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

I have no idea if this qualifies as non-fiction, or a humourous essay, or what. If nothing else, it can go in the humour section. I was going to keep it to myself, but when I saw an entry titled "The Gentle Art of Screwing" I figured anything was possible. I blame the editors.

http://www.h2g2.com/A500392

Very funny! But have you never heard of a TARDIS? I don't know what category it would come under either and there should be a section in the Guide for stuff like this. It's very entertaining.

I think the reason women in tight skimpy little dresses carry purses is that stuffing a wallet or similar in their back pocket would rather spoil the lines and a back pack certainly wouldn't look very slinky. The limit to what they can carry in these handy little things is most likely determined by weight.

You should proof read it and run it through a spell checker.

Excellent entry, I must say...

One thing, though, that you might consider: shorter paragraphs. It's a lot easier to read if you break up the text into smaller, bite-sized pieces.

Cheers,
Rob

You should add two footnotes:

1. Since the word "purse" in America means the same as the word "handbag" in Britain, you should explain in a footnote that you mean the British type of purse, which in America is called a ... (thinks, what do they call that lady's wallet?)

2. Not everyone has seen Mary Poppins, so a footnote explaining that in the film, she took some very large items out of her carpet bag.

I like it - definitely got potential, but can you explain this to me - viz the last sentence: no suitcase is ever so full that you cannot fit into it one more sock, which means by definition it is empty - help!

I can't see this entry getting by the 'factual and informative' guideline for entries( http://www.h2g2.com/writing-guidelines ) - so I can't see it getting in the guide. A better place would be the h2g2 humour directory, entitled "so long and thanks for laughing", which you may find at: http://www.h2g2.com/A227440

Well written, funny, but it'd need to be almost completely re-written to get into the guide, I'm afraid. I suspect that this thread may have to be moved to the sin bin as a result.

Incidentally, what was so funny about the screwing entry? Seemed very serious to me...

Dear God, I do remember the TARDIS! That takes me back -- one of my earliest memories is watching "Dr. Who" on my Dad's lap, despite being too young to understand anything but the inherent coolness of the cardboard monsters. Dad tells me we also watched the TV version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" but I ironically don't remember that at all. This may be what got me into SF...sigh...
Thanks to everyone who has offered suggestions so far. Two questions: how do you indent in an entry? When I wrote this, the paragraphs were all neatly indented with five spaces at the start, but I notice it did not translate into the actual entry. Pushing tab causes my cursor to move down to the buttons. And what spellings does this site use -- British, American, Canadian? I haven't spell-checked it yet, but I will, and I'd like to know beforehand what I misspelled and what I spelled correctly in one country or another.

Hi! Nice entry, but it's customary when writing articles to organise paragraphs using and tags, resulting in:

First Paragraph
[1-line space magically appears]
Second Paragraph

We don't use indents... uurgh..

british spelling, by the way, appears to be the habit, I suppose because both DNA nand this site are British...
With regard to things like tage for paragraph, there is a lot of help oout there on Guide ML, but one of the esiest ways to pick up on it is to find a page whose format seems right and then change the URL like this:
From:
http://www.h2g2.com/A500392
To:
http://www.h2g2.com/test500392
Then all the codes will be exposed for you to admire/copy/filch as appropriate! Cool huh?

That's a good idea - do that...

you might want to build on it and have a more broad entry that talks about purses and/or handbags as a whole, but what is there is great and, IMHO, does not need to be changed.

I think I'd have to agree with Lucinda on this one -- this entry is a great read, but is not the "encyclopaedic" type the edited guide is looking for. It's great for a giggle, and maybe sparks some interesting thoughts, but I don't come away knowing any more facts than I did beforehand.

Mikey

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review Sin Bin' to 'Purses and the nature of Space-Time.'.

Back to Entry - well written and amusing, but not suitable for the Edited Guide.