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

A87890331 Thoreau-ly Original: Henry David Thoreau and the New England Pencil
Hello - I'll be subbing the above, so please subscribe and I'll be back later

<BB<

Can I quickly ask - I thought that 'Harper's Ferry' was officially 'Harpers Ferry' without the apostrophe? I'm sure I've heard on QI there are only 5 places with apostrophes allowed in the whole US? Or was it officially 'Harper's Ferry' in 1859 and has lost the apostrophe since?

<BB<

Oh, dear, let me check...

Okay: The National Park Service spells it 'Harpers Ferry'. No apostrophe.

This 1909 book has the title, 'The Raid of John Brown at Harper's Ferry as I Saw It'. Hm.

http://archive.org/stream/raidofjohnbrowna01leec#page/n5/mode/2up

According to W*k*, Horace Greeley (a contemporary newspaper giant and presidential candidate) spelled it 'Harper's Ferry'. They changed the spelling later - probably some bureaucratic decision.

So I'd go with 'Harper's Ferry', since we're talking about the olden days, and they spelled it that way then. (I call this the 'Pearl Harbor rule'.

If that's okay with you.

Curse you, QI...making us smarter like that. (I watch the bits on Youtube, too.)

I agree - if it was 'Harper's Ferry' in 1859 when the raid took place, that's the spelling we'll go with.

While we're on US spellings and punctuations, did Thoreau write 'a mile from any neighbour' with his pencil? Or did he use 'neighbor'?

<BB<

Let me check....

Took some doing. There are editions with both spellings. But I've checked two reprints of the original 1854 edition, and they both use 'neighbor', so let's go with that.

You have a sharp editing eye, my friend.

PS Thoreau probably learned his spelling off Noah Webster, the eejit responsible for the 'our'/'or' controversy.

Okay, I've used 'neighbor' and also clarified that it is Borrowdale in Cumbria (there's more than one Borrowdale, you see).

Curiously link http://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm doesn't seem to work on my IE, but it works fine on Chrome and Firefox. Would you consider changing the link to: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/205 ? I don't think my IE likes Gutenberg at all as https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2567/2567-h/2567-h.htm doesn't work either.

<BB<

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2567/2567-h.htm works, but http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2567/2567-h/2567-h.htm doesn't.

<BB<

I think I might give up on trying to get the links to work on Internet Explorer 11...

Other than that, are you happy with the changes I've made?

<BB<

Looks great to me - thanks for clearing up 'Borrowdale'. I should have guessed there'd be more than one, like Frankfurt.

Whatever you decide about the links is fine. I don't know anything about IE 11, I'm afraid.

Congratulations! Your Entry is on the Front Page today

Thanks