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

Hi EMR!

I see you've been given my entry A3342539 to sub.

I did one of yours (Illuminated Letter) the other day, and now I'm on the receiving end!

Please be gentle with it, and if you have any questions (since I guess it's a series with which you're not familiar) just drop me a line.

I should advise you that if all the header titles appear slightly unusual, it's because they're either episode titles or, in one case, a catchphrase from the show. (An in-joke for fans, since the series thrived on such things.) Nonetheless, I picked them because they do also describe their sections. I'd hate for you to alter them, and then get to the footnote that explained this!

Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

Cheers

Don't worry, I'll do my best not to go crazy on the copy-editing, of which I've occasionally been guilty. Thank you for the advice about the headers.

I read the entry over and it looks very cool. I hope to get to it tomorrow or Friday.

I've gone through your entry and it looks quite terrific. I put in em dashes instead of hyphens where there ought to have been em dashes, and that was pretty much the only thing I altered.

I'm assuming that it's correct to not capitalise tv. Is that a British thing? In the US you capitalise both letters (TV), and I've actually never seen it done with lowercase letters before.

EMR,

Thanks for your kind comments.

You are quite right that the em-dash is grammatically correct. However, I gave up using them properly after reading this bit in A266131 (English Usage in the Edited Guide):


'To an extent, parentheses (( )), semicolons (, dashes (-) and footnotes2 are interchangeable (okay, we can't do real en-dashes and em-dashes, so hyphens will have to do).'


I also found that wherever I used em-dashes when sub-editing, they were usually changed back to hyphens by the time the entry hit the Front Page.

Having said that, if you want to try and sneak them past the italics, it's fine by me! You missed eight of them though (these are my originals):


'This, in itself, in no way sums up the series as a whole - that can only be described as 'what happened afterwards'.'

'Pegg insisted that his friend be cast - despite him having no previous acting experience.'

'...a lycra-clad bicycle courier who is very into rave culture and - possibly as a result of this - ultra-quick changes of mood.'

'...to do this we needed zombies, aliens, invisible teenagers, wild dogs, midnight rescues, good guys, bad guys, rave pixies and guns - lots of guns.'

'...a 'Homage-o-meter' - a subtitle track that displays the film or tv show being referred to at each relevant moment.'

'In one unforgettable scene, Tim - a one-time fan - sets fire to all his memorabilia...'

'The viewer is made to care about these characters - and that is the fundamental aim of any artistic endeavour.'

'In characteristic fashion, it features its share of homages - not least to Spaced...'


I don't mind whether you stick to the House Style and use hyphens, or change them to the more correct em-dashes — just as long as it's consistent.

With regard to 'tv' or 'TV', to a an extent they're interchangeable. However, I stick to the rule that it's lower case when it's within a sentence — since you would never write 'I watched TeleVision last night' — and caps for titles or at the start of a sentence.

Otherwise, job well done!

Silly me... *note to self* be more observant and think to go through and actually *look* for things!

Yes, I do prefer em-dashes, and I think they just look ever so much prettier. I think it's consistent now - I did a double-check - and so I suppose this is all set to go?

Okay, then, it's off to the Editors. and to you!

EMR

EMR,

I just found one more tiny tiny alteration that you shouldn't have made!

The last line of the second paragraph in the 'Gatherings' section should read:

'It is there that he meets Daisy, an aspiring journalist, who is looking for somewhere to live...'

An ellipsis (the device that leaves the sentence hanging) should always be three dots, as I had in my original. For some reason you added an extra one.

No worries, I've dropped a line to Editorial Feedback to correct it — if they miss it on the final polish.

Thanks for doing such a splendid job. Perhaps I'll be able to return the favour the next time you write an entry!

See ya

What I've always learned is that when the ellipsis ends a sentence, it has four dots instead of three, whereas if it occurs in the middle of one there's only three dots. But then I went and looked in the h2g2 style guide and it told me I ought only to have used three dots. Oh dear. I've got rather a lot to learn, I fear.

*Attempts to drill British conventions into thick American head*

Thank you for being so nice about it.

No probs.

Some of the different English & American spellings and rules just seem crazy. Why do we have to be so alike and yet so different?

Eg, we put things in the centre, while you put them in the center. (I just put them in the middle, then everyone's happy!) In American English, the word 'practice' is both a noun and a verb, whereas in British English it's just a noun — when we do it, we have to 'practise' it!

There's a great book on English grammatical conventions (that's humorous with it) called 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' by Lynne Truss. Check this link if you're interested:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1592400876/qid=1102198014/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-2245105-2443142?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

(Not that I'm suggesting there's anything wrong with yours, 'cos there isn't!)

I *love* that book; I was re-reading it just the other day - I got it for my mother the English teacher for her birthday, but I seem to have appropriated it somehow. Out of a certain bit of Anglophilia I enjoy using British conventions, something that will baffle my few high school teachers that actually notice to no end. But it's difficult to keep every word straight when I'm always being taught to do exactly the opposite of whatever I'm intending to do.

It's all Noah Webster's fault, really. When he wrote his dictionary he decided he was going to simplify things like spelling conventions: that's why over here there's no 'u' in 'color' or 'a' in 'encylopedia'. I haven't got much patience for him, though, because he was also the one who bowdlerized Shakespeare (or is it bowdlerised?).

I could go on like this all day; I'm a bit of an amateur linguist. However, I won't.