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

...Thank you very much. I accept the award of most interesting name on behalf of all flavors.

A quick note that few will appreciate I wasn't sure if the expression should be "in behalf of" or "on behalf of" so I did a quick check around the 'Net and found that while US usage doesn't really show much distinction, British English prefers "on" so that is what I used. My source is at, http://webster.commnet.edu/hp/pages/darling/grammar/grammarlogs1/grammarlogs287.htm#1

Actually, it would never have occurred to me to use 'in behalf of'. But thanks for the note...

PS - I've bookmarked the Webster's site for my reference pages...

I (more or less) translated the above expression to 'Thank you for this (niceness?)'. I was using a Czech dictionary @ http://ww2.fce.vutbr.cz/bin/ecd

I think, though, that you must be using a related but slightly different language...

It's Slovak and says "Thank you very much." One of very few phrases I know. I can say all the niceties and a few naughty expressions. Just enough to get me in trouble

But I will be careful not to get in trouble this summer.

I checked 'Nazdar' just to make sure it wasn't one of these 'naughty' expressions, but I see it means something along the lines of 'Hello' or 'Greetings' - so, 'Nazdar!' to you too...

Might as well stay on this forum now we're here...

I recognised the 'dekuji' from a holiday I once had in Prague, a few years ago before the two countries divided. I wouldn't mind going back, but I understand it's become pretty 'touristy' since then...
I imagine the two languages are pretty similar...
I've never been to Slovakia but I understand it's rather quieter and not so full of Westerners than some of its central European neighbours. I would imagine this makes it harder to pull the usual English-speaker's trick of shouting slowly in English and smiling a lot, peppering the dialogue with a few (deliberately?) badly pronounced simple local expressions (Have you ever seen the English abroad?)...

On the subject of American 'conceit' - yes, I have the impression that American politics / government tends to be a bit inward-looking. This is exemplified by that extraordinary airhead George W. Bush, who seems to pride himself on his almost total ignorance of international affairs. I also notice, when I look at US papers and US news sites on the Web, that coverage of 'foreign' news tends to be very limited...
We have a similar problem over here, to be fair. Even the broadsheet papers and serious news programmes have trouble selling overseas news. The exception to this rule is news about America, which of course we can hardly get enough of...

Which authors did you study for the literature part of your degree? Any English ones? I say this because you seem to know a fair bit about British English. I have an interest in continental European writing from around the turn of the 19th / 20th Centuries, and also in American writing generally from around the 1950s onwards. I think that, by and large, over the course of the Twentieth Century the balance of influence in writing shifted from Europe to America. As for poor little England - although the novel seems to have enjoyed a mild resurgence over here in recent decades, I think that really the heyday of English writing was probably in the Nineteenth Century. It would be nice to be proved wrong in this, of course...

I have not seen Prague at anytime other than tourist season, but I can well imagine it is much nicer without the throngs. I wanted so much to get to Charles Bridge early in the morning, before the artists and tourists, but I couldn't get anyone I was traveling with to agree with me. That's one reason I am so looking forward to traveling alone this summer.

Slovakia is much less crowded and still a travel bargain. I always had Slovak friends with me the two times I was there and I was instructed to keep quiet and not look so boldly at people because I was being passed off as Slovak to get a cheaper entrance fee. This time I won't be able to hide that I am not native. But that's okay. I will have my dictionary and a phrase book and tons of patience. And after all the years of hosting exchange students, I am over the speaking loud and slow technique of communicating

I didn't meet one English tourist when in Central Europe. Lots and lots of Russian, though. They tended to be loud, both in conversation and dress. If I do meet an English traveller this summer, you can bet I am going to latch onto her/him/them for as long as possible. Just to hear the accent

The BBC is wonderful for international news! It's what I listen to on the way into school every morning. And I read the NY Times most everyday and try to get to the Washington Post. I would love to be able to read Le Monde because I bet the French take on international news is great. But...since English is my only language, the BBC is wonderful. Forget network TV here. That is entertainment only. And it is so sad (and embarrassing) that so many of the "leaders" in this country are so ignorant on basic international politics and geography.

Ooooo...I studied lots of English writers, but I only took survey courses and not specific authors because my university is a bit weak in literature studies. So, I had a smattering of writers from lots of periods. The only ones I hated were Coleridge and Samuel Butler (Erewhon). I faked the paper on "Biographia Literaria." I picked a couple of chapters and wrote pages on the things the professor seemed interested in during lectures. My two favorite "finds" are Charlotte Smith and Anne Plumptre, both Romantics.

Are you a Kerouac fan? I was so excited to read "On the Road" in an American author's class, but was bitterly disappointed. I didn't get more than a quarter way through it. And I don't like Ginsberg, either. I know..blasphemy.

All of my literature requirements were fulfilled in the first two years at the university (1995-97). Then I focused on writing classes. All of my reading these days is devoted to non-fiction. I have a pile a mile high of fiction to read once I graduate in June Starting with all of Austen all over again, then "Under the Frog" by Tibor Fischer (Hungarian) and then "A Very Long Engagement" by Sebastien Japrisot (French). Judging from the posts on h2g2, England seems to produce a huge volume of sci-fi writers. That's not my cup of tea. I haven't even read Hitchhiker's Guide, yet. Another on my list

Whew! This is becoming a novel! I still want to post to your journal entry so I will end this one.

I'm not a great admirer of Kerouac as a writer, but I have sympathy with what he and the other Beats were trying to do - find some of that great 'land of the free' they must have been reading about in school books and so forth all their lives, but doing it their own way. At least they made an effort...
I was never a great fan of 'On the Road', but I think later works such as 'The Dharma Bums' have a more reflective, philosophical edge to them, and I get the impression that Kerouac was trying seriously to leave behind his earlier self-destructive lifestyle - and also, of course, his Catholic background - and find in Buddhism a philosophy that tries to embrace, or at least accept, the emptiness he perceived at the heart of human existence. Personally, I think that fame killed him, as much as the booze. He didn't really know how to handle either...

I must admit I've never heard of Charlotte Smith and Anne Plumptre. Is that second name spelt correctly, by the way? I can't find evidence of her existence anywhere...

On the subject of narrow-minded politicians, here's a faintly amusing news story from today's Guardian, about George W. Bush having to cancel a pencilled-in foreign tour due to a lack of knowledge of the places he was planning to visit @ http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/US_election_race/Story/0,2763,212166,00.html Might be worth a quick perusal. I notice Slovakia even gets a brief mention, down near the bottom...

The Guardian is our main liberal daily, by the way, especially good for arts coverage and foreign news. I think their website knocks spots off other similar ones that I've looked at. I don't mind doing a bit of free advertising for them, they seem like nice enough people...

I like the Guardian very much and I *love* "knocks spots off." That article is great. Thank you. The Slovakia/Slovenia confusion is rampant in this country. A few semesters back I wrote a piece about a young American woman who was in Slovakia for a year and titled it "It's Slovakia, not Slovenia!" And then people will correct me..."Don't you mean Czechoslovakia, dear?" Grrrrr....

Anne Plumptre is the correct spelling. The book in my hands, or rather lap, at the very minute is "Something New" and is published by Broadview Press: Ontario. The subtitle is "Adventures at Cambell-House." Plumptre's dates are 1760-1818. Her second novel "The Rector's Son" is touted in the introduction to "Something New" as "a little-known forerunner to the modern thriller." I have yet to locate a copy of that book...though I haven't tried too hard since I have enought to keep me busy at the moment

And I am going to have to add "The Dharma Bums'" to my summer reading list. The title alone got my attention. And your mini-review took me the rest of the way.