H2G2 question

[coyotegoth]

Why *is* the phrase *Don't Panic" in English, of all languages, on the Guide's cover? Is it Sontrallassian for "How to simultaneously get laid and win the lottery in three easy lessons", or something?

Comments

[theonebob.livejournal.com]

It's in English so you can read it.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

But how many of the Guide's potential customers read some nearly-extinct language from a planet categorized simply as "Mostly Harmless"?

[theonebob.livejournal.com]

I would say it's definitely a mystery and the subject of Oolon Calluphid's final tome, "More places where God screwed up."

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

Hee :)

[cinema-babe.livejournal.com]

Is ti in English or does that phrase appear in whatever language the viewer understands? That was always my assumption.

[kest]

This

[kishi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I always assumed it was something akin to the babelfish effect.

[innerbrat]

Or is it in English because the only copy we see is Ford's,and he's using Total Immersion to help him read English while he's on Earth?

[arethinn]

I thought this too and was going to suggest "psychic plastic" (or whatever) like Doctor Who psychic paper.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Another curious fact, slightly less well known among structural linguists than the preponderance of drinks called some variant of jynnan tonnyx, is that roughly 73% of all known planets in the Galaxy, regardless of their level of technology, have a phrase similar to "DON'T PANIC" in one of their extant languages, and all meaning roughly the same thing.

Most structural linguists have despaired of finding any cause for this, mostly because they're too drunk on jynnan tonnyx to look. That didn't stop Oolon Colluphid from using it as the basis of his bestselling God Doesn't Exist and He's Coming to Get You.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

Nice :)