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

And now my two cents. You are right that objections to using for, and, nor, but, or, yet to start a sentance is a matter of personal choice. And you might be interested to know that in Latin it was considered more than acceptable to start sentances with such words. But I am not advocating imposing latin stylistics onto a mainly teutonic language. Though it is an interesting point.

On another subject I read a book, and probably still have it in a cardboard box somewhere, which argued reasonably convincingly that Christ might have been born as early as 10 BC, and have been in early middle age at the time of the gospels. The gospels are silent on the matter of age.

Ben

Ancient Greek is (was?) the same way. Every sentance starts with "And so..." or "Yet..." or something similar. The Greeks were also very fond of the construction "On the one hand...but on the other...". They also seemed to have many hands, for this construction is often used with more than two parts. And every sentance has many clauses, divided with the equivalent of a semicolon. Yet I will stop here; for on the one hand Spike had more to say about Greek, yet on the other hand the other Researchers were tired of reading about it, and on the other hand Greek was not the topic of the thread; and so Spike ended his post.

-Spike A.

That explains St Paul's long sentences, then. A reading from the First Letter of St Paul to the h2g2 Community in one sentence.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review' to 'Christmas Star'.

This thread has been moved out of the Peer Review Forum because your entry has now been recommended for the Edited Guide.

You can find out what will happen to your entry here: http://www.h2g2.com/SubEditors-Process

Congratulations!

Thank you, nameless scout!

Now I'll have to get onto the Editors to see can it be rushed into the Guide.

Rush - rush!
Well done Gnomon

Since the collective noun for h2g2 researchers seems to be a 'drift' I will continue in the time-honoured tradition.

Apparently the romans did not use punctuation, in particular they did not have a 'full stop' at the end of each sentance. So words like so, and, but etcetera were used as a kind of verbal punctuation.

And it sounds as if the greeks could have used one of the Indian many-handed gods.

Congratulations on getting the entry approved, Gnomon.

a member of the drift called Ben

Congratulations Gnomon!

When making this recommendation I suggested that the editors rush this one through and Ashley said 'Sadly, we have pre-scheduled the site for the holidays, but it will appear shortly in the New Year.'

Sorry 'bout that. But I *did* try.

I even delayed making my third pick so I could nab this as soon as its week was over...

- X

btw: You know the drill, this entry will now enter the editorial process blah, blah, blah...

Although this entry will not now hit the front pages until the New Year, Santa has agreed to put a link to it from his page, so it will be accessible. And my Easter entry is on the front page today, so maybe this one will be in time for next Easter!

Thanks everyone, for all your helpful comments.

I thought Greeks did use punctuation: certainly modern Greek does, although it is slightly different from the Roman alphabet. Colon is the same, their semicolon is literally half a colon, a raised dot, and their question mark looks like our semicolon.

Yep, that's Ancient Greek punctuation too. The Romans, if I'm not mistaken, did use English-like punctuation sometimes, generally when they used upper- and lower-case, rather than the great inscriptions which were in upper-case. But I suppose I'm just speaking out of my .

Much congratulation to you Gnomon! Another round of !

-Spike A.