles and Camilla being happily married in 2005.

independant --> independent

Add a full stop after: was decorated by them

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Gnomon, what Big Al was saying is that "someone" has been giving us wrong advice about punctuation in PR threads..

I know it wasn't you, and I spent most of yesterday going through old PR threads trying to find the person responsible, so they could be told nicely to desist.

I am still looking, as I need to know for myself, as much as to stop the wrong information being thrown around.

Now Jimster has been here and verified that dates should be posted as:

4 October, 2005

then we have had the situation clarified.

Onto this entry, I'm sorry I didn't get back to it yesterday after all the comments, I will get back to it, it looks odd because I'm trying to shift the information into a chronological order and it's always a killer for me. But worth it.

So post your thoughts and I'll give this a go next, I know it's a biggie Jimster and I intend to do it justice. There's a lot of info I need to replace, and stuff to add.

As it's Tuesday, I'm taking my mother to the Senior Screen so I'm offline. TTFN

GB

'Big Al, have you ever known me to give wrong advice with respect to punctuation?'.

No, I think you're one of the people who should have the special badge to say they're qualified to comment on House Style w.r.t. punctuation.

Well, I have my 100 Entries badge. But then again, so does Demon Drawer, and I wouldn't trust his advice on punctuation since he is dyslexic.

*mumbles something about Sub-Editors being the ones who should pick up on silly comma placement and so forth before an Entry goes 'live' to the EG, not Peer Reviewers *

Scuse me, mouthful of

Did I see mention of HRH's literature, particulalry the Old Man of (that scottish lake I can't pronounce)??

Ah, what a brill story! Best work Charles has done in IMHO

'mumbles something about Sub-Editors being the ones who should pick up on silly comma placement and so forth before an Entry goes 'live' to the EG, not Peer Reviewers'

Agreed, I think PRers should comment only on errors of fact, or to provide additional specialist info. They should not be commenting on style, grammar, punctuation (unless, as I say, they are accredited to do so). That should be the role of sub-editors/Editors).

I thought it had been the PR ideal for a long time now that we should fix as much as possible. I know that years ago the sub-editors got very fed up of entries being recommended with a fairly blithe "Oh, the sub-ed can fix that!" when they were still riddled with small errors. As far as I'm concerned, the less work for the sub-editors the better.

On the other hand, I think it's important to get the big issues out of the way first, so I usually wouldn't query typos etc. until the entry is otherwise nearly ready.

This is a digression--when GB tells us she's made the latest changes I'll have another look at the entry. (And for GB who is always so conscientious about listing changes--it really makes reviewing much easier!)

Azara

'I thought it had been the PR ideal for a long time now that we should fix as much as possible'.

Well, the point is that much of the advice from PRers has degenerated into a form of Chinese whispers, with people giving 2nd hand advice such as, "I was told to do such and such on my Entry, so I suggest you do the same" - and in the end, it's often wrong advice.

Nope, I feel that only certain accredited people should be giving advice on House Style.

Does anybody actually read the Style Guide when writing entries? It's at A266131.

I always read the style guide, but since I'm a sub-ed I've practically memorised it. Speaking from the subbing perspective, I don't mind having an entry with a few small errors - I'm reading the entry much more carefully than I do when I'm just commenting in PR, so I'm bound to find more errors when doing a subbing job. Contrary to what everyone seems to think about subs, I actually prefer bad GML to no GML at all, because it's far easier to go through and fix that way. I find an entry that's all done in HTML, with links and everything, much less of a pain than one with no markup, for example.

What would make my life easier the most is if what got fixed in PR was the organisation - making sure that the chunks the entry is split up into make sense and that, for example, it moves in a chronological order or is factually clear. That's the most important bit to get done.

But if the entry still hasn't been recommended and you've fixed all that, why not work on punctuation. It's not hurting anyone, after all.