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

There are 4 main definitions as follows

1) Professor Bart Jan Bok (1906 - 1983) was a noted astronomer whose name has been immortalised with the Bok Globule. This is a small, dark cloud of stellar gas and dust which is in the process of condensing into one or more stars. Bok's work was dedicated to understanding and promoting the structure of the Milky Way.

2) The Bok Tower in central Florida is the centre piece of a large expanse of carefully sculpted gardens. It is 205 feet tall and is also home to a 57-bell carillon1. The gardens were developed by the Dutch writer and humanitarian Edward William Bok (1863 - 1930) who was a Pulitzer Prize winner and established the American Peace Award.

3) The Bristol Orienteering Klub, England was formed in 1971. Its purpose has been to promote the activity of orienteering in the local area and it currently represents one of the largest clubs of its kind in the United Kingdom. It is a member club of the South West Orienteering Association.

4)A bok is a type of Chinese vegetable - more precisely Bok Choy2. It looks like a cross between a stick of celery and a leek. It usually consists of several spoon-shaped, white stems with tightly clustered, dark green leaves at the top. It is available all year round in the Far East.

And some other mentions, though sadly not defined in any detail are:

- The wonderfully named Edward Bok who said that, "five hours brainwork was the most we could expect of our children", and hence campaigned against homework.

- The alien Bok that the brave Doctor Who fought against in his long campaign to save the from all manner of nasties (sadly the BBC commissioning editors got The Doctor in the end )

- And finally our very own, but dear departed, researcher Bokchoy.

GD, I haven't been able to find any posts where researcher Bokchoy is called Bok! :-/ And the Doctor Who Bok is a gargoyle, as you can read in http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F53750?thread=80689 In the same thread you can see that bok is the Afrikaans/Dutch word for goat, also used in the names for a number of antelopes (Springbok, Gembok). And there's the bok-bok game, the Monty Python papperbok, and the sound effect! It's probably the sound effect that is used in http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F46305?thread=81250&post=677565#p677565 ;-) It's also mentioned that bok is Norwegian for book. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F78818?thread=148116 (There are two kinds of written Norwegian: Nynorsk and Bokm�l. Read about it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F74799?thread=134428&post=1324295#p1324295 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F38024?thread=121354&post=1090605#p1090605) Four types of Bok: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A436321 Homework matters: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A593192 The Who's Who of Doctor Who: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A215993 Well, I think you should both have a ! :-D