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How can Fenchurch read the Guide?


In "Thanks for All the Fish", Fenchurch finds the Hitchhiker's Guide which Arthur left in her brother's car when Arthur was...well...hichhiking. She reads about the places in the book and asks Arthur about them when he randomly shows up at her house. The book even points out the "DONT PANIC" text at that point. Neither character, during this conversation, has a Babel fish install in their ears yet both are apparently able to read the alien work.


Why was Fenchurch, specifically, able to read the Guide?


(Note: this is clearly not a duplicate of my Babel fish question as neither character has a Babel fish as stated above.)



Answer



The implication is that the Hitchiker's Guide is able to self-translate itself for readers. When Ford initially hands it to Arthur (prior to putting a Babel fish in his ear), the text turns from "characters" into readable English after he presses a few buttons.




A screen, about three inches by four, lit up and characters began to flicker across the surface.


"You want to know about Vogons, so I enter that name so." His fingers tapped some more keys. "And there we are."


The words Vogon Constructor Fleets flared in green across the screen.



Assuming it's now preset to "English-mode", that would also explain how Fenchurch is able to read it in the later novel.



As to when the Guide itself learned to speak English, this was possibly from scanning and studying its environment (unlikely) or simply that Ford, or one of the earlier researchers, inputted an English dictionary at the same time they uploaded their journal entries about life on Earth (far more likely).


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