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

Hello Chaiwallah. Just dropping by to say some of your haiku as selected by Ben, were voted into the Underguide this month. The AWW thread and the official congratulations message is over here -> F74130.

I haven't done a forum link without the full www address before. I'm experimenting on you. Let's see...

It didn't! That goes to the whole AWW forum. Try this one http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F74130?thread=475319&post=5985752#p5985752.

Its polished over at A3330307. One question remains however should the start of each line be capital or not? You have it mixed up a bit.

My recollection is that Chai is one of those poets who puncutates poetry as if it were prose. There used to be a convention for starting each line in poetry with a capital, but it seems to be fading away these days.

If he misses this convo, I would go with the fact that he punctuates them for publication without initial caps.



B

I shall wait another 4 days and then edit it to make it as such

Thanks for taking this one off me. You have much more attention to detail than I have, and are serving Chai better than I did.

I've checked them against a printed copy which Chai gave me. Hopefully Chai will get back to us himself, but if he doesn't you might find it helpful to know that all but the last of the four in A2955549 now exactly follow his revised version for printing.



B

Hooray! Though I am sure that my attention to detail is to do with my burgeoning and slightly obvious interest in poetry. Let us hope that Chai gets back before the next UG deadline...

However I am still slightly confused about the "of this parish" line....

Didn't know you were interested in poetry.

Do cut the "of this parish" line. It is used in the Church of England when they publish the Banns of Marriage, (announcements on three separate Sundays of a forthcoming wedding to give people the chance to put forward any valid legal objection to the wedding). The phrase would be something like "...the forthcoming marriage between Jane Doe, spinster of this parish, and Joe Bloggs, widower of the parish of Marston Meysey..."

It is an affectation that I sometimes use when referring to h2g2 researchers, particularly ones with whom I have an off-line friendship.



B

Well I write it, I have a few collections hanging round here in journal threads.

I shall cut that line then. I am semi-agnostic so I have very small ideas about what is used in such phrases and why.

I understand (well actually I don't but I will pretend to) this, I don't know very many real time people who also go to h2g2, I am sure when I do I will probably come up with a line myself...

Hi guys,

I was away in London when all this came about. Thank you both, Darakat, and Ben, for your flattering interest in my pomes, and the care you've taken in presenting them. B is absolutely right, I punctuate poetry as for prose, and dislike the capitalisation of line-beginnings where it's not dictated by punctuation. Irritatingly, Microsoft Word, on which format most of my writing's done, has a default imposing capitalised line-starts for what it perceives as poetry. It takes time and concentration to eliminate it, both of which commodities I frequently lack!

Thanks to you both.

C \|/

Alright I shall go through and de-capitalise all the starting lines that are not names as per the style manual for such works. Then this article will be fully polished and we can look forward to it being in the under-guide. If I haven't done it in a few days give me a holler as I might forget...