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

Hi bob!

As I've said before, this is a good entry, but it needs a lot of tidying up. I'll suggest spelling and punctuation changes only when they are not obvious, as the sub-editor will be able to pick them up.

I suggest you do the following:

Replace the first paragraph with the following:

The legion was the basic fighting unit of Ancient Rome, corresponding roughly with a modern army. The legions were extremely effective and created an empire stretching from Britain to the borders of the Parthian and the Sassanid empires in what is now eastern Turkey. The first legions were formed in XXXX BC during the Roman Republic, and legions continued to be used right up until XXXX AD.

(Fill in the X's yourself).

when the senate ruled Rome and its growing empire -- empire isn't the right word to use here, as it wasn't an empire until it had an Emperor.You could say "when the senate ruled Rome and the lands it had conquered".

small businessmen left the business to the family to run. who were obliged by law to perform military service as required. -- this seems to be saying the business went off to fight, leaving the business in the hands of the family, but the family had to go off and fight too. I think you should remove the second sentence "who were obliged by law to perform military service as requred".

At this time Rome was a tribal culture consisting of 4 Urban * and 31 * rural. -- urban what and rural what?

and by the 3rd century -- I presume you mean the 3rd Century BC

When the empire had expand to the point a full time standing army became overwhelming. -- Change this to:

When the lands controlled by Rome had expanded to the point that a full-time standing army became essential,

legionnaires -- this should be spelled "legionaries". (Legionnaires are members of the French Foreign Legion.)

The only way out of the Roman army was, death or severe injury in service. -->
The only way out of the Roman army during service was death or severe injury.

and be a field dressing if necessary -->
and could be used as a field dressing if necessary

was made up of a series of a series of units -->
was made up of a series of units

Remove these sentences from the end of the section about the Contubernium, as they are repeats of stuff you've already said:

"he smallest unit in the legion known as a contubernium or an octet, eight-man unit. This unit shared a tent, travelled and fought together. A Contubernium was commanded a senior man with the rank of Decanust."

Can you check the spelling of Decanust please as it doesn't look like a proper Latin word.

This has sometimes caused confusion regarding the number of fighting men in a Century. -->
This has sometimes caused confusion.

"Oporto" should be "optio" throughout this entry.

In the section "The Structure of the Century", remove the last paragraph, the one that starts with "At this point", because all this information is going to be presented in the next section.

In the section "The Officers of a Century", remove the sentence:

"The basic fighting unit of a legion was the century.A century was made up of 10 contubernium."

because you've already told us this in the previous section.

it was the spirit of the legion. * of the Century - equivalent to a Lance corporal. -- remove everything after the word "legion" because it seems to be left over from a previous version.

You use the term NCO but I don't know what it means.

The section entitled "The Maniple" doesn't mention the word Maniple or explain what it was.

The first cohort was the elite core of the Cohort -- this doesn't make any sense. It can't be the elite core of itself. Did you mean to say "of the Legion"?

"The officers of a cohort were, the commander of the cohort the Centurion. The Oporto the Deputy Centurion. Signifier was appointed as the standard bearer of the Cohort." -- this seems to be saying the officers of a cohort had the same titles as the officers of a century. I don't understand how this can be.

Over the years a system had to be developed that enabled the commander to use his men appropriately on the battlefield.
Over the years a system developed to allow the commanders to use the men under his command in the most effective way.

-- remove one of these two sentences

The descriptions of the Cohorts needs to be trimmed down. You tell us about Cohort I three times, and repeat yourself about the other cohorts as well. Only tell us each piece of information once. The best place to do this is in the section "The Cohorts of the Legion".

I haven't time to do a detailed analysis of he rest of the entry (from The Auxiliary Forces onwards). I'll try and do it another day.

thank you for the time and interest in the entry, all excellent points

Hi I have taken care of some of the point mentioned any improvements?

It certainly looks better.

Let me know when you've done all the changes I suggested; if you have a reason not to do them, let me know you're not going to do them, and why; then I can look at the rest of the entry.

No problem with the suggestions just working through it

I think that I have covered the points you were kind enough to mention. Please confirm that the changes cover the points mentioned

Many thanks for the comments and helpful observations.

Thanks bob. You seem to have sorted out most of what I asked but you missed a few. I've also spotted a few new things.


The forces of were organised by social rank and tribal affiliation. -- you seem to have left out a word or phrase after "of".

When the Empire had expand to the point a full time standing army became overwhelming. Gaius Marius a Roman general and statesman in 107 BC -- I don't think it was called the Empire before they appointed the first Emperor, which was much later.

Please change this to:

When the lands controlled by Rome had expanded to the point that a full-time standing army became essential,

The only way out of the Roman army was death or severe injury -->
The only way out of the Roman army before retirement was death or severe injury.

You still have Oporto in many places. Is this correct? All my books say that the name was Optio.

Can you check the spelling of Decanust please as it doesn't look like a proper Latin word.

This has sometimes caused confusion regarding the number of fighting men in a Century. -->
This has sometimes caused confusion.

The paragraph "The structure of the Century" has a lot of repetition. In the first two lines you tell us the officers, then later you tell us them again. Remove the first two lines.

You use the term NCO non-commissioned officer but don't explain it. What is an NCO?

The senior NCO11, in charge of the century was the Centurion rose from the ranks by skill and effort. In charge of the century was the Centurion -- In these two sentences you tell us twice that the Centurion was in charge of the Century. Reword this to avoid the repetition.

In the section "The Order of Ranks in a Century", please remove the section that tells us who the Legates, Quaestor and Tribunes were. These are in the wrong place, and are repeated in the correct place later on anyway.

I've only checked this up as far as the heading "The Auxiliary Forces". I'll look at the rest of the entry when the issues above have been sorted out.

When the Empire had expand to the point a full time standing army became overwhelming. Gaius Marius a Roman general and statesman in 107 BC -- I don't think it was called the Empire before they appointed the first Emperor, which was much later.

Please change this to:

When the lands controlled by Rome had expanded to the point that a full-time standing army became essential,

Done

The only way out of the Roman army was death or severe injury -->
The only way out of the Roman army before retirement was death or severe injury.

Done


You still have Oporto in many places. Is this correct? All my books say that the name was Optio.
Done

Can you check the spelling of Decanust please as it doesn't look like a proper Latin word.
Checking the same name turns up th the church archives

This has sometimes caused confusion regarding the number of fighting men in a Century. -->
This has sometimes caused confusion.
Done


The paragraph "The structure of the Century" has a lot of repetition. In the first two lines you tell us the officers, then later you tell us them again. Remove the first two lines.
Done

You use the term NCO non-commissioned officer but don't explain it. What is an NCO?
Footnote added Done

The senior NCO11, in charge of the century was the Centurion rose from the ranks by skill and effort. In charge of the century was the Centurion -- In these two sentences you tell us twice that the Centurion was in charge of the Century. Reword this to avoid the repetition.
Done

In the section "The Order of Ranks in a Century", please remove the section that tells us who the Legates, Quaestor and Tribunes were. These are in the wrong place, and are repeated in the correct place later on anyway.
Done

Apologies in advance if I missed anything thanks for the excellent editing

So are Decanus and Decanust two different spellings for the same thing, are they two different things, or is one of them spelt wrong?

I have come across both spellings but in the spirit of H2G2 I am happy to go the more likely

I've had a look at the second half of this entry, and here are some proposed changes and corrections:

"It was also procedure that whenever possible, auxiliary forces were often not used in the province in which they were recruited. "

-- It can't be both "whenever possible" and "often". I suggest you remove the word "often".

"This was an important distinction as it enabled their easy recognition and avoided confusion on the battlefield."
-- It's not clear what important distinction this is referring to. I think it is to the shape of their shields but the sentence has been moved so that it is a long way from the bit about the shields.

Please change Oporto to Optio.

"was to recruit leaves from the native population of the provinces" -- don't know what you mean by "leaves" here. It looks as if you intended some other word.

"There were many offences in the legion all punished in relatively minor ways."
-- this says that all offences were punished in minor ways, but later you say that some offences were punished by the death penalty. Change this sentence to:

"There were many minor offences in the legion, all punished in relatively minor ways."

"As engineers were part of the of the of a legion" -- sort this out


You have one section in this twice:

"The Builders of the Empire The lasting Legacy"
and
"The Builders of the Empire"

This is the same paragraph repeated but you've made tiny changes to it. Look through the two paragraphs and decide which you like best, then delete the other.

"There are examples these roads in the following countries.
Italy, Albania, Macedonia, Turkey, Greece, Austria , Serbia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands North Africa, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain and Portugal."

Rather than listing all the countries, you could just say "There are example of these roads in all the countries that the Romans occupied." That way you won't have to worry about having left some countries, such as England, out of the list.

A small but significant typo:

H2H2 --> h2g2

I still don't understand the distinction between non-commissioned officer and commissioned officer and how it relates to the Roman army.

Its the class system in action

Commissioned officers, with Roman objectives explained in a new paragraph, does this help.

Any thought s

I notice you've used Footnote and /Footnote. This means that the footnotes don't display at all in Pliny. This will have to be changed to FOOTNOTE and /FOOTNOTE which work in Pliny. This can be done by a sub-editor.

Now that is something I did not know dose that mean that all instructions such as and must all be capitalised.

Thanks for the update

GuideML tags such as HEADER, FOOTNOTE, GUIDE, PICTURE etc should definitely be in upper case. For some it matters, for others it doesn't, but the standard is that they should all be in upper case.

HTML tags, on the other hand, such as P, B, I, TABLE, can be either upper or lower.

Pastey told me a long time ago that the HTML tags should be in lower case because Search engines evaluate the quality of sites that they scan - if they find uppercase tags, they consider the site very old-fashioned so they list it further down the rankings. As a result of this advice I've been putting all my HTML tags in lowercase for years.

But I see that the Pliny engine translates uppercase HTML tags to lowercase anyway when it displays them. Whether this is something it always did or something that Pastey did behind the scenes I don't know.

So my final recommendation is that all GuideML tags and any tags that you are unsure whether they are GuideML or not should be in uppercase.

Sorry for the long answer.

I understand the difference between commissioned and non-commissioned officer now.

Let me know when you've applied the other changes I've suggested - a quick scan shows that some of them still haven't been done.

I am working off post 31 as the remaining changes to be attended to, are there others not mentioned in that post

The last item in post 27 has not yet been done.