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

More than okay: you're great!

I just wanted to let you know how impressed I've been with your composure and perfectness.

I don't care whether you're sixteen or sixty -- you've got more class (if I may use that term) and goodness, not to mention patience, than pretty much anybody else that wastes their time with the Forum.

Most of the time I just can't be bothered with those threads, but you make them worthwhile.





Don't burn out.

Thanks anhaga. It means a lot to me to know that I'm appreciated.

I know you study medieval stuff. What are your more specific fields of specialisation? You see, I'm terribly into medieval history myself; it's one of the fields I could actually see myself going into.

specific specialisation is Old English poetry. Exceptionally narrow specialisation is the Wanderer. But then I've branched off to the Metrical Charms, Oral Formulaic Theory, and then I just said sod it, I'll translate the whole lot.


(I've done Beowulf and Judith, most of the Exeter Book [half-way through Guthlac and have Azarias and the Phoenix left} and large parts of pretty much all of the other four volumes of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records.)

Also done some late Roman Archaeology, Virgil, Ovid and dabbled in Old Norse.

Should I go on?

Oh, do go on! Sounds pretty cool! I keep meaning to teach myself Old English, but I have so many other things to do, like learning French and Latin, which are my main priorities for college and that sort of thing.

I once checked out a book from the library entitled 'An Anglo-Saxon Reader' and tried to teach myself from that, but a few scattered perusals during homeroom at school just wasn't enough for me to absorb anything.

I just love how the language sounds. I'll read it aloud to myself even though I've no idea what I'm saying.

Didn't I give you a link to an online Old English tutorial?

I took French from about Grade 2, so I didn't even think of mentioning it.

I'm not going to go on: it's just the accumulation of a life.

I hope you keep accumulating.

Yes, you did give me a link. And I'll actually sit down and take it seriously someday... maybe in the summer when I haven't got schoolwork to do.

Get a handle on the Great Vowel Shift and read Chaucer. Those will help you with French and possibly with Old English as well (I think).

I know my Chaucer well, having just finished an extensive report on Chaucer and the Tales for school. We had to choose an author - so I picked Chaucer, and it's been a rather fun assignment. I actually read the Prologue, the Knight's Tale and the Miller's Tale, whizzing through a few other Modern English translations as well, but I publicly decry such aids.