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

Heya. Subbing Rutles. Haven't pasted in my corrected version yet, but here's a few questions:

1. the headers, 'A legend to last a lunchtime' etc, where are those from?

2.Leppo (having a good time) - what? the other members had their instruments in the parentheses. For the life I me I've never heard of someone playing a good time.

3. Mountbatten saw promise in their trousers... sorry, clueless here. But that struck me as strange.

and what's a Buttie?

4. 'another year on' - does that mean ' a year later' or 'in some future year' ?

5. Bigger Than Rod - assume that's not a typo for God?

6. YOu can't say that someone sued themself and not explain how!

7. have the bonzo entries passe dthrough PR?

8. newfangled home video technology - you mean VCR, right?

great read, even though I know very little about the Beatles.

1. the headers, 'A legend to last a lunchtime' etc, where are those from?

They're quotes from the film 'All You Need is Cash'

2.Leppo (having a good time) - what? the other members had their instruments in the parentheses. For the life I me I've never heard of someone playing a good time.

This (and this is going to be a recurring feature of my answers here ) is a throw-away joke from the film. 'Leppo' couldn't play any instrument, but knew how to have a good time.

3. Mountbatten saw promise in their trousers... sorry, clueless here. But that struck me as strange.

There's a recurring joke in the film about the fact that, in the early days of the band, no-one liked their music, but they did like the band's trousers (I think it might be a subtle reference to Brian Epstein's homosexuality, but don't quote me on that!)

and what's a Buttie?

Ah, yes - British slang for 'sandwich'... Feel free to FOOTNOTE

4. 'another year on' - does that mean 'a year later' or 'in some future year' ?

It means 'a year later'.

5. Bigger Than Rod - assume that's not a typo for God?

Nope - another joke from the film. The Rutles are pilloried for allegedly saying they were 'bigger than God', but in fact had only claimed to be 'bigger than Rod (Stewart)' - hence the reference to 'the then-unknown singer who would later become frontman for The Faces' shortly afterwards.

6. YOu can't say that someone sued themself and not explain how!

Again, this is a throw-away joke from the film. It is, of course, impossible to sue oneself (I think..!)

7. have the bonzo entries passe dthrough PR?

Yes - Pending Entry is at A13664388

8. newfangled home video technology - you mean VCR, right?

Yes - which was very new-fangled back in the early 1980s

Hope those answers are satisfactory, but shout if not...

Keep up the good work!

OK, have a read-through and make sure I haven't hashed anything? I was startled by some of the spellings - I mean, that they were accurate according to the OED. I hope the American alternatives (like hemorrage and furor) are also good English, because if not, I've left a lot of bad spelling in some entries.

That's great - thanks! The only thing I spotted was a space between 'Butties' and the footnote in the header.

Apart from that, let it go...

Oh, and EG house style is for UK spelling, so I'm afraid it's startling spelling and superfluous letters all round!

If you can remember where you've left any stray Americanisms I can go and curate them for you

If not, I'm sure they'll turn up in EF one day...

I remember something hemorraging a few entries back, but can't find it anywhere. I thought spelling differences stopped somewheres around 'ou' and 're'. The British spellcheck with MS Word is certainly useless.

Maybe the Eds picked it up when you sent it back?

I have to admit I find the Word spellcheck quite useful for US/UK spelling, as I use both for work and can be writing in US English one minute and UK English the next. I write about medicine as well, so words like tumour, diarrhoea, haemorrhage, haemoglobin etc. crop up all the time! And then you've got the adjective differences, with US English preferring -ic and UK English -ical, it can be a bit of a nightmare having to remember whether to put haematological, hematologic, hematological or haematologic...

Maybe I still haven't manage to get the spellchecker working right, but it doesn't seem to pick up hemorrage as wrong when I have it on UK. I'll fiddle some more.

What I seem to have a habit of doing is adding words to the custom dictionary by accident, so that no matter what language I'm in, they are never flagged as wrong...

OK, I just combedthrough it one last time. Give the thumbs up and off it'll go.

Well, for the sake of finding something...

As you've footnoted 'butties', the translation should probably be 'sandwiches' plural.

But that's it - send it back...

And there it goes

You saw it whoosh by?