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

Hi DG

I'm your Sub-editor for Believe it or Not Mr Ripley. The new version is A87923587 - please subscribe!

I enjoyed reading this again - Pearlroth is an admirable researcher

I made a few tiny tweaks and added h2g2 links. I did have one question:

I'm not quite sure I understand what Footnote 1 means "Inquiring minds wonder if this was the origin of passepartout?"

Hi, Sasha. It looks perfect, as always.

'Passepartout' is the French (and German) word for 'master key'. Also probably a few other languages, I haven't checked. 'Passepartout' is also a character in Jules Verne's 'Around the World in 80 Days', though, SADLY, we do not have a Guide Entry on that book, or any of the films, even....you might drop a hint around the Guide Editors.... The fictional Passepartout is Phileas Fogg's invaluable French valet.

I know a funny story about master keys. When I was an undergraduate in the German Department of my university, we had a visiting professor from Berlin. Our student assistant was totally in awe of him, as most of the students tended to be with German academics. I thought Professor E had too much of a twinkle in his eye to be too stuffy.

One day, the professor and a few of us were trying to sit down to a seminar, but the door was locked. The assistant, in a blind panic, tried to explain to the professor in halting German that he needed to go and find something....something...he talked around it....he could not think of the word...

Professor E smiled and said kindly, 'Ach, Sie müssen den 'Master Key' finden?'

Thank you

Ah - so Footnote 1 is asking whether the Emblem of Office was the first example of a master key?

"'Ach, Sie müssen den 'Master Key' finden?'"

The stern professors with twinkles in their eyes were the best ones in my experience, too!

Around the World in 80 Days sounds like a book that DadQ might have read - I'll make enquiries later (He's reading Grimm's Fairy Tales at the moment, which is giving him another idea for an h2g2 Entry )

This is a wonderful idea! Your dad has a gift for those.

You'd be surprised: there's a whole world of people out there - young readers, new readers, ESL readers, just people who've never encountered a genre before - who could use good, non-commercial book reviews like ours.

Especially ones that aren't geared to swotting for school exams, or going into psychology, or worrying about publication history.

Yes, DadQ has read Around the World in 80 Days and relishes the opportunity to read it again for h2g2 while he is waiting for the local library to get some new Black Horse Westerns!

Yes indeed h2g2 Entries are a valuable resource for people wanting a neat guide to a book - I see that in the pageview stats

And Entries such as this one, that introduce people to something they may have heard of but don't know much about, are also assets to the Guide

Oh, great! Thank your dad for us. I'm looking forward to that one.

And thanks for the encouragement.

DadQ's doing well with his research so far - he's learning about the films based on the book, too

I think there's just one outstanding question in relation to the Norbert Pearlroth Entry:

"Footnote 1 is asking whether the Emblem of Office was the first example of a master key? " - is that right?

Yes, that's what the footnote was asking. Do you still have a problem with that? If you do, you can just leave it out.

Thank you - I just made the tiny tweak 'origin of' to 'original'

Hi both

I'm proof reading and I found:

>>Dear Mr, Pearlroth: I am interested in the origin of my father's name, 'Rubacha.' <<

The comma after "Mr" is that a typo or is it deliberate?

Many thanks

GB

No, that's a typo. Brilliantly spotted, as usual. I blame OCR.

I'd just leave the punctuation off there, if you like. Of course it *was* a full stop because it was in print, not on the internet.

and no problem at all

Congratulations! Your Entry is on the Front Page today

Thanks!