A Conversation for "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Peer Review: A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 1

Telcontar

Entry: "May You Live in Interesting Times" - A798564
Author: Telcontar - U178866

This entry is a collection of facts and speculations collected from various webpages and put together as a complete article about the phrase.
Most of the information is collected from Stephen DeLong's sidebar "Get a(n interesting) Life!" linked in the entry.


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 2

Zarquon's Singing Fish!

I thought this was an Chinese curse with an ancient lineage. Interesting.

There's a couple of small typos to sort out.

chinese > Chinese

Unfortunatly > Unfortunately

smiley - fishsmiley - musicalnote


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 3

Telcontar

Thank you. They have now been corrected.
It is very interesting. The qoute just popped up in my head one day and I used it on my webpage. Then I thought I should find out who had said it, but instead I stumbled upon this very interesting search for its origins. So I decided to write an h2g2 entry about it smiley - smiley


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 4

Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences

Informative, which is always a good thing for an entry smiley - ok

My only suggestion would be to give your referenced link a 'name', so it doesn't stretch the data bar, that way the body of the entry will be wider, and easier to read. A good sub could probably fix that tho'...

smiley - ale


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 5

Telcontar

Hmm.. I'm not quite following you here.
A shorter name would make the article wider? That makes no sense.
And what do you mean by a sub?


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 6

Telcontar

Oh, I just got your point.
I don't notice such things as my resolution is 1280x1024... but what are you using? For this to have any effect you must be using a really low res.

How do you give links a name? I have not studied the GuideML in detail... or I did when I first found the site but I can't remember that anymore :P


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 7

The Researcher formally known as Dr St Justin

There's a whole section on GuideML at <./>GuideML-Clinic</.> smiley - ok

You might also mention that it appears to be the general idea of one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels - surprisingly enough titled 'Interestin Times' smiley - smiley


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 8

Telcontar

Thank you, now I have fixed the link.

I do not feel the Terry Pratchett novel has any reason to be mentioned as this article is about the origins of the quote. The novel is written quite recently if I am not mistaken, and therefore is just one of *many* books and movies that have been using this qoute. So I do not think mentioning it is important.

On the other hand, an article about this particular novel would benefit from linking to this article as it shows what the book was based upon, and the history behind the quote it references.


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 9

Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences

800x600- small yes, but still used as standard on a lot of machines.

smiley - ale


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 10

Sir Kitt

Nice entry. Found one mistake though:

The phrase might well have been coined by him, but there are indications making it likely that Russell have found the phrase elsewhere.

Should be:

The phrase might well have been coined by him, but there are indications making it likely that Russell *had* found the phrase elsewhere.

SK smiley - smiley


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 11

Telcontar

Fixed..


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 12

the Shee

~In the second paragraph:~

chinese --> Chinese

>>It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time that be a man in a chaotic period.<<
that --> than


~In the last paragraph:~

english --> English
availible --> available

smiley - popcorn

Very interesting.... I enjoyed it. Perhaps you could work on the ending a bit more though... I haven't a clue, what you could write, but it seems sort of chopped off.... *shrug*


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 13

Telcontar

Thanx. Spelling is fixed and a smoother ending have been added.
The problem is of course that there is no smooth ending as noone really knows where the curse orginates :P


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 14

the Shee

Hee hee... Yes, that ending reads a bit better now. smiley - smiley


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 15

Zarquon's Singing Fish!

Hmm, having read this again, apart from a typo:

qoute> quote,

I found myself thinking that it would be useful to state what we think it mean, with a range, if there is no consensus.

smiley - fishsmiley - musicalnote


A798564 - "May You Live in Interesting Times"

Post 16

Telcontar

Good idea.. what do people think?

Personally I think it of course states that living in interesting times is not really something to crave for. You could say we live in interesting times today, but with the constant threaths of nuclear holocaust and astroid impacts, and constant exposure to all types of crime and obcenities from society we really are not living good lives no matter how good we think we have it at some times. Especially in the times when drunk or drugged and really couldn't care less about anything but you own personal universe of party.

When sober everything is mostly kinda grim...


Congratulations - Your Entry has been Picked for the Edited Guide!

Post 17

h2g2 auto-messages

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!


Key: Complain about this post