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Is there a way to stop Apple Music from launching each time a Bluetooth connection is activated (in Sequioa 15.3)? It keeps interrupting my workflow in a truly irritating way. (Adding Music to the Bluetooth apps in the Privacy & Security setting and toggling it to off didn't do the job for me.)  ‑‑Lambiam 18:29, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you use Apple Music at all? If not are you able to just disable or uninstall it? I have no Mac experience personally. --Slowking Man (talk) 04:50, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is a huge profit source for Apple, so they have made it impossible to uninstall it. It is apparently even impossible to disable it by some accessible control. There is an app called noTunes that promises to stop Apple Music from launching,^[1] but it is is not listed on the App store and I don't want to install apps from a random developer. I just bought a new MacBook, but there are so many things that insist on pestering me that I now regret not having switched to Linux.  ‑‑Lambiam 10:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam: I just looked at noTunes's source and I can say it's perfectly legit, as long as you trust me... It's a quite trivial program which easily fits on a single screen: AppDelegate.swift is the sole source code file. The rest is a pretty icon and all the assorted metadata for sticking it in the system tray and all. Here is the entire actual "meat" of the program:

func appIsLaunched() {
        let apps = NSWorkspace.shared.runningApplications
        for currentApp in apps.enumerated() {
            let runningApp = apps[currentApp.offset]

            if(runningApp.activationPolicy == .regular) {
                if(runningApp.bundleIdentifier == "com.apple.iTunes") {
                    runningApp.forceTerminate()
                }
                if(runningApp.bundleIdentifier == "com.apple.Music") {
                    runningApp.forceTerminate()
                }
            }
        }
    }

It just registers a "listener" with Mac OS to get notified whenever an "app" launches, and if that app is iTunes/Music takes it out back and shoots it. You could even just skip the foofraw and run that source file as a daemon from the terminal if you wanted to do things quick-and-dirty.

As for Linux you might be able to run that on the Macbook but it depends on model; apparently the M3/M4 Macs are a no-go currently, but M1/M2 Apple silicon are supported (for which you'll want Asahi Linux). Also take note of [2]. (Note OS X is just an ersatz BSD Unix with Apple's stuff "on top" to begin with; you already have all the standard Unix tools on there.) --Slowking Man (talk) 23:32, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Each time I open a web page with Firefox (version 128.7.0) in macOS (Sequioa 15.3) that is in another language than English, something I do quite often, a pop-up appears asking whether the page should be translated. Roughly 99 out of 100 cases I want to see the original text, so this is a real nuisance. Is there some setting to stop this unsolicited behaviour?  ‑‑Lambiam 18:36, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I use Firefox in Windows, so this may be slightly off, but it appears that this can be changed. From the menu, click on "Translate Page...". That opens up a new window with a gear icon indicating a place to set options. Clicking that brings up another context window with options including "Always Offer to Translate" which is likely checked off for you. Try unchecking that option. If that doesn't work, selecting "Manage Translations..." from that same area brings up further options. Matt Deres (talk) 19:22, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The menu structure under macOS is apparently completely different; I cannot find any of this. The Preferences (Settings) page has, in the section Language and Appearance, a subsection Translations, where clicking a button Settings brings up a list "Translation will not be offered for the following languages". The list has buttons for removing languages from the (empty) list, but not for adding any.  ‑‑Lambiam 10:31, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a Linux user. Today, I purchased a USB memory stick to send some pictures to my friend and I was surprised to see the stick was, according to fdisk, formatted W95 FAT32 (LSB). Reformatting it to a more useful NTFS isn't a problem. Any ideas why ScanDisk are still supplying FAT32 sticks? Thanks! TrogWoolley (talk) 08:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on what you mean by "useful" when it comes to a disk format. I format all removable USB drives to FAT32 to make sure that whatever I plug it into can read it, be it my computer, my phone, my printer, my photo printer, my car's entertainment console, etc... My car is 18 years old. My photo printer is older, probably 25 years old. I doubt either would be happy with an NTFS drive. For me, "useful" means that it will work without hassle. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 13:46, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to the problem with devices not supporting NTFS, as 12.116.29.106 says, it's my understanding that MacOS only supports read for NTFS. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 15:09, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In my personal experience consumer storage devices widely come pre-formatted with FAT32, as it's by far the most widely-supported FS in today's world. Large-capacity ones frequently are exFAT—indeed, this is the official standard for SDHC-and-up SD cards. Formatting to a different FS if desired is relatively simple; think from the manufacturer's perspective. "Do we want to pre-format with the most widely-supported FS which Just Works™ on nearly everything, or do we want NTFS which doesn't work on Android or Apple (read-only) and only got native Linux kernel write support recently which won't be enabled in everything and doesn't support some rarer NTFS features, and also do we have any patent issues to care about there? Do we care more about Grandma Mabel's flash drive she bought from us just working, and not for her to think our product is broken, or for some 'power users' who are the people that even know what 'NTFS' is in the first place, possibly having to do a quick reformat?"

Also personal plug for "cloud storage" that you can use for, among other things, sharing stuff to others: pCloud. Not getting any compensation, just a satisfied customer. They give a limited amount of free storage even. (Swiss company: note that if you purchase from them it's a foreign transaction if you are located elsewhere, which you may get charged a fee for, check ahead if concerned.) --Slowking Man (talk) 21:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Resolved I get the transportability but for huge photos (6GB) FAT32 won't cut it. I was just surprised they are still using old tech; I guess it's the reason my newish motherboard has a PS2 port. Not a fan of cloud storage. TrogWoolley (talk) 02:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can always use the split command to copy the huge photo onto the FAT32 filesystem in chunks, for example

    split -b 1000000000 /source/huge.jpg /dest/huge.part.

then the person receiving the stick can use cat (not to be confused with cat) to reassemble the parts

    cat /source/huge/part.* >/dest/huge.jpg

—if they also have Linux and are comfortable doing that, or an equivalent on what system they do have. --142.112.222.162 (talk) 17:45, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(They could also just reformat the drive with a different FS. The Linux kernel has "native" NTFS r/w support now since version 5.something; there's also been a FUSE NTFS driver for some time. exFAT also exists and any "up-to-date" "desktop/mobile" OS supports it including Linux kernel since again, version 5.something.) --Slowking Man (talk) 23:52, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For info, GUI cross-platform file splitting can be done with some file compression programs. One example is 7zip. Whether splitting a file or keeping intact, many programs have the option to minimise the compression strength and so reduce the overhead of splitting in this way. Not the most direct method, but can be more user friendly for some people. 2.24.18.110 (talk) 13:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to find technical descriptions of the following scenario. Org has a basic IBM TAM for SSO. That is local. They also have DPI for all traffic leaving the local network. A webserver (or any server) is on the cloud, obviously outside the local network. That server authenticates through the internal IBM TAM using PAM. A user goes to a web page or something that requires authentication and, seamlessly, it authenticates because the user already logged into the SSO from their local computer inside the org. How is it seamless? The traffic from the local computer to the cloud server is going through DPI, so all the identify of the originating computer gets mutilated. The public/private key exchange is broken because DPI acts as MITM. When the cloud server authenticates with SSO, it must have some form of token to validate, which assumes that the user's computer sent the token. Why would it? Why would going to a web page include sending a token and how would the token remain intact through DPI? I expect the user to hit the external server and have to go to the SSO login page, login again, and then use the server. I also expect that any automated login process would be blocked because all of the org's traffic comes from the DPI box. So, if anyone can point me to some technical documents that describe exactly how this seamless authentication takes place, I would appreciate it. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 15:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To editor 12.116.29.106: Hmm... I think I understand the scenario you're asking about. If I'm right, then you were in fact on-track with the observation about the man-in-the-middle! Usually what is done on corporate intranets is, the corp has their own SSL certificates, which they add to the trusted keystore of all their internal systems. "Outgoing" network traffic from inside the intranet usually is proxied to "exit" servers, and SSL/TLS connections go to the exit proxy using that intranet certificate, which acts as a "man-in-the-middle" relaying internal traffic to the outside Internet, unwrapping SSL traffic and rewrapping it as-needed.

The corp already has total physical control of all the systems, which they own; there's no "loss of security" here. It's their house, their rules. For any org of decent size all this stuff, such as installing their intranet certs, will all be automated as part of system provisoning and internal network authentication and access control. If they're doing security well, they won't even allow any network traffic on the corporate intranet that's not from a client authenticated using 802.1x stuff as an authorized client. This guards against stuff such as network snooping from nefarious actors who pay a visit to the place and hook someting up to an out-of-the-way network jack in a closet somewhere. --Slowking Man (talk) 22:48, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Assume that I am inside the corporate network, logged in, and I go to some website owned by the corporation, but well outside their network. How does it automatically log me in? I know the remote website uses the local SSO for authentication. I know the local SSO has be registered as logged in on my local computer. I am trying to see how the remote website talks to the SSO to work out that I am me and I am logged into the computer that is accessing the website and I should be given access to the website. I am now reading about SAML, which I haven't researched much in the past. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 13:44, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It appears now that it is a bit more of a back and forth. User goes to remote website. Remote website asks the user for an authentication key. User doesn't have one yet because user just showed up. remote website redirects user to the internal SSO. The internal SSO checks login status and asks the user to log in if necessary. then, the internal SSO gives the user an access key and redirects the user to the remote website. The remote website asks for an authentication key. The user gives it. The remote website asks the internal SSO if the key is valid. It says yes and sends the pertinent user information back to the remote website. The remote website knows the user is logged in and displays whatever it is supposed to display. I had incorrectly assumed that the remote website talked directly to the SSO on hehalf of the user. It doesn't. It redirects the user. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 17:20, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the exact details can vary depending on how they have their internal networks and everything set up, but that's a pretty common scheme. Their website host sees you are traffic from their intranet and sends you to the internal auth gateway. In fact, again depending on how they do stuff it's possible your traffic never even passes over the public Internet—they could their own direct connections into their website hosts and have routing inside the intranet configured so it routes traffic from within the intranet going to example.com (if that were their public website address) across those direct links. Anyway however it's set up, the example.com servers see that you're intranet-originated traffic and send you to the internal auth gateway. Internal gateway gives you credentials, you present those to example.com, then example.com in its backend checks for verification the credential is legit. For reference: SAML --Slowking Man (talk) 00:57, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are the entries of this website copyright applications? Or their availability proof of a succesful copyright registration in the United States?

Example of entries here: VAU001153748 / VAU001153751 Trade (talk) 14:31, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Link --Trade (talk) 14:36, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see four USB devices being plugged into the hub. From left to right: two "thumb drives", an ordinary USB cable, and a dongle for a wireless keyboard or mouse. I guess you were asking about the two thumb drives. Those have lots of unusual/distinctive appearances, and usually have someone's logo on them. I'd say the ones in your photo are unusually (probably deliberately) generic. —scs (talk) 14:46, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here is one supplier of USB flash drives in this style (which can be customized to serve as a promotional gift, but also be bought unmarked). The idea of the ringed end is that they can be added to a keychain.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:53, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen a lot of exoplanet names and I haven't noticed much consistency in the separation of the parent star's designation from the letter representing the exoplanet with a space: e.g., WASP-7b vs. WASP-7 b. I've noticed that Wikipedia appears to do this rather randomly (see the entries in this category, for example). NASA's Exoplanet Catalog consistently leaves a space between the star's designation and the exoplanet's letter. See also Caltech's NASA Exoplanet Archive. A page at the International Astronomical Union's website explaining exoplanet naming conventions doesn't specifically discuss the spacing issue, although it does seem to use them randomly (e.g., "CoRoT-7b" and "GJ 1214 b"). I'm wondering if there's some kind of standard for the spacing issue. Perhaps certain catalogs consistently use spaces while others consistently don't? Nythar (💬-🍀) 05:22, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The section "Scientific Designations" on the IAU's website uses "Kepler-186f", "CoRoT-7b", "Qatar-1b" and "Kepler-34(AB)b", but all 164 names in the section "List of Exoplanet Names" have a space before the planet letter, such as "HAT-P-12 b" and "WASP-17 b". Obviously, when the parent star's designation ends on a letter, there has to be a space; we don't want to send a generation ship to Proxima Centaurib or they might get lost when the Nth generation cannot find Proxima Centaurib in the ship's star catalogue. For this reason alone, the obvious and easy consistent rule is to always use a space. Furthermore, for the non-cognoscenti "WASP-7b" might create the impression that this designates item 7b in a catalogue of the findings of the WASP project. That said, the discoverers of this exoplanet themselves wrote "WASP-7b" without a space in the report on their find.^[3]  ‑‑Lambiam 11:31, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking as an amateur, and one-time aspiring professional, astronomer, I think what is going on is that the relevant catalogues, scientific papers and journal articles are generally compiled and written by astronomers for astronomers, who in context all understand exactly what is being discussed and referenced, so there is no compelling need for a universally observed stylistic convention. (Though as a former science book editor, I would have expected an individual journal, say, to have one as part of its House style manual.) Perhaps one day some sub-committee of the IAU will pronounce on the matter. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 07:44, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Morning Folks!! Would this synthetic gas ethidene dichloride be this gas 1,1-Dichloroethane. There is a link/content there stating it was an inhalational anesthetic and I would assume it was, but I'm no chemist. I did a search and it linked the two. It's for the Joseph Lister article. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 06:27, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, ethidene is an obsolete term for ethylidene, and ethylidene dichloride is the same as 1,1-dichloroethane.  ‑‑Lambiam 07:31, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Morning @Lambiam: Thats grand. Thank You!! scope_creep^Talk 09:11, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While reading on the topic of this substance as an an(a)esthetic, I found dichloromethane was already in use at the time ethidine was being tested (see PMC 2263151). DMacks (talk) 07:02, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A friend from Ukraine told me that Ukrainians enjoy danger. There's a lot of cats there. This may seem silly or farfetched, but I would appreciate a serious and thoughtful answer with research. Thanks. Rich (talk) 12:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is true that Ukraine has a higher than average feral cat population. It is also true that some studies have found increased rates of toxoplasmosis infections in some populations such as the feral cat population and wild boars in Ukraine. I found no studies or surveys on human infections. It is also true that toxoplasmosis infections in humans has been correlated with higher risk-taking behavior. What you have is a loose correlation. It will take a lot more than sample surveys to make a claim that cats are causing risky behavior in humans. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think your first question should be 'Is there any evidence they enjoy danger more than other people?". On a quick Google search I was unable to find any corroboration of them enjoying any kind of danger, not even thrill rides. I did find https://www.rbth.com/sport/2017/05/31/extreme-thrills-why-rope-jumping-is-very-popular-in-russia_773962 which said bungee jumping was invented in America and is now very popular in Russia - do they both have large feral cat or boar populations? NadVolum (talk) 17:23, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My American friend who resided in Ukraine for several years prior to the invasion provided several convincing anecdotes and was sure that Ukrainians liked danger.Rich (talk) 14:37, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

More generally, studies have suggested that T. gondii infection can affect humans on a societal level (e.g.: Effects of Latent Toxoplasmosis on Political Beliefs and Values & Socioeconomic vulnerability associated to Toxoplasma gondii exposure in southern Brazil); so, your implied correlation is plausible. --136.56.165.118 (talk) 19:29, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also: A 2015 study found a high seroprevalence rate of 81.3% for T. gondii among Ukrainian women of reproductive age, indicating a significant presence of the parasite in the population.^[4] --136.56.165.118 (talk) 19:44, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disclaimer from Perplexity AI: While these studies demonstrate a link between toxoplasmosis and risk-taking behavior in various contexts, it's important to note that none of them specifically focus on Ukraine. Further research would be needed to determine if similar patterns exist in the Ukrainian population.

I've noticed that with numerous tornadoes, including Parkersburg 2008, El Reno 2011 and Moore 2013, they almost always occlude (pre-dissipation turn) to the north, but no other direction. Why is this? It really isn't a well-studied topic, and seems weird that every time a tornado occludes (or fails to) it's always in a north or northeastern direction. — E_F⁵ 19:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tornadoes generally follow the storms they are in. Storms in the United States tend to follow the prevailing wind pattern, which is Southwest to Northeast. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 20:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tornadoes have angular momentum with respect to both their own axis and the Earth's axis. As they move poleward, the conservation of terrestrial angular momentum requires an increase in their eastward velocity. This combination often results in a northeastern path in the Northern Hemisphere. ^[5] --136.56.165.118 (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the Coriolis force can affect mesocyclone dynamics, especially in the Northern Hemisphere where it deflects motion to the right.^[6] --136.56.165.118 (talk) 19:08, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why test charge is positive 58.181.100.114 (talk) 11:44, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Then the force on it will be in the same direction as the electric field. If it was negative the force would go in the opposite direction. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:01, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For various reasons, mainly due to genetics, I grew up essentially without any friends my age, and certainly not any friends of the opposite sex. Although female friendship and intimacy has been a very strong desire since early childhood, I never experienced anything like that until my late 20s or early 30s (and even then, very, very little of it).

However, at some point in my late 20s, there was a period of a week or so in which I did get some physical contact with women my age. Although this was restricted to hugs, it caused huge emotional and physiological effects on me. On the physiological side, I noticed almost constant excessive excretion of Cowper's fluid, to the extent that I needed to change clothes every hour (and each hour could see large amounts of this substance in the clothes), throughout the day. (Even when I was alone, I was obviously thinking about this new kind of physical contact.)

Now, within a day or two, I started experiencing mild pain in the inguinal region on the right side.

I have always believed this to be a consequence of the sudden hyperactivity of my right bulbourethral gland, but I have never researched it properly.

Is this a reasonable hypothesis? I notice that the Wikipedia article on the gland doesn't mention anything about this.

(Please note that I am not seeking medical advice; I'm merely being curious.)

--Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:32, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You should ask a urologist. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:53, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That would be ideal, yes, but I don't know any urologist. And it wouldn't make any sense for me to see a urologist as a patient, since this is merely me being curious in general; I don't experience any clinically significant problem. In fact I very much doubt I would even be allowed to see a urologist if I did go to the vårdcentral, since the Swedish health care system does not have enough resources to see patients just because they want to discuss biology. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:27, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where does your health care system get its resources? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:23, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tax money Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:53, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And do you pay taxes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:06, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course.

But to the best of my knowledge, the Swedish health care system has not much spare capacity. (Situationen är ansträngd.)

I believe there is a shortage of specialist staff, and too often patients have to wait to see a specialist or perform some examination or medical intervention. Sometimes even suspected cancer patients have to wait a bit longer than medically optimal (and certainly longer than they'd prefer themselves). So if I would insist to see a urologist just to satisfy my curiosity about the possible physiological mechanisms that can make bulbourethral hypersecretion to cause nociception, then I'd take up resources that could have been used for prostate cancer patients.

You don't want to do that. And I am note really that interested, either. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:43, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Their shortage of staff is not your fault. If I were in your shoes, I would find a urologist and schedule an appointment. It might be next week, it might be six months. But unless the doc thinks you've got a real problem, it shouldn't take up too much of his/her time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:07, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are asking other people to give opinions on whether your theory about a medical condition you have is correct. In most people's book, that's asking for WP:MEDICAL advice, which you will not get a response to. Bazza 7 (talk) 16:50, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I respectfully disagree. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:16, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of assuming that help won't be forthcoming, the OP anywhere in Sweden can telephone 1177 to contact his commune's family advice service that offers interviews with variously qualified relationship psychologists and sexologists. Website www1177.se describes the service in individual communes. Also, without me presuming anything about the OP's situation, Sweden offers a very sympathetic and confidential counselling service to young adults, details of booking and cost at https://familjeradgivningen.com/samtal-for-unga-vuxna/ . Philvoids (talk) 15:22, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid you misunderstood my question. My question is strictly about biology. A relationship psychologist is unlikely to know very much about the ways nociceptors can be triggered by a sudden and prolonged production and excretion from the bulbourethral glands in human males. Sexologists may have some knowledge, but likely not much at the cellular level (if any). I'm also afraid your second comment is even more off-topic. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 15:34, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I most deliberately deny you a biological answer. That's my response because some lucky psychologist adviser or sexologist whom you prejudge as unqualified can look forward either to learning from your self analysis of your unique and medically educational case, or to saving everyone's time by posing questions or tests that you may not have thought of. Philvoids (talk) 17:00, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I thought the "Science" Reference desk of Wikipedia was supposed to be a place where you can ask questions about human physiology. But maybe I was wrong. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:33, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read our article on blue balls?  ​‑‑Lambiam 17:37, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your reply. I don't think I have ever heard of epididymal hypertension (I have been a medical student myself, so it's possible I have heard of it but forgotten it). This condition indeed seems highly related to my observations. But I'm not convinced this is it. The sensation was clearly located on the right side and quite far from the scrotum, but referred pain could maybe account for that. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 15:41, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Our internal energy article sez:

It excludes the kinetic energy of motion of the system as a whole and the potential energy of position of the system as a whole, with respect to its surroundings and external force fields. It includes the thermal energy, i.e., the constituent particles' kinetic energies of motion relative to the motion of the system as a whole.

But what about bulk rotational kinetic energy? Taken literally that seems to be included in the second sentence. But it doesn't seem thermodynamic at all. If you accelerate an object (without heating it) you don't increase its internal energy, and I would think the same should apply to rotational acceleration (say, of a flywheel). --Trovatore (talk) 00:05, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you rotate a flywheel (or any other object) fast enough, it will fly apart. That seems to me to suggest that some internal energies might have been generated by the externally applied force. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 12:56, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Whether an object gets heated or not with respect to time is not relevant. Classically, at any moment in time there is a rotating reference frame for which a system's bulk rotational kinetic energy is simply zero. Then note that its total internal energy, which includes thermal energy and stresses, are equivalent to its total invariant mass. Unlike fictitious forces, its mass is not fictitious, hence its bulk rotational kinetic energy is not part of its internal energy, but thermal energy is, of course. Modocc (talk) 14:51, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But a rotating frame is not an inertial frame. I wouldn't think that would count? In any inertial frame, the bulk rotational kinetic energy is the sum of the particles' kinetic energy (at least, the part based on the rotation) with respect to the center of mass of the system. --Trovatore (talk) 18:20, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Often, the literature does not respect the universe's absolute rotation and neither does GR's localized frames. When we head west our clocks' energies decrease, and only if rotation is absent for which local curvature is zero everywhere does one really have something worth talking about as I see things. That said, in the classical setting (v<<c), the KE of non-inertial frames are still worth consideration. Modocc (talk) 19:02, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I think this discussion is not going to get to the point I'm interested in, so let me show the rest of my hand. The question arises from a very old claim, in a fortunately obscure page, that systems at absolute zero have to be "still". I think that's nonsense; an example would be a fast flywheel, which, notwithstanding its high rotational kinetic energy, can still be cooled arbitrarily close to absolute zero. The reason, I think, is that the kinetic energy isn't random and therefore not thermal (this raises interesting questions about the foundations of statistical mechanics which I have still not fully understood, and have not really seen much discussed).

A discussant at that talk page did raise an interesting point that if the object is actually at absolute zero, then you would be in an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian, therefore time invariant, which I suppose in the case of the flywheel means you would need to lose all information about the angular position of the flywheel.

There are lots of places we could go from here. I think coherent vibration is also not thermal, though it would thermalize eventually (except maybe in a superfluid or something?) whereas the flywheel's rotation would not.

Anyway, can anyone clarify these issues? --Trovatore (talk) 19:14, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Maxwellian energy distribution" is a term for kinetic randomness. Following up on what I said before, a gyroscopic instrument with two counter-rotating parts comes to mind with respect to an object that has additional invariant internal energy (but is not normally considered thermal or Maxwellian) with respect to any reference frame. Our article on absolute zero states "In the quantum-mechanical description, matter at absolute zero is in its ground state, the point of lowest internal energy." In other words, its energy is not zero. Maybe that helps, maybe not. Modocc (talk) 21:35, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After reading Sphere eversion, which I didn't understand(not the article's fault), I wonder if there is a class of objects including the 3 particular spheres, and maybe tori that can be everted and form a category, in which eversion would be a functor from that category to itself.Rich (talk) 16:16, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably, in a categorical treatment, the objects would be self-intersection-free immersions of bounded and connected 2-dimensional smooth orientable manifolds in three-dimensional space. The morphisms would be, presumably, regular homotopies. Some of these morphisms preserve orientation; the others are "disorienting" – they flip the orientation around. Some morphisms are endomorphisms: their domain and codomain are the same object. Eversions are then the disorienting endomorphisms, a subclass of the morphisms. This subclass is not particularly interesting, categorically speaking, since the composition of two eversions is not an eversion. We can form a subcategory whose objects are the evertible objects, but we cannot restrict the morphisms to just the eversions, because the identity morphisms would thereby be excluded.

An endofunctor of this category should map morphisms to morphisms; eversions, being themselves morphisms, live at a lower categorical level. I see no obvious way of defining another notion of morphism between evertible objects in which an endofunctor might correspond to the notion of eversion.  ‑‑Lambiam 06:05, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For which pairs is it known that there are infinitely many primes ending with the digit d₁ for which the next prime ends with the digit d₂? Note that there are 16 possible pairs to consider.

If one arranges the 16 sets of pairs of consecutive primes into a -grid, then it is easy to see that at least one set in each row and one in each column must be infinite (by Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions). Perhaps, all 16 sets might turn out to be infinite.

More generally, the problem could be generalized to bases other than 10. In this case, for base b, there are φ(b)² possible combinations for the mod-b remainders (or equivalently, the last digits in base b) of pairs of consecutive primes greater than the largest prime dividing b, where φ(b) is Euler's totient function. Another possible generalization would be to consider triplets or n-tuples of consecutive primes. In this case, there are φ(b)ⁿ possible combinations for the mod-b remainders (or equivalently, the last digits in base b) of n-tuples of consecutive primes greater than the largest prime dividing b. The corresponding conjecture would then be that all of the resulting φ(b)ⁿ sets of n-tuples of consecutive primes are infinite. GTrang (talk) 05:27, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, solving b=5 would also solve b=10 since all primes after 2 are odd. It seems reasonable to expect that 16 entries in the grid to be infinite; primes seem to behave randomly in every way they might be expected to behave randomly, but proving the corresponding conjectures usually proves elusive. Dirichlet's theorem is an example of this, since even though the behavior in question is very simple, the proof is very complex. The case b=2 is trivial, but other than that I think a more realistic question is if there has been any research or partial results on the question. --RDBury (talk) 08:44, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

PS. For b=4 it's not hard to see that Dirichlet's theorem implies the (1, 3) and (3, 1) entries must be infinite. Otherwise there would be a point after which the last digits would be all 1 or all 3. It's not hard to find data on-line, for example here for b=10 and here for b=4. I imported the b=4 data into a spreadsheet and found the entries in the grid for the first 10000 primes. The results were (1, 1):2053, (1, 3):2930, (3, 1):2931, (3, 3):2084. As you can see the (1, 3) and (3, 1) entries are significantly larger than the (1, 1) and (3, 3), and from what I can tell this doesn't seem to a transient effect; when you restrict the range to 9000 to 10000 the imbalance doesn't go away. I have no explanation for this. A similar experiment with the entries in the b=10 grid also appear to be significantly imbalanced. --RDBury (talk) 09:30, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A (1, 3) pair can be twins (e.g. 11 – 13 or 4241 – 4243) and a (3, 1) pair can be just 8 apart (e.g. 683 – 691 or 8753 – 8581), whereas (1, 1) and (3, 3) require a prime gap that is at least 10. In the beginning of the sequence of prime gaps (OEIS A001223) larger gaps are relatively rare. Around 10000 the average gap is about log(10000) ≈ 9.2, but the imbalance may eventually disappear when the average gap is substantially larger than 10.  ‑‑Lambiam 11:02, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Right. I was thinking b = 4, so to me a (1, 3) pair would be 17, 19. If the "probably" of a number being prime is p, then the "probability" of a (1, 3) or (3, 1) pair is p + (1-p)²p + (1-p)⁴p ... = p/(1-(1-p)²). = p/(2p-p²) = 1/(2-p). Similarly, the "probability" of a (1, 1) or (3, 3) pair is (1-p)/(2-p). These do converge to 1/2 as p→0, but seeing as p is roughly inversely proportional to the number of digits (by the prime number theorem), the convergence will be very slow and the difference will still be noticeable even going up to the 10000th prime (6 digits). It would be interesting to compare different ranges of primes to see if the amount of imbalance actually matches what the prime number theorem predicts, but I'm satisfied for now. --RDBury (talk) 15:23, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For which quadruples there are infinitely many primes beginning with the digit d₁ and ending with the digit d₂ for which the next prime begins with the digit d₃ and ends with the digit d₄? 49.217.57.194 (talk) 18:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think we have no theory that helps to settle positive statements of this nature. I believe, nevertheless, that there are infinitely many such pairs when and otherwise probably none at all. This is based on a heuristic using the average density given by the prime number theorem, but some cases can be definitely excluded by Bertrand's postulate (which in spite of the name is a theorem). Others are excluded by Cramér's conjecture, which however has not been proved.  ‑‑Lambiam 20:40, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The general Leibniz rule is a formula for computing higher derivatives of products:

This is analogous to the binomial theorem, and in fact, as pointed out in the article, the binomial theorem can be proven from the special case f=exp(ax), g=exp(bx). But the binomial theorem can be generalized to negative n using the binomial series. So it seems reasonable (at least to me) to generalize the Leibniz rule to find a formula for (fg)⁽ⁿ⁾ when n is negative, where f^(-k) is interpreted to mean a kth antiderivative of f. An antiderivative is only defined up to a constant, but this can resolved by stipulating, say, f^(-k)(0) = 0. For example, we have:

when the series converges; this is iterated integration by parts. (Note that if g is polynomial then the sum is finite and convergence is not an issue.) Similarly:

and more generally:

This seems relatively straightforward to prove, given sufficient hand-waving on convergence and arbitrary constants, and useful since I happened to need a formula for (xⁱ exp(x))^(-k), so it seems like this is the kind of thing that would be well known and documented. But my searches have not turned up anything; I get a lot of results for the Leibniz integral rule instead, and that's very different. So do these formulas look familiar to anyone? --RDBury (talk) 10:54, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here integration by parts is called "the nearest possible approach to a general theorem for finding the antiderivative of the product of two functions". So your Leibniz-rule generalization would apparently be a surprise to the author.  ‑‑Lambiam 20:55, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The first formula is implied by the information given in Integration by parts#Repeated integration by parts. That section doesn't have citations, though that can be forgiven if the information is "common knowledge". But I'm not sure that the first formula would count as a more "general theorem". --RDBury (talk) 14:01, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Doesnt the formula for follow by applying the formula for to the terms in the formula for ?  ‑‑Lambiam 19:35, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Like I said, the formula is straightforward to prove. I was just saying that given that, and that it's a time saver in certain circumstances, it's odd that it doesn't seem to be well known. In fact I kind of expected to be in Wikipedia. RDBury (talk) 21:22, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let be a field, (note: finitely many variables), and be a maximal ideal of . So is a field extension of . Is it necessarily an algebraic extension? Antendren (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Let be a generator of a transcendental extension of in . Then is a polynomial in the and the ideal generated by and is proper, i.e., is not maximal, contradiction. Tito Omburo (talk) 00:20, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it proper? And how are you using that there are only finitely many variables, since it's not true otherwise?--Antendren (talk) 00:31, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The ideal is proper because it does not contain F (x is transcendental over F). Are you certain it's not true for infinitely many variables? Tito Omburo (talk) 00:45, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why x being transcendental makes the ideal proper. Could you give the details?

Yes, it's not true for infinitely many variables. Let , let be an extension by a single transcendental element, and let list the elements of K. Define a homomorphism from to by , and let M be the kernel.

Note that in this case, some corresponds to a transcendental element, and some corresponds to its inverse, so contains , meaning that isn't proper.Antendren (talk) 00:59, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To ask this question another way: Suppose is a transcendental extension of . As a vector space, is not finitely generated over . As a field, it might be ( over ). What about as a ring?--Antendren (talk) 11:09, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cube A is 1 unit on each side, with a body diagonal connecting points p & q. A cube B is then constructed with edge pq. As cube A spins along edge pq, does the volume of the intersecting cubes remain constant (at 1/4 unit cubed) or does it vary? And if it does vary, what are the maximum and minimum.Naraht (talk) 02:47, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Come along inside. We'll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place" is a quotation widely, or wildly, attributed to Kenneth Grahame, specifically to The Wind in the Willows. As you should by now expect it does not appear in that work. Can anyone identify a source? Thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 00:40, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest occurrence I could find, from 1999, has a different attribution: I believe it was Owl, in one of the Pooh books, who said so wisely, “Come along inside. We’ll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place.”^[7] The earliest presentation as a quotation from The Wind in the Willows I found is in a 2003 book titled The Power of a Teacup.^[8] I suppose all but the first of these false attributions blindly copied an earlier one. Grahame's book uses the phrase "Come inside and have something" and the goaler's daughter serves Toad "a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb",^[9] slightly more fancy than just buns, but there is nothing there that might evoke a suggestion that the world can be made a better place than it already is.  ‑‑Lambiam 12:27, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Conjecture: Maybe the quotation actually comes from a TV or film adaptation of the book. --142.112.222.162 (talk) 21:52, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Or from one of the four sequels by William Horwood? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 22:25, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891223872814395403 is wrong. But to prove the point of not censoring consiparaciy theories, which countries are banning the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? I wouldn’t be surprised even Hungary is 1 of them. But what countries beside France currently do it ? A worldmap would be the best option. 78.245.135.28 (talk) 23:35, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

i think that such - literature - would be prohibited from publication / distribution by default in a great many countries (as incitement to hatred - in the british speech /blasphemy laws, or in German Volksverhetzung 130.74.59.205 (talk) 03:30, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. The book isn’t that much hatred since it doesn’t tell what to do. In France it has a specific ban issued in 1990 targetting only it because hate speech laws don’t apply to it. Conspiracy theories isn’t necessarily hate speech, hence why I expect the legal coverage is different from hate speech. 78.245.135.28 (talk) 03:43, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So virulently antisemitic lies aren't all that hateful because they don't explicitly tell you to do something? You have odd ideas. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:30, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As far I understand, they don’t directly call to act against jews. They lie about them which implies hate. While in France laws about hate speech date from 1972, the book got banned by decree only in 1990 because it was definitely not considered to be hate speech and printing it was definitely legal.

A conspiracy theory isn’t necessarily about hate speech. Morally we can disagree, but this is important legally. 37.170.138.99 (talk) 08:10, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you post the original question? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:19, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean ? Countries that ban hate speech don’t necessarily ban the book and hence why I want to have the full list. Countries without hate speech laws also tend to befriend Israel so I wouldn’t be surprised if Hungary makes selling the book illegal. 37.165.255.22 (talk) 05:12, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just wondered if you're an IP-hopper, and it looks like you are. I also detect an agenda. Do you support the claims made in that work of fiction? And your saying Musk was wrong about Hitler is naive to say the least. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:13, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. I don’t support Musk at all. To the contrary. I want to make a case about an inconnic book which is known for having done a lot of harm rather than having to rely on things like demonstrating why Tommy Robinson is bad person. Also, peoples like Elon Musk or all the illeberal right accross the world tend to support Israel ane thus accept view fighting hate speech as bad but fighting antisemitism as good but without knowing the name of the book at all.

Since in France the book isn’t legally classified as hate speech and has it’s own interdiction that came several decades after hate speech laws, I think that the same could apply to other countries wanted to know the full list of countries banning the book specifically in order to make the link. 2A0D:E487:137F:E331:A9B1:14F:1255:EC4B (talk) 06:33, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dear you!

Why did you change picture of Queen Elisabeth I from the previous one where she is standing straight with small straight nose, queen virgin is known for her perfect nose, the other pictures are women who were around her. The only accurate picture of her is the one where Image: Elizabeth I in her coronation robes, a copy of about 1600 of a lost original painting. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Please change it. WE need to give accurate information about history and religion. Thanks Vesnamd (talk) 05:37, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you're talking about. The current lead image of the article Elizabeth I has not changed in recent months. The image Elizabeth I in coronation robes is in the article. --Viennese Waltz 08:07, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello thank you for your reply,current image is not accuare of how she looked, But i think the image that i told you of is accuarte and was picture for her at wikipedia maybe months ago last time i looked. 185.183.146.14 (talk) 11:45, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know the current image isn't accurate? Were you there at the time? --Viennese Waltz 12:41, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps OP is thinking of Queenie from Blackadder II? I seem to recall her commenting on her own nose approvingly. I can't say I've heard of the real Good Queen Bess having a particularly notable nose. DuncanHill (talk) 13:04, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to Paul Hentzner, a German lawyer travelling in England, in 1598 (when she was 65), she had 'her eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a little hooked, her lips narrow, and her teeth black (a defect the English seem subject to, from their too great use of sugar)'.^[1] Vesnamd, Her nose a little crooked. Do you like the portrait? That Gheeraerts, he was so clever, he had to be careful his foot didn't fall off. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 13:18, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I am not sure what the OP is complaining about. Looking back through the archives of the article, the images used have not changed in several years. Indeed, The images that appear in the various sections of the article have been in those locations going back to (at least) 2022.

That said, if you think the images need to be rearranged (or replaced with “better” images), the place to discuss that change is on the article talk page. Blueboar (talk) 13:43, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I gather that she also spelled her name with a "z" rather than an "s". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:47, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is same-surname marriage common in Western countries? 220.132.216.52 (talk) 08:46, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That could depend on the name. Franklin and Eleanor were both born with the surname Roosevelt. They were distant cousins, distant enough to not be a genetic issue. And it wouldn't be at all surprising if people with extremely common surnames such as Smith or Jones have married from time to time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:15, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not "common" because there are millions of different surnames in Western countries, as opposed to the article you linked which is about Eastern countries where there is a more limited range of surnames. See surname. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:34, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an example: Singer Patti Smith married rock guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith in 1980. They were completely unrelated. He was from West Virginia and she was born in Chicago. They had two children and were married for 14 years until Fred's sudden death from a heart attack at age 46. Cullen328 (talk) 09:50, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are 566,946 families called Smith in the UK, [10] representing about 1.2% of our 68 million population, [11] so I imagine that inter-Smith marriages are not too uncommon.

In Wales, 13.84% of the population are called Jones and 7.09% are called Davies, many of the latter living in a single county. [12] Alansplodge (talk) 19:29, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How common is Evans? We used to have a radio announcer here in Melbourne, Australia called Peter Evans. His article tells us "...he often referred to himself in the traditional Welsh form of "Evans the Wireless", whereby a person's occupation was used as part of their identifier." HiLo48 (talk) 23:05, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are about 71,000 people with the surname Evans in Wales [13] (represents about 2.3% of the Welsh population by my count). The prevelance of this type of surname (Jones, Williams, Davies, Evans, etc) is apparently due to the forced adoption of surnames instead of the traditional patronyms during the 16th-century and the way they were transcribed by English-speaking clerks. Alansplodge (talk) 22:32, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As explained in the above responses, there's no taboo against it, but it's not common simply due to the diversity of surnames. This maybe-reliable source suggests that even within a single country of origin, the most common surname is held by barely over 1% of the population. It may have been more common in times when a lot of people lived their whole lives in small villages and towns and rarely met strangers, and so were all to some degree related. It's undoubtedly more common between people with common surnames.

There is a taboo against marrying people who are closely related, which does put a damper on same-surname marriage. For almost anyone in the West, most of the people you know who share your surname will be relatives.

These days, most people are totally fine with marriage between third cousins (people who share one set of great-great grandparents) -- since it's rare for people to know their third cousins well if at all. Second cousin (people who share one set of great-grandparents) marriage isn't an issue genetically (in terms of inbreeding), but still makes some people uncomfortable. I for one knew most of my second cousins as a child, and would find the idea of marrying them weird.

There was a time when marriage between first cousins was considered permissible (if not ideal) in parts of the West. Or even desirable under certain circumstances relating to consolidation of power or resources (see also the tangled European royal family trees). That's fallen out of favor in the 20th and 21st centuries and would now be considered taboo in most places.

Some of this is detailed in our article on cousin marriage. -- Avocado (talk) 14:02, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The canonic example is Queen Victoria and her Prince Consort, Albert, who were first cousins. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:26, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First of all: SPOILER ALERT. The question may involve a spoiler for the film Captain America: Brave New World, so if you did not see the film but plan to do so, please avoid this section.

...and now that we said that, let's go on. One of the lead characters of the film Captain America: Brave New World is the president of the United States (a fictional one, Thunderbolt Ross, played by Harrison Ford). At the end of the film it turns out that, like Bruce Banner before him, he can turn into a Hulk. Meaning, a destructive and superpowerful monster (as in, he demolished the White House as if he was a bull in a China shop), and he has very limited control over the transformation or his actions once transformed. There's the usual big superhero fight of the film's finale, he's defeated and back to human, and we know in the epilogue that he has resigned and agreed to be kept prisoner in a prison that can contain him.

Which begs the question: what if he didn't? The old Ross surely wouldn't have. What if a US president gets health problems that make him unable to properly serve as president (perhaps not to that extreme, but let's suppose so), but refuses to resign? Cambalachero (talk) 17:43, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Vice-President and members of the presidential cabinet tell the Senate that the president is unable to perform the duties of the office. The VP becomes acting president until the actual fitness of the president can be assessed. I assume Secret Service agents or even military personnel would be used to physically detain the president if needed. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:58, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The President is the head of the Executive Branch of the government, which places the President in charge of the military and the Secret Service. As soon at the new President takes the oath of office, the old President is no longer in power at all and is technically tresspassing if they refuse to leave office. It is trivial to order proper law enforcement to arrest and remove the old President because, in real life, nobody turns into a magical creature with super powers. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 18:45, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe confine him with Heath bars. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:25, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They might gnaw their way through. Just like vampires can be warded off with garlic, a circle of fresh crops of lettuce may have a stronger confining effect on some former presidents  ‑‑Lambiam 11:12, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Kind of like JFK, whose inaugural address contained the statement, "Lettuce begin." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:05, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed and blind and couldn't do much. No one was allowed to visit him except for a very few. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall made no attempt in trying to call Wilson unable to serve the presidency. 115.188.71.85 (talk) 09:35, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The reason may have been that at the time no process had been defined for making the vice president the acting president. Before Marshall, Vice President Chester A. Arthur had declined to become acting president during the eleven weeks President Garfield was incapacitated between his being shot and his deat.  ‑‑Lambiam 12:03, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care about the spoiler, because I have no intention of seeing the film. I'm just saying that you could have asked your question perfectly well without it. Your post could have started with the words "What if a US president..." and nothing would have been lost. --Viennese Waltz 10:05, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A very similar situation could have occurred in 1981, when US President Ronald Reagan suddenly experienced near-fatal blood loss; the only difference is that instead of refusing to do anything, he did nothing because he simply couldn't choose to do anything. Confusion among senior members of his administration and Reagan's rapid recovery prevented them from invoking the forcible removal component of the 25th Amendment (Section 4), although the amendment's original sponsor, Birch Bayh, later wrote that it should have been invoked. Nyttend (talk) 02:08, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On Thomas Sankara’s article, I strongly disagree with him being labelled as a “Marxist revolutionary” and instead would describe him as a Marxist inspired socialist. Is this not misleading by misinterpreting his political view? Petrosm7 (talk) 11:10, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

it seems that he considered himself to be a revolutionary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:02, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One can be a socialist and a revolutionary, or a socialist but not a revolutionary, or not a socialist but a revolutionary, or neither a socialist nor a revolutionary. After attaining power, Sankara created, following the Cuban model, Comités de Défense de la Révolution (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution) and set up a new system of courts, called the Tribunaux populaires de la Révolution (People's Revolutionary Tribunals). While it is defensible to call him a coupist,^[14] his own preference was clearly to see the coup as "revolutionary".

The distinction between "Marxist" and "Marxism-inspired" is hard to draw, because many self-avowed Marxists paint other self-avowed Marxists as not being "true" Marxists. The analysis of society in terms of dialectical materialism and class struggle found in his Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle^[15] is undeniable Marxist, but this need not mean that he embraced all theses of classical Marxism, and most likely he did not, just like many Marxism-inspired African thinkers aspiring to social justice before him..  ‑‑Lambiam 12:08, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Very well written thank you. You made the point that I believe in when you said, “ "Marxist" and "Marxism-inspired" is hard to draw, because many self-avowed Marxists paint other self-avowed Marxists as not being "true" Marxists.” Even though I am not Marxist I understand it’s a fine line as Sankara did not embrace a one party system or emphasise a global proletariat revolution, but his writings were indeed Marxist. It just depends whether you count thoughts or actions as depicting overall political view. Petrosm7 (talk) 13:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While Marx advocated the dictatorship of the proletariat, there is no reason to think he conceived of this as being realized by a one-party system, and definitely not one in which the reins of the party were firmly in the hands of an elite of committed communists. (Quoting from Samuel Moore's 1888 translation of The Communist Manifesto: The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.)  ‑‑Lambiam 19:15, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh I see, thanks ! Petrosm7 (talk) 19:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Petrosm7. The problem with Sankara is that he spent most of his years of political activism in underground organization, then a few years in government (a government that was ridden by internal ideological differences) and then he was killed leaving us with no possibility to dig into autobiography etc. But a few things can be said,

• Sankara's early political mentor was Adama Touré (PAI general secretary), who introduced Sankara and other students at the military school to Marxist concepts, presumably in a fairly orthodox Marxist-Leninist setting.
• But Sankara would have known Soumane Touré at high school, and although Soumane Toure was not yet a PAI (communist party) member he organized student protests at the school. So Sankara would have been exposed to radical politics to some degree before joining military academy.
• Authors differ on the degree of the influence Adama Toure had on shaping Sankara's political ideology. Arguably Sankara and others near him in the 1970s found themselves in the midst of different revolutionary streams, all of different shades of Marxism-Leninism.
• Sankara's secret group of radical military officers used the name 'Roc'. In many sources it is stated that ROC was short for Rassemblement des officiers communistes ('Communist Officers Grouping'), but this hypothesis has been rejected by ex-ROC members who argue that the name was just the French word for 'rock'.
• Roc had contacts with the pro-Soviet (PAI), pro-Chinese (ULC) and pro-Albanian (PCRV) groups in Upper Volta. When in government, Sankara's coalition included his own Roc faction (now using the name OMR), PAI, ULC-R and two PCRV splinter groups.
• In the months before his death and as tensions within the ruling coalition had become much more problematic, Sankara relaunched the OMR and sought to convert it into a formal political organization. The draft statues of OMR, which Sankara distributed at the last meeting before he was killed, had a preamble stating that OMR was committed to the "union of the Burkinabé left-wing towards the creation of a Marxist–Leninist party".
• After Sankara's death, Sankarism emerged as a distinct political trend in Burkina Faso, there have been at least 10-20 different Sankarist groups, some more to the left and some more moderate. Sankarism after Sankara's death exists outside of the communist movement, and represents more of a broad radical pan-Africanist tendency.

Now considering the points above, I'd say it is pretty safe to frame Sankara as a Marxist, and possibly Marxist-Leninist. --Soman (talk) 12:09, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sankara’s connection to Marxism is undeniable, but the idea that he was fully Marxist-Leninist in both thought and action doesn’t hold up when looking at his actual governance. While he was certainly influenced by Marxist ideas, his political approach was shaped by a broader mix of revolutionary and pragmatic considerations, all explained below.

1. Adama Toure’s Influence: Its true that Sankara was introduced to Marxist thought by Adama Toure, but that alone doesnt make him a strict Marxist-Leninist. Many young revolutionaries in Africa during the Cold War were exposed to Marxism in some form, yet they often adapted it to their local context rather than following a rigid doctrine. The fact that sources debate how much influence Toure had over Sankara suggests that his ideological formation was more complex than simply adopting orthodox Marxist-Leninist principles.

2. Early Exposure to Radical Politics: While Soumane Toure introduced Sankara to student protests, radical activism in high school doesnt necessarily mean a full commitment to Marxism-Leninism. Many anti-colonial and nationalist movements shared similar rhetoric about revolution and class struggle, but they didn’t always translate that into the kind of vanguard-party dictatorship or planned economy characteristic of Marxist-Leninist regimes.

3. Multiple Revolutionary Currents: The fact that Sankara and his contemporaries were exposed to different Marxist groups (pro-Soviet (PAI), pro-Chinese (ULC), and pro-Albanian (PCRV)) is evidence of ideological fragmentation rather than strict adherence to a single Marxist-Leninist line. If he had been a committed Marxist-Leninist from the start, he would have aligned with one of these factions rather than engaging with all of them. Instead, his movement took influence from various sources, making it difficult to categorize as strictly Marxist-Leninist.

4. ROC and Its Meaning: The claim that ROC stood for Rassemblement des officiers communistes has been rejected by ex-members, who insist it was simply the French word for rock. If ROC had truly been a communist officers group, its members would have no reason to distance themselves from that label. This suggests that while ROC was a radical military faction, it was not necessarily a communist vanguard organization in the traditional Marxist-Leninist sense.

5. Sankaras Coalition in Government: His government was made up of different leftist factions, but rather than enforcing a one-party Marxist state, he attempted to balance their competing interests. A true Marxist-Leninist leader would have imposed a single-party system, centralized all decision-making, and eliminated factionalism within the government. Sankara did none of this, which suggests his leadership was more pragmatic than ideologically rigid.

6. Late Formation of OMR as a Marxist-Leninist Party: The fact that Sankara only attempted to formally structure OMR as a Marxist-Leninist party in the months before his death shows that his government was not fully committed to Marxism-Leninism from the start. If he had truly intended to build a Marxist-Leninist state, the creation of a vanguard party would have been an immediate priority, not an afterthought during a period of rising internal tensions.

7. Sankarism After His Death: The way Sankarism evolved posthumously also undermines the idea that he was a strict Marxist-Leninist. Rather than becoming a purely communist movement, Sankarism developed into a broader radical pan-Africanist current, with groups that range from leftist to more moderate. If Sankara had built a clearly defined Marxist-Leninist political structure, his ideological legacy would have been more rigidly communist rather than the diverse range of Sankarist factions we see today.

Taken together, these points show that while Sankara was deeply influenced by Marxist thought, he did not govern as a strict Marxist-Leninist. His policies were shaped by revolutionary ideals but also by pragmatism and local political realities. Whether we call him a Marxist-Leninist depends on whether we prioritize his ideology or his actual governance but in action, he diverged from the rigid structures that define true Marxist-Leninist rule. Petrosm7 (talk) 01:59, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OP is a banned user
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I was just watching a documentary about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft. They said that when someone steals art, they are committing a property crime against a private individual. Nonetheless, it becomes a federal crime and invokes the FBI. Why is this? What’s the basis and rationale? What constitutes “art”? Thanks. 32.209.69.24 (talk) 18:36, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply] The FBI was granted jurisdiction on the grounds that the stolen artwork had likely crossed state lines (which makes it a federal crime). Blueboar (talk) 18:49, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply] Thank you! 32.209.69.24 (talk) 03:26, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply] Resolved

1921 painting by M. V. Dhurandhar. Sambhaji is Sambhaji, 1657-1689. Who is Kubkullus? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:48, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The auction-house page from which the image was copied ([16]) reveals nothing beyond the title "Sambhaji & Kubkullus". When the image was added to our article Sambhaji this was expanded to the caption "Sambhaji meeting Kubkullus at a military camp". Perhaps the editor who added this knows more about the underlying story.  ‑‑Lambiam 21:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like every online reference to “Kubkullus” is to this particular painting. Maybe there is a different spelling? John M Baker (talk) 04:17, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here's someone also wondering in 2022:[17]. It probably has some significance that the 2 central people are wearing white, but what that is I can only guess. I'm thinking rank/status.

This page [18] use a cropped version with picture text about (I think) the Sambhaji#Accession events.

The pic appears in the slideshow here [19] with some text I can't google translate. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:04, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

White symbolizes purity, but may have been used artistically for focus of attention. The lady was cropped out of the picture in the cropped version, apparently considered a distraction from the message. The slideshow's caption reads, नौ साल की उम्र में ही निधन होने की वजह से उनका पालन पोषण शिवाजी महाराज की माता जीजाबाई ने किया था, which Google translates as the entirely unrelated message, "Since Shivaji Maharaj's mother Jijabai died at the age of nine, he was raised by Shivaji Maharaj's mother Jijabai."  ‑‑Lambiam 11:43, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to take a wild guess—this painting is focused on two figures: Sambhaji, dressed in white and reclining on a seat, and a woman in white standing before him. "Kubkullus" most likely refers to the woman, who I assume is not of noble status.I’m not sure, but my intuition suggests that the woman is most likely from a region recently conquered by Sambhaji. The AP (talk) 03:33, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is not likely that the painter depicted a scene conjured up purely by his imagination and randomly assigned a name to the imaginary woman in the scene. The painting is almost certainly based on some existing story, well known to the artist, that was told around the military campaigns of Shivaji. But then it is strange that no other mentions of "Kubkullus" can be found but in relation to this specific painting. Did the auction house, or a previous owner of the painting, misspell the title?  ‑‑Lambiam 11:40, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I'm thinking, that it's unlikely to be just made up by artist. I'm hoping someone will have access to good Indian sources. Perhaps searching for the artist + Sambhaji in relevant languages/sources could give something. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:47, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång The woman is a definitely a widow, as white was chiefly worn by widows following the Vidhwa tradition. Imo (just an assumption) the woman appears to be Soyarabai, Sambhaji's step mother who plotted against him, and is now being confronted. Regarding, Kubkullus, must be error from uploader's side. 2405:201:402D:98AD:F5A4:C897:7479:3D94 (talk) 15:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Soyarabai does make an amount of sense, and citogenesis (via Commons) is a possibility. But you'd think that with a known author like this, it shouldn't be impossible to find a good source mentioning the painting. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The title "Sambhaji & Kubkullus" was copied from the web page of an auction site from which also the image was copied: [20]. See also [21], [22] and [23]. So if it is an error, the error was not made by the uploader.  ‑‑Lambiam 20:58, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One avenue of approach might be to transcribe the name Kubkullus into Marathi and search based on that. I attempted to do so but, given my nonexistent grasp of the language and of Devanagari, I had no luck. GalacticShoe (talk) 19:46, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just to add more confusion... I found the photo in two collections. Both of them refer to the woman laying on a bed. It is clear in the photo that a man is laying on the bed and the woman is standing. Is there a third woman? Is that what was noted as being cropped earlier in these answers? 68.187.174.155 (talk) 16:16, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, the cropped image mentioned above has no Kubkullus. But now that you mention it, the person in white on the right does not have a mustache. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:25, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway refers to the railway's annual net-ton-miles of freight. I know what a ton-mile is, but how does it differ from a net-ton-mile? [24] talks about "net ton" being a synonym for 2000 pounds, e.g. a short ton, but this seems a bit awkward — why not just say "ton" instead of "net-ton"? It sounds like it's positive tonnage minus negative tonnage, but you can't carry negative tonnage, so "net" is just confusing. Nyttend (talk) 06:35, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I assume it just means net tonnage as opposed to gross tonnage; see Weight#Measuring_weight. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:31, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can't haul negative tonnage, but you can haul negative mileage. If you move a load first from A to B, then move the same load from B to A, your net-mileage and net-ton-miles are zero. Or more realistically, net-mileage may measure the distance from source to destination along the shortest possible route (which is what you can charge for) and gross-mileage is along the actual route taken. That's how it works here for passenger trains: you pay for the shortest route, even if you actually take a faster detour (some caveats apply).

But as above poster mentions, it could just as well refer to net tonnage, ignoring the empty weight of the train. Or at least the weight of the locomotive: sometimes railway companies are hired to move freight, sometimes they are hired to move someone else's wagons, making the entire wagon, not just its contents, the payload. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:23, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Net Ton-Mile    The movement of a net ton of freight one mile."^[25]  ‑‑Lambiam 11:48, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And from the same source "Net Ton - 2,000 pounds". DuncanHill (talk) 12:04, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't net tonnage the weight being hauled, minus the weight of the vehicle upon which it sits? DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 16:36, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is totally false and is used to vandalize his pure image. This is so unfair to such a great Soul. Humans have become so insane. 😞 42.104.218.5 (talk) 22:32, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where’s your evidence? Pablothepenguin (talk) 00:30, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The claims about him being "addicted" appear to be sourced. And nobody's perfect. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:11, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please make edit requests for protected pages on their talk pages. In this case I believe the proper place for the request would be at Talk:Shivaji. However, also note that the requests won't be acted upon if they simply state a claim (including that something is true or false) without evidence. Dekimasuよ! 01:23, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why the talkpage of a different article? Sure, Talk:Sambhaji is protected atm, but then WP:RFED is the way to go. However, there is some background here, including a lot of media coverage. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:49, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If that’s the article in question, then fine. The title of this section appeared to be a redlink when I visited it earlier, so I assumed this was about material in the references of the article I linked. The underlying point remains the same in either case; this is not a request for reference desk assistance. Dekimasuよ! 12:20, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Side note: It having been a red link was my fault. I put square brackets around the name in the title, not realizing at the time that it had been misspelled. I fixed that, and also added an "anchor" with the original title. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:23, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

hey all,

i just want to share my view on this whole discussion about chatrapati sambhaji maharaj being addicted, and i feel that such info should not be deleted, because it is not only about strict factual accuracy but also inspiration to readers and giving a moral lesson. as our dear bhagavad gita reminds us, "o son of kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer". this verse shows us that the ups and downs in life are natural and transient, meaning that even a great soul such as chatrapati sambhaji maharaj goes through phases that might seem less than perfect, but they don't detract from his overall greatness. also, our old texts like mahabharata and upanishads tell us that nobody is perfect and that every man has his own vulnerabilities, which gives a strength to those who are admiring him.

so, in my honest opinion, deleting this info would only take away a chance for many to see themselves in his struggles, and be prideful as they connect with his legacy, even if every detail is not 100% perfect. please administrator ji keep this information intact so it can motivate us and help us understand a great man like him is also human.

thanks a lot for reading 130.74.58.97 (talk) 16:02, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, IP user. I'm afraid that your comment is 100% irrelevant to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia - that is, it summarises what reliable sources say about notable subjects - nothing more. It is no part of Wikipedia's purpose "give moral lessons", or even to teach. Please see what Wikipedia is not. ColinFine (talk) 12:33, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Brown_spheres_optical_illusion.png

We know that this is an illusion where all the spheres are brown. To show this fact, zoom in the image and you'll see that the spheres are brown. But here's another illusion with this image:

Zoom in the image. Look at the spheres that the green lines go over. The lines don't appear to be straight when the lines cross the edges of the spheres. (Please focus only on the spheres that the GREEN lines go over.) Georgia guy (talk) 23:36, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just an illusion. Some of the lines appear to be poorly drawn. Unless that was done on purpose to try to make the spheres look more spherical. Maybe you could contact the original uploader (user Smial) and ask about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:18, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And it is also not just the green lines. All lines, while going over spheres, are curved upwards across the higher spheres and downwards across the lower spheres, as if drawn in perspective. The curvature is zero for lines right in the middle across spheres.  ‑‑Lambiam 04:17, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A 2-D representation of a 3-D object is necessarily an 'optical illusion' in its own right. Yes, the curvature of the lines is a deliberate contribution to the illusion of there being 3-D spheres; so is the shading employed on their representation. Yes, the illustration is not rendered as perfectly as it might be; any illustration could likely have been rendered 'better' with more effort or better drawing tools. However, the rendering in this illustration is sufficiently good enough to serve its purpose, of illustrating a colour illusion. I see no problem with this. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 10:58, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would the American Revolution have taken place if the execution of Charles I had never occurred? Viriditas (talk) 02:08, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate." AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:25, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which articles and/or sources discuss the impact of the execution of Charles I (1649) on the British colonies in North America? The article on 1649 has one sole entry describing the impact of the execution on Bermuda. Viriditas (talk) 02:30, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[26][27] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:32, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[28] --136.56.165.118 (talk) 14:55, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One of the principal objectives of monetary policy is to regulate the inflation rate, so the relationship between the interest rate and the inflation rate is obviously very important. Does this curve have a name in economics? 101.119.84.115 (talk) 08:02, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you mean Fisher equation? i ≈ r + 𝜋^e Stanleykswong (talk) 10:21, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. The Fisher equation is a relationship between the real interest rate and the nominal interest rate. What I meant was how the inflation rate varies as a function of the interest rate. After all, central banks try to control the inflation rate by setting the interest rate. The interest rate is the independent variable, the inflation rate is the dependent variable. 101.119.84.115 (talk) 10:28, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Without addressing the specific question, I suggest that there is likely no exact real-world equation because many other variable factors likely also affect the inflation rate. (Just my annualized 2%.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 11:05, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's true of virtually every relationship in economics, yes. 101.119.84.115 (talk) 11:19, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what interest rate you are referring to? Nominal interest rate or real interest rate? Stanleykswong (talk) 13:18, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Fisher equation expresses the relationship between nominal interest rates, real interest rates, and inflation. In the equation, nominal interest rate (i) is the dependent variable, both real interest rate (r) and inflation rate (𝜋) are independent variables.

If you rearrange the equation, it becomes, approximately, 𝜋 ≈ i - r, i.e. inflation rate (𝜋) being the dependent variable, both nominal interest rate (i) and real interest rate (r) being the independent variables. Stanleykswong (talk) 13:25, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Basically I was interested in a relationship roughly of the form .

The Wikipedia article on Fisher equation exposed me to the "Fisher hypothesis", which I didn't know about. If the Fisher hypothesis is true, then it makes sense for to vary linearly with .

But if the Fisher hypothesis is false, then in general can be a function of . So declaring just begs the question. What is ?

I don't know what the accepted status of the Fisher hypothesis is. 101.119.84.115 (talk) 13:52, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If the formula of π = f(i) is what you want, I think the simplest way is starting with a basic relationship of π=α+βi, and then use the historical data to find out the best-fit curve and hence the values of α and β. Stanleykswong (talk) 16:04, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The key interest rate set by the decision makers of a central bank depends on:

• their forecast of the development of the inflation under unchanged policy;
• their inflation target (which in the US may depend on the saltiness of the water);
• the current interest rate.

If their forecast is considerably higher than the target, they may increase the key interest rate. If it is considerably lower, they may decrease the key interest rate. It cannot be expected that this can be captured in a formula π = f(i); it should be more like Δi = g(π _fcst − π _targ), in which π _fcst is the forecast and π _targ the target. If this (very simplified) picture is basically correct, a scatter plot of π versus i will not resemble a simple curve.  ‑‑Lambiam 20:11, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Taylor rule Stanleykswong (talk) 20:43, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a model of the behaviour of a central bank. I was interested just in how the inflation rate of a currency depends on its interest rate. 101.119.124.17 (talk) 00:38, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let me put it this way. Assume a rule of the form π = f(i) to hold. Under the reasonable assumption that f is a monotonic and continuous function, it has a functional inverse, say g, so i = g(π). This would give the central bank people a very simple rule: set the key interest rate to i = g(π _targ), and bingo, the inflation target will be met. The fact that they use much more complicated rules, also involving the actual rate of inflation, strongly suggests it ain't so easy.  ‑‑Lambiam 07:32, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, besides the actual and target inflation rates, they also need to consider factors, such as actual and target GDPs, actual and target unemployment rates, etc... Stanleykswong (talk) 10:54, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you used the US interest rate and inflation historical data to plot their trends, you will see that inflation is a leading variable and interest rate is lagging. My interpretation is the central banks set the interest rates to control the inflation (they also consider other factors such as GDP). In this case, empirical data shows that interest rate is the depending variable (not the independent variable as you said). Of course, you may argue that the two variables are affecting each other and, yes, in most cases, they are. Stanleykswong (talk) 10:21, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello all. My Google-fu is failing me. I'm looking for a book called "World's Dirtiest Jokes", published in 1969 (some sources say 1968). The actual citation for the work is tricky because it was published pseudonymously, but it appears to be by Victor Dodson (real name: John Newbern), "Richard Rodman", and Peggy "Goose Reardon" Rodebaugh. Not sure how real any of those names are; "Victor Banis" is another name that comes up if you search enough - I've no idea at this point what name(s) are actually on the book itself. On slightly more solid ground it was published by Medco Books, a division of Sherbourne Press. Here is an example citation I found. Adding to the frustration is that, of course, a large number of books have similar titles, including "The World's Greatest Dirty Jokes" also published in 1969 (published anonymously by Kanrom) that are unrelated.
From comments in the Legman books, this is apparently a particularly interesting compendium of uncensored mid-century American humor, which is a subject I'm very interested in. I'd very much like to get a copy (hard or soft) of the book, but I'm coming up empty on Google, Abebooks, etc. I found a lead that Lynn Munroe Books might be a place to look, but he has apparently closed up shop. Any suggestions?
If I come up empty here, I'll try WP:RX next, but I'd really like to get the entire book, not extractions from it. Matt Deres (talk) 23:01, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Victor Dodson appears to be a pseudonym used by Victor J. Banis and his partner Sam Dodson. DuncanHill (talk) 23:46, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense. His name came up, but it wasn't clear to me exactly what the connection was - thank you. Matt Deres (talk) 20:31, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I got to looking, and I managed to turn up one thing. I take it you haven't seen this worthpoint post since you said you don't know what's on the book itself. Interestingly, there's a book with the exact title published 5 years later under the name "Mr. J", and a copy of this book is available on eBay currently, but I'm pretty sure they're not the same. Seems like very few of these books were printed, and finding any mention of it is quite a challenge. Kylemahar902 (talk) 01:49, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! You're correct - I had not seen that - that may turn out to be helpful. I agree the Mr J volumes on eBay are probably unrelated. It's not quite the exact same title, though; the ones I saw are titled "The World's Best Dirty Jokes". Too bad! They're cheap and also got a second volume. Matt Deres (talk) 20:38, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When I saw your ping, I looked again and found something else. Quote:

"(Unpublished collection made by John NEWBERN, q.v., of the "too-hot-to-handle" jokes, poems, and obscœna sent in by readers of his Sex to Sexty and Super Sex to Sexty semibawdy humor magazines. Most of this material was issued by him as The World's Dirtiest Jokes, 1969, by "Victor Dodson," Los Angeles, along with an almost surreptitious pocket-reprint for mass distribution of Immortalia, q.v., also in 1969. The leftover sex-gags and cartoons were combined as a "men's" almanac, the 1968 He-Μan Daily Diary and Stemwinder Reminder, from an east-coast address, New York: Arroco Pub. Co., for presentation to all Newbern's customers, with the sentiment printed in gold inside the padded leatherette cover: "FOR A BUDDY, FROM BIG BAD JOHN.") See: "Victor Dodson.""

The book He-Μan Daily Diary, and Stemwinder Reminder, are both on eBay right now. Hope I could help. Kylemahar902 (talk) 20:43, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you kindly - it's perhaps another piece in the puzzle. I may end up grabbing the item (the one eBay listing suggests that both titles are in fact one volume) out of curiosity, though it's not the actual thing I'm looking for. Matt Deres (talk) 20:51, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think I got something a bit more substantial for you. The magazine referred to in the above message is Sex to Sexty, and I found one issue of that on the internet archive. Based on the above information, I would imagine many of the jokes you will find in this magazine would be similar to or the same as the ones that were put in the book you're searching for. I think this will have to be the end of my quest, though - my search history is starting to get questionable. Kylemahar902 (talk) 21:09, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I do appreciate it. FWIW, when I search stuff for RD, I almost always do it in a "private window" to avoid cluttering my history. Unfortunately, the material that showed up in Sex to Sexty was the cleaned up version; it had no swearing in it (I have a few issues). According to Legman (who amply referenced Sex to Sexty and similar periodicals), this book is the earliest uncensored collection of American humour he could find, apart from his own Rationale of the Dirty Joke the year before. Matt Deres (talk) 02:16, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A non-credible threat was made against AA292[29]. There were other incidents recently: 2024 Indian bomb hoaxes.

Was there ever a case in history where both of the following were true?

1. an explosive and/or incendiary device was planted on a airline,

2. a bomb threat or ransom demand was sent to the airlines or the authorities

Looking through wiki pages like [30]Timeline of airliner bombing attacks I found many cases of #1, and thousands of cases of #2 (but were all hoaxes). I could not find a single case of where a threat was accompanied by a real bomb. Epideurus (talk) 23:55, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's possible. But if someone wants to blow up a plane, why would they telegraph it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:20, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ransom demand, "release our leader", etc. Epideurus (talk) 21:22, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From the list, the 8 March 1972 incident on TWA N761TW would seem to qualify. An explosive was planted (and later detonated), and a threat and demand for money were phoned in. There's also D. B. Cooper, but we don't know what he really had in his briefcase. --Amble (talk) 17:55, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Amble Thank you. TWA N761TW 100% fits.

Also good point about D. B. Cooper. But I guess we would never know for sure. Epideurus (talk) 21:21, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I know an older (50+) lady who has been dating a guy on and off for some decades and they are finally getting married. I don't know the guy at all. The lady has what I think of as a middle class condo in AZ though I haven't visited it. By this I mean she probably already has any kitchen appliances that she needs, she's not rich, but not broke either. I'm trying to pick out a suitable small wedding gift. I had been thinking of a Chemex coffee brewer but 1) she likely already has suitable coffee gear, and 2) I have the impression (tell me if I'm wrong) that wedding gifts are supposed to have some kind of permanence, which put the timeless look of the Chemex into my mind, but they can break.

Any other ideas of how to pick something out? Same price range as the Chemex, more or less. Presumably something they could both use. I actually don't know if the guy is moving in with her or what. Is it inappropriate to simply ask her what she would like? Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:2D6 (talk) 00:49, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be quite appropriate to simply ask her. Blueboar (talk) 01:37, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that simply asking what they would like is appropriate in this situation. A young newly-wed couple starting a new household will need lots of things and if they aren't rich will appreciate somewhat permanent useful items. This couple may be in a state where they'd rather want to get rid of redundant stuff, so I suspect that the degree of permanence of any gifts is less of an issue. If she is located close to Scottsdale you might also consider a Neiman Marcus gift card.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:36, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My vote is also on gift cards. The poster must not know this couple very well, given they have not been to the lady's apartment and doesn't know her fiancée at all. I don't know about you folks, but my French press hasn't came out of the cabinet in years. Kylemahar902 (talk) 10:37, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. A gift card is money. You can't ever go wrong by giving money. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:19, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I for one prefer inexpensive gifts that have a personal touch to more expensive impersonal gifts.  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:28, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also think gift cards are the best. Stanleykswong (talk) 17:14, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does the couple not have a gift registry? Most of the wedding invitations I have received in the last few years included a website listing of items the couple were interested in receiving. Often these were part of the website of a retailer and would remove the items from view as they were purchased by guests. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:08, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Shire of Hastings

Shire of Mornington

In km² terms, what was the area for the Shire of Hastings and the Shire of Mornington (Victoria) before their abolition? The articles give the same figure for both, 304.6 km², which is preposterous if you look at the maps, but it's unsourced and I don't know where to look. All I'm finding for Hastings is Wikipedia mirrors, and results for Mornington are filled with information for the Shire of Mornington Peninsula and the Shire of Mornington (Queensland). Nyttend (talk) 02:16, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The lead section of Shire of Mornington (Victoria) has, "The shire covered an area of 90.65 square kilometres (35.0 sq mi) immediately to the south of Frankston, and existed from 1860 until 1994." This fits well with the relative sizes of the green areas. Both numbers, 90.65 and 304.6, were already present in the oldest revision. It appears that the incorrect figure in the infobox was the result of an oversight after copying the wikitext of the existing article Shire of Hastings as a start for a new article Shire of Mornington (Victoria).  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:38, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ugg, I'm sorry, I didn't read the article introductions. I'm surprised that this is even mentioned there; it's not mentioned in the rest of the article, so I didn't expect it to appear in the introduction. Nyttend (talk) 10:52, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Balfe's 1843 opera The Bohemian Girl has an aria (or air, or ballad, or what you will) variously called "When other lips" or "Then you'll remember me". Somewhere or other, probably on Google Books, I think I've read that that accomplished amateur singer James Joyce rated it very highly indeed in the drawing-room tenor repertoire. I've tried and failed to confirm that, but perhaps someone here can do better? I already know that Joyce made many allusions to its two titles in Finnegans Wake, what I'm looking for is his high praise. --Antiquary (talk) 13:04, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

how to give an official shape to a newly born WORD ? 103.240.206.170 (talk) 16:32, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Word which is new born,how to varyfy the construction of it within grammatical correctness? 103.240.206.170 (talk) 16:36, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

New words generally get adapted plain naturally by the speakers that coin and use them. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:22, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

you have to write out each and every letter,

in the word, which you are using (or coining), and i know that it's quite uncommon in our day and age to do this

each and every letter which you would that the word should comprise, or compose, or which should as parts of a whole (separate but whole) constitute the word in question

and then specify your meaning 130.74.58.24 (talk) 19:00, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes new words arise for no discernible reason, and even with no discernible meaning (skibidi, anyone?), but the most common process is that there is an existing and important notion that can only be described with a lengthy phrase, such as "not having a fixed gender but a gender that ondergoes changes in the course of time", which is very awkward when discussing it. Coining a term such as "genderfluid" saves a lot of verbiage. There are no rules for how neologisms are formed, but in most cases they are obtained by gluing or blending components that have meanings related to the notion, like pizzagate from pizza parlor + Watergate. For more information, see the article Neologism.  ‑‑Lambiam 21:46, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not for something you made up one day. If a new word is coined and actively put into use, notice will be taken by reliable sources and the word, as put into actual use, will become part of the language into which it is adopted. Only then, if it attracts sufficient notice, would an article be appropriate for Wikipedia. We are not arbiters of taste or grammar and will issue no rulings on grammatical correctness; we are an encyclopedia. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:46, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is no "official" authority for new words in English, so there is no "official shape".Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:05, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like you want to revive the Sniglet. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:07, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why does T become voiced to a more D-like sound in some words like “utter” (which sounds just like “udder”) and “beating” (which sounds like “beading”)? To my knowledge, the other voiceless plosives don’t do this (for example, “rocket” does not become “rogget” and “happen” is not pronounced as “habben”). Primal Groudon (talk) 19:43, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is rarely heard in British English (except in Cardiff and Ulster), but mainly in the North-American pronunciation and also in Australia and New Zealand. Not only is the intervocalic /t/ realized as voiced, but its manner of articulation also changes from a plosive to the flap consonant [ɾ] in a process known as flapping. Also in American English, utter and udder are not fully homophonic – the [d] of udder remains unflappable. I'm not aware of a theory explaining why this process is specific to the unvoiced alveolar stop, but note that the velar plosive /k/ of rocket is not a lateral consonant, while the only voiced velar flap that I know of, [ʟ], is actually a tapped voiced velar lateral approximant.  ‑‑Lambiam 21:01, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AmE /d/ lenites to [ɾ] in the same environments as flapped /t/ all the time. The contrast between utter and udder, or writer and rider, is maintained by the presence or absence of pre-fortis clipping (and possibly by Canadian raising for the latter pair). It's Commonwealth English where /d/ doesn't get flapped even if /t/ gets flapped. Nardog (talk) 18:34, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it must have something to do with where flapping occurs on the tongue. The [t] and [d] sounds of "utter" and "udder" are formed near the tip of the tongue, where flapping can occur naturally and thus can often sound the same in American speech. The [k] and [g] sounds of "rocket" and "rogget" come more from the back where flapping seems impossible. --DB1729^talk 17:35, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does English ever use all-numeric dates by abbreviating month to numbers in running text? Do English speakers ever write as follows?:

• Today is 15.2.2025.
• Today is 15/2/2025.
• Today is 2.15.2025.
• Today is 2/15/2025.
• Today is 15.2.
• Today is 15/2.
• Today is 2.15.
• Today is 2/15.

--40bus (talk) 21:43, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The first two are acceptable and usual in British English, but not the others. The second two might be recognised to be American notation, unless the number of the month made it ambiguous (i.e. 2/12/2025 would be understood as 2nd December in Britain).However, "2.15" would be understood to be the time (i.e. a quarter past two). Alansplodge (talk) 21:48, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I, a native English speaker, personally use the month-initial slash forms, so yes to those two. I don’t remember seeing periods in dates a lot except for the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Primal Groudon (talk) 21:51, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which native English? The dot (full stop [UK], or period [US]) form is common in Britain, but a little less so than the slash format. Alansplodge (talk) 21:56, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Only Americans ever put the month before the rest of the date. It makes no sense, but since usage makes things correct in language, I guess it can be correct for that 5% of the world's population. HiLo48 (talk) 22:01, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That “It makes no sense” line is false. Primal Groudon (talk) 23:16, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing you're part of the 5% I mentioned. HiLo48 (talk) 02:47, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have always found the Month-Day-Year format as inherently confusing. And it might not necessarily be the Americans' fault, but I have seen many errors occurring in international contexts where different participants have used different standards. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 02:42, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Canadian and when I look at things like store receipts I see all sorts of date formats. The claim that "only Americans" use month-day-year is wrong. The claim that it makes no sense is also wrong, since it corresponds to the form "February 16, 2025" that's usual on this continent. --142.112.222.162 (talk) 08:31, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Putting the month-before-day (when written in full) was fairly standard in Britain before the end of the 19th-century, and then both forms were used interchangeably; but I believe the day-before-month format was mandated by banks when writing cheques. The idea of putting day, then month, then year, has a certain logic, since the unit of time increases from left to right. Alansplodge (talk) 18:39, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

M/D/Y is returning to the UK under the cover of incompletely naturalised Windows installations. Has any US president recently banned non-US formats on US products? Just asking... -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 19:52, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think such a ban would be necessary. Most of my fellow Americans are vehemently opposed to DMY dates (and 24 hour time... and metric units...) to a level that I find flabbergasting. Any company that tried to foist DMY dates on the American populace would soon know what Dr Frankenstein felt staring out at the crowd carrying torches and pitchforks.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:47, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Americans will fully adopt metrics when or if they see a reason to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:20, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are American political decisions on what to adopt and what to dismantle governed by reason now? When did that start?  ‑‑Lambiam 11:06, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Don't jump to conclusions! I'm talking about the general public. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:52, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am also American and I agree with the rest of the world that there is no sense in MDY dating. It isn't "largest unit to smallest unit" (YMD) or "smallest unit to largest unit" (DMY), so what is the rationale? I mean, today isn't the February of the 18th day, is is the 18th day of February.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:50, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But it is February 18, 2025, an ordering that is far more acceptable in the UK when the month is in words. I assume that this is what MDY derives from. But is there any evidence? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 17:59, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But that ordering still makes no sense. The units are still all mixed up. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 01:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The fourth and eighth are standard American usage. The others would not be understood by many Americans.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:02, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just to add that only using the last two digits of the year is also acceptable in the UK (i.e. 15/2/25) and was almost universal before the Millennium. Alansplodge (talk) 18:39, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, please could a French speaker suggest a translation or two for French: Comment on raconte l'histoire aux enfants: à travers le monde entier? Google gives "How Children Are Told Stories: Around the World", but I suspect there is a deliberate ambiguity as "l'histoire" can either mean "history" or "the story". This is the French title of The Use and Abuse of History: Or How the Past Is Taught, recently expanded by Piotrus. TSventon (talk) 10:50, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Trying for a relatively close to the original translation: How history is told to (the) children: Around the whole world. (also possible: How they tell history ... / how we tell/teach history ... / how one tells children about history). -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 11:09, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would opt for the "we" alternative here; the on used in the French title stands exactly for that. So I would opt for something like this: "How we teach history to our children: a voyage around the world". Tbh, I find the English title used catches the gist and the ambiguities of the original title quite well. So why do we need a new translation? Lectonar (talk) 11:24, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article already has a translation, but based on my rusty French, I am not sure it is accurate. Also it is nominated for "Did You Know", so hopefully thousands of people will read the article and it will be helpful to translate the title for the benefit of those who don't understand French. TSventon (talk) 11:39, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tried adding a more literal translation. In context, "histoire aux enfants" is often interpreted as a fixed phrase meaning "children's story", so it might be read both as "How to tell children's stories" and "How to tell (teach) history to children". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:43, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article makes it clear that - in view of the book's content - "history" is the primary meaning here, with the "children's stories" at best an intended double meaning - or perhaps not. I do not find a lot of proof that "histoire aux enfants" would be a standard term for a children's story. It usually shows in a context where it means telling a story to children (or history to children), and a children's story might be an histoire pour enfants. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 12:15, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I spoke too soon. I'd still interpret the title ambiguously, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:05, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) "We" would be nous in this case. On can indeed be used for "we" at times, but this case it seems impersonal, like "one". The use of the passive voice seems entirely appropriate and idiomatic. The use of the colon strikes me as very French, and one could think of replacing it with a dash or leaving it out altogether: "How history is told to children around the world". Or "How (hi)stories are told to children around the world"? But the content section of the article suggests that the book is really about history, and a pun was really not intended. Reading the actual book might be helpful...--Wrongfilter (talk) 11:52, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; my French is too poor to ensure correct translation. On that note, if any French speaker could read the (open access) review of the book in question in the cited French journal and summarize it in a few sentences, it would be much appreciated. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:28, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My French is probably more rusty than yours, but I'm wondering whether there's any play on words after the colon: e.g. relating "all around the world" to "beating about the bush", or a journey all around how the world works—maybe done to partially represent the abuse of history part of the original English title? I think this needs a native French speaker or maybe a good monolingual dictionary. (NB my thoughts are based on the kind of things languages seem to do and the kind of mistakes Google Translate makes, not on any advanced knowledge of French.) Musiconeologist (talk) 13:46, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary gives "à travers le monde ― throughout the world" as a usage example of the French preposition à travers.  ‑‑Lambiam 10:48, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In French the title does not contain any colon. See here [https://www.amazon.fr/Comment-raconte-lhistoire-aux-enfants/dp/2228800309]. The first part (Comment on raconte l'histoire aux enfants) is in larger font size than the second one (à travers le monde entier) AldoSyrt (talk) 14:46, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is pretty standard for book covers—in general they're not a reliable guide for the official title of the book, which usually needs to be taken from the title page or sometimes the back of the title page. In this case, the font change on the cover does the same job that a colon would (separating the title from the subtitle), so the cover designer most likely decided to omit it. (I'm replying as someone who used to do some work in a library and frequently had to go hunting inside a book for the correct form of the title.) Musiconeologist (talk) 15:07, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

French native speaker here. You are right, I try to get access to the title page but I have not found any. But I do not understand the syntactic use of a colon here (it is not a subtitle). Otherwise, for me "histoire" is "History". In French one can write "Histoire" with a capital h to avoid ambiguity but it is not mandatory. "raconter l'histoire" with the meaning of "telling the story" would refer to a specific story. AldoSyrt (talk) 15:36, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I see! I was taking it to be the subtitle (and wondering if it involved any wordplay). Pinging TSventon in case they're not aware there's been more discussion. Musiconeologist (talk) 17:46, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AldoSyrt the tile uses "raconter l'histoire" rather than "enseigner l'histoire". I agree that history is the primary translation, but does it also make you think of story telling? (It seems to make Google translate think of story telling, but Google translate isn't human.) TSventon (talk) 18:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is on purpose. The book relates how national history, all across the world, is "taught" by telling invented myths.  ‑‑Lambiam 21:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I fully agree. AldoSyrt (talk) 09:24, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This lengthy review of the book does not use a colon in the book title, and, even more tellingly, neither does the cover of a later paperback edition of the book. The review furthermore capitalizes Histoire while the paperback title uses minuscule.  ‑‑Lambiam 21:28, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

1. Why Revised Romanization and McCune-Reischauer romanize final consonants according to pronunciation, but Yale romanization romanized them instead according to Hangul spelling, so that every jamo is always romanized as same? Why can't Revised Romanization work like Yale?
2. If in McCune-Reischauer, n + g is romanized with apostrophe, as in 한글 Han'gŭl, but in Revised Romanization instead without it?, How can it be distinguished from 항을?
3. Why syllable 의 is romanized as ŭi in McCune-Reischauer, but as ui and not as eui in revised Romanization?
4. Does Hangul know italic type?

--40bus (talk) 22:31, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the Korean Wikipedia's editing guidelines (manual of style) on text formatting you can see a section on italics that uses italics:

이탤릭체 (이 같은 텍스트)는 기울임꼴로 표시할 내용 주위에 이중 어포스트로피로 생성됩니다: ''...''. 이탤릭체는 의미론적인 강조 (보통 이탤릭체로 표시됨)와 함께 아래에 설명된 위키백과의 다양한 특정 목적에 사용됩니다.

However, this is basically a translation of the first paragraph of our MOS:ITALICS and does not give information about actual use in Korean texts, while the typeface is merely a slanted variant.

Some actual uses of italic hangul: in YouTube thumbnails: [31], [32], and in commercial packaging: [33], [34]. (In the latter cases, one could say the font stayed vertical while the baseline was slanted, also seen with Latin-alphabet fonts: [35], [36].) I did not readily spot uses in books or newspapers.  ‑‑Lambiam 10:36, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Why can't Revised Romanization work like Yale?" Because it's a different system, ceated by different people, for different purposes. Many of your questions seem to be based on your not understanding that different things are different.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding 1 and 3: The Yale romanization is a "pure" scientific system, so it is just a one-to-one mapping of the Hangul letters with Roman ones. On the other hand, the Revised Romanization and McCune–Reischauer also care about user-friendliness, so they will simplify things when they can. The Revised Romanization also represents the diphthong ㅝ (w + eo) as just wo, which it can afford since a diphthong w + o doesn't exist in the language. --Theurgist (talk) 22:42, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am reading the OED entry for white chocolate. It quite firmly says "OED's earliest evidence for white chocolate is from 1917, in Scientific American," and indeed the entry lists a quote from a 1917 edition of Scientific American including the phrase: The Swiss Army..has but one notable food product—the white chocolate. This is made entirely of cocoa butter and sugar, the brown residue of the bean after removal of the stearin being excluded. In the use tab, however, it also lists a 1916 use from International Confectioner: I have heard a weird story of a white chocolate, alleged to be made in Switzerland—doubtless ‘snow white’ as a compliment to the snow-capped Alps of that country. The date for this entry is bracketed with a square bracket, and the quote is grayed out. What am I to make of this? Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 04:51, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rollinginhisgrave, the OED website says Around an entire quotation [ ] indicates that a quotation is relevant to the development of a meaning but not directly illustrative of it. I presume that the greyed out text goes with the square brackets. TSventon (talk) 05:15, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou TSventon. Given this, would you say my treatment at White chocolate#History is fair? Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 05:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that looks fair. TSventon (talk) 05:40, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those two sentences are using "white chocolate" differently. In the first, "white chocolate" is a distinct, named thing. In the second, it is a simple description. "White chocolate" versus "chocolate that is white". Kind of like "bluebird" vs "blue bird". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:01, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh excellent. I can rewrite around that. Thankyou Khajidha. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 13:02, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe more germane is that the 1917 quote definitely confirms the existence of white chocolate, while the 1916 account is just reported hearsay. Alansplodge (talk) 22:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When a journalistic source writes

"Roses are red," Smith said, "Violets are blue."

is there the implication that Smith said nothing in between the sentences? I.e. we can write

Smith said, "Roses are red. Violets are blue."

Or do we have to write

Smith said, "Roses are red ... Violets are blue."

when quoting it? Nardog (talk) 08:01, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there are no intervening words, no "my love", no intrusive yellow daffodils, nada. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:59, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An interrupted quotation (also called "broken quotation" or "divided quotation") – a quotation that is interrupted by a speaker tag (here "Smith said") – is commonly only used for an interruption in the middle of a quoted sentence. Suppose Smith had said, in one sentence "Roses are red, violets are blue, but daffodils are yellow." Then the report should read:

"Roses are red," Smith said, "violets are blue, but daffodils are yellow."

But if Smith had said "Roses are red. Violets are blue. Daffodils are yellow." Then, in the first quoting version above, there should be a stop (period) after "Smith said":

"Roses are red," Smith said.

The report on Smith's enunciations could then continue in any of a number of ways, such as

"Violets are blue," he added. "Daffodils are yellow."

In any case, whatever the style, the reader will interpret the follow-up quotations as a continuation of the preceding quoted words. Glueing not strictly adjacent utterances together by adjacent quotations is misleading.  ‑‑Lambiam 09:46, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. An adjacent and less important question is whether MOS:LQ means we can write

Smith said, "Roses are red."

or we have to write

Smith said, "Roses are red".

when citing a source that has

"Roses are red," Smith said. "Violets are blue."

Nardog (talk) 11:20, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we can safely assume the quote is accurate and the source uses common punctuation conventions, the former. However, I regularly see bites from the same speech quoted differently by different "reliable" sources, and correcting grammar or punctuation that is off does not seem a priority issue of correctors (if there are any), so it is IMO generally unsafe to assume that quotations of spoken texts as reported by news sources are literally accurate. The safe thing is to write something like, "According to FAB News, Smith said that roses are red."  ‑‑Lambiam 18:49, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Journalistic quotes are more likely to come from someone speaking, say at a press conference. Whatever punctuation there may have been in the speaker's mind or in the text they may be reading from, the journo's job is to insert punctuation in his quotes so as to accurately render the sense of what the speaker said. And not to misspell anything, because that reflects poorly on the speaker, who is blameless, since one does not spell or punctuate one's spoken sentences (unless one is Victor Borge). Sadly, we see mangled, misspelt and mispunctuated quotes flashed up on TV screens all the time these days. Journalistic standards, hah! And the Great God AI does an even worse job. Nobody's safe any more. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:22, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

1. John: "She went". David: "What? She went?"

2. John: "She went". David: "What? Did she go?"

79.177.152.211 (talk) 19:50, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You left out the more obvious option: "She did?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:00, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And also Did she?

Replying as a speaker of British English.

Did she go? is unnatural as a reply; it's a request for information, and the speaker has just been told that she went. The other three are all fine. There's a slight difference of emphasis though: I'd say that She did? and She went? both express slightly more surprise than Did she?, at least in British usage. Musiconeologist (talk) 20:13, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In American English, the first implies that David is questioning her motives or reasoning, implying that he can't believe that she went somewhere. The second implies that David is questioning the validity of John's statement, clarifying that what David heard is what John meant. Other than the faint implication, which may very well be radically different in other forms of English, they mean the same thing. Further, neither is more frequent. David's response would be more terse as in "Really?" or Bugs' example of "She did?" 68.187.174.155 (talk) 20:06, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "Really?" works too. And the way it's said could vary depending on the two scenarios you're describing. I think the only reason for David to essentially restate John's comment is if he actually did not quite follow what John was saying. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:57, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Australia we might say "Fair dinkum?" HiLo48 (talk) 01:19, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which one is correct?

• Turkmen needlework, also known as "black needlework", is a decorative and functional art form used in the clothing of people of all genders and ages in Iran and Turkmenistan."
• Turkmen embroidery, also known as "black embroidery", is a decorative and functional form of needlework, specifically focused on intricate threadwork, used in the clothing of people of all genders and ages in Iran and Turkmenistan.

Arbabi second (talk) 10:57, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Needlework is an umbrella concept that includes decorative embroidery and other crafts such as quilting, knitting, crochet, needlepoint, macrame, needle lace, darning, tapestry and even basic sewing. With regards to the Turkmen craft, it seems that both words are used in reliable sources. Cullen328 (talk) 11:17, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Cullen328

Thank you for your attention and explanation. Arbabi second (talk) 09:58, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not to mention injections. —Tamfang (talk) 01:20, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which one is correct

• Taco it's a Mexican food
• Toggo it's a German cartoon broadcast

2001:44C8:4245:EA3:E156:F27B:9DA5:6B8C (talk) 02:13, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It would seem they are both correct. Why do you ask? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:47, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In both sentences I find it's to be distinctly odd, and guess that they were written by a non-English speaker. I would say is. But I don't see anything "incorrect". (I don't understand the point of the question. I'm guessing that in some accents the two words sound similar - they are utterly different in mine - but the question doesn't seem to make much sense). ColinFine (talk) 10:28, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, since the question comes from Thailand, we then can know that Thai does not have a voiced "g"; rather, the distinction between Thai "g" (sometimes transliterated "kh") and "k" is one of aspiration, and it's subtle to the English ear. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 17:02, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In a recent figure skating event, I noticed that British commentator Chris Howarth frequently used the expression "there's nothing in it" about the scores after the short program. It's evident that he meant the margins were very close. What I'm curious about is where this expression came from. It sounds like it could be short for a longer statement. And I've never heard an American commentator say that. So I wonder if it comes from an English sport, such as cricket? Does anyone know? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:21, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The nothing when we use the phrase in this way simply means "essentially no difference". It is just the situation where the comparison is being made. There's nothing in it means "There's no real difference between them".

The OED definition is:

(There is) no significant difference between specified things; spec. there is no significant advantage between competitors in a sport, etc.

Their first recorded use is a 1927 quote that reads as though it's about a boxing match, but I don't think that's particularly significant—it's simply the idea that the difference between two things is essentially nothing. "Is it shorter to follow route 1 or route 2?"—"There's nothing in it". There's nothing to choose between them.

I suppose it could have been shortened from a longer phrase, but I don't see any reason for it to have been—I think someone just felt that nothing was a good way to express the idea of "no difference" or "nothing that can decide it one way or the other".

(An alternative meaning is along the lines "There's no truth to it", when said about a rumour, suspicious circumstance, etc., but that's a different usage.) Musiconeologist (talk) 04:30, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Searching for "There's nothing in it" in the GloWbE corpus turns up 23 US instances, none of which have this meaning, and 28 UK instances, of which I judge four have this sense. The four relate to Football, Rugby sevens, Formula 1, and one non-sport-related topic, comparing two cars. ColinFine (talk) 10:56, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that usage is totally unknown (and rather confusing) to this American. I'll have to keep it in mind when consuming British media. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:28, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really surprised (from your search results and the OED entry) that it's mainly associated with sports. The image that came to mind when I was thinking about how to explain it was actually of my father (an engineer) measuring two objects with a micrometer, finding only a few microns difference, then saying "There's nothing in it". Meaning, for example, that either piece of metal would be an equally suitable size for what he had in mind, or that the size difference couldn't be the cause of a problem he was trying to fix.

But I'm wondering whether the results are skewed towards sport because it's such a colloquial phrase? Most of the examples I can think of aren't ones where it would be written down, but sport can use more informal language in writing than, say, engineering can. Musiconeologist (talk) 13:31, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Musiconeologist: I agree with your theory. It's a frequently spoken construction, even if Google doesn't think so. Distance, time and cost are common subjects in everyday use:

• "Should I drive or take the train? Time-wise, there's nothing in it."
• "Should we go to the Red Lion or the Rose and Crown? Distance-wise there's nothing in it."
• "I could get a two four-packs or an eight-pack — there's not a lot in it."

Bazza 7 (talk) 16:47, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone then reply, "You're mistaken – there's actually a lot in it!"?  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:11, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. If they did, it would be facetious or a play on words, not everyday usage. There's a lot in it usually refers to a theory or similar: "I thought that idea was nonsense, but actually there's a lot in it"—i.e. a lot of truth. Musiconeologist (talk) 18:59, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, those all seem really weird to me. If the distance requires driving or taking the train, then there most definitely would be something in it. This usage to mean "there's not a lot of difference between the two options" would never occur to me. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:58, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to refine it a bit more, I think I'd summarise it like this.

• There's nothing in it: there's no significant difference.
• There's not a lot in it: the difference probably does matter, but is hard to judge. "I think that one's slightly bigger, but there's not a lot in it."

Musiconeologist (talk) 19:14, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An earlier phrase with a similar meeting is "there's very little in it", meaning there's not much difference between two things. I found these 1915 minutes from the Legislative Council of Victoria (Australia);

"There would be very little in it between that rate and the rates we were getting".

Alansplodge (talk) 21:33, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason, this one feels more explanatory to me: "The choice would make very little difference". Since the difference is an inherent consequence of choosing, in it has a clear and logical meaning. The consequence is inherent in the choice. Musiconeologist (talk) 21:45, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While to me, all of these are just as odd. "In it" seems to be referring to a single thing, not to the difference between two things. As I said, I'll just have to keep this in mind when consuming British media. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 04:19, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How about There's nothing to choose [between them] and There's not a lot to choose [between them]? (The bracketed words are optional). Are those similarly odd/unfamiliar? (I'm guessing they probably are.) Musiconeologist (talk) 04:53, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The forms without the bracketed words would be slightly odd, but understandable. "There's nothing in it" comes across more as the opposite of your example "I thought that idea was nonsense, but actually there's a lot in it". I would tend to interpret it as saying that something was just total bullshit with no value. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:27, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Khajidha: Context (as is usually the case) is everything. My examples above all require some preceding words to indicate that I'm making a judgment about a comparison; without that I might indeed be politely indicating I didn't think much of an idea.

Your and your compatriots' bemusement about these constructs reminded me of one in the opposite direction. I had to ask for a translation when I first came across "I could care less". Bazza 7 (talk) 13:36, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have the same feeling about that phrase. Looking at your examples, I don't get the context there. The "there's nothing in it" comes across to me as a non-sequitor. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:40, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Khajidha: "Should I drive or take the train? Time-wise, there's nothing in it."

I'm asking which of two transport modes to take. In terms of the time taken for each, there is such a small difference between them they can be considered identical, and I'm likely to discard time as a factor for consideration. Bazza 7 (talk) 16:51, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that that is your meaning, but I just can't see the connection between that meaning and that wording. But let's just end the conversation here. I now know what the phrase means. Whether I understand how it means that is pretty irrelevant. Especially as I have gone 50 years without encountering it and will probably never encounter it again. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:02, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An alternative sometimes used by older Britons is: "There's only a sheet of Bronco between them!" An example is in this squash match report.

Bronco being a former brand of cheap but unpleasant toilet paper. Alansplodge (talk) 19:44, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One variant the commentator gave to close scores is "there's only a whisker in it". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:04, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How do I ask for the ordinal position of something within a set? For example, if someone wanted to get an answer “The eleventh,” what question would they ask about President James Knox Polk to solicit such information? Primal Groudon (talk) 15:30, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How about, "George Washington was the first president. Which number was Polk?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:49, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Most people would answer "11", which misses the point. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 16:53, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the problem. If he is number 11, then he is obviously the 11th. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:00, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the "obvious" is obvious, but the question was specific: how do I solicit the ordinal; what do I ask to make the answer "eleventh" rather than "eleven"? --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 19:03, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd go for What position [in the sequence of . . . ], I think. To me eleventh is then a more natural answer than eleven. Musiconeologist (talk) 19:18, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By that, I meant the ordinal position in the set, not the number form itself. Primal Groudon (talk) 20:06, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about replying to both of these. I didn’t check the signatures so I didn’t realize they were written by the same person. Primal Groudon (talk) 20:07, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just checked again and they weren’t. Primal Groudon (talk) 20:12, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can ask, the how manyth?, or, while not found in dictionaries nevertheless in actual use and my preference, the howmanieth.^{[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]} While many of these uses are used to explain the meaning of an interrogative ordinal in some foreign language, others are uses in a purely English text.  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:06, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As Musiconeologist implies, following a question containing "the first" with "eleven" would be bad grammar, and not colloquial in any variety of English I'm familiar with; however, one might strengthen the ordinal priming by instancing, say, "the fourth" instead. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 19:37, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Or even just ask which was he (which one? The eleventh one) rather than which number was he (which number? The number 11). I was making it too complicated. Musiconeologist (talk) 20:21, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would work in most situations. An exception might arise if the other party had some other attribute in their mind. E.g., if you wanted to know where Richard Nixon came in the sequence of presidents and asked "Which was he?" or "Which one was he?", you might get "The one who couldn't tell the truth to save his life". Then you'd have to state your question less ambiguously, but also less succinctly, and perhaps even suggest the form of the answer you wanted: "No, I mean, was he the 35th president or some other number?". Then you'd be told "He was the 37th president". This gets you the information you wanted, but, unless you're lucky, not in the exact form you require: "The 37th".

To ensure that outcome, I think I'd use a variation of User:Musiconeologist's answer: "What was Nixon's ordinal position in the sequence of presidents?". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:48, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How about something like: "which president, in sequence, was Polk?" or "which president, sequentially, was Polk?" Would that work? — Kpalion^(talk) 09:30, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You could still get the answer "number 11" instead of the exact word "eleventh". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:30, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't think the OP is asking about "eleven" vs. "eleventh". Maybe the OP could come back here someday and clarify. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:02, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since the OP said explicitly "ordinal position", I'd venture they were looking for an "ordinal". --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 18:37, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If someone already knew that Polk was president number 11, "eleventh" would be obvious. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:13, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That was just about the position in the set. I’m fine if the number form itself in the answer is cardinal. Primal Groudon (talk) 20:05, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind then. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 20:06, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For a project I'm involved in, I seek some website/app that enables me to input a valid word, and it returns all the cases where the addition of one extra letter results in a new valid word, even if the letters have to be rearranged to get that result.

Example: I input the, and I get heat (a), beth (b), echt (c), meth (m), then (n), Theo (o), Seth (s), thew (w), they (y), and probably some others.

Obviously I can do this myself by trial and error, but life's too short. Ideally, I would like to start with a seed word, such as "the", and each of the 4-letter results would become the seeds for a new search, and so on, producing a set of word strings from an original seed. E.g. the > heat > heart > hearts > ..., and the > meth > theme > themes ...

Does such a thing exist? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:13, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@JackofOz I use this site. If for example you enter "the" and specify you want a fixed length of four-letter words, it lists twelve results. The second part of your request is more tricky. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:20, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that, like crossword aids, there is a website or app featuring this, because it's part of a type of puzzle that features in UK newspapers (such as my own local Hampshire Chronicle), called 'Brickwork' – here's an online version.

I've never looked for a solving aid (I'll leave that to you) because for me the puzzle's point is the mental exercise, rather than obsessively completing it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 12:05, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another option is this site, which allows you to look for anagrams with one or more wildcards. You could enter “the?” and it will find the four-letter words that consist of T, H, E, and another letter. Enter “the??” and it will find the five-letter words that consist of T, H, E, and two other letters. And so forth. John M Baker (talk) 04:35, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all. These are very helpful. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:07, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keeping WP:COMMONALITY in mind always, there are of course comparatively minor grammatical differences between American and British English. I am American, and I feel slightly self-conscious with how often I edit {{Use British English}} articles given I didn't know that gotten is a bit of an Americanism until recently—one that is still uncomfortable for some Britons (though much less over time). For those that may have keener instincts or deeper analytical understanding than I, what if anything should I be avoiding grammar- and diction-wise when I'm to Use British English? I know, say, that bands and other groups of people are often treated grammatically as plural. Remsense ‥ 论 00:25, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This one is more relevant in speech than in writing, but our use of perfect tense and simple past is slightly different from yours: when announcing that something is now done, the form has to be I've done it (or I have), not I did it. I did it is simply a piece of information about a past event more or less unconnected with the present, whereas I've done it is about the current situation having changed (from one where you haven't done it to one where you have). I did it disconnects the event from the present.

Mentioning that one because the article doesn't, though I'm not sure it's likely to come up in editing an article.

Separately: don't apply American rules about which and that to make "corrections" to British English—the American rule baffles us, and you'll simply be changing one correct version to another correct version, to the annoyance of the person who's being "corrected". Musiconeologist (talk) 01:51, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This may be in part because I grew up on the internet, but I totally don't recognize a real distinction between the determiners which and that. A lot of traditionally non-American patterns are somewhat natural or non-perturbing to me. That's definitely a lot of what I'm asking for here, yeah—what shouldn't I even think about tweaking or reverting based on? Remsense ‥ 论 01:57, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a difference: The dog, which was walking across the road, definitely needs to be which. But the dog that was walking across the road can equally well be the dog which was walking across the road and the choice is a matter of which one flows more comfortably, not grammar. Musiconeologist (talk) 02:16, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I suppose I attempted to ask for both grammar and diction tips as such for a reason, though I'm actually skeptical of this qualitative distinction—luckily, there's an uncited paragraph titled Well-formedness § Gradient well-formedness that's telling me I have a point there. Remsense ‥ 论 02:21, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good paragraph. I think ultimately, grammatical "rules" are a feature of how each individual uses or hears the constructions, i.e. they exist in the speaker's or hearer's brain, but we try to identity the most widely shared ones in the hope that we can get them to match and thereby communicate what we mean to.

Anyway I'll sleep on this. The question is one that's easiest to answer by noticing instances when they come up, really. Musiconeologist (talk) 02:53, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Might be worth keeping a scratch-pad to collect them, might be a good essay esp. if there are equivalent tips for other varieties. Remsense ‥ 论 10:01, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That does seem a good idea. Usually the focus is just on spellings and vocabulary differences, not the more subtle things. Musiconeologist (talk) 20:09, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, another potential difference I have picked up on is—it seems Britons are more likely not to use a comma after introductory prepositional phrases like During his reign; In 27 BC; According to her etc. Is this the case, or merely selection bias enabled by the editors I observe and the articles they tend to work on?

Many editors rather aggressively add such commas as if they are explicitly required—they are in some style guides, but not ours—and in many cases it seems their addition can create more awkwardness than it solves if one isn't careful. Remsense ‥ 论 19:41, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure! I've actually been assuming it was American editors who were doing that, so maybe it's not regional (or maybe I've just not picked up that it is). But I'm definitely at the end of the scale where I prefer fewer commas—I think the ideal approach is to try to word a sentence in such a way that it can be understood with no commas at all, then add one anywhere that it will help the reader. If a comma feels awkward, to me that's a sign that it shouldn't be there. The commas clarify the sentence structure by grouping the right elements together, but using too many obscures it again. Whether an introductory phrase needs one depends on the sentence, I'd say.

Edit: I misread. What you said is consistent with my impression—that Americans are more likely to insist on a comma after an introductory phrase. Musiconeologist (talk) 20:05, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do similarly, i.e. first attempt to minimize the number of nonrestrictive clauses and parentheticals—though after an hour of messing with a paragraph I will suddenly find my prose to be elliptical to a borderline-poetic degree so I'll carefully add some redundancy back for readers to anchor easier onto. Remsense ‥ 论 20:09, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another thing I find useful is to try to keep track of the uncompleted structures the reader has to hold in their head as they progress through the sentence—sometimes a long sentence can be made much easier to read just by reordering its content. Moving a clause so it's no longer nested inside another one and they can be read in turn, for example. Musiconeologist (talk) 20:19, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed! Sometimes I get a bit mechanistic with it, dragging clauses back and forth in my text editor like I'm trying to make puzzle pieces fit. If that doesn't work, it's time to take a break. Remsense ‥ 论 20:21, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just told someone they were trying to earn brownie points when my brain started to do backflips and it occurred to me that I have no idea how that term originated. I looked at our article on the subject (linked above) only to find that I wasn't alone, and that in fact, nobody knows how it originated. That seems so strange to me. Surely someone must know? Viriditas (talk) 03:27, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One theory is that it refers to points that "Brownies" (the youngest group of girl guides) could earn for accomplishing certain tasks or feats.  ​‑‑Lambiam 04:28, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is almost certainly from the Brownies, although other origins have also been discussed, see the discussion here. John M Baker (talk) 04:43, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A real life example:

To encourage our Brownies to attend every meeting and to remember to bring everything they need, we run a best Six league table. The Six with the most points at the end of the term will receive a lovely certificate. (1st Waddington Brownies)

A "six" is a sub-unit in a Brownie or Cub Pack (theoretically having six members), led by an older child called a "Sixer". Alansplodge (talk) 14:01, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I understand no word in Korean. However, I do enjoy listening to Korean speech, probably due to the Korean accent.

When I listen to Korean speech, I notice I hear the Korean expression "needah" (in English transcription) loads of times. Somehow, I discovered it should be spelled 니다, but I'm quite confused about its true meaning:

GoogleTranslate, gives me "it is" for the whole expression 니다. But when I break it into its parts, 니 and 다, GoogleTranslate gives me: "you" for the first part 니 when it's written alone, and "all" for the second part 다 when it's written alone. So, I'm confused: semantically speaking, what does 니다 exactly mean, whether as a whole expression, or as a combination of two different words, or when they are taken apart? More important: how can "you all" (when taken apart if we believe GoogleTranslate), also mean "it is" (as a whole expression if we believe GoogleTranslate)? Is it a coincidence only, analogous to coincidences in English - like "cargo" - accidentally spelled just like the combination of the words "car"-"go", or is it a more sophisticated phenomenon, analogous to compounds in English like: be-come, pre-tend? HOTmag (talk) 09:50, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See wikt:-습니다, perhaps? I know precious little about Korean also, but this seems to be a common component of Korean speech so it may represent what you're hearing. Remsense ‥ 论 09:54, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The combination -습니다 you've indicated is longer. The shorter combination 니다 I asked about is a suffix in many expressions, e.g. 감사합니다, translated as "thank you" on GoogleTranslate. HOTmag (talk) 10:54, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's right, @HOTmag. I've only been doing Korean (on Duolingo) for a few months, but except in a few common formulas such as "goodbye", every single verb I've met so far, when used in a sentence, ends -ㅂ니다 "-mnida" in the affirmative, or -ㅂ니까 "-mnikka" in the interrogative. Wiktionary refers to this form as "non-past formal polite". ColinFine (talk) 17:39, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the explanation! Remsense ‥ 论 18:06, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does the affirmative always end with Mneedah, and never with needah only (without the M)? Check: 감사합니다, translated as "thank you" on GoogleTranslate, and ending with needah rather than with mneedah (again per GoogleTranslate)... HOTmag (talk) 22:33, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hero of Alexandria starts out explaining that he's known by two names: Hero and Heron. No further explanation is given regarding this.

1. His name in Greek is given as "Ἥρων". Google translate tells me that this is Heron. So what's the Greek equivalent for Hero?

2. Was he known by 1 name in Greek or two?

3. Could the Hero/Heron thing be a translation or transliteration issue?

I know nothing about Greek, but I know that some asian historical figures have multiple English transliterations of their names, due to the different transliteration methods over the years. Epideurus (talk) 22:10, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

TV Tropes is a page about tropes (plot conventions, plot devices, fiction genres, etc). It has entries for all tropes they can identify, explaining what it is, how it works, how it relates with other tropes, and examples of it. Of course, being a wiki that anyone can edit it is not a reliable source... but is there a reliable source (meaning, that it may be cited in wikipedia articles as a source) that does a similar job, cataloging and explaining tropes? Cambalachero (talk) 19:09, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I objectively declare TV Tropes to be infallible. That is to say, that the being and manifestation of tropes happens to be whatever the contributors of said Wiki decree to be so. Therefore, it is reliable in the sense that it literally cannot be wrong as it, of course, defines specifically what “right” is in this particular context. Pablothepenguin (talk) 00:25, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If nothing else, it at least provides a guideline for possible further research. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:01, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are two surviving episodes of Armchair Theatre that I'm wanting to watch but I have been having trouble trying to find them online. So does anyone know where I can watch the episodes "Into the Dark" (1964) and "Beyond our Means" (1973). Matthew John Drummond (talk) 01:22, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I found many more on Youtube than just the two you listed. Searching for "armchair theatre 1964" brought up 75 episodes, each about an hour long. Do you believe that any of them are the television series you are referring to or a series with a very similar name? 68.187.174.155 (talk) 14:17, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's not really answering the question. List of Armchair Theatre episodes confirms that the two episodes mentioned by the OP exist, however they are not available to watch on YouTube (I checked). The OP is asking where he can watch those specific two episodes, given that they are not on YouTube. --Viennese Waltz 14:40, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see. I read the question as "There are two (and only two) surviving episodes" (my bias added in parenthesis). So, I searched to see if any episodes were available. I also checked the library catalog and there are four DVDs. The episode listings on those four volumes do not include either requested title. I do not see any other volumes of any kind available in physical media. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:49, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is a fictional cricket tournament held in zimbabwe and south Africa in June 2005 Australia won after beating india by 5 wickets in the final 2405:201:1B:3156:803F:9ACA:21C2:1712 (talk) 17:31, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What is your question? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:24, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is indeed fictional. The World Series Cricket was played between 1977 and 1979 - not 2005. In fact, India did not play test cricket against Australia at all in 2005. As far as I can tell they never played a One Day International either. Same for Twenty20. 196.50.199.218 (talk) 13:27, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note, however, that there are some similarities between this fictional event and the 2003 Cricket World Cup, which was held in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Kenya. Australia did indeed defeat India in the final, although by a margin of 125 runs, not five wickets. --Viennese Waltz 13:42, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If it's fictional as my colleagues above indicate, where do the details about the locations, the date, the winner, and the winning margin all come from? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:42, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The imagination of the writer? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 19:57, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What writer? What publication? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:10, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly something to do with Brian Lara Cricket (series), aka (presumably) Cricket 2005 (Xbox). Note that the OP themself specified ". . . a fictional cricket tournament . . .". {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 16:27, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I was aware of that. This whole thread is screwing with what I am pleased to refer to as my mind. People have been attempting to answer a statement. Not a question. I asked the OP what their question was, but got no reply from them. I suspect the OP is wanting to add this titbit of info to one of our articles, but is clueless as to how to go about it so they're offering it here in the hope it makes its way to the right place. That's why I'm asking for more details on this fictional cricket tournament.

I understand that not all our users are fluent with English or the ways of Wikipedia, and we have to allow leeway and sometimes guess what they're really trying to ask us. But when someone comes along and just makes a bald statement with no hint of a query despite being asked for one, and the information they have posted is of no use without further input from them, but they have chosen not to provide it, we should treat it as if it were the work of a troll and either remove it or box it up. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:23, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've been wanting to know what happens in the (1963) Armchair Theatre episode Into the Dark. What is the plot of the episode and what happens by the end of the episode. So can someone tell me exactly what happens in it from start to finish. Matthew John Drummond (talk) 23:54, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that this episode is considered 'lost', and that (for example) IMDb's entry for it has no plot, suggests that there is no known record of the script or plot that anyone else (such as the assiduous compilers of IMDb) knows of. Doubtless TV companies' archives will have long ago been scoured for it without success.

In effect you are asking if anybody has a detailed recollection of a TV play that was aired, possibly only once and likely live with no recording being made, 62 years ago.

There is a remote possibility that the only surviving member of the listed cast and crew, the 90-y-o Wendy Craig, has a copy of the script. You might try contacting her. Good luck! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 10:13, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I episode has survived from this link here Link. Matthew John Drummond (talk) 11:38, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's your answer. Sign up for a Gold subscription account on that site (£50 for a year, £6 for a month), and see what that record contains. Given your interest in old TV episodes from this era (evident from your previous queries), it should be well worth it to you. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 14:59, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was wanting to ask are the discs from myrarefilms.co.uk real discs and have the copies that own the old these old films and tv shows given this website permission to release them on DVD. myrarefilms.co.uk is a website that releases old movies and tv shows that have not yet been released on DVD. Matthew John Drummond (talk) 15:31, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The home page of the site of which you have given the address has an "About Us" link at the bottom. This takes one to the following text:

My Rare Films is a collectors resource providing films and programmes that have never been released officially, or are out of copyright and therefore considered to be in the public domain.

If an item is known to be owned or otherwise, please contact MRF and the item will be removed from the site immediately.

What you will receive when you place an order:

A white top printable dvd-r disc containing the film or programme you have ordered. There is no artwork, no box just a disc in lined paper sleeve with the title and the year of release written on it.

Please do not expect them to be of high digital quality as many films are transferred from vhs tape recordings or off-air tv broadcasts. Each item on the site has an approximate quality grading to help you.

Roughly as follows:

6-7.5/10 are of vhs tape recorder condition, 6/10 being the roughest ‘collectors only’ grade, just about watchable. 7/10+ are decent but show their source limitations and are all that is known to be available.

Above 8/10 are the highest quality copies you can find, although probably not comparable to an officially released and restored item. Please check availability from the usual sellers.

Does this answer your questions? If not, the second link at the foot of the home page is "Contact us", where you could ask for further clarification. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 16:41, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Has any film ever shown

view through binoculars other than as intersecting circles?

view through telescope as an inverted image

lightning flash preceding sound of thunder Doug butler (talk) 20:43, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lightning before thunder was a plot device in Poltergeist. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 21:10, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The movie Luca makes a point of having the telescope image upside down. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 21:13, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rear Window put a lot of effort into making the binocular image look realistic. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 21:15, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean lightning flash occurring a few seconds before thunder, as opposed to happening at the same time? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:28, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just note that there are telescopes that do not produce an inverted image. For example, the two that make up a pair of binoculars. --142.112.222.162 (talk) 03:30, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and modern Spotting scopes used in birdwatching and similar activities have image erecting components in their optical systems. Older design Galilean telescopes and nautical "spyglass" scopes do not invert their images. Cullen328 (talk) 08:44, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because (if anyone was wondering) that would involve adding a lens, mirror or prism to the instrument, reducing the image brightness and clarity, introducing more surfaces to pick up dust, tarnish or damage that further degrade the image, and having the potential to get out of alignment, making the instrument useless until corrected.

In applications where there is plenty of ambient light, these factors are outweighed by the advantage of seeing an upright image; astronomers and ships' officers just get (or got) used to inverted images. 94.8.123.129 (talk) 15:16, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Galilean telescopes don't require anything added to disinvert the image; they just aren't as good for astronomical purposes. For the sort of usage typically seen in movies, "where there is plenty of ambient light" and a modest magnification is suitable, they would be perfectly good. --142.112.222.162 (talk) 02:59, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're right. (It's a very long time since I actually used a Galilean).

And yet the diagram in the section you link clearly shows a "Galilean" telescope with an intermediary focus, and an inverted image, contrary to the section text and the text of the source used. Moreover, the previous diagram, of a "Keplerian" telescope, appears to show Galilean light paths and an upright image, though both diagrams have the appropriate lens shapes. Both diagrams also seem to me to be much too complicated and confusing.

(Keplerian telescopes have several advantages over Galileans, outweighing the single disadvantage of being inverting, which anyway is easily overcome at the price of an additional element.)

It appears to me that Tamasflex, the creator and uploader to Commons of the diagrams, has somehow confused the two types. Unfortunately they appear no longer to be active, though perhaps they might still respond here. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 13:46, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Certainly!"

Doug, Gemini 2.0 Flash LLM wasn't real good at enumerating specific instances or examples for this highly-visually-based query, but it did turn up examples of Twister (1996 film), and The Day After Tomorrow; Gemini also went off on a topical tangent about Inversion (film), which it claims didn't depict any telescope images anyway.

We hope this doesn't help Roko's basilisk too much! 2600:8800:1E98:B000:5920:C568:E2A9:6FC0 (talk) 03:33, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I came up with Poltergeist, Luca, and Rear Window off the top of my head. I just had to verify that my memory wasn't wrong before posting each one. You'd think that some fancy LLM would do better than an old fart sitting in a library. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 13:43, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

With reference to the 2/5/25 query from IPv6ville, regarding the Newby-McMahon, my curiousity was really piqued despite the live cats nearby, so I asked Google's Gemini! who also had commentary on Smallest Towers in General, and the episode "O Builds a Tower". Wikipedians love pouring effort and talent into research for long strings of hex, but also Gemini watches Daniel Tiger so YOU don't have to! 2600:8800:1E98:B000:D7DC:6B3F:29A:F859 (talk) 22:43, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My question has two parts: 1) was there any criticism of the depiction of violence in The Langoliers when it originally aired on ABC in 1995, and 2) are there any good sources that discuss the changing social mores in film and television? I know there's scholars who have studied this kind of thing, but I can't recall any names at the moment. I'm asking this question because I watched The Langoliers last night. This adaptation of a Stephen King story surprised me because there's a lengthy scene where a young, 10-year-old blind girl (played by a 13-year-old Kate Maberly) is viciously stabbed by a crazy man, and the camera not only shows the knife going in, sticking out, and being pulled out, but also massive amounts of blood. It originally aired in May 1995 on the ABC network, which I find highly unusual. I can't imagine such a scene being shown on American TV today, and quite honestly, I don't recall that kind of violence against children ever being shown before. What's the story here? Viriditas (talk) 02:47, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was wanting to ask are the discs from truemovies.com real discs and have the Companies that own these old these old films and tv shows given this website permission to release them on DVD. truetvmovies.com is a website that releases old movies and tv shows on DVD. In ether a DVD Case or a Card slim case. Matthew John Drummond (talk) 18:47, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You have two domain names shown. The truemovies.com is a redirect to an expired domain name. The truetvmovies.com domain is unused. It shows links to similar sites and a link to purchase the domain name. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 19:20, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Grey-market piracy websites generally need to live in the shadows and shift their domain/WWW/VPS hosting around different jurisdictions, to evade DMCA-type actions. Also note the "true" titling of their alleged legitimate business enterprise, which is akin to the True Orthodox church[es]' branding, or an eBay listing insisting that this Holy Grail is seriously the True and Authentic CUP of Christ... and they've got a CErtificate of Authenticity to prove it. See also, Admiral Grace Hopper for her tongue-in-cheek quip: It is easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission

In other words, Caveat emptor 2600:8800:1E98:B000:5920:C568:E2A9:6FC0 (talk) 03:36, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What guitar effect is the guitarist using starting about 4:50 into this video]? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 06:23, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd almost say none at all. The basic tone probably comes from the guitar (neck pickup?) and the amp. He may use some pedals (sic!) to shape the sound, maybe a bit of overdrive or boost, maybe some compression, but I don't think that dominates the tone. --Wrongfilter (talk) 08:19, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The warble is caused by twisting his left hand to tighten and loosen the strings. Many guitar players find it easier to twist it to create that bending sound instead of pulling the strings left and right. There are exceptions, like Jimmy Page and Joe Walsh who apparently can't play more than two or three notes without pulling the strings. I want to note that the warble of bending the sound is not the exact same sound as vibrato. To get a good vibrato, you need a whammy bar to loosen all the strings back and forth. Bending will bend a few (or just one) note being played. A whammy bar alters all of the strings together. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 13:40, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It has a deep tone for a while, then he seems to punch a pedal and the tone goes away. I thought it might be a tube screamer, but I don't know much about pedals. Also, he seems to step on a pedal 20-30 seconds earlier, when the bass player is playing. In particular, I'm interested in the sound as it is right when he comes in. It is on the lower notes, and not on the higher notes, it seems. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:10, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Jaccard is famous for his paper, "Étude comparative de la distribution florale dans une portion des Alpes et des Jura. Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles." I am certain that is in French as is the entire paper, which is available from many sources. However, Jaccard was Swiss and taught in Zurich. I've been trying to figure out why the paper is in French and now Swiss. I know Switzerland has four langauges, but it appears that Zurich is well into the German region, not the French region. I figure the reason to publish in French is very obvious, so it isn't noted anywhere I've found, but I don't readily see a reason. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:30, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Jaccard may have taught in Zurich for a period, but he was born in the French-speaking canton of Vaud, studied at the University of Lausanne in the capital of Vaud, an institution that seems predominently use French, and published other papers in French: it seems most likely that his mother tongue was French. Doubtless, like many (most?) Swiss, Jaccard had at least some grasp of Switzerland's other languages, but why would he not have written this particular paper in French as well?

In Europe, it is usual for people to be taught second, and sometimes third, languages at school, and not unusual for academics to travel, study and teach in institutions outside their native language region. Moreover, in Switzerland precisely because of the multiple official languages, as well as in other parts of Europe (such as Scandinavia) and in World Academia, English is frequently used as a lingua franca, which serves when speakers have different first languages: in Jaccard's day, French was often used similarly, more widely so than now, a century later. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 17:56, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. As I assumed, it makes perfect sense. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 18:01, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the journal in which he published the study, the Bulletin de la Société vaudoise des Sciences naturelles, was the journal of a Francophone scientific society (Société vaudoise des Sciences naturelles), of which he was then a member,^[47] later member emeritus.^[48]  ‑‑Lambiam 09:07, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And finally, our Lingua franca article notes that:

French is sometimes regarded as the first global lingua franca, having supplanted Latin as the prestige language of politics, trade, education, diplomacy, and military in early modern Europe and later spreading around the world with the establishment of the French colonial empire... French became the main language of diplomacy and international relations up until World War II.

Alansplodge (talk) 10:53, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do most English speakers know ISO 8601 week numbers? In some other Wikipedias, there is a weekly contest every week, like e.g. Finnish Wikipedia's Viikon kilpailu. In this contest, weeks are numbered according to ISO 8601, and they start on Monday and end on Sunday. Would similar contest in English Wikipedia work? Would all users know that current week is "Week 7" and it starts on 10 February and ends on 16 February? --40bus (talk) 21:38, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. --142.112.222.162 (talk) 21:54, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

i don't know why you return so frequently and happily to this place (where destiny is made) to pose these questions,

or whether you really are under the impression that those accustomed to use calendars with systems of years - months - weeks - days (i.e., virtually (?) all of them) would know independently which week in the year it is when this information is never of any consequence 130.74.58.24 (talk) 21:54, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That system is not used in the United States, to my knowledge. And starting weeks on Mondays would seem very odd to Americans, as well. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:56, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK, although informally people often think of the week as starting on Monday, officially it starts on Sunday, and most (though not all) calendars and diaries conform to this.

Week numbers exist, and some diaries (such as my current pocket diary) show them, although others (such as my current A5 day-per-page diary) do not. They are not much used, except in some business and financial contexts, and if a random person were asked, they would be unlikely to know the current week number. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 22:14, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"In the UK, although informally people often think of the week as starting on Monday, officially it starts on Sunday, and most (though not all) calendars and diaries conform to this." Source, please. I'm in the UK and I have never heard this. Proteus (Talk) 17:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would a similar weeky contest work in English Wikipedia? Do Australia and UK ever use ISO 8601 week numbers? --40bus (talk) 22:26, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not an Australian custom. HiLo48 (talk) 22:39, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I vaguely recall seeing week numbers used in some old desk calendars, but the week number itself seldom if ever came up in conversation. Where we hear it most often is usages such as "NFL Week 17" or whatever, which is the NFL's own system. In business, we're more apt to hear about fractions of the year such as "Fourth Quarter" or whatever. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ISO week date, in case anyone else is interested.

There are many weekly competitions in the UK or elsewhere, notably those that appear in weekly newspapers, magazines and journals, and many lotteries operate on a weekly basis. As far as I'm aware, each of these will be numbered (if at all, they may instead use forms like ". . . for week starting/ending Xday yth Septober" and the like) according to the organisers' individual needs, and ISO week numbers are unlikely to figure. I expect some official uses of week numbers take the week beginning with or containing 6th April as their 'Week 1', as this is the start of the UK's Tax year. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 09:48, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Opening times of "Monday to Friday", Monday to Saturday" [49] and "Monday to Sunday" are commonly quoted. I've never seen "Sunday to Saturday", which suggests the working week is considered to begin on Monday. Diaries I've seen which display "one week to view" start on Monday. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday appear on the left and Thursday and Friday appear on the right opposite Monday and Tuesday. Saturday and Sunday appear opposite Wednesday, each occupying half the space as appointments may not be scheduled for Saturday and Sunday is a recognised non-working day.

Some churches use a system called Ordinary Time. I was under the impression that in the Roman breviary/missal there are 36 weeks of Ordinary Time, i.e. the 52 weeks of the year less the nine weeks from Septuagesima to Easter and the seven weeks from Easter to Whitsun, but our article says something different, and starts it on the second Monday in January. 2A02:C7C:F33B:4100:4D40:420E:1C6B:B936 (talk) 19:15, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Poland, week numbers do tend to be printed on and in calendars (just peeked into my pocket blood donor calendar - it also has them) but to expect anyone in private to offhand know the current week number would be a hopeless exercise. Far as I know, outside of logistics and purchasing (like, where orders would be expected to be delivered say in week 34 of the year), and perhaps other specialist fields I may not be aware of, people don't care about the week number. --Ouro (blah blah) 12:05, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're missing the point. That same contest could have run that same period without mentioning ISO weeks. My employer pays 1000s of paychecks every week without using ISO week numbers. Lots and lots of things happen weekly witout ISO numbers. What purpose do these numbers fulfill?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:41, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I rather suspect these week numbers are used in computer programming ISO week date cited. Our resident astronomer has something to say on this - some Twitter users were unable to log in around midnight of 29 December 2014 on account of this. His tables are fascinating - especially this one [50]. The phrase "Sunday to Saturday" is used - example here [51]. The sound has disintegrated but the wives of the Bishop of Dover and the Bishop of Chichester were definitely there first time round. 92.14.26.186 (talk) 17:29, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why bother with these week numbers? Why not simply say that a contest runs (for example) from 6 June to 12 June? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:40, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Finnish Wikipedia's contest has run continuously from 26 November 2012, following ISO 8601 weeks. Every Monday, a new contest starts and runs until following Sunday. Could English Wikipedia manage to do that? --40bus (talk) 22:41, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're missing the point. That same contest could have run that same period without mentioning ISO weeks. My employer pays 1000s of paychecks every week without using ISO week numbers. Lots and lots of things happen weekly witout ISO numbers. What purpose do these numbers fulfill?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:41, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Proteus: See comment by 2A02:C7C above. Our resident astronomer has something to say about this, including this fascinating table [52]. You can go back one year at a time (or forward), but it carries on with the Gregorian calendar when you go back before 1582, even though it didn't exist. It even gives Easter dates before the Christian era! (Going back before AD 1 you reach "year 0" (1 BC) and then "year -1" (2 BC)). On 92.14's link, I've listened to the video in question and the post contains an error - the individuals named are the Bishop of Dover (as stated) and the Bishop of Chichester's daughter (not as stated). Getting back to Proteus' query, I've examined some diaries for the period 1941-2020, and here's what I discovered. In this analysis "week to view" is understood to mean Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on the left and Thursday, Friday and half-size Saturday and Sunday on the right (except where indicated) and "week numbers" are ISO standard (unless stated otherwise). So to begin:

• 1941: calendar runs Su-Sa, week to view has Su-We on left, Th-Sa and "Memo" on right
• 1969: calendar runs Su-Sa
• 1970 Engagements diary: weeks begin Mo (Mo 5 Ja - Mo 28 De), calendar runs Su - Sa.

There is then a series of BBC diaries, covering the years 1972 - 1990. These employ week numbers, but they are "programme weeks", which begin Sa, so the calendars run Sa - Fr, although the ordinary calendars in the 1972 and 1973 editions (after which they are phased out) run Su - Sa. The system does not appear to have been fully thought out in the initial stages. The 1972 calendar shows week 1 commencing 1 Ja and week 52 ending 29 De. No week number is assigned to 30 De and 31 De, although in the diary pages they are headed "Week 53". In the diary for 1973, calendar for 1973, Sa and Su for week 1 are blank, and the first entry in that column is Mo 1 Ja. Week 52 ends 28 De, no week number is assigned to 29 De, 30 De and 31 De, and nor is a week number assigned to these dates in the diary section. In the 1974 diary, calendar for 1974, the first 3 days in week 1 are blank, the first entry being Tu 1 Ja. Week 52 ends 27 De, and no week number is assigned to 28 De, 29 De, 30 De and 31 De either there or in the diary section. This diary includes advance calendars for 1975, 1976 and 1977. For 1975 Sa - Tu of week 1 are blank and the first entry is We 1 Ja. Week 53 begins on 27 De. In the 1975 diary pages 27 De, 28 De, 29 De, 30 De and 31 De are assigned to week 53. In the 1976 advance calendar printed in the 1974 diary the first column shows Th 1 Ja and Fr 2 Ja but no week number is assigned. Week 1 begins 3 Ja. In the 1976 diary the calendar shows Th 1 Ja 1976 and Fr 2 Ja 1976 as part of week 53, although the advance calendar for 1976 printed in the 1975 diary (like the one printed in the 1974 diary) does not assign a week number for these dates. In the diary section for 1976, Th 1 Ja and Fr 2 Ja are assigned to week 53. Week 1 begins 3 Ja. There is a smooth transition at the end of the year - week 52 ends 31 De, week 1 of 1977 begins 1 Ja. In the 1976 diary the advance calendar for 1977 for the first time shows Sa 31 De 1977 as being in week 1. At the end of 1977 in the advance calendar as printed in the 1974 diary no week number had been assigned to Sa 31 De. In the 1978 advance calendar Sa of week 1 is blank and entries commence with Su 1 Ja 1978.

(continues)

I (An Australian) remember being taught that, regardless of however a wall calendar might be arranged, the first day of the week is Sunday. That's because it's the Sabbath, ie. the most important day. Later, it occurred to me that the Sabbath was supposed to be the day of rest, corresponding to the 7th Day of Creation. That should mean that Monday is the first day and Sunday the last day. In the Jewish system, their Sabbath is Saturday, meaning that their week starts on Sunday. Strange how the Christians adopted the concept of a Sabbath as a day of rest, yet somehow managed to make it the first day of Creation, when most of the work of creating the Universe was done (not exactly a day of rest), rather than the last, when God rested. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:04, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sunday is sometimes called the "Christian Sabbath"... And it's no coincidence that in Spanish, at least, the word Sábado is used for both "Saturday" and "Sabbath". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:37, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Russian has Суббота (Subbóta) for Saturday. And their word for Sunday literally means "resurrection". Both are hangovers from Orthodox Christianity. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:56, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jack, if this concerns you, I'm sure you can find a local Seventh-day Adventist congregation; they keep the Saturday sabbath. As far as I can tell they're quite correct that there is no scriptural support for a Sunday sabbath. --Trovatore (talk) 21:48, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'm not quite as concerned as that. But thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:56, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Week numbers called EpiWeeks are used in epidemiology where they are a useful and constant-sized granularity. Unfortunately they are not smoothly created by Excel.Hayttom (talk) 23:54, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why does FIFA not have an official English-language full name? Many other organizations with names and abbreviations originally from French, such as UEFA, FIBA, as well as SI system, have official English-language full names, so why does FIFA not have too? And if football was invented in England, why was FIFA not founded there too? Why so few international sports organizations were founded in the UK, despite having many sports founded there? --40bus (talk) 21:49, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because they don't have to. Nanonic (talk) 08:07, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

None of the founding members of FIFA were from Anglophone countries. Founding it in a non-member country would have been a strange choice. Also today, the vast majority of its members is not Anglophone. FIFA is internationally known by its acronym. It is not obvious that people would understand that "the International Federation of Association Football" is the same as FIFA.  ‑‑Lambiam 08:53, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The English/British indeed invented many sports, but we generally pursued them for fun, on an amateur basis. The impulse to make them controlled and professional on an international scale often arose elsewhere. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 14:08, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

UIAA (Union internationale des associations d'alpinisme) is also known by it's French initials. Although the Wikipedia article uses an English translation, International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation, I've never heard it called that. Alansplodge (talk) 23:18, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CERN and FIDE come to mind as other international organizations known by their French language abbreviations. John M Baker (talk) 04:01, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

May I add that English is the language of the true inventor of Football? And yet, England willingly declined to form the governing body themselves, despite that being their God-given right. Pablothepenguin (talk) 00:29, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Columbo episode "By Dawn's Early Light" is based on the ceremonial firing of a blank shell from a decades-old cannon, made to cause a fatal explosion instead. At the start, the villain modifies the shell (about 3 inches in diameter) by unscrewing its nose cone. He pours out a black powder, which he later says is mostly sodium nitrate, and discards it; then he inserts a quantity of high explosive (later stated to be C-4) and screws the cone back on. He also blocks the barrel of the cannon with a rag to make sure the breech will explode. Okay, fine.

My question is this. When the victim is about to insert the shell in the cannon, the nose cone is again unscrewed and set aside. The cannon is then fired by pulling a cord emerging from the breech end (and duly explodes fatally). I'm talking about a work of fiction, but it's shown in sufficient detail that I assume it must be based on reality. Why, when, would a shell be made to be taken apart in that manner before firing? Is this only because it's supposed to be a blank? Also, how does pulling the cord ignite it? --142.112.222.162 (talk) 09:15, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of artillery pieces are still fired with a pull cord (lanyard). The firing mechanism is a bit like that of a revolver - a springloaded hammer is cocked, and when released (by the lanyard) it springs down, strikes a percussion cap, which triggers the propellant (I think it varies by mechanism whether the lanyard also cocks the gun first). In practice the lanyard often isn't very long, but it's nice for the artilleryman to not to have to actually be touching the gun while it discharges. Here is a video of an M198 howitzer being fired. Modern self-propelled systems (self-propelled guns and tanks, for example) have an electrical or electromechanical firing mechanism (so they're push-button-to-shoot). But it's common practice for a unit receiving a new gun (or a new barrel) to fire the self-propelled gun with a (long) lanyard anyway, to prove to themselves that the gun is safe. All of this is rather archaic, but artillery is a pretty old-fashioned business that's stayed relevant regardless. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:18, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a plausible way of firing a ceremonial shot. If the shell remained sealed, the explosive force would burst from its rear (as originally designed) and propel the shell from the cannon, dangerously; by removing the shell's nose, the force of the explosion (not very strong in the case of black powder) alone – carrying smoke and small unburned particles only – will emerge from the barrel, while the shell case will be pressed back into it and hopefully will not emerge. Whether this is a method actually used for some ceremonial cannon shots, however, I cannot confirm. In the case of Edinburgh's famous One O'clock Gun, the artillery piece currently employed, a L118 light gun, is designed for Separate loading cased charge ammunition where the projectile and propellant are separate items, so for firing such 'blanks', only the propellant is loaded. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 14:25, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict: uncannily similar...) As to firing a ceremonial gun: I don't see any reason why a blank round for ceremonial use would have an ogive aeroshell (you actively don't want anything flying out of the muzzle with aerodynamic efficiency). Here is a video of the firing of the Edinburgh Castle § One O'Clock Gun; the soldier loads a brass case with nothing on the end. You'll also notice that he first sights the barrel with the breach open, to verify that it is not obstructed. Incidentally, that that gun, the L118 light gun, is fired by pulling a handle (not with a lanyard) - cf this video. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 14:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As to the premise of this (as you, say, fictional) story, I think that's fanciful too. For the investigation of a fatal artillery mishap, the authorities would surely consult an expert (a serving or retired artillery officer). That officer would know what a burst gun (from ordinary use) would look like, and would know what one destroyed with a high explosive would look like (because learning to destroy a gun or barrel with explosives is part of an artillery officer's training). Enough, at least, to order an analysis of the residue, which would be very different with a plastic HE. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 14:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a blank 105 mm round for firing salutes. As you can see, it is just a shortened propellent case with no actual shell. I used to work near the Tower of London and often watched the gun salutes there; you could see bits of the wadding which closed the top of the catridge case fly out when the guns were fired. If there had been any sort of projectile, expoding or not, the office buildings on the other side of the Thames would have been demolished. Alansplodge (talk) 23:06, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The King might think this would not be a bad idea.^[53]  ‑‑Lambiam 09:10, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanations. As for analysis of residue, that is how Columbo learns what happened in the episode. The appearance of the exploded cannon is not shown or discussed. --142.112.222.162 (talk) 17:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• It's important to distinguish shell, cartridge and round (shell & cartridge). This is the same distinction made for small arms with bullet, cartridge and round. Field artillery typically uses QF rounds, where they're loaded with the shell already attached to a brass cartridge case and loaded as one unit. Larger calibres, 6" and larger, do it differently.

Shells can (of course) be filled with explosives and fired safely to the gun crew. Usually the explosive filler is chosen as one that's deliberately insensitive to shock, but that's true of most military explosives anyway. And of course, it's possible to gimmick the shell contents to be deliberately shock sensitive, so as to explode on firing. The filling (for anything since the Victorians) would be melted and cast in place rather than a loose powder.

But the real problem with Columbo's script is that there wouldn't be any sort of shell at all! For blank-firing salutes, there is a blank cartridge loaded. There is no shell, for safety reasons. I've seen display shoots done with blocks of expanded polystyrene to make a visual cloud but insurers these days don't even like robust wads covering the cartridge mouth, in case of fragments flying down range.

In a military shoot shells are stored unfuzed for safety and their primers are also stored separately (there's probably a less-sensitive booster fixed inside the shell). The primer and fuze are fitted to a batch of shells before action. Immediately before loading, the fuze is adjusted (the nose is a movable dial) to set a delay time before explosion. But the fuze doesn't have to be removed for this.

Firing is done with a lanyard because (outside tanks and AFVs) it's good to get some distance from the breech, just so it doesn't hit you with the recoil. This can fire a primer factory-fitted in the base of the cartridge, or (for larger pieces) one that's loaded separately. There's some discussion at Talk:BL 5.5-inch medium gun#Huh? of these. Many modern pieces are electrically fired. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:13, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The book Fifty Plants that Changed the Course of History (2010) discusses the method of Ibn Bassal for feeding stallions "corn" instead of hay to produce a certain kind of manure.[54] Of course, this was the 11th century, and "corn" wouldn't be introduced from the "New World" to Spain until the late 15th century. Is this an example of the word "corn" being used for "wheat" or some other grain? The book is written in British English. In other words, what did Bassal feed stallions instead of hay? Viriditas (talk) 22:22, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Corn" in British English means any kind of cereal grain (wheat, barley, oats, rye, etc). New World corn is called maize (if fed to animals) or sweetcorn (if fed to humans). I think the use of "corn" here for cereals is now obsolescent to avoid confusion with the American usage. Alansplodge (talk) 22:47, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. If I paraphrase the stallion diet, can I say "Bassal fed his stallions cereal grain"? It would be nice to specify the type of grain. Viriditas (talk) 22:51, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My best Google search techniques failed to find anything (others may have more success). It may be that the original source did not specify. Alansplodge (talk) 22:57, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's in the Dīwān al-filāha, but it's in Arabic. Viriditas (talk) 23:00, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ChatGPT insists the answer is barley, but I don't trust anything it says. With that said, would feeding stallions barley to produce heat-generating manure to keep plants warm from the bottom have any measurable difference between feeding stallions other types of grains? In other words, does the barley make a difference with the aerobic bacteria generating heat through decomposition? Do you generate more or less heat with barley than with other grains? ChatGPT says it is due to the high nutrient content of barley, which leads to more heat produced for the plants. Viriditas (talk) 23:07, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly, this article says that barley is a major crop in Spain and was traditionally grown there for animal feed. Alansplodge (talk) 23:12, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oats are a more typical feed for horses than barley (at least in the English-speaking world), but that doesn't strictly mean that's what's being referenced. I'm not aware of any reason horses couldn't safely eat other grains. Even in the 19th century, IIRC, it was common to use "corn" to refer to cereal grains in general. I seem to recall an episode in Black Beauty where the same feed is referred to as "corn" and "oats" at different points in the same chapter. -- Avocado (talk) 23:17, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unless Ibn Bassal is taxonomically quite specific, his horse feed may have been any mixture of available cereals, the choice also being governed by market prices. Note also that corn can refer to the whole plant, and not necessarily just the grains, and a purely grain-based horse diet is probably not optimal, whether for the animal itself or for the fertilizing quality of its dung.  ‑‑Lambiam 09:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Even in the 19th century, IIRC, it was common to use "corn" to refer to cereal grains in general. I think that was the case even in the 20th Century, in the UK. Iapetus (talk) 10:17, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And even in the 21st. DuncanHill (talk) 11:20, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do Americans think the Corn Laws were about maize? DuncanHill (talk) 11:21, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty sure the vast majority of Americans have never heard of the Corn Laws, but yes. Most Americans have never been exposed to the word "corn" referring to anything other than maize and without further context would assume maize. But also, what percentage of Americans would you guess know when maize was introduced to Europe or how rare its use still is there compared to the US? -- Avocado (talk) 13:48, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Avocado, many American Christians are fond of the King James Version of the Bible, wich has numerous references to "corn". Presumably the Ancient Egyptians and Israelites were not cultivating a plant native to the Americas? For example:

"So Pharaoh awoke. And he slept and dreamed the second time: and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good". Genesis 41 Alansplodge (talk) 15:16, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I agree. But what percentage of Americans are aware that maize is native to the Americas and wasn't introduced to the old world at all until the 16thC?

I'd guess a lot of people assume that that reference to "corn" is a reference to what we call corn, i.e. maize. And others assume some sort of translation issue, not realizing when and where the King James translation was produced or that that maize was uncommon in 17thC England. And a bunch more if told that there wasn't maize in Ancient Egypt would somehow twist that into some argument about the setting of the bible being North America. (Yes, that's a real belief.)

I'm not saying all Americans are that ignorant, but a disappointing percentage of us are. Or maybe you have more faith in the American educational system / popular intellectual culture than I do? -- Avocado (talk) 17:31, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What would such Americans think Pharoah's ears of corn were then? What would they make of Swift? "Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together". DuncanHill (talk) 17:38, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Corn" in American English just means what you call maize, essentially without exception. Well, OK, there are the things people get on their toes, but.... So Americans without an unusual background, reading that without thinking about it, are going to imagine what they call corn. Now, if they think about it, they might realize that there wasn't any corn in that sense in those venues, but they'd probably have to have a reason to think about it. --Trovatore (talk) 19:31, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What would such Americans think Pharoah's ears of corn were then?

Maize?

I mean, that's what I visualized when first introduced to that story around age 5. I haven't had much occasion to consider it critically since then. Now that you point it out, obviously it was some other grain. But I still sort of visualize what I think of as "corn" -- i.e. maize.

What would they make of Swift? "Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together".

That he was talking about what they think of as corn. So maize. But also, people are capable of generalizing from "if you could double the output of this one food crop, that would change the world" to "if you could double the output of any important food crop, that would change the world."

@Trovatore's explanation a bit further down is spot on. In American English, the word "corn" exclusively refers to what in other places is called "maize". Most Americans aren't familiar with any other meaning of the term and do not associate it at all with any other grain. "Maize" is only used for specific throwback varieties or in discussions like this where it needs to be explicitly clarified for speakers of other dialects; and presumably in scientific usage. -- Avocado (talk) 14:04, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You have to work with whatever grows in your area. Barley grows fine in the south of Europe, but in the north oats do better and once you get north of about 63 degrees, rye is the only cereal left. Maize has a formidable growth rate, but the seeds don't ripen properly in the climate around the south shores of the North Sea. The plant, which is commonly cultivated, is left on the fields until the very end of the growing season (October), then it's shredded and fermented to serve as cattle fodder. I don't think it's fed to horses. Much of the maize is produced by the same farmers who feed it to their cattle, so it never enters the market, making production estimates less reliable. Maize for human consumption is usually imported.

BTW, compare German Korn and Dutch koren, meaning the same as British corn. PiusImpavidus (talk) 20:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, the cattle fodder you're talking about is called Silage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:49, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Silage has a tendency to become mouldy, which is why it is not recommended as horse feed.^[55][56][57]  ‑‑Lambiam 18:55, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Old Testament mentions barley (Hebrew שְׂעֹרָה‎^[58]) as horse food in 1 Kings 4:28.  ‑‑Lambiam 10:33, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Barley, along with barley straw, have been commonly used in Europe for feeding horses.^[59][60][61]  ‑‑Lambiam 19:05, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not to be confused with Bakersfield-ian Korn... --Slowking Man (talk) 01:18, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To Americans, except in specialized contexts (say botany or something), the word "maize" is uncommon. We call it pretty much exclusively "corn". The word "maize" typically refers to decorative, deeply colored flint corn.

I know there's a tendency for British people to assume that we do that just because it's the biggest cereal crop here, but that really isn't true. Most people eat more wheat than corn (at least, not counting corn syrup and such), and are not farmers so which is the biggest crop isn't really top of mind.

A little aside -- in Italian, the word for corn is granturco; literally, Turkish grain. I'm not sure exactly why. --Trovatore (talk) 05:25, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"The usage of corn for maize started as a shortening of "Indian corn" in 18th-century North America." (per Maize. DuncanHill (talk) 11:26, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, totally, that makes sense as an etymology.

What I'm saying is, in some of these discussions, I've seen British persons take the view that the American use of "corn" is parallel to the British one, just meaning "grain" but usually specializing to the most important grain in the region.

And that's a false parallelism. There is no other unmarked word for Zea mays in American English. "Maize" is not exactly wrong and a good proportion of people will recognize it, but it's strongly marked in a way that I don't believe "wheat" is in British English. "Corn" has come to just simply mean exactly Zea mays and nothing else in AmE. In particular it does not mean "grain". --Trovatore (talk) 06:24, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And in Turkish maize is called mısır, a clipping of Mısir darısı literally meaning "Egyptian millet". The word turkey, a clipping of turkey fowl, originally referred to the guinea fowl, imported to Europe from Turkey. The word was repurposed by American colonists. (The Turkish term for guinea fowl means "stupid bird" for reasons unknown to me, while turkeys are called hindi, a clipping of Arabic dīk hindiyy meaning "Indian fowl"; cf. also the obsolete Italian name pollo d'India.) I guess the vernacular names in various languages tend to reflect the real or imagined proximate provenance of a newly imported food item (or other item; for example French bougie for candle comes from a double clipping of chandelle de cire de Bougie, a candle of wax from Béjaïa).  ‑‑Lambiam 10:57, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Century is not capitalized (except here). The Grammar Police never rest. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:17, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines/I feed my horse good corn and beans/Of course it's quite beyond my means/tho' a captain in the army. I don't think it had ever occurred to me to wonder what sort of "corn" this was. --Trovatore (talk) 20:54, 20 February 2025 (UTC) [reply]

This seems to have been dealt with adequately, but here are two previous ref-desk threads on the same topic, for what they're worth. (I can never read such threads without thinking of the contrasting referents of corn [here, the plants rather than specifically the grain] in The Corn Is Green and "The corn is as high as an elephant's eye".) Deor (talk) 12:26, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 02:06, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indian corn, when used in a current rather than historical sense, means maize cultivars with colored grains, some examples of which are shown here. John M Baker (talk) 23:08, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is it realistic or even possible to have enemies you just knocked it unconscious (e.g. with less lethal weapons) become neutral to you or even friendly after you waking up them? 2001:448A:3070:DB69:F404:6F51:8A54:6CB8 (talk) 04:46, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Brain injury can have varying results. Note that sleep, from which someone can be woken up, is not the same as unconsciousness. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:45, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you consider them your enemies because they were doing things you didn't like, or because they behaved in an actively hostile manner specifically to you, so that you might reasonably infer they considered you their enemy? And if the latter, was it personal, or was it because you kept them from achieving a goal? Finally, are they aware you, being driven by enmity, are the proximate cause of their being knocked out? I can imagine various combinations in which the person regaining consciousness has no motive or reason to harbour bad feelings towards you. Or perhaps they are Christian anarchist followers of Jesus of Nazareth, turning the other cheek.
Consider also what happened during the "Christmas truce" of 1914, when soldiers who the day before had been trying to blow each other's brains out, stopped fighting and fraternized in a most cordial way, showing that the overt hostility was not motivated by personal feelings.  ‑‑Lambiam 09:49, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Possible, yes. Realistic, no. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:54, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In architecture, is there a specific term for the opposite of an open floor plan? 2601:646:8082:BA0:818D:3BA7:F927:FC03 (talk) 13:23, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"A closed floor plan, also known as a traditional floor plan..." --136.56.165.118 (talk) 14:30, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's what I wanted to know! "Traditional floor plan" sounds just about right! (Of course, as far as Western architecture, it actually so happens that the open floor plan is older than the "traditional" one -- it was the norm through much of the Middle Ages, whereas internal subdivision of buildings into smaller rooms was only made possible in the late medieval period with the invention of the chimney, and the hallway wasn't invented until the late 16th century!) 2601:646:8082:BA0:873:4E54:584:2983 (talk) 02:53, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I read this IndianExpress article and did not understand the point.

https://indianexpress.com/article/express-exclusive/usaid-funding-team-elon-musk-flags-donald-trump-waves-but-a-fact-check-21-million-did-not-go-to-india-for-voter-turnout-was-for-bangladesh-9847463/

They said: https://x.com/DOGE/status/1890849405932077378

$21M for voter turnout in India - $29M to "strenghening political landscape in Bangladesh"

Now IndianExpress is saying they are wrong. I hope American Wikipedians can see the arguments by IndianExpress and tell who is right. Sistersofchappel (talk) 09:14, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The claim that USAID gave away $21M for voter turnout in India created a "political firestorm" in India.^[62] The Indian Express writes, "That $21 million, records accessed by The Indian Express show, was sanctioned in 2022 for Bangladesh, not India." I see no reason to doubt the veracity of the statement. If you have access to Xwitter, you can verify for yourself that the tech bro running the country xweeted, '$486M to the “Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening,” including $22M for "inclusive and participatory political process" in Moldova and $21M for voter turnout in India'.^[63] If you have access to LinkedIn, you can also verify for yourself that Lubain Masum's post was accurately reproduced in the article. I did not check the following statement from the article: "According to the official open data source of US federal spending, there is no USAID funded CEPPS project in India since 2008." However, it would be unbelievably stupid to make this up when it can easily be checked by any jourmalist or government employee.  ‑‑Lambiam 18:38, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"India, Bangladesh, whatever same place basically. And Pakistan, that's one of those Ay-rab countries right?". As a lifelong USian: that about sums up the "foreign places" knowledge of a good chunk of the population. For another chunk: "What the hell is a 'Bangladesh'? That some kinda food?" --Slowking Man (talk) 01:26, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I grew up in the late 70s - early 80s and I had a variety of toys, from the very mainstream (GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man), to the more obscure (SONOS building sets (no article), Capsela, Eagle Force, Zoids). I also had a toy set that was a group of individual toys that could fit together into a kind of space ship. It was all plastic, almost entirely white. I recall almost nothing about it except that the wings of the space ship were toy guns that launched a kind of plastic arrow with a large bulbous red knob instead of a sharp point. There were two such guns, each large enough to fit in a child's hand like a small pistol. Any idea what the hell this was? Matt Deres (talk) 17:46, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did it have a wired remote? It sounds like the Micronauts Battle Cruiser. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 00:12, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's it - thank you! I had forgotten about the remote, but this was definitely the toy. Matt Deres (talk) 01:26, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Having named more than 200 species before, he called the newly identified bee “Hylaeus paumākō,” as “paumākō” means “mourning” or “grief” in Hawaiian. Distinguished by its all-black face, a unique characteristic not seen in any other known male bee species on Molokai, he said he felt the name was appropriate. Following the theme in Latin naming, where species with dark features are often named with the Latin word for funeral, he carried on that tradition in Hawai’i.[64]

I am not familiar with this naming convention involving the naming of all black specimens. Is it a thing outside entomology? Viriditas (talk) 01:41, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A Wikipedia search for "funereus" leads to a number of species of birds, mammals and even plants with that specific name, and many seem to be black or gray. In some cases, such as the Boreal owl, it's not clear that the creature is particularly black compared to others of it's family, so I guess you could speculate on whether the name referred to something like its nocturnal habits. But it does seem to be pretty well established pattern. Philly6097 (talk) 04:23, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re the specific epithet of the boreal owl I found this: "The specific name funereus refers to the dark plumage , and maybe more so to the smoky dark brown of the young, but nonetheless the name sits well with the traditions of the churchyard."^[65] Judging from this photo, some individuals have indeed rather dark plumage.  ‑‑Lambiam 06:45, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I'm trying to independently verify the part that says "species with dark features are often named with the Latin word for funeral". I’m curious if a history of science book or paper has addressed it. Viriditas (talk) 09:53, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[66] Any idea if these are any good? I have a slowly draining bathroom sink and a regular hand plunger didn't help much. I know they make those pressurized things for toilets too, and they sometimes blow out the toilet's wax seal and spray poop everywhere, so I naturally have some skepticism towards the sink one too.

I've found the plastic hair clog removal tools to be near useless. I think there are heavier duty ones so I might check the hardware store. Next thing after that is an actual drain snake, but I'm in an apartment so I think if the clog is beyond the under-sink trap then it's up to the building maintenance guys, while the HFT drain snakes start at 15 feet long. They are affordable though so I might try one and stop after 3 feet or so. I've always been told to avoid corrosive drain cleaners. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:2D6 (talk) 23:47, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]