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

Entry: Abraham Lincoln, the Funniest Politician in History - A87829609
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni - U1590784

I couldn't help it - Awix said last year that he didn't know much about Abraham Lincoln. Which I think is a shame, because among other things, he was America's funniest president.

So here's a little bit about his humour.

And don't believe everything you see in the cinema.

Good read and shows an overlooked aspect of the man he was. Like the kitten story

Well done

Thanks, Bob.

This is a delightful account and Lincoln sounds a remarkable man. It provides a conter to the film which I found, to be honest, rather dull.

I did wonder about the claim 'the Funniest Politician in History', That's quite sweeping. Perhaps we should go running to our history books to see if there are any rivals.

One or two typos have crept in.

The sentence beginning 'He no more fit into'should, I think, say 'fitted'

In the sentence beginning 'He was tolerant of a lot of things', it should say 'accounts attest'.

Thanks, MVP. I'll be glad to say 'funniest American', but only if you find an English one who was intentionally funny.

I'll change the 'accounts', thanks.

But I won't change 'fit'. To me, that's the past tense. I've never used 'fitted'.

Now,let's all have a big argument about strong verbs again...

I like this. I had to look up 'hagiographic', though.

Nice one, Dmitri.

The examples are good, but I found the final one (Shields) not so easy to follow as the others, so it slowed the flow somewhat.

One wording suggestion:

"wildly unpopular with a large section of his own country"

I'd prefer "electorate", "people", "compatriots", etc to "country".

Icy

That's a thought, I'll do that.

The reason I said 'country' was because Lincoln was, in fact, w ildly unpopular in a particular geographic region. See this map of the 1860 election:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=1860

In most of the South, he wasn't even on the ballot.

In fact, it was this geographically-skewed election result that sparked the Rebellion, also known as the War of Northern Aggression.

But changing it to people is fine.

A couple of sentences have been confusing me.

>>That quip – insert name of state – is still common currency among US Appalachian people.<<

Why should I insert a name of a state at that particular place?

>>There is little doubt that the man who had swung a beetle and driven iron wedges into gnarled hickory logs could have cleft the skull of his antagonist, but he had no such intention.<< Who is the beetle-swinger/wedge-driver? Lincoln or Shields?

>>The Auditor's vanity had been sorely wounded by the second letter,<< Is Shields the Auditor?



Churchill is often attributed with witty remarks. And obviously deliberately witty remarks, at that. However, many of them are equally attributed to other famous people (such as Oscar Wilde), so there may be doubts as to the exact extent of his wit. No idea if Lincoln or Churchill would come out best in a duel of quips, though, so I'm not equipped to challenge the claim that the 20th Century didn't produce a statesman to match Mr Lincoln.

Yeah, I was just editorialising there. But I still think Lincoln was pretty funny.

I can't really do anything about those last tow sentences, because that's a direct quote from the source. I agree that the guy wasn't the greatest writer.

But I'm puzzled about the the confusion with the state joke.

There are 50 states in the US. You can make that joke about any state - 'insert name of state here'.

For example, my dad used to saw, 'Ohio is a great state to come from...', because people in ennsylvania teased Ohioans. Does that make sense?
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