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

Deke,

I received your book on Thomas Harriott. Thanks very much. It looks very interesting, although I haven't read it yet. I see that it is signed by the author. Do you want it returned when I have finished it or am I to keep it?

G

Please keep it, it's yours. I don't want it back I got three copies while I had the chance. I just thought you might find it interesting. I hope you enjoy it. It is signed by the author who I think is a leading light at the Chichester Planetarium. I hope to get down there one of these days.

I know of your interest in music and I quite wanted to hear the singers too, but unfortunately missed them. They were to be singing songs from Harriot's time and I was interested to hear what that might be like. I forget the name, I think it was 'Cantabulus?

Deke

We've a library in Dublin dating from 1701. The President of Ireland was visiting it to open a special exhibition on music books, and a friend of mine who works there had the bright idea of performing some of the music in the library for the President. So she and one of the other library staff joined with me and Mrs G to make a quartet and we sang three madrigals from one of the books for the Pres. It was a great occasion.

I'll definitely read the book soon, but I'm going away tomorrow to a Glastonburyesque concert weekend, so it'll be next week. Groups I've heard of that are playing are Madness, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, and one of the Beach Boys.

It must be very satisfying to be able to make music yourself.. My one regret is that I have never learned to play an instrument of any sort.

As far as music is concerned, although I enjoy most types, I confess that I’m a complete Klutz who couldn’t carry a tune to save his life. Luckily that doesn’t stop me listening.

Both the concerts sound like a lot of fun. Have a good time this weekend,

Deke, would you mind having a look at this conversation:

F3198237?thread=7072651

It's about the capitalisation of Bayer designations.

There was a conversation about this in one of the PR forums, but I can‘t remember which one. My opinion then was that we adopted the convention that we have in the constellation entries now, and that seemed to have been generally accepted.

The use of lower-case on the Greek letter (except the start of a sentence) seems fairly commonplace to me. I’ve looked back through several books and magazines and found use of both upper and lower-case used in that position. One magazine that I subscribe to uses the lower-case convention consistently. I think that both have become a compromise on the fact that Beyer used the Greek alphabet letter itself, not the Roman ‘interpretation’ of it. Looking at a couple of books by Sir Patrick Moore shows his use of the Greek letter almost exclusively.

For me the ‘correct’ form would be to follow Sir Patrick’s example and use the Greek lower-case letter which Bayer allocated. But the problem with that, is that it makes the text more difficult to read, and our possible readers may be put off if they don’t identify with the Greek alphabet. I used them in the first constellation entry I did (Gemini) and it just didn’t do anything for the flow.

Consequently, the reason that I would prefer to go with the lower-case form is because it is easier to read and it is more in keeping with Beyer having used the lower-case Greek letter, which has a certain continuity. There is also, that I have always regarded the letter/constellation as more of a classification than a ‘proper’ name. Whereas, if you take it as a proper name, then upper-case > Alpha Centauri < would be more correct.

I have to agree that > alpha Centauri < doesn’t ‘look’ right, but then a sentence which mentions several stars, and is filled with capital letters, doesn’t either. I don’t have any real objection if you want to change to any format as long as it’s consistent.

Beyer... Bayer...