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

Hello! Your two pieces, 'Quoted-In-Quotes - Blaine Taylor' and 'Quoted In Quotes - A-Totally-Fictionalized-Quote' have been selected for the <./>UnderGuide</.> - congratulations! - and I've come round to 'polish' them.

What this involves is, firstly, me making copies of them which will become the UG versions. While the current entries are in plain text, the first thing I have to do is convert them into GuideML. This may mean a slight change in the appearance, but I'm going to do everything I can to keep them as close to your originals as possible.

I'm then going to do the actual polishing. Now, because these are such distinctive pieces, I'm not going to change anything I'm not absolutely sure about ... and even where I am, I'm going to drop back here to run it by you.

Unlike the Edited Guide, with the UnderGuide, you are in charge.

So, I'll be back later with links to the UG versions.

Right then - here's the first:

A11628641

As you can see, I've kept the layout as near to the original as possible (incidentally, given how much more you can actually do in GuideML, if you do want me to change anything as regards the appearance of these, then let me know).

Three changes: I've put Military Heritage in italics (that's something you can do in GuideML, for instance); I've changed HMS to H.M.S. (since you seemed to put other abbreviations in the same format); and I've put an apostrophe on the end of 'rockets'.

And that's it! (I can see how intricate these are). So, the second:

A11628632

I've again italicised NY Times and removed a set of speech marks before 'had' in number 4 (because that did seem to me to be a typo, more or less the only one).

Finally, I've made the two link to each other - as you'll see.

Lovely work ... I've really enjoyed working on these. They should hit the Front Page in the very near future.

-

Sorry for the delay in replying.

All writing is re-writing.

All editing is ree-re-writing.

These pieces are pieces of a-formatted-larger piece that has only 1-over-riding-intent: to renderingly-define, through the use of examples, all the possible forms of quotation.

The-formatted-larger piece has the underlying-intent to implicitly demonstrate, through the use of a juxtapositional-display, that there is no such thing as a-quote, qua-qua-quote.

Here's a simple explanation that uses a sample step-by-step-movement:

1 you read those pieces
2 in reading them, you re-wrote those pieces in your head
3 you then re-read those pieces
4 in re-reading them, you again mentally re-shaped those pieces
5 you edited those pieces, in editing them you should again have re-shaped them
6 someone else may read what you edited
7 in reading what you edited, they will re-write what you edited
8 I may re-read those pieces, in re-reading them I will re-write them mentally

Nowhere in any of the above 8-sample-steps is there an explicit-formulation of an unchangeable-text.

Bibles are thought to be unchangeable-sacred-texts; but if you go listen to two-consecutive-preachers sermonizing on the same-piece of sacred-bible-text, you will not-only-receive two-totally-different-readings; you will create two-other-totally-different-interpretations in your head about what the two preachers said.

Quotes are like that. They are not quotes. They are pieces of text, subject to endless re-formulations.

I say again: all editing is the art of ree-re-writing; moreover, it is something that should be done without any fear of the consequences; the tentative-editor should revert to just-writing.

Anybody can change anything I write anyway they want 'cause all of my text is profane.

-

Good to see you, EGN.

I agree - to read is to write. To touch is to change.

The policy of the UnderGuide is to do its best to put the reader's subjectivity in control as regards the writing by leaving the object as alone as we can, merely acting as intermediary between first writer and the Front Page.

Which is where this can still be seen.

If you're quick!