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

I noticed that there's at least one Edited Guide entry now about an activist and politician that lists his name with "Jr" in the title. During a discussion about an entry on the famous mathematician John Forbes Nash, I suggested that "Jr" be added to the title of the entry, as that is technically his proper name.

Discussion is at F48874?thread=298926&latest=1#p3833055

Is there any style policy on this subject?

There is no policy on this, so long as the entry's title informs the reader as to the entry's content we're not that particular really. The Researcher has addressed that John Forbes Nash was also known as 'Jr' in the entry though. Perhaps this is one we can look at in greater depth once the entry is Scouted, but at the moment, we'd be inclined to leave it as it is.

Along a similar subject, could someone why it is that Dr. and Mr. are never right? I apologize for not having a book on english handy, but when i was schooled here in the USA, I seem to recall being taught to use the dot for those abbreviations. English was always one of my least favourite subjects, though i can help you rebuild your carborettor for you
"no time for the old chit chat, luv; just come to rebuild the carborettor"
(sorry, i just really enjoy alternate spellings, and requotations)


Dr Missther III

That's one of the differences between English and the oxymoronic 'American English'. The EG uses British English conventions, and we do not put full points after abbreviated titles.

If the last letter of the abbreviation is the same as the last letter of the word, you don't need a stop after it; if it isn't, you do.

i seem to recall being taught that those with the same letter at the beginning and end are 'shortened forms', rather than abbreviations. That may just have been something our English master made up, to differentiate them for us.

Thanx for the explanation, it makes more sense now.

But as far as oxymoronic english goes, however, i tend to wonder if having such steadfast rules will discontinue continued evoloution of our language?

Pickin' up on what i'm puttin' down, yo?

Discontinuing the evolution of our language? Not likely to happen. I'm pretty sure if we look at the way that English language and grammar has evolved, it seems to follow people's usage of the language. Rules are discarded as people stop using them in speech. That's why they used to say "Ain't ain't a word because it ain't in the dictionary," but now it is in the dictionary. That's also why some of us reading Chaucer or Shakespeare need translations to understand what they were talking about, even though we grew up speaking the same language. That's not necessarily an indication that we're dumb. It's at least partially due to the massive changes in language and meanings.

Ain't that a good selection to show the strangeness of language derivation, and how it does or does not make sense. I'm not sure what two words ain't are s'posed to be contractions of, though it ain't no problem getting the point across, due to context. Some words just seem to pop out of nowhere, with no historical derivation clues to follow. I have to admit that I occasionaly find inadvertant mistakes of grammar amusing in very subtle ways, this then causes me to want to leave the mistake. To compensate for looking dumb, I then make intentional errores, just to keep things cohesive. See what i'm saying?

"ain't" is, historically, a contraction of "am not", meaning that "I ain't" should be acceptable. Schoolteachers prefered "I'm not", though they were perfectly happy to accept "you aren't" as well as "you're not". Pehaps some of the reason for this is that people had a tendancy to use "ain't" as a general negative in place of "isn't" which, given its derivation, is not logical. (Not that logic ever stops language from doing very strange things!) A good example is given in your comment: "it ain't".

So,
I ain't I'm not
you aren't you're not
(s)he isn't (s)he's not
it isn't it's not
we aren't we're not
you aren't you're not
they aren't they're not

All are logically acceptable, but some pedants won't like the first. And, as your entry shows, some people use these words differently. Some uses eventually find their way into the standard languge; others don't. More interestingly, some uses are accepted as standard in some parts of the world and not in others. That's where the fun starts!

TRiG.

I'd have preferred to use italics instead of quotation marks just then.

(We can't always have our druthers!)