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

Entry: The Geoffrey Chaucer Phrase Book.How To Get What You Want In Medieval England,Just By Asking Nicely. - A948099
Author: tom - U207415

Here at last!The entry time travellers the world over have been waiting for!
"The Geoffrey Chaucer Phrase Book.How To Get What You Want In Medieval England,Just By Asking Nicely."
Just a bit of fun,but I hope this entry will also serve the serious purpose of promoting interest in British history and literature,and that it will help to encourage awareness of the English language as a constantly evolving medium.
Regards
Tom

Greetings, O Tom!

This has the makings of a fantastic guide entry, but I think it needs a bit more work. Here are my suggestions:

1. There are a couple of rogue first person pronouns ("I" etc). It's best to remove these, because edited guide entries don't use them - they're supposed to be more generic. There's only a few of these, and it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

2. It's great that you've looked for other entries to link to - it's always appreciated by other researchers when people take the time to do that. Would it be possible to try to integrate them a bit more fully into the main text, rather than having them at the end?

3. Formating. You don't technically have to use GuideML, as the sub-editor can do this at a later stage, but it would improve the appearance of your entry and (perhaps) help get it picked sooner! Hopefully someone who knows more about guide ML will drop by soon - it's not that hard to use, though.

4. I've got another example you might want to add.
"somdel deef" - hard of hearing.

This has got the makings of a great entry!

Otto

I agree heartily with Otto on this, Tom! I like it too!

The makings of a grand entry.

They still pronounce 'you' as 'yow' in the Black Country, you know!

As Otto said, GuideML would help, but even if you don't want to bother with this, giving a couple of spaced between sentences would greatly improve the readability of the piece.

I also agree that there's a good and interesting piece here, though I would suggest losing the opening paragraph about timewarps, the article is interesting enough not to need it.

should not "BESEEK" be offered the pronounciation "besake"? And "GOOD" would be pronounced sort of like "goad" wouldn't it?

and

where did all the terminal "r"s come from? I've never before seen the terminal unstressed "e"s described as being pronounced "er". When transcribed into the International Phonetic alphabet the always end up as "schwa"s (the little upside down "e") which I was taught was sort of prounounced like a dull "uh".

perauentur ane linke to þæs A980624 ond ane mention of þe information contained ðerin.

Splendid idea.Thankyou.
Tom

But seriously, what about those terminal "r"s?

Thanks Otto.
I have amended the entry to take account of most of your comments.Thanks for the additional example.Haven't thought of a way to work it into the text just yet though.
Regards
Tom

Thanks

Double-spacing done.

Regards

Tom

Oh,let me keep the time warp bit,please,please,please!

Yep,thanks,"uh" is much better.As for "ee"s and "oo"s,I will hide behind my statement that the pronunciation guide I offer is "not definitive,or necessarily typical".
At the end of the day,how can we be sure,nowadays,just what Middle English sounded like?And there were different regional accents then,just as now.
"Good" sounds like "food"?Sounds like "woad".Sound like Scots "guid"?Could make a case for any or all of them,maybe.
Okay.Let's go with "woad".

I have given the "r" s the elbow,and added some more waffle about ME pronunciation.

Oh, Tom,

I obviously didn't make myself clear. I was asking for spaces between the sentences, not double spacing. The difference between what I have written here:

and this:

I obviously didn't make myself clear.I was asking for spaces between the sentences, not double spacing.The difference between what I have written here.

It makes it a lot easier to read.

Okay,done that.

I like this entry, it's a novel way of approaching the subject of middle English. It doesn't really need the time warp paragraph, but I don't see any reason why you shouldn't keep it.

The entry shows up as double-spaced for me, which is a bit distracting. Maybe it's just a Brunel thing, as you say you've undone the double spacing?

David

No,I have done the putting a space after full stops. Like this. But I have not undone the double spacing. However,as it is causing imconvenience,I will undo the double spacing. As for the time warp..... Let the people decide!
All those in favour of keeping the time warp say aye (or,yis). All those against,say nay.
Voting ends at 2400 hours,15-07-03.

nay.

Nice
One thing that wuld improve this to my mind would be to have the 'translation' beside the modern phrase, as in:

A329942 Handy Mandarin Chinese Phrases

This would make section 1 much more compact - I'd like to be able to see more at once, wiothout having to scroll down. Also the links would benefit by having their titles beside them (though this would be taken care of in subediting).

As for the introductory paragraph, I like it (sorry anhaga), though it could be made more punchy - could you edit it down?

Pimms

Xie xie Pimms.
The layout you suggest works well on A329942,but I haven't ordered my content in quite the same way,and re-arranging the text on the lines that you suggest,when I tried it,seemed to be causing more problems than it solved.So I will leave things as they are,pro. tem.
Apologies to anyone who finds the scrolling down an inconvenience.