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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4191545.stm

We knew about that yesterday

Thanks for that. Do you get off on making people feel unwelcome?

Wah! I was only being silly! Forgive me?

Yeah sorry. Over-reacted.

Great news though, innit?

As is Richard Griffiths and Ian MacNeice as Vogons Jeltz and Kwaltz (their voices, anyway).

>> Wah! I was only being silly! <<

As was clearly indicated by your smiley.



But not everyone, especially newbies, will be immediately familiar with the use of smileys or aware of the many moods they allow us to illustrate here. And of course, not everyone here uses them properly or wisely. They are often abused.

In my experience "fords (shut yer hole, ya footpad!)" is usually quite diligent in applying the right ones at the right time, making the best possible use of this communications medium. Proof of this is easily seen by the uses demonstrated in his other two postings here in this very thread.



Please allow me to be more welcoming to "beeswaxy" whose h2g2 homepage is so recent that the h2g2 ACES haven't yet been there to provide their semi-official welcome and guidance. Let me offer this clickable link to a helpful page on the meaning and use of smileys:
A155909


Hey, I'm just glad it didn't come to blows. We lose a lot of good people that way.


~jwf~

It was not Fords fault at all. Although the smiley is difficult to interpret.

I was having a bad day and I overreacted. Of course you guys would have known first, but I was really excited at the casting decision.

Thanks for the welcome JWF and apologies to Fords.

Traveller in Time just finished running by this mysterious 'beeswaxy'
"I guess you are not as new as you look by the number.

Created an account on 6music. . . "

They are not very busy over there.

Traveller in Time online 24/7
"Welcome to the never ending party, we are flying sky high.

Just. . .

'Do you have a towel '

"

Several... i also have a gold brick wrapped in a slice of lemon.

Total perspective vortex
Or have a dive into the (at this time closed!) boards U1201043

Thanks jwf, but 'he' is actually a she

It's a sofa!

There it goes, into the societies U993628 !

Why is there no link to HooToo on the BBC NEWS page?

>> Thanks jwf, but 'he' is actually a she...<<

Hmm... erroneous and unnecessary biological information.
Of course we still have to take your word for it.

Modern sexual politics and correctness notwithstanding, there is a difference between biological gender and the gender rules of grammar. It has been a convention of English for centuries (now under assault from the self righteously ignorant) that when the gender of a third person singular is unknow the masculine pronoun 'he' shall be used.

And in cases where the unknown third person is plural by nature, or potentially 'any one of an unquantified number', then the third person plural 'they' shall be used.


For example:
'Someone broke into my car. They stole the radio'.

While we say someONE, we allow that 'they' could have acted as a singular perpetrator or as part of a gang. We don't really know. Just that it was ONE of THEM .

But:
'Someone posted above. He said this and he said that.'

In this case we are almost safe in assuming that any single posting is made by only one 'unknown and unidentifed third person', and traditionally this person of unknown and unspecified gender is referred to as 'he'.

This antique grammatical function is not about maintaining male dominance in our culture or even of protecting the fairer sex from all sorts of unknown attributions. It is simply a carry-over from many of the languages that make up English. In most European languages every noun is assigned a grammatical gender that is often at odds with perceptions or passing tastes and the source of much humour and confusion for those learning another language.

Thankfully, English pays little attention to the complexities of grammatical gender, but this one exception, where the masculine 'he' is used as the pronoun for 'the unknown and unidentified person in question', continues to be deliberately misunderstood for reasons of sexual politics. Perhaps its roots were established by the Norman/French in the days of knightly chivalry for very good and gallant reasons which are now lost in action by the women's liberation armies.

And not to put to fine a point on it, I did know fords was a she from a prior conversation. But it isn't up to me to make that sort of revealing distinction about a lady in a public forum. So yes, I was trying to be politically correct as well as grammatically correct.


~jwf~

How do you get it's 'unnecessary biological information'? I'm a girl and like most girls want to be addressed as a she. Would you like it if I started getting your gender all wrong? Frankly, you've taken this a bit too far...

Interestingly I (Beeswaxy) am a fine young gentleman, but the person I am in real life is a girl.

I am not sure I understand that myself.