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wiKiPedia: a GeNuiNe
hg2g
— miNus the editors
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Wikipedia: A Genuine H2G2
—
Minus the Editors
(Originally published in
The Anthology at the End of the Universe: Leading Science
Fiction Authors on Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,
edited by
Glenn Yeffeth and Shauna Caughey.)
“Mostly Harmless” — a phrase so funny that Adams actually titled
a book after it. Not that there’s a lot of comedy inherent in those
two words: rather, they’re the punchline to a joke that anyone
who’s ever written for publication can really get behind.
Ford Prefect, a researcher for
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy,
has been stationed on Earth for years, painstakingly com-
piling an authoritative, insightful entry on Terran geography,
science and culture, excerpts from which appear throughout the
H2G2
books. His entry improved upon the old one, which noted
that Earth was, simply, “Harmless.”
However, the
Guide
has limited space, and when Ford submits
his entry to his editors, it is trimmed to fit:
“What? Harmless? Is that all it’s got to say? Harmless! One
word!”
Ford shrugged. “Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the
Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book’s micro-
processors,” he said, “and no one knew much about the Earth of
course.”
“Well for God’s sake I hope you managed to rectify that a bit.”
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