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

If you really want this guide to be a true guide of earth and its many facets, then I am afraid we reserchers from non english speaking countries can't quite live up to perfect spelling and the effortless use of commas and periods.
I hope this is o.k. Especially since there are probably some very brilliant minds out there that are just not at their best writing picture perfect english.
The entries themselves however, might contain very useful information, despite poor language skills.
I'm Danish by the way and I will of course do the best I can.
Dr.Wolf

You are not the only one with problems on the spelling and grammer. Some of us have really bad problems like dysgraphia, or dyslexia, which wouldn't be a problem if we could get a decent spell checker, but most of the american ones seem to think that having a "british" grammer means that you still want the american ones to be correct as well. That is NOT the way to do it!!!

You make an excellent point. Good grammar and spelling are something worth striving for mainly because they help to ensure good communication of ideas... but the most important thing should always be the ideas. In the h2g2 community there are many Researchers for whom english is a second language. Their skill with written english varies considerably. Yet all of them are valued for their contribution to the Guide. Many of the rest of us only wish there was another language we could claim to be more proficient in.

Unfortunately, having to write in english does place some Researchers at a disadvantage; but they should not feel discouraged. A whole community of fellow Researchers will gladly offer constructive criticism via the Peer Review page...

http://www.h2g2.com/peerreview

... and the Sub-Editors will see that no good work is ever wasted.

Happy writing!

JTG

Sorry xyroth... we were both typing away at the same time, I think.

JTG

I'll agree on the dyslexic bit. I can tell you they are spelled wrong, but I couldn't fix them, and before someone says use a dictonary tell me how are you suppose to find a word in the dictonary if you don't know how to spell it?

As I said somewhere on here, It wouldn't be too bad if you could get a decent spell checker that could spot the spelling mistakes, but how are you supposed to get the spelling right when the selection of the british vocabulary still allows color and honor (american) when you need to spot that they should be colour and honour? If anyone knows of a spellchecker that doesn't have this problem, I would simply LOVE to find out about it, as at the moment I am having to consider writing one myself .

'Ask the h2g2 Community' would be a good place to see about resolving this problem. Why not start a thread? There's a wealth of talent in the h2g2 community eager to tackle just about anything.

http://www.h2g2.com/Askh2g2

JTG