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June 13

Radack Islands

Where are the Radack Islands? I can't find anything on wikipedia and a google search brings up a place in the Marshall Islands called Radack. Is it an archaic name for the Marshal Islands? Who was it named for?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 02:24, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I think it is an old or alternate name for the Marshall Islands. After digging through some google search results, I found on reference on google books that places it at 8 deg 19 min N, 171 deg 12 min E, which puts in or near the Marshall Islands. I didn't find anything on the history of the name. I'm not sure Google books links are persistant, but this is the link to the result I found:[1], page 374 in The New American Practical Navigator: Being an Epitome of Navigation . RudolfRed (talk) 03:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I think it's Ratak Chain. See also [2] and [3]. Oda Mari (talk) 08:17, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Kofi Annan

WP:DNFT
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
is Kofi Annan played by Morgan Freeman in real life? How does he keep his schedule separate? 188.6.79.215 (talk) 09:23, 13 June 2012 (UTC) Yes. By using the UN's mind control rays. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:38, 13 June 2012 (UTC) And transportation by black helicopter helps with the schedule. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:14, 13 June 2012 (UTC) Could you please be more serious? I agree that these trolls should not be fed but I would like to know an answer to the question. (it could be the other way around but why would kofi annan want to go into acting? could you please tell me something here. --78.92.79.43 (talk) 15:05, 13 June 2012 (UTC) The answer is obviously no. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:31, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Biblical scholarship on Jehovah's Witnesses' practices and beliefs

I don't mean to offend any Jehovah's Witnesses here (I myself have a few relatives who are Jehovah's Witnesses), but I was wondering if they have practices or beliefs which have been considered flawed by non-Watchtower Society biblical scholars. The stake hypothesis comes to mind, since even many early Christians describe the cross as having a crossbeam rather than a simple stake, but has that belief, or any other beliefs and practices been considered flawed by Biblical scholars? I'm not saying that Jehovah's Witnesses are a flawed religion (even Catholicism has several extra-Biblical beliefs!), I'm just asking which of their beliefs are debated by Biblical scholars. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Starting with the fact that "Jehovah" is not a real word? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:34, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

How do you know that? Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:08, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

As noted by the Village Idiot below, there's an article on the subject. I thought most everyone who knew anything about the subject knew that "Jehovah" was a gross mistranslation, i.e. a "fake" word. For that matter "YHWH" is not God's name either. No one on earth knows what God's name is. When Moses asked God what His name is, God's answer was "I am that I am". A polite way of saying, "Mind your own business." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:59, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was Popeye that said that. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 02:43, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

A name is a word by which a person is known. If God did not want anyone to know His name, then what does the second commandment mean: "Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain"? If nobody knew God's name, this would not make any sense. But even in the passage where Moses asked God's name, it is made clear that YHWH (however it should be pronounced) is indeed God's name: "God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, YHWH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations." (Exodus 3:15). See also Isaiah 42:8 "I am YHWH, that is My name", Jeremiah 33:2: "Thus says YHWH who made the earth, YHWH who formed it to establish it, YHWH is His name." - Lindert (talk) 12:47, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I think both Tetragrammaton and Documentary hypothesis may be relevant here. I think it's reasonably clear that 'Jehovah' cannot be what was originally intended by 'YHWH', though - and that 'Jehovah' is not a Shem, an authentic Jewish name of God. But clearly 'Jehovah' has become a name of God for Christians at some more recent time. So I wouldn't say it's 'not a word' or 'not a name for God' - but I do think the JWs' claim about it being the name for God don't stand up in the face of the evidence. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed; it is similar to the English name 'James', which is a poor rendition of the Hebrew name 'Yaäkov', but as it has become common, it is not really wrong to say that Jesus' brother was called James. - Lindert (talk) 13:15, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Lindert -- the two cases are really not at all comparable. Modern English "James" is connected to Biblical Hebrew "Yaaqobh" by a long and convoluted linguistic evolution extending over thousands of years, and involving a number of transfers ("borrowings") from one language to another, and a number of stages of development within various languages. By contrast, "Jehovah" was created all at once as a mistaken blunder by attempted Christian scholars of Hebrew who simply misunderstood the Jewish scribal conventions of Q're perpetuum. AnonMoos (talk) 17:19, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I know that. I didn't mean to compare them in terms of etymology, but I think the fact that a name has been commonly used for centuries in English 'legitimizes' its use, despite the inaccurate rendering of the original language. Otherwise we would also have to change Jerusalem into Yerushalaim and Artaxerxes into Artaxsaca. - Lindert (talk) 18:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

You're still obscuring the point a little -- "Jerusalem" did not originate as a mistake (and in fact, in one detail "Jerusalem" reflects the vowels of the name as they would have been pronounced in the actual Biblical period better than "Yerushalayim" does). "Jehovah" was used rather freely by Christians (almost never by religious Jews) during the 17th-19th centuries, but since around the 2nd. quarter of the 20th century, professional Biblical scholars have grown increasingly reluctant to keep on disseminating it to the general public (e.g. the RSV adopted a very different policy than the ASV, the Jerusalem Bible used "Yahweh", etc. etc.). "Jehovah" has a certain amount of residual inertia behind it, but at this point it's really not a simple accepted uncontroversial conventional English equivalent of a Hebrew word, on the order of "James" or "Jerusalem"... AnonMoos (talk) 23:37, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

AnonMoos, you mentioned "Jewish scribal conventions". What do you suppose was Jesus' view of Jewish scribal conventions? (Matthew 7:29; 15:3; Luke 7:13)

—Wavelength (talk) 01:32, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Vowel dotting didn't exist until at least around 500 A.D., so I would be surprised if anybody thought they could know what Jesus' opinion of it would be... The problem with "Jehovah" is that it's neither one thing nor the other. You're perfectly free to ignore all the Jewish vowel dottings, in which case you're left with the consonantal letters "YHWH". Or, if you want to take vowel dottings into account, then you need to understand them correctly (in which case they indicate that the consonantal letters YHWH should be usually pronounced "Adonay" in Jewish liturgical scripture recitation, occasionally "Elohim"). However, the only way to get "Jehovah"[sic] is to make use of the vowel dottings (not ignore them), but use them in a way which was never intended by those who invented the vowel dottings, to produce a pseudo-form which never existed in Hebrew. I really don't understand what can be said in favor of "Jehovah", other than that it was somewhat commonly used by Christians during the 17th-19th centuries, because from every other historical and linguistic point of view it's rather inauthentic and nonsensical... AnonMoos (talk) 04:30, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Shame there's not an encyclopedia to hand to educate the bug on Jehovah. See also Village idiot --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:16, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Plasmic physics -- As has been discussed here before, "Jehovah" is a mistaken form created by late Medieval or Renaissance Christian scholars of Hebrew who had not mastered the subject thoroughly yet, and completely misunderstood the Jewish scribal conventions of Q're perpetuum. To quote my previous remarks: "it has nothing to say as to whether the group, or many of its members, have many positive sterling qualifies. Nevertheless, if you're a linguist who has done some work on Biblical Hebrew, it's a blatant flashing-neon warning sign that historical authenticity and/or devotion to sound Biblical scholarship are probably somewhat lacking..." AnonMoos (talk) 17:09, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

See Jehovah#Pronunciation. And "all I said was "that piece of fish was good enough for...". --Dweller (talk) 11:18, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

One example which comes immediately to mind is the addition of an indefinite article to John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was a god." While to the best of my knowledge and recollection there's no indefinite article at all in Koine Greek, it's normal translation practice to translate the same word the same way each time. The Greek reads " Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος." - the only thing that differs in the use of θεὸς (= theos = god) is the grammatical case. In fact the word order might lead one to translate the final clause "and God (himself) was the Word." Nothing here supports the Watchtower translation; the reasonable deduction from the Greek is that the author of John's Gospel specifically identified the One God with the abstract Greek 'logos' or word. No subordinationist idea of 'a god' can sensibly be wrung out of the Greek. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:11, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a lot of scholarship on Arianism, which in some ways resembles JW doctines. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:11, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Wait a minute.

Can't logos also mean "ratio" or "rationality?" Since the first Christians did not live far removed from the Pythagoreans, perhaps they saw God in the "Sacred Geometry." Pine (talk) 07:29, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe not. I've always felt this was plausible, but Karen Armstrong, in A History of God, claims that while Philo of Alexandria means 'logos' in the same way that the Greek philosophers did - as the rational masterplan of creaton, and the highest expression of divinity that mortals can apprehend - the author of John's Gospel is using it in a less Hellenized sense. She claims the Gospel's use of 'logos' corresponds to an Aramaic word memra, used (like 'spirit' and 'glory') to indicate the positive action of God in the world. I'm not convinced she can know for sure, nor am I convinced the two uses are as distinct as she thinks they are. But I have little Greek and no Aramaic, so I'm prepared to yield to wiser heads. AlexTiefling (talk) 07:53, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

The translation of "καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος" is not quite so straightforward as you make it sound above. Grammatically, there of course is a difference here with respect to the marking of definiteness: all other instances of both logos and theos have the definite article; this instance alone has none. The absence of a definite article (in a language that has only this one type) can often denote the same type of reference as the presence of an indefinite article (in a language that has both), and the word order in this clause, in connection with this lack of an article – unlike what you'd expect in English – clearly marks theos as the predicate, not the subject, of the clause. It's no wonder people have been struggling to accommodate this with usual Christian dogma for ages (John 1:1 has a few hints about it), and the JWs were apparently not the first to come up with the "a god" solution. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:24, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Can someone explain economics to me?

I do not understand why the same item which cost US $140 in USA will simultaneously cost around US $240 in Australia. As AU $1 is approximately US $1.

See picture. http://i.imgur.com/QH5JJ.png

The thing that does not make sense to me is that anyone in USA can advertise on Ebay Australia with no stock and no capital. Then when one australian customer send US $200+ to buy a single headphone, the seller when receiving the money can buy one from the store for US $140 and make $60 pure profit with NO RISKS. How is that even possible???? Please explain. 220.239.37.244 (talk) 12:08, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the explanation is that those in Europe and in Australia pay a lot of taxes that Americans do not. --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 12:58, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

My impression from my own visits to the US is that sales taxes are imposed at several different levels - certainly in California they seemed comparable to those (then) in place here in the UK. Are online sellers able to get around this by operating in states such as Oregon without sales taxes? AlexTiefling (talk) 13:00, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

There certainly is one difference, namely that in most countries advertised prices are end prices, including tax, while in the US items are advertised without at least sales tax. Another reason is that Australia is a smaller, more isolated market with less competition. Sure, one can buy the headphones in the US. But that comes with cost in shipping and time delays. Also, its much harder to solve conflicts internationally. Assume I send $200 from Australia to the US, but never receive my headphones. The seller claims he has shipped them. Who bears the loss? Who is willing to sue (and collect) in a foreign country for a measly $200? These inconveniences keep markets effectively isolated for many small transactions, and sellers will charge what the corresponding market will bear. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:26, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Your little scheme is called grey market. People usually stay away from grey market goods because:

• No warranty
• Higher chance of being counterfeits
• Higher chance of fraud as mentioned by Stephan
• Lower perceived "status", especially on luxury items

Anonymous.translator (talk) 15:17, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. See also Purchasing_power_parity#Difficulties. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 16:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

It could also be a matter of adjusting the price to the local market. If a country has higher purchasing power, (not parity, but absolutely) the price could be pushed up. In this case, the higher price in Australia would imply that Australians have higher absolute incomes than Americans. Indeed, we find that the nominal GDP per capita of Australia is around $65,500, whereas that of America is $48,400, i.e. almost $20,000 less. The price difference might therefore, in addition to other reasons such as higher taxation/VAT be the result of higher labour costs (in the stores that sell headsets) or simply due to the fact that Australians are willing to pay slightly more than Americans for the same goods, because they have slightly higher incomes. V85 (talk) 19:32, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make more sense to compare the PPP GDP per capita instead? We are comparing their purchasing power after all.Anonymous.translator (talk) 21:15, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

No. The cost of producing certain items is absolute: Producing a set of headsets will cost however many dollars. The company will then have to sell the headsets at this cost + transport + sales costs + VAT + profit (and any other costs incurred). PPP has a tendency to increase income, i.e. if a person in a low cost country makes $X per day, he might make $2X PPP per day, because the cost of goods are lower. However, since the price of the headset is absolute, it doesn't matter what the PPP is: the company needs to at least cover its costs. V85 (talk) 19:58, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Here is the link to George Reisman's website http://www.capitalism.net/ where you can download his free-market treatise on economics for free. He addresses the fact that prices vary by location. μηδείς (talk) 20:01, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Australia is a small market with noted preferences at the arse end of trade routes. In comparison the United States is a large market without particular preferences at the dead centre of world logistics. Australia's retail and transport industries have comparatively high wages, social wages and levels of workplace safety. The United States' retail and transport industries have comparatively low wages, social wages and levels of workplace safety. Australia's retail monopolies are far more highly developed than the United States' retail monopolies. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:44, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Plus it's expensive to deliver those packages by kangaroo pouch. :-) StuRat (talk) 04:47, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Sadly such ocker funpoking is unnecessary, Australia Post delivers a hell of a lot through the use of the iconic Postie bike; a genuine Australian icon. Amusingly at least one postal worker was dismissed for totalling his postie bike while doing a ramp-jump. The CT110 has an aficionado community dedicated to it. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:06, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I would like to request a biography of John F. Cavanagh an inventor with over 100 patents.

I would like to request a biography of John F. Cavanagh an inventor with over 100 patents. Summarizing the patents and also biographies of his son's John Jr. and Paul.

His company produces the communion wafers for over 75% of religions. It came about in the 1940's the same time radio technology was becoming popular.

Hyaluronic acid is a product that hydrates the joints. Magnetic waves or radio waves at a certain strength and frequency are known can cause fluid to leave the cells and resultant joint pain.

If you open pill of hyaluronic acid and taste it it tastes exactly like that modern communion wafer. And indeed it could be that the hyaluronic acid is made from the pure wheat the communion wafer is.

Marconi who was accredited as the inventor of the modern radio was a fascist during the time of WWII. The Catholic Church also had its hand in support of Nazi Germany.

I would to know if his patents however obscure would support my implied assumption. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.30.10.192 (talk) 12:21, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Guglielmo Marconi's being "a fascist during the time of WWII" is somewhat questionable, being as he died 2 years before it started. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 84.21.143.150 (talk) 12:45, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

That hardly the most questionable aspect of this query! AlexTiefling (talk) 12:47, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Who was the girl in Saturday Night Fever who loved the taste of communion wafers?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Hyaluronan was first isolated for medical use from chickens in the 1970s, and today is made by bacterial fermentation. It is not made from wheat, nor was it manufacturable in the 1940s. I do not think radio is a Nazi plot to make your joints ache unless you take communion, if that is your "implied assumption". FiggyBee (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

If you wish to request an article, you can do so at WP:Requested articles. But an article will not be created unless somebody can find reliable sources that discuss the subject of the article, so if you want such an article it is most likely to get created if you research the sources. All information in the article will likely need to be sourced with reliable references, so the errors and misunderstandings you display in your summary are not encouraging for a successful Wikipedia article. --ColinFine (talk) 16:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

OP; try here for the patents of John F Cavanagh. I hope you find what you're looking for. FiggyBee (talk) 18:04, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

How is Kim Jong-un better than Kim Jong-il?

Because the son rules North Korea, how is the country going to be different than when Kim Jong-il ruled?

KJU attended a school in Switzerland, a 1st-world, capitalist paradise, so wouldn't being in foreign lands influence and convince him that the first-world capitalist methods of prosperity are the ways to improve North Korea?

Also, if KJU would be analogous to a software program and be "Kim 3.0" (KIS was Kim 1.0, KJI was Kim 2.0.), then what known software is he best analogous to (and in what way) and being the newer software, how has he improved from KJI?

But anyways, what have you heard about how Kim Jong-un will fix up North Korea from the mismanagement of the previous rulers? What policies will be changing under his rule?

Or is he even ruling? Being as young as a graduate student, perhaps a regent has been assigned on his behalf? What have you gathered regarding that?

His photo

We still don't have a photo on him, even though his pictures have been widely circulated. Can't there be a free-enough image anywhere? Or if there isn't, can't we just use Fair Use until we locate said free image? Thanks. --70.179.170.114 (talk) 14:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid, since no one here has psychic powers nor has any visitor from the future come back to tell us, that no one can answer any of your questions regarding his future activities. Regarding his picture: No, we cannot use one under "fair use". Wikipedia policy says that copyrighted pictures of living people do not qualify for use at Wikipedia under almost any circumstances. See WP:NFC#UUI. --Jayron32 16:08, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

We will presumably have to wait until he visits Russia and the Kremlin releases photographs of him under Creative Commons; that's where all our pictures of his father come from. FiggyBee (talk) 16:54, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

There is terribly, terribly little information about how the North Korean government is run at the moment. There is terribly, terribly little information about the thoughts of Kim Jong-un. A lot of people spend their entire days trying to read the tea leaves on both of those things based on defector accounts, technical surveillance, and the bizarre output of the DPRK state news agencies. The short story is, nobody in the free world has much of a clue, certainly nobody on this here Reference Desk. Separately, I don't think the software analogy is at all useful here. States are not computers, leaders are not programs; it is a metaphor that obscures more than it enlightens. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:27, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I personally share the IP's optimism. North Korea can move towards a market economy. I have occasionally had flights of fancy of quitting my job and opening up a Pyongyang restuarnt franchise in London.

Nevertheless, at present North Korea remains very, very, evil (for want of a better word). An interesting report came out the other day about their caste system. You can get it here (PDF). Egg Centric 16:33, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I really would not place great faith in the liberalizing effect of a Swiss education -- there are a large number of strongmen, dictators, military coup generals, etc. who spent a significant amount of time in relatively democratic countries, but who showed little softening effect from this after they had returned to their own countries and ascended to power... AnonMoos (talk) 17:00, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

As AnonMoos implies, this is a question of what Kim Jong-Un (or whoever is behind the wheel behind the scenes) wishes to achieve by ruling North Korea. If you had your own country and no accountability, what would you do? Give yourself accountability and start an incredibly difficult process of reforms to completely alter the structure of the economy and social system to make the country a modern state? (Not knowing whether it'd succeed or if you'll turn the country into a new Somalia.) Or would you just continue having everyone as your personal slave and lead a life of extreme luxury? In our hedonistic time and age, there is something appealing about that second choice.

Secondly, you're making an assumption that Jong-Un will have thought that Switzerland and capitalism is better than North Korea's current system. But that might not be the case. Having lived in Switzerland, he might have been convinced that the North Korean system (or perhaps just the ideology, if he doesn't appreciate the way it is currently implemented) is better than the system in the West. In this view, what has lead to NK's current troubles are not the inherent shortcomings of its ideology, but external factors, such as weather and trade boycotts by other countries. Following this logic, NK might become the worker's paradise it always was supposed to be, if only these external restrictions were removed. An American who lives in France for a number of years, might not end up becoming more critical of the US, but might end up being more critical of France and more appreciative of the US, despite all its shortcomings.

Thirdly, there is the question of how much exposure Jong-Un had to capitalism while in Switzerland. First of all: he apparently quit school in 2000, when he would have been 16 or 17 - how politically aware are 16/17-year olds? Second of all: Jong-Un did not do well in school, and had a poor record of attendance (according to the article). Perhaps, even in Switzerland, he might not have been as exposed to the West and capitalism, as we would like to think.

Of course, all of this is merely speculation, and I have absolutely no idea what Jong-Un is thinking, what his education actually was like, or how he is going to rule NK. However, I think that your question is based on (at least) two assumptions that are questionable. You assumptions are: 1) Jong-Un wants to rule NK for the benefit of the entire NK population and create a growth economy 2) staying in Switzerland convinced him that capitalism is a better ideology than the NK brand of Communism, especially when it comes to realising the former. He might not hold those views. V85 (talk) 18:02, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I'd say that, by now, everyone in power in North Korea is quite aware that capitalism is the way to improve the economy, overall, from the examples of China and Russia and the counter-example of Cuba, among others. However, I agree that the ruling elite in NK just don't care how miserable the lives of the general population are. They've calculated that their best chance to continue to live in luxury is to continue to do what they are doing, their people be damned. StuRat (talk) 20:54, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I highly doubt the commoners in North Korea even know what capitalism is, let alone the situation in China and Russia.Anonymous.translator (talk) 21:05, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I referred to "everyone in power", not the commoners. That said, some do manage to travel to China, where they can see the results of a communist nation turning to capitalism for themselves, then spread the word of mouth when they return. StuRat (talk) 21:46, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think one can make any assumptions about how they interpret the world's economic situation or models. They were not raised to see the world in the terms we do, they likely interpret it quite differently. There are lots of valid interpretations about the ills of capitalism to go with seductive invalid ones, and there are lots of valid interpretations for the current state of the DPRK, to go along with invalid ones that are no doubt attractive to those who profit off of it. Assuming that the DPRK sees the world the way a Westerner would is foolish. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:30, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure they can "interpret" a low GDP as a problem, if only in terms of it limiting their ability to build nuclear weapons. Similarly, I'm sure even the elite see widespread starvation among the masses as a problem, if it kills off too many workers and thus affects their (slave) labor force or their number of future soldiers. StuRat (talk) 00:33, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I think putting thoughts in the heads of others is the most foolish thing you can do in trying to make sense of the others. Stalin was pleased with a certain amount of starvation. And, as I tried to imply (but perhaps I was too subtle), there are many things to attribute any given problem to — I very much doubt that most of the DPRK elite blame their economic situation on poor domestic decisions as opposed to international forces. But again, I'd caution against making too many assumptions, unless you are just doing it to hear yourself speak. Information produced in a vacuum is worthless, and that's what speculating about the internal states of North Korean leaders adds up to. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:41, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

So you can "put thoughts in the heads of others", but nobody else is allowed to do so ? StuRat (talk) 17:03, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

They mightn't be able to tell you much about this "democracy" thing either, but whatever it is, they know they've definitely got it. It's even enshrined in the name of their country, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, so obviously they're all getting the benefits of it all the time. Whatever it is. Yeees, that must be the explanation. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Was Maria Theresa ever crowned as archduke of Austria?

I have read that Maria Theresa was crowned both in Hungary and in Bohemia, but was she ever crowned as ruling Archduke of Austria? Or was archdukes not crowned? --85.226.42.179 (talk) 23:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure which realms she was officially crowned in, and which she was not, but she was effective ruler of all of the traditional Habsburg realms of the time (see Habsburg Monarchy for details of the extent of these realms). In places where it was impractical for her to be the official or sole ruler, her husband was crowned, but effective power was still in her hands. See Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. Also, the title Archduke of Austria was held by any and all members of the royal family simultaneously. --Jayron32 23:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Traditionally, only kings and emperors are crowned. Rulers bearing lesser titles are invested or enthroned. I suppose the ceremony by which Maria Theresa was formally recognised as the Archduchess of Austria took place on 22 November 1740, when Austrian nobles paid her homage and took the oath of fealty to her.

While the title Archduke of Austria held by all members of the archducal family simultaneously, only one of them was the ruler of Austria. The agnatic descendants of the rulers were archdukes by courtesy (if that's the right way to put it). Maria Theresa, for example, was the Archduchess of Austria, while her daughter Marie Antoinette was only an archduchess of Austria. Similarly, there is the Princess of Monaco and Princess Stephanie of Monaco. Surtsicna (talk) 12:27, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Birth control in 18th-century France

I have read that the knowledge about birth control, although officially banned, was quite well known in 18th-century France, perhaps more so there than in any other European country. My question is: which were these methods of birth control? I would be grateful for a reply! Thank you. --85.226.42.179 (talk) 23:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Some of it was post-natal -- there were kind of easy and anonymous ways to donate babies to various orphanages, it being understood by all that the chances of survival to adulthood were not overwhelmingly great... AnonMoos (talk) 23:53, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Giving your baby away is not exactly anyone's idea of birth control. It's more like family size control. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 03:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I think France was noted for its overall attitude to family size control (other than the "preventive checks" mentioned by Fifelfoo, which were common to many countries), and birth control was only part of this. Rousseau insisted that Thérèse Levasseur give up their children to such an orphanage... AnonMoos (talk) 04:46, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I imagine the rhythm method was in use. Then there's the (occlusive) pessary. StuRat (talk) 00:03, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Economically enforced absence of marriage was common amongst rural males (cf: Zola's Earth); this economic driver acted to modify sexual practices and habits to increase the period before marriage / fatherhood amongst males. (This is common to most peasant societies with land scarcity and improved land) Fifelfoo (talk) 00:10, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

According to this article, breastfeeding was the most widely used method (advocated by Rousseau no less), although the better educated experimented with "the withdrawal method, and barrier devices like sealskin condoms and sponges dipped in an acidic liquid such as vinegar.". Chips anyone? Alansplodge (talk) 00:20, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

My question is about methods by which one can actually have sex without getting pregnant - and not just if one were married, but also as an unmarried woman. I suppose the sponge thing would have been the realistically most effective method then? I do have need to know which was the most common method in 18th-century France used by women who wished to have sex outside of marriage without getting pregnant. --85.226.42.179 (talk) 07:19, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Oral sex and handjobs have an extremely low rate of attendant pregnancy. We will never be able to assign "common" methods, given the paucity of honest self-descriptions of pre-marital and extra-marital sexual activity by French women. Accounts which we do have are biased by genre, class access to literacy, shame and boasting. Moreover, such accounts are individual and individuated. Women seeking not to be pregnant were best served by not having sex (by avoiding marriage), or by engaging in non-coital forms of sex. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:25, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Female monarchs in battle

A male monarch, I seem to understand, was at least in the middle ages excepted to lead his armies in to battle at war, and though perhaps not actually fight, so at least be present dressed in armour at the battle field? My question is: did female monarch also do this? I seem to remember an occasional portrait of female monarchs from the middle ages dressed in armour present on the battle fields. Did any European female monarch actual participate in combat, or were they just present as a formalia? Thank you--Aciram (talk) 23:43, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Elizabeth I famously reviewed her troops and gave the Tilbury speech, but she did not lead them in the fighting (which was naval anyway)... AnonMoos (talk) 23:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Queen Elizabeth I made her famous Speech to the Troops at Tilbury dressed in a siver cuirass. Whether she intended to lead her men against the invading Spanish hordes, I don't know; they were scuppered by the rubbish British summer weather (no change there then). Alansplodge (talk) 00:00, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

On your original point, you're right - the Battle of Hastings famously featured both William and Harold directly in the battle, and Harold was killed. Likewise for Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth Field. By Elizabeth's time, the monarchs were starting to realize that you could get hurt out there. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

To expand a bit on Bugs's point, actual female monarchs (especially in Western Europe) were exceedingly rare during the actual Middle Ages (about 500-1400 or so). Elizabeth I ruled much later, almost 200 years after most historians would have considered the middle ages to have ended. For actual Middle Ages females, I'm not sure if you would consider Empress Matilda to have actually been a ruler (she claimed, and at times ruled de facto, various parts of the Angevin Empire), nor am I certain she actually led troops in battle (her husband Geoffrey Plantagenet probably did all of that). Other possible famous middle ages female rulers include the Byzantine Empress Irene and the later sisters Theodora and Zoe, though again I don't know if they ever led armies. --Jayron32 00:35, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Empress Matilda ruled England for a while too, not just the Angevin Empire. Quite important to us Brits. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:32, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

And also importants to feminists like me! Matilda did indeed rule England for a while and had many noble supporters such as Miles of Hereford, her half-brother Robert of Gloucester, etc.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:51, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

According to our article on The Anarchy, "Matilda, as a woman, could not personally lead forces into battle...For most of the war, therefore, the Angevin armies were led into battle by a handful of senior nobles". Warofdreams talk 15:06, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Maybe Bugs, but James III of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden after leading an invasion of England only 70 years before the Armada, and George II of Great Britain was on the field at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, although not actually leading from the front. Alansplodge (talk) 00:44, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Boudica maybe? Clarityfiend (talk) 00:42, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Catherine the Great of Russia? Blueboar (talk) 01:52, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Possibly Amina (1560-1610), Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba (1583-1663) and Bibi Sahib Kaur (1771–1801) (princess and a prime minister) are just a few I found. There might be more at List of women who led a revolt or rebellion. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 02:15, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Women in warfare and the military in the medieval era list some including some Queen consorts, noblewomen and regular women.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 03:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Which leads into Women in warfare and the military in the early modern era and there we get Mary, Queen of Scots, Rani Durgavati, Chand Bibi, Keladi Chennamma and others. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 04:24, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI's queen consort led the Lancastrian faction during the Wars of the Roses and often donned armour. However, as far as I know, she never actually wielded a mace or battle-axe.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:20, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Sikelgaita, wife of Robert Guiscard, seems to have fought in battle against the Byzantines. Eleanor of Aquitaine was at least present on the Second Crusade (while Queen of France), although I don't think she was ever in battle herself. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:59, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Going further back, Cleopatra was present at the battle of Actium (although she certainly didn't physically fight). Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:10, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

We overlooked Isabella I of Castile another celebrated warrior queen.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 11:56, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Penthesilea, Camilla, the list is endless... Amazonomachy probably sets the framework, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 14:45, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Not quite Europe, but apparently Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem, organised the unsuccessful defence of the city during the Siege of Jerusalem (1187). Again, it doesn't seem that she actually did any fighting. Warofdreams talk 15:06, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah Sibylla didn't do any fighting herself, but that reminds me of another woman who did die on crusade, Florine of Burgundy. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:24, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Florine's article is in dire need of expansion.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:51, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

My question is about female monarchs in Christian Europe: and by "monarchs", I mean any ruling sovereign, weather they had the title Queen or "Sovereign Duchess". Those female monarchs who did this, were their presence expected in the role as monarchs or was it a controversial decision by them? Are there any example of any of them actually participating in battle - at least by riding out on to the battle field during fighting? --Aciram (talk) 07:24, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Linguistcs vs. the Bible

As we all know, there are a lot (at least perceived) conflicts between religion and science, one of the more prominent of which being between evolution and the Abrahamic religions. Most people know the stereotypical responses of each side and "why their side is right." But I don't want to get into that, since that's not exactly my point/question.

Anyway, I thought of a (at least the way I see it) conflict between science and the Abrahamic religions that I have never heard gotten brought up before (I'm --- maybe it's a fault of mine --- really into debated issues).

So, the way it is presented in the Bible, man started out speaking one language, since, at least according to it, man started out as only Adam and Eve, who, the way it is presented, are able to communicate linguisticly with each other (and, in the Tower of Babel story of the Bible, it says that before God separated man into speaking several languages, they only spoke one), but, the vast majority consensus (there are basically other, very rare theories) in the science of linguistics says that man, in separate, different groups (i.e., that didn't have communication with eath other), independently came up with many different languages; i.e., there was no "first language" there were many (for more info on the linguistic view, see Language family---languages are grouped together into "Language families," and languages within each language families are not related to each other; also see the article Proto-language, which is the actual first/sole language that languages within the language families respectively came from).

So, the Abrahamic relion view (man started out speaking one language) and the scientific/linguistic view (man came up with several different languages independently, which constituted the first languages) (at least in my view) seem to contradict each other. How would believers in the Abrahamic religions reconcile this? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

P.S.: I'm really not trying to just start an argument; I just found it really odd that I (being interested in debate) had never heard of this, and would like to know the Abrahamic viewpoint on this seemingly inconsistency with science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.85.4.130 (talk) 23:52, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

That's a rather weak argument that religion is wrong, because we don't really know what the original language(s) are, before writing. At best, we can guess based on commonalities between them, but many of those might just be a coincidence. And religions could always counter that God changed some languages to be unique and others to be similar, confusing the scientists. StuRat (talk) 23:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

The Tower of Babel story has some commonality with other Bible stories, and for that matter various mythologies, that mankind got a little too "uppity" and were punished for it. I recall reading a comment once that Babel says men began speaking differently and went their separate ways; but it was more like the other way around. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:11, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the bigger flaw in the Biblical account is the underlying assumption that all languages remain the same, unless God messes with them. We can definitely disprove this, as languages have changed dramatically, even just since we've had writing. And an argument that God continues to force them to change isn't very strong, either, as we can document the exact origin of many words, and, unless we call all of the people who made up those words "divinely inspired", that logic breaks down there. StuRat (talk) 00:15, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Not too sure that I understand very much of your question, but just because linguists can't reconstruct any details of a so-called "Proto-World" by using standard comparative methods, this doesn't necessarily mean that scientists think that human language evolved several times independently and separately in different populations (which would be a form of polygenesis). These two matters are rather distinct -- standard linguistic methods can't trace things back much further than about 6,000 years, while it's likely that modern human language has existed for at least 8 times as long (see Behavioral modernity etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 00:19, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I'm suspicious that humans share with other animals an instinctive language which we use in stressed vowels. Think of all the different emotions that can be put into speech: calling attention to a great deal at the market, or how cold it is outside, or how long the wait in line is, or suspicion for a stranger. I think these things are contained inside the stressed vowels we use, and there are hundreds of kinds of "stress". It seems plausible to me that at some very early point in human society it would be possible to use these instinctive ways of saying one vowel by themselves to carry on conversations; but at some point it became necessary to invent different sounds for different things. So in my mind, the "tower of Babel" could be viewed/represented as first hut high enough that the guy standing on the roof had to specify which building material he needed, rather than just grunting a sort of "give it here". Of course, I have zero evidence for this and my understanding is most linguists prefer a consonants-only origin of language! Wnt (talk) 01:08, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't seem very convincing in that particular form -- you're talking about "alarm calls" etc., but animal alarm calls (and similar) refer to the immediate situation only, have no differentiation into different parts of speech, etc., and so are extremely remote from modern human language. Look at article Charles Hockett and you'll see a list of characteristics possessed by all human languages, and many of the most important ones (displacement, productivity, duality of patterning) are not characteristic of animal alarm calls. As for vowels, the variety of human vowel sounds seems to have been expanded by the descending of the larynx, which didn't happen until fairly late in human evolution... AnonMoos (talk) 05:05, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Actually, what I'm thinking of is not the pitch of the vowel - I agree that doesn't seem so primal - but something else about how it's said. I feel like it's possible to replace every syllable of a sentence with "ba", yet, by how the syllable is said, to connote something of the meaning. Provided the content is something very basic and instinctive. This is related to the general rule that you can understand any language as long as you don't pay attention to what they're saying. ;) But displacement (linguistics) can be difficult to apply to this type of content - acting is a difficult task, and people try to get around the problem with method acting, for example. Try to sound really convincing about how cold it is outside when it's sweltering. Wnt (talk) 10:11, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

There's very little to no evidence that there are multiple origins for language. Beside Nicaraguan sign language, which relied on very unusual circumstances, there are no known cases of languages arising de novo. Even creole languages are very rare and arise in the context of colonialism and long distance trade. Chinook Jargon is one of the few to arise outside Western colonialism. Even dogmatic opponents of long-distance linguistic comparison don't go so far as to posit multiple linguistic origins. μηδείς (talk) 01:51, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Medeis -- Nicaraguan sign language could be considered to be a creole (since arising from children exposed to various inadequate "pidgin" forms of signing), as indicated by the article, while Chinook Jargon was an elaborated pidgin. Creoles are interesting since they show major restructurings in language as transmitted from one generation to another, but this is different from the problem of the earliest origins of human language. AnonMoos (talk) 05:16, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are correcting, AnonMoos. I suppose I could have said "Even creoles (which are not truly de novo) are very rare." But I thought the "even" provided to contrast and the link the explanation if desired. Elaborated pidgin with first language speakers is my understanding of the definition of a creole, so I am not sure what you are correcting in the case of Chinook Jargon either. My point, if it wasn't clear, is that creoles are the closest thing we have to languages which are genetically de sui generis, and even they are extremely rare and not truly de novo. μηδείς (talk) 17:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't know that I'm convinced that Nicaraguan sign language has some absolutely unique status. It could be that it was stitched together from various semi-divergent unsatisfactory fragmentary sign-pidgins, then restructured to form a coherent language whole, in a more radical manner than is usual, but the process would still be creolization, and the result a creole -- quite interesting in some respects, but with only limited relevance to the problem of the earliest origins of human language. AnonMoos (talk) 01:10, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I can see calling NSL a creole if you take nativization to be the sole essence of what a creole is. But my understanding of the term pace Thomason and Kaufman is that it also requires a lexical target. That seems to be lacking here since only twin languages and ad hoc gesturing are mentioned with NSL, not any fully articulated pre-existing lexical target languages. In the case of Chinook Jargon and European creoles there are fully articulated pre-existing languages as lexical sources. If you know of any other sign languages that serve as lexifiers to NSL you should add them to the article. μηδείς (talk) 03:02, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I think there's a slight misunderstanding -- a real creole is not directly based on a standard language (standard English, or standard Portuguese or whatever), but rather is based on derived pidginized versions of such languages. (If the standard form of the language was readily accessible and commonly heard by children, then no creolization would take place.) So in the immediate process of creolization, the relevant direct source languages are actually incomplete pidgins -- and I assume that basically the same was true for the formation of Nicaraguan sign language, where the main linguistic source material was various somewhat unsatisfactory ad-hoc signing systems. The difference between Nicaraguan sign language and many other cases would be that the immediate sources to creolization would not be modified versions of some well-known existing language... AnonMoos (talk) 05:38, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Frankly, you seem to be starting out with the fixed premise that I can't possibly know what I am talking about, and then correcting me over and over based on that assumption. It's rather insulting. Yes, creoles are nativized pidgins. But pidgins have lexifiers, often more than one. NSL had no pre-existent lexical target so far as I am aware from the literature; just twin languages and ad hoc gestures. Unless you want to provide a source that mentions a pre-existing sign language as a lexical source? That makes NSL uniquely de novo. μηδείς (talk) 22:07, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

That would make it possibly the only known creole not based on a pidginized version of a well-known language, but it would still be a creole, and the phrase "de novo" could be potentially be misleading. To the children who do the language restructuring which leads to a creole, it really doesn't matter whether the unsatisfactory linguistic input which they receive is a derived version of a well-known language or not -- and creolization is really predominantly a process which takes place in children's minds (not between a "lexifier target language" and a pidgin). AnonMoos (talk) 01:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I haven't studied the NSL literature, just read some of the popular literature and textbook mentions. I've read Thomason and Kaufman due to my interest in language contact in historical linguistics. I see there are mentions of "a new kind of creoliztion" and "creolization in progress" on the web but nothing helpful at google scholar. So I don't know if there's another word to use here other than creolization, the question is just definitional, and if you want to call what the children who grammaticalized NSL have done creolization, that's fine. But it's not that the source of NSL was a not-well known pidgin or language but that it supposedly arose from raw gesture, almost perhaps something parallel in spoken language to grunting and onomatopoeia. In any case, the fact that we aren't speaking of other languages that have supposedly arisen de novo (as opposed to genetically or even by creolization in the standard sense) speaks to my point that the OP was mistaken to think linguists have evidence against or widely argue against monogenesis. The notion of some real recent human populations existing entirely without an inherited language and then surviving in the wild as they negotiate a new one is hard to credit seriously from a linguistic or an anthropological standpoint. μηδείς (talk) 02:37, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

More generally, this is related to the philosophy of creationism; how is the Bible, or other religious accounts of creation, interpreted in relation to natural history? The interpretation that seems most meaningful to me is one in which the creation story is a revelation of the revision of the universe from one draft to the next, rather than an account of our own physical history. Thus, one day God starts working on a novel, with a blank black video file; then he adds some light, starts separating it out in a pleasing pattern, creates perhaps a simple round flat Earth and a firmament above it, and so forth. The story of Babel could refer to a change in how the laws of logic worked from one revision to the next, so that the coding of thought into expression in the physical world was no longer automatic. A side-issue is that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", i.e. that there is occasionally a weak, rule-of-thumb resemblance between the pattern of development in this universe to the pattern in which the universe was authored, i.e. that God tends to write the story from the beginning and work toward the end more often than the reverse. However, I don't know of anyone who would second this peculiar interpretation. ;) Wnt (talk) 13:16, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I am not going to address the question of how Abrahamitic faiths and linguistic science might be reconciled (or not), except to remind you that Europeans who consider themselves Christians to a very high extent are not "fundamentalists"; in general, they seem to accept the four-and-a-half milliard years history of Earth, and e.g. evolution; Genesis is interpreted more symbolically than literary.

What I want to bring to your attention is that this conflict historically did exist for some people, and also did result in some "weird terminology" that persists to this day. Namely, the pioneer of the theory of Indoeuropean languages, William Jones, was a believing Christian; and in fact promoted the idea of a common origin for e.g. Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, Gothic, and Celitic, mainly as a minor point in his overall scheme: To demonstrate that the whole mankind derives from the same origin (roughly in Iran, and in particular thus not far from the Mount of Ararat), from the very beginning divided into three groups:

1. the Shem or "Arab" grouping (also including e.g. Chaldeans and the Hebrew);
2. the Yaphet or "Tartar" grouping (being widespread in northern Asia and Europe, and also including people who from there crossed the oceans);
3. finally, the Ham or "Hindi" grouping, including not only all we to-day would call "Indo-european speaking", but also numerous groups of which he admitted that he did not know their languages enough, but believed these be of similar origin, including Egyptians, Chinese, and pre-columbian Mexicans.

In fact, both Jones and many of his predecessors did not see Babel as the practically important point of language dispersion, but instead assumed that there was a new start at the end of the deluge. Actually, when Jones went to India, he enumerated as one of the "Objects of Enquiry during my residence in Asia" to investigate "Traditions concerning the Deluge, &c.". The "details" of comparison between Sanscrit and several other languages had a large impact; and even if Jones was not the first western scolar with such ideas, his investigations indeed could be said to have started the modern comparative linguistics. However, his three-fold classification, which conceptually did not survive further scrutiny, modern language has just preserved a few terms; principal among them Semitic languages, and (mainly in the USA) Caucasian race. (The latter is a bit ironic, since Jones believed that not just the 'white people' in Europe, but all of the postdiluvian mankind had spread from Caucasus; and actually considered the main part of the Europeans as closer related to Africans than to e.g. Arabs.)

Jones, like so many of his predecessors and contemporaries, did not find it impossible to reconcile their Biblical faith and actual study of the world. About the first eleven chapters of Genesis, Jones wrote: "true in every substantial part of it, though possibly expressed in a figurative language". Later scolars found it harder and harder to combine a literary interpretation of the Bible with science, as evidence amassed. The modern dominating point of view (in Europe, at least, I think) is that even in fields like history of religion, the discussion and conclusions should be based on evidence and interpretations that are equally acceptable to all scolars, be they Christians of any denomination, adherents of any other faith, or Atheists. However, this consensus was not by any means the starting point of modern scolarly ideas; it is a laborously and partly painfully wrought attitude, brought by the slowly emerging insights among scolars that the earlier work all too often was bemuddled by people letting their preconceived ideas confuse their minds, when they found contradicting evidence.

I remember having read about Jones's ideas in books on Indo-european languages; and I found confirmation in an on-line article which is externally linked to, from our article about Jones, namely William Jones's ancient theology by Urs App. The Jones quotations supra are via App's article. Note, that that article is published under a C-C licence, and that thus material from there may be used to extend the article, William Jones (philologist), should anyone wish to. I close with a summary from App. (Here, "ur-" means roughly the same as "original" or "proto-".)

"The entire thrust of Jones’s third discourse is thus directed toward a primeval homeland of humanity, a motherland with an ur-race speaking an ur-language, confessing an ur-religion, performing ur-science, and enjoying ur-art. In view of this broad and startling argument it is hardly surprising that no one, Jones included, paid much attention to the sphere of linguistics where Jones’ considerable knowledge of languages led to a more limited claim of an unknown parent language of Sanskrit, Persian, and some European idioms."

Best, JoergenB (talk) 14:32, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

June 14

Elf workshop in movie

There was a cartoon movie that had an elf trapped in some cabin with a loose screen door that sad something like door of certain doom. The elf couldn't leave because he was told if he goes though the door (which is barely hanging on) he will surely die. But it is only his belief and fear that keeps him in the cabin/workshop. I cannot think of the name of this movie. Please help 98.20.140.74 (talk) 11:37, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

[Query duplicated on the Ents Desk, where perhaps it would be more appropriately addressed.]

OP, please don't post a question on multiple desks: it may cause unnecessary duplication of effort on the part of we (entirely volunteer) answerers and may also confuse you if applicable but different answers wind up in two (or more) different places. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 84.21.143.150 (talk) 13:02, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Bound Delegates

In the Republican presidential primaries delegates are described as "bound" and required to vote for a candidate. What happens if the delegate does not vote as he or she is "bound" and votes for someone else instead? What kind of penalty is there? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.20.140.74 (talk) 11:41, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

There are fantastically strong pressures to vote as you are pledged in the party convention. Many delegates to the convention are often young party hopefuls who are looking to run for office in the future, and people who have a reputation for not towing the party line don't get the support of the party if they want to run for office. --Jayron32 11:55, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

It's hard to find any information about this that isn't written by diehard Ron Paul fans, but from what I've heard, some states have laws that require the delegates to vote in accordance with the primaries, but these are trumped by the Republican Party's rules, which say the delegates can vote for whoever they want. I think I remember reading that there was some kind of court case about this? 130.88.99.231 (talk) 13:53, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

If you have the patience to dig through the 84 page pdf of the filing, here's the court case I think you're talking about, which is an active lawsuit seeking to free the bound delegates' votes, as far as I can make sense of it (IANAL). http://wilco287.com/documents/1_COMPLAINT_SACV-12-00927-DOCJPRx.pdf The original question about what penalties exist is a good one, but I have no idea if it's at all consistent: this may well be a case where each of the 50+ party rules (states plus D.C. and territories) has its own set of bylaws, some of which make penalties explicit and some do not. I know that's the case for faithless electors: that is, some states impose legal penalties on people miscasting votes, but others do not. Obviously none of this is especially helpful. :-) Jwrosenzweig (talk) 03:19, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

What is the relationship between Requerimiento to book of Deuteronomy?

What is the relationship between Requerimiento to book of Deuteronomy?--82.81.86.85 (talk) 12:40, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

What makes you think there is a relationship between the two? I can't think of any direct connection. - Lindert (talk) 12:55, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

You can read the text for yourself at Requerimiento. It's far more about [a twisted version of] the New Testament than the Old. If it has to be the OT, I'd see more parallels with the book of Joshua, but even that's pretty far-fetched. Is this a homework question or a quiz question? --Dweller (talk) 13:00, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

NB the last two bulletpoints are a little reminiscent of the style of the blessings and curses, outlined in the Old Testament, towards the end of the book of... Leviticus. See Bechukotai#Blessings_and_curses. --Dweller (talk) 13:10, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

yes i done hw - the teacher ask about tradition and i wrote about Dawah ; he wrote that also i need to write about Deuteronomy - i didnt find about it - so i hoped that someone tell me a source...--84.110.185.226 (talk) 16:37, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, your teacher has baffled us. Perhaps he will be mollified by you saying you couldn't find anything on Deuteronomy, but here's some links with Leviticus and Joshua. --Dweller (talk) 19:01, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

"Windows service center" scam

Do we have an article on the "Windows service center" scam? Blueboar (talk) 13:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it. It doesn't sound notable enough for its own article. --Tango (talk) 17:31, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, do we have anything on it in some other article (say a broader article on telephone/computer scams)? Blueboar (talk) 23:34, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

A simple wikipedia search [4] for 'service centre scam' found Virus hoax which does mention the scam in the Virus hoax#Telephone scam section. The section could use some work as it gives a specific introduction message from the scammers whereas unsurprisingly the precise message varies. Nil Einne (talk) 04:55, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

thanks... that is exactly what I was looking for. I'll try to improve the section in question (and add some additional sources as well). Blueboar (talk) 11:38, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Art history & Francis Bacon

In New Atlantis(written in 1623) Francis Bacon describes a seal on a message: "This scroll was signed with a stamp of cherubim: wings, not spread, but hanging downwards; and by them a cross." Does anyone know of any representations of cherubim with downward-hanging wings? Or what the significance of downward facing wings would be? In general, I would helped by anyone who could point me towards any collections of 17th-century European cherub iconography (or collections that would include such collections). I'm guessing there might be some overlap with alchemical / quasi-occult imagery (e.g., the rosy cross, the color scheme blue-yellow-red etc.). Maybe a dictionary of alchemical symbology would be helpful? Any pertinent info is greatly appreciated! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.32.190.71 (talk) 17:55, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't know whether there may be a link with the image of a specific cherub - Cupid - with downward-hanging or drooping wings, signifying grief? There's a fairly well-known reference to this in Ovid's Amores, Book III Elegy IX, Elegy to the Dead Tibellus: "See, how he goes sadly with drooping wings" (translated here). Nahum Tate's libretto for Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (pre-1688) uses the same imagery: "With drooping wings ye Cupids come / To scatter roses on her tomb". Karenjc 18:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Interesting! I'm guessing it's not a specific reference to Cupid, nor is it supposed to be evocative of sadness, but cross references to the classics like this are just the sort of thing I'm looking for. "Downward" suggests "subdued" but "subdued" has an ambiguous emotive valence--might be "sad" might be "humble". This would be a little more clear from the context of New Atlantis--a shipwrecked crew finds themselves before the Atlantians, the sign is supposed to be a reassuring symbol of some kind of enlightened or esoteric Christianity. --OP — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.32.190.71 (talk) 19:03, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Is there a relation to the seraphim with two of their wings covering their feet. Rmhermen (talk) 19:16, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

The cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant, according to Jewish tradition, would move according to how pleased or otherwise God was with the Israelites. To the best of my recall, this involved them turning to face inwards/outwards. Here comes the OR: Bacon's seal may have followed a tradition whereby their wings [also?] moved? In which case, it's your guess as to whether downwards is pleased or displeased... I'd go with the latter. --Dweller (talk) 21:23, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Puzzling English inscription

I'm wondering if there is anybody there who can help me understand an inscription I saw yesterday (I wasn't sure whether here or the Language desk would be better, but I've plumped for here.

Two halves of the inscription at East Riddlesden Hall

The inscription is over the fireplace in the Drawing Room at East Riddlesden Hall. I've taken close-ups of the two sides of the inscription: you can just about see how they fit together in this picture.

The left hand side, which is neat, evenly cut, and clear, says "16" above and "THEY MAIDES OF" below (the fuzziness is an artifact of my camera-work). The right-hand side is uneven, of varying depths (parts of it are no more than scratched) and appears to say "48" above and "COIHN . INA :" below.

My question of course was, What does it mean? The guidebook says that "COIHN" is a spelling of "COIGN", an old word for cornerstone, and that the inscription is a reference to Psalm 144:12: "that our daughters may be as corner stones". (There is another suggestion in the guidebook, which unfortunately I have not remembered).

I find this suggestion deeply unsatisfactory, for the following reasons:

• The right hand side of the inscription is uneven, varying in depth (some parts only scratched - including the '8' above), and contains what looks like an unfinished letter between the two words. The two letters "N" are executed very differently, and the right stroke of the first is not vertical, while the cross stroke of the second is only scratched. Also, the beginning of the inscription starts right at the edge of the panel, but the end does not go anywhere near the edge. I believe that most or all of the right hand side was executed in quite different circumstances: by a different person, or at a different time. My suspicion is that it was begun, and left unfinished, and somebody later added letters to it, probably with no interest in the originally intended text.
• I have never encountered the spelling "They" meaning "the". The OED does list it, but only from the 15th century. The first half of the inscription is so carefully cut, that I doubt it was a mistake. I think it means "they", and guess that the intended structure was of the form "They maids of (something) are".
• The guidebook makes no attempt to address the word "INA", which is fairly clear, except for the diagonal stroke of the "N". (The "A" is of the same design as in the left hand side, but it is smaller and less neat).
• The OED does not list the spelling "coihn" at all. One of the meanings of "coign" is (as an alternative spelling of "quoin") indeed "A corner-stone; a projecting corner or angle of a building." - but that full definition, and all the examples, suggest that it has only the geometric or architectural sense of "cornerstone", not the symbolic sense.
• In any case, I'm not convinced the the word does read "COIHN", as the cross-bar of the "H" is only scratched.

This is as far as I've got. Does anybody have any ideas what the inscription might have been intended to read? --ColinFine (talk) 20:50, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

1648 looks like a year, so the OED saying the spelling is 15th century isn't too far off (religious stuff is often done in dated language). Maides is an old spelling of maids or maidens (ie. young women or daughters), which is consistent with the psalm. If the engraving really is nearly 400 years old, then it could be worn down enough in places so that it looks like just a scratch. Spelling in 1648 wasn't particularly consistent, so the odd spelling of coign isn't surprising. I'm not sure about INA... The guidebook's explanation seems plausible. --Tango (talk) 21:36, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

The INA may be a Latin abbreviation. Something like in nomen aeternum perhaps. Rmhermen (talk) 00:14, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

According to our article on the house, it was reconstructed in 1648. The variable lettering and depth of carving may be down to two different people working on the two sections of lettering simultaneously, one of whom did a far better job of it. I'd guess that the guidebook explanation of what it means is going to be more academically rigorous than anything we can come up with. --Dweller (talk) 07:33, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

1648 is certainly a year, and I took that bit as obvious. The OED lists "they" for "the" as C15, not even C16: this is certainly C17. The engraving isn't "worn down": I rubbed my finger over it and parts of it are deep and parts aren't. The spelling of coign is indeed possible, but as I say the OED does not even list that as a recorded spelling. I don't believe that the explanation in the guidebook is any more than a guess, on the basis of the one clear word "maides" and a dubious reading of a dubious spelling of a word which only dubiously has the claimed meaning.

INA as a Latin abbreviation is the most plausible suggestion for it so far, but not impressively plausible: "The(y) maides of coign in nomine aeterno" (more likely to be ablative) doesn't really seem to make any sense to me. --ColinFine (talk) 09:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

One of the definitions the OED gives for "they" is 5. As demonstrative adj. = those II. 2, 4; but often in weaker sense, = the (pl.). Now dial (In the Sc. quots. perh. meant for þa, tha, mod.Sc. thae.) a. Qualifying a n. in the nominative case. Examples are given ranging from the 13th to the 19th century, so that is a possibility I think.

Looking at it, I'm seeing "COWN?INA", with the ? being either a very badly executed letter, comma, space, or perhaps some pre-existing defect in the stone that the inscriber skipped over. Then "They maides of Cown?ina" would refer to some place name somewhere. Is there any plausible such place? Wnt (talk) 12:00, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The Hall is in Keighley, which, according to our article, derives from "Cyhha's farm" and was called "Cichhelai" in Domesday. Any help? --Dweller (talk) 12:48, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, I see that's near Colne. Any chance this had a different spelling back then? Hmmm, then again I also see a "Cowling (disambiguation)" nearby on the Google map, [5] Wnt (talk) 13:27, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

It could have been a pun, taking a Biblical quote and giving it a local twist. Puns were popular at the time. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:41, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

June 15

Thinking of a police incident

The South Park "4th Grade" opening includes this scene. It reminds me of an real police event involving a child; does anyone know what it was? Thanks! -- Tohler (talk) 01:01, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you're thinking of a photo in Elián González affair, but this is what Cecil Adams might deem as "no longer weird". It can be a lot worse. See Death of Aiyana Jones^[6] Wnt (talk) 01:47, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

By "Cecil Adams" did you mean Chuck Shepherd? —Tamfang (talk) 05:05, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, it's from the episode Quintuplets 2000. That scene was based on a famous picture from the real life case, and the episode came out in the same week. It was an impressive demonstration of South Park's ability to put together an episode quickly, allowing references to very recent events. 98.226.12.79 (talk) 23:01, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Lost compositions by Michael Haydn

List of compositions by Michael Haydn lists twenty compositions that have been lost in all but name, including Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, which survives although without the portion he composed. Is such a high number of known losses common for composers of the period? I'm surprised, as I figured that well-known composers' works would survive and lesser-known composers' works wouldn't even survive in name. Nyttend (talk) 12:21, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Twenty works out of a list of that size is not really a high proportion, I'd say. In general, it would have been relatively easy for operatic and sacred works of the period to get lost. Since those works were written for performances at specific institutions, rather than for print publication, there would often have been only one or two sets of handwritten copies, and those might then be left either in the hands of the composer or in the archive of the church or theater in question – where they could easily get forgotten or misplaced, unless the place was particularly well organized or it was a particularly high profile work. A work like Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots was probably a rather routine event, and if only the parts written by young Mozart were saved, my guess is it was because his dad made a point of keeping his personal archive of what his prodigy son produced. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:39, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Book translation

This is more miscellaneous, really, but I chose here. Is there a good article source here that will lead me to info on what, if any, languages a book is available in? I suppose wikipedia ref may not be best immediate start, but it's habit a bit and I figure if there is not a good article this question might prompt it. Thanks for reply.Julzes (talk) 13:02, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

You could use the Library of Congress to search for all the editions of a book, including translations. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:45, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

You can use WorldCat (it is a union catalog of thousands of libraries around the world). Once you search and find the book, click on "view all editions and formats" link. --Meskeremg (talk) 04:28, 17 June 2012 (UTC) Virtual Reference Librarian at http://www.asknowtexas.org

The Body of the Conquistador, If You Eat Their Food. . . by Rebecca Earle

Am I right? Rebecca does not believe that the food and the climate (or at least only food) led to the growth of race theory? --84.110.185.226 (talk) 16:47, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't know this book specifically, but concern over eating another culture's food goes back at least 1000 years before the conquistadors. Late-Roman Christians were forbidden (in canon law, if not in practise) from eating Jewish food. The conquistadors would have known the same prohibition against eating with Muslims (I assume Earle must mention this in the book). Adam Bishop (talk) 06:36, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople

How is the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople elected? Is it only Turkish Greek bishops that are allowed to vote for the next Patriarch or does all Greek Orthodox bishops regardless of nationality? How is the Patriarchate going to survive if only Turkish citizens are allowed to be elected when Turkey's Greek community is on the verge of extinction since the population exchange in the 1920s? Will Turkey amend this law in the future? Is there any discussion about creating an independent state from the Fener district in Istanbul much like the Vatican in Italy?--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 20:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The patriarch is elected by the Synod of his church, i.e. of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. That article has some information about the composition of the synod; it comprises some members from the expatriate churches in western Europe and America too. The article has some half-sourced hints that there might be a conflict over these members, but I couldn't tell you more about that. The problem that the patriarch himself has to be a Turkish citizen is widely reported to be a serious problem for the future, and I am not aware of any changes in this. An independent political status for the Fener seems quite out of the question – the Turkish state would certainly meet any such initiative as nothing less than high treason, and within the Orthodox church there is no tradition favouring any such arrangement (indeed, it is a long-standing point of criticism upheld by Orthodox voices against the Roman Catholic church that it betrayed the true role of the church by assuming political power.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:39, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Why is there so much religious restriction on the Patriarchate by secular Turkey? Under the current laws, the patriarch has to be a Turkish citizen, the Turkish government can veto a candidate and the Turkish government doesn't recognize him as head of the Orthodox Church outside of Turkey. Isn't some of these laws pushing a bit on religious oppression? I'm not familiar with Turkey's current political situation but isn't this a bit much.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 02:15, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Turkey has been violating its 1920's treaty obligations pretty much since 1955, so why change now... AnonMoos (talk) 05:48, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Turkey may be officially secular, but it is still an almost exclusively Muslim country, so the concerns of the Patriarchate rank low. More importantly, however, the Patriarchate is still seen through the lens of Greek-Turkish antagonism, as a potential agent of Greek interests, as a reminder of Istanbul's non-Turkish heritage, as a "foreign" presence on Turkish soil and as an excuse for foreigners to meddle with Turkish affairs, as it was in late Ottoman times. This is coupled with distorted view of the Patriarchate's actual role in Greek nationalism (if anything, the patriarchal establishment opposed the rise of nationalism among Greeks as elsewhere, clearly seeing that this would diminish its own control over the Orthodox of the Balkans), but the Turkish security establishment has a regular phobia with partition plans for Turkey. They'd definitely prefer it to be moved away, perhaps to Mt. Athos. Ironically, under the mildly Islamist AKP the pressure may ease, as it purports to follow Ottoman models (though there's nothing tangible so far). At any rate, the common riposte I've read regarding the possibility of a vacancy is that the requirement is that the Patriarch be a Turkish citizen, not necessarily born in Turkey... Constantine ✍ 21:42, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Greeks in Turkey

Has Turkey done anything to relax the laws on the Greeks in their country? Is Greek immigration allowed? Greeks in Turkey talks about the dying community and compensation but nothing about immigration. --Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 20:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

There has reportedly been a notable trend in the last two or three years, due to the Greek economic crisis and simultaneous boom in Turkey, for young Greeks to move to Turkey for work, especially to Istanbul, though most of them certainly don't mean to stay permanently, and this work migration will hardly involve taking Turkish citizenship. As far as I know, there are no particular laws that Turkey would have to relax first in order for it to be possible for Greeks to immigrate. There never was a law saying that Greeks cannot live in Turkey or become Turkish citizens in principle – the 1923 population exchange merely meant that those that had been citizens prior to that time were thrown out. Immigration or naturalization of Greek citizens today would presumably be subject merely to Turkey's general immigration laws, just the same as for citizens of other countries. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:28, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

June 16

When were women allowed to handle their own bank account?

In the novel Affinity (novel), set in Victorian England of the 1870s, the heroine of the novel, and unmarried middle class women in her 30s, are not legally allowed to take out her own money from her own bank account without a signed approval from her brother (her father is dead) which she are required to show to the bank staff before they give her the money. Is this historically correct? That seem to indicate, that unmarried adult women in Victorian England were minors, as an adult person should be allowed to handle their own money as they see fit. So my question is: was this historically correct, and it so, when were adult unmarried women allowed to handle their own bank accounts without the signature of a male guardian? Thank you.--Aciram (talk) 07:31, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

It could be correct if her brother has been named as a trustee of a fortune she inherited which had legal conditions attached to it. It is not true if she owned the money without any such restrictions. (Under coverture, an unmarried woman over the age of 21 is "feme sole".) But her brother would not legally be her "guardian" unless she has been found incompetent in some way (being a trustee of money and a guardian of a person are two different things). AnonMoos (talk) 09:42, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I just briefly scanned my copy of the novel. It clearly states that the heroine's money - her inheritance from her father - is hers, but it is held in trusteeship for her by her brother. This is in the section headed 24 December 1874 (pp. 291-4 of the 2000 Virago paperback edition) as the novel mainly takes the form of a diary. Her brother also states the money is hers "unless, of course [...] you marry", which is in keeping with the information in the Married Women's Property Act 1870 article which states that it only applied to property earned or (some property) inherited during marriage and that property owned at the time of marriage still became the husband's property. Valiantis (talk) 23:05, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

The Married Women's Property Act 1870 allowed women to have control of their own money, and further gains were made by the Married Women's Property Act 1882. So the novel may well be historically inaccurate, but only by a few years. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:38, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

However, the various Married Women's property acts predominantly dealt with the situation of a marred woman under coverture, while the question asks about an unmarried woman who is not under coverture. AnonMoos (talk) 09:44, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Also the question specifies a woman without specifying substantive or merely formal access; and, without specifying a (presumed?) bourgeois class. In actuality, British women gained substantive access to banking depending on their family and class circumstances across the 19th and 20th century. (No rape in marriage? How on earth can you claim that's substantive access). Fifelfoo (talk) 10:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

June 17

Rules for Unclaimed Nobel Prizes

Recently, Aung San Suu Kyi claimed her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, which was originally accepted by her family members. This raises an interesting question: if the individual's close friends & family members are also unavailable to accept the prize (as in the case of Liu Xiaobo), is it still possible to claim the prize in the future when the individual gains the opportunity to do so? 98.116.65.50 (talk) 05:29, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, the Nobel Prize committee can decide to do whatever they like in any particular situation. However, there is already a precedent in the form of Boris Pasternak, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958 but declined (or was unable) to travel. He died in 1960, but his son collected the award on his behalf in 1989. So it is definitely possible to defer the presentation of a Nobel Prize. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 13:13, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Cottingham manor

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-xgHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA189 or http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/ERY/Cottingham/Cottingham92.html or http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LYYKAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA461#v=onepage&q&f=false (and many others repeating the same information)

According to most sources the 'manor of cottingham' (Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire) was split into 3 (or 4) after the owner died without male heir (c.1407). I can't seem to find the correct geneology for this - I think the names of the manors listed in 19th century literature are anachronistic: eg without male issue, the lordship of Cottingham, with two thousand four hundred and sixty-six acres of land, came into possession of the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Westmoreland and Lord Powis, who had married his three daughters, since which time the estate has been divided into three manors called Cottingham Richmond , and -there may be other errors/

I can verify as far as John, 3rd Earl of Kent then Joan of Kent. I think the next one is Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent (with daughters) followed by the childless Thomas Holland, 1st Duke of Surrey and Edmund Holland, 4th Earl of Kent but who after that (1408)?

Can anyone work out who were the three daughters, and which and which historical figures were the predecessors of the "Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Westmoreland and Lord Powis". ?

I think you're looking at Ralph de Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland here. As the time period is around the Wars of the Roses, things were getting a little messy, not to mention the rivalry between the Nevilles and the Percys, and so it's no wonder the exact question of the succession is confused. Were the three daughters the issue of the lord of Cottingham? It's not clear from the quotation. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:02, 17 June 2012 (UTC) Further information at Baynard Castle --TammyMoet (talk) 13:04, 17 June 2012 (UTC) The Earldom of Powis appears to have been first created in 1674, so it can't be that, must be a Lord with Powis as a surname. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:23, 17 June 2012 (UTC) Maybe related to Hugh de Stafford and his family? --TammyMoet (talk) 13:28, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

(comment it should be noted that this story of daughters is often repeated in association with the legendary (and mostly untrue) tale of the burning of Baynard Castle, Cottingham - however the manor of Cottingham was split.. perhaps the details are innacurate?)

It's not clear to me either. (the 19th century sources are usually reliable - but when they are wrong they tend to be very wrong..) - my assumption is that the named earldoms (Richmond, Westmoreland, Powis) were the current (or later) titles (of the 1800s) - I think the daughters referred to must have been daughters of Thomas_Holland,_2nd_Earl_of_Kent (his sons all died, or had daughters etc) - however he had more than three daughters (the sons appear to have died out)- excluding the one who became a nun:

• Alianore Holland, Countess of March - only daughters by second marriage
• Joan Holland, probably(?) no children
• Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Somerset - many children - the first male with offspring appears to be John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset whose daughter (only 1) Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby married a 'Richmond' - is this the link??
• Elizabeth Holland (no article) according to the article Thomas_Holland,_2nd_Earl_of_Kent " [she] married Sir John Neville (eldest son of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmoreland" - John Neville doesn't have an article but his son was Ralph Neville, 2nd Earl of Westmorland - this one seems to make sense.
• Eleanor Holland, Countess of Salisbury - one daughter .

(To confuse things in http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1019823 it states "By the mid-17th century the Cottingham manors had reverted to the Crown and were then sold off by Charles I.")

(My guess, unable to VERIFY) is these were daughters refered to - I'd guess that either Alianore or Eleanor had children who (eventually) inherited the title of 'Powis'. I haven't been able to find this one. I don't really know the way to research these inheritences (or the rules of) - I suppose there must be a standard work for this sort of thing??Oranjblud (talk) 21:58, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

All my ideas for this involve subscription websites - Burke's Peerage, Ancestry both need a subscription. Ancestry is notoriously wrong too. The Society of Genealogists may be able to help but their site is subscription too (find my past). I've had a trawl through British History site to no avail, just the story repeated. If you are in the UK and can get to a library you can access Ancestry free of charge, and they should have copies of Burke's Peerage and Who Was Who. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:39, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I should be able to find Burke's and WhoWasWho in a library. I was more thinking of some sort of 'land deeds' publication, possibly governmental - but maybe what I am imagining doesn't exist for those dates (excluding a rolled up piece of parchment somewhere underneath Westminster). Burkes should be accurate - I'll try to remember to look at that.Oranjblud (talk) 11:53, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

The only other suggestion I can make is to contact the local archives, which in this case could be Hull but might well be York, as their archivists are often very knowledgable about what they have and where else you can look. I've got some excellent results by working with the archivists at Cambridge, for example. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:48, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I also recommend you try to find the relevant volume of the Victoria County History, which should give you a reliable account of who owned Cottingham and why. --Antiquary (talk) 18:34, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Reincarnation

In Buddhism, can a person be reincarnated as the opposite sex? What about a different race? --108.227.31.151 (talk) 20:02, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

In Buddhism, a person can be reincarnated as a different species. Looie496 (talk) 21:03, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

In Buddhism, a person cannot be reincarnated, except where they can be. In Buddhism reincarnation exists, or doesn't exist, as the cycle of deaths and rebirths, not as personal reincarnation (except where it does). Buddhism has such a diversity of practices and beliefs you'd need to narrow this down, but as a beginner's tip, don't think of personal reincarnation, imagine more some kind of montage being. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it Hinduism that believes in individual reincarnation? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:59, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Buddhism is large, syncretic, and internally diverse. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:03, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Buddhists prefer the term "rebirth". Please see Rebirth (Buddhism).--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:45, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Pol Pot

He wanted to erase the history of Cambodia and rewrite it in his image. Would that count as Negationism? --Arima (talk) 22:44, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Negationism is a historiographical concept, it is about attempts to rewrite accounts of history. Pol Pot sought to obliterate the concrete social fact of Cambodian history, he incidentally eliminated much of the intelligenstia, but his purpose wasn't to rewrite historical books and accounts. Negationism is what bad academics and state funded research bodies occasionally do. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:09, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Pol Pot tried to create a new society out of whole cloth. He did this by killing off anyone who had a say in what the former society looked like: The inteligencia, educated, teachers, doctors, etc. His goal was to kill off or drive into exile anyone except the poorest classes, so he could recreate Cambodian society as a cult of personality around himself. Many dictators strive to do this, Pol Pot was particularly brutal and deliberate and single minded about it. To put it better, which Fifelfoo does too, is that Negationism is about changing history, Pol Pot was trying to change his country's present. --Jayron32 01:31, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I was afraid that you were going to exceed me in wit with something along the lines of "Negationism is an attempt to rewrite history, usually to deny the existence of genocide. What Pol Pot did was simply genocide." Fifelfoo (talk) 02:00, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, that too. Couldn't have said it better myself... --Jayron32 02:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

June 18

Alternative voting system

Which country currently uses alternative voting system and is there a sample from the last election that took place in that country that used that system? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.19.124 (talk) 03:08, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I was tempted to ask "alternative to what?", but on a jackofozian caprice I plugged in alternative voting system and it redirected me to Instant-runoff voting. If that's what you're interested in, the details you're after should be there, or links to where they can be found. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 03:20, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Apparently the term "alternative vote" is the Britishism for the Australian "preferential ballot." Australia uses the preferential ballot for its lower house, the House of Representatives. Voting data is available down to the booth level from the Australian Electoral Commission's website. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:58, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Down to booth level is really good data. I thought France was good, having found the results to commune level on newspapers' websites by 10pm BST yesterday. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:32, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Full preference distributed booth data is available sometime after the election but before that parliament convenes. Booth data for "First Preferences" is available on the night, most psephologists can use booth level predictive simulations of preference flows to predict the electoral outcome of the lower house on the night. My favourite psephologist for this is Antony Green who predicted a hung parliament in 2010 on the night…he started looking cagey around 7.15 (75 minutes after polls closed in NSW), and refused to give expected national results all night—normally Green can tell you the result by 8pm. The upper house takes weeks to resolve due to sheer number of votes to count and the complexity of the count (image of actual ballot paper). Usually before parliament sits the "wonks" have done analysis on which demographics have changed their voting pattern based on booth and seat demographic alignment. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:00, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

NZ also publishes polling place level data [7]e.g. [8] except IIRC when the polling place has less then 6 voters (to preserve anonymity). However we use mixed member proportionality. I'm not sure when it becomes available. Some of our local council elections use single transferable vote (i.e. multiple winners) but I don't believe instant run-off (single winner) is used anywhere although I'm not sure. (Unlike in Australia, a STV vote it still valid even if you don't rank all possible candidates.) But local elections are by postal ballot. Edit: Guess I should have checked out the article which confirms instant-runoff is used in some councils. I believe the councils were given the option of choosing IRV/STV or FPP a while back but I'm not sure of the details. Nil Einne (talk) 15:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

The Libertarian Party (US) uses it. It seems most equitable. μηδείς (talk) 04:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

There are some failures—in terms of seat design, geographically dispersed but politically coherent voting blocs tend to be underrepresented, where as geographically coherent voting blocs tend to be overrepresented. In Australia this was viewed as a "good thing" in order to assist the rurally based anti-Labor "Country Party" (now called the Nationals). Currently this distorts the Green vote significantly, which is geographically dispersed but politically coherent. Australia seeks to redress this by suppling a second house, based on states as single multimember electorates, with single transferrable vote multimember proportional representation. Admittedly, with 6 seats per state per half-senate election, and with the Greens achieving 10% votes at the moment, the final two senate seats per state are quite interesting to observe as examples of vote transfer flows. A significant body of Australian voters follow Party advice on preference order, but a significant body rejects Party advice. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:16, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

The single transferable vote, a similar system, is used in Cambridge,_MA#City_government. Paul (Stansifer) 20:04, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Query on term for intentional celibacy philosophy adopted by scientists during The Enlightment/Scientific Revolution

Hello,

Hopefully you can help me. I'm a writer doing research for a script. During a story discussion with another writer, he'd recollected something he'd read about a type of philosophy/belief set down during the Enlightenment, specifically in the Scientific Revolution. It was a belief that adopting a life of celibacy contributed to scientific abilities/progress in the field. He couldn't place the term, nor the original author of the time. I started research, using Google, which led me here to Wikipedia, and specifically your article on the scientist/inventor Nikola Tesla. In it I found some reference to his being celibate. It didn't state his motivation, though. The only other lead in the article I could find was a reference to a time of his life when he was influenced by the Vidi philosophy (Hindu). Thinking this might lead somewhere, I followed the link to this article. I did find some useful information (brahmacharya--taking vows of celibacy for spiritual reasons; believing sex and focus on these type of relationships only can lead to materialism). This isn't quite what I'm looking for. When I went back with this information, my writer friend said this wasn't the term. What we're looking for is intentional celibacy motivated by scientific reason, not spiritual.

This search has produced little fruit and is becoming increasingly frustrating. The closest/best answer I can come up with on my own is 'sexual sublimation', hypothesised by Freud. The definition: "To divert the energy (sexual or other biological impulse) from it's immediate goal to one of a higher social, moral, or aesthetic nature or use; to make nobler or purer." I'm not sure if this is it, either. According to my colleague, this belief was set down in the Enlightenment, which was in the 18th century. Freud came up with this a century later. And now that I think of it, Tesla lived in Freud's time, as well. Did the Enlightenment extend into the 1800's?

So my question is, would anyone happen to know anything about this philosophy? Again, not spiritually motivated. And the Freud sublimation reasoning, I'm not sure about either. From what I can understand of that, the term came about because of the more rigid beliefs about sex during that time. Sex was something taboo/not openly discussed, nor expressed. So it was felt that sublimation would take care of the problem of improper sexual urges. It would benefit society more if the sexual energy of the libido were instead transferred to endeavors that would better benefit society, such as in art or the sciences. I'm unsure if this is the motivator my friend was talking about. In ways it makes sense to the objective of the character I'm writing, who is a retired physics professor. But I just can't get past the reasoning. My writer friend suggested that the practice was believed to help scientists in their abilities. It was not spiritual in nature, to avoid materialism. And it's not quite the Freud sublimation term either, because that just suggests transferring energy that was felt to be improper. I believe the philosophy I'm searching for is a celibacy motivated by the belief that it ENHANCED the scientists abilities. According to your article, this was exactly what Tesla believed/what motivated him. But it didn't state what Tesla attributed this to/a specific term. My question is, if there was a term for this, what was it?

Thank you so much for any help you can provide! Kim KrauseKkrause26 (talk) 04:19, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Nikola Tesla was notably eccentric, and may have suffered from OCD. I imagine he held a number of highly unusual beliefs. Gandalf61 (talk) 08:27, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Hm, perhaps your friend was thinking of Francis Bacons New Atlantis? The inhabitants of his scientific utopia Bensalem are apparently very chaste, though as far as I recall I don't think they are completely celibate. --Saddhiyama (talk) 08:52, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

You might compare the celibacy of Isaac Newton and Temple Grandin. Note also the latter's autism and the suggestion that Newton had Asperger's. μηδείς (talk) 16:42, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

The idea that celibacy would have not only moral enhancements but also physical and mental ones has been variously popular throughout many eras. Certainly there were those in the 17th century who thought this (e.g. Newton); there were those in the 19th century as well. The idea that seminal fluid was "vitalizing" had a lot of play in the 19th century; the work of Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard was particularly influential. I doubt the 17th century folks thought of it in quite the same terms — it seems rather clear that Newton considered it a moral issue, not a physiological one. I don't think there's a single, well-known term for this set of beliefs, though. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:51, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Native Hawaiian or Native American

Look at these two pictures: boy and girl and these pictures: other boy and other girl. Do they look Native Hawaiian or Native American? Does the two girls look the same except in different clothing or are the two different girls? Don't judge by textual evidence. Now after that did the photographer, as listed on the Smithsonian, Henry Wetherbee Henshaw ever went to Hawaii?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:56, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

They all look Native Hawaiian to me and I believe they are two different girls. I'm sorry but I haven't a clue whether the photographer went to Hawaii after taking the photos.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:23, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

All except the "other girl" look very Polynesian (I won't say "Hawaiian" if I'm ignoring textual evidence), and they're definitely two different girls. FiggyBee (talk) 10:12, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

"In December of 1894, due to failing health, Henry resigned from the Bureau and moved to the Hawaiian Islands to regain his strength. There he became known as a photographer capturing many valuable images such as the native costumes, houses, and other hard to reproduce negatives."[9] He also wrote this book at that time. FiggyBee (talk) 12:16, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Why do names of fictional characters get censored in some fictional stories?

An example from a 19th century horror story I just finished reading, 'The House and the Brain' by Edward Bulwer-Lytton:

"The house is haunted; and the old woman who kept it was found dead

in her bed, with her eyes wide open. They say the devil strangled

her."

"Pooh! You speak of Mr. J----. Is he the owner of the house?"

"Yes."

"Where does he live?"

"In G---- Street, No. --."

"What is he? In any business?"

"No, sir,--nothing particular; a single gentleman."

I gave the potboy the gratuity earned by his liberal information,

and proceeded to Mr. J---- , in G---- Street, which was close by

the street that boasted the haunted house. I was lucky enough to

find Mr. J---- at home,--an elderly man with intelligent

countenance and prepossessing manners.

It also goes on to blot out names of other characters in the story, such as the narrator's servant and a traveler he meets at a gentleman's club. I'm guessing this was for legal reasons (similar to the standard "purely coincidental" disclaimer you see written in the fine print within books and movies today), but is my assumption really 100% correct? I've also come across this phenomenon in other stories whose titles I can not recall, but I have mostly seen this in fiction written around the same era as this story (although I think I may have also seen this name-mangling pop up in a couple of short stories by Asimov from the 1950s -- but it has been a long time, thus I may be remembering incorrectly).

Oddly enough, later in the same story, a character by the name of "Mr. Richards" is explicitly introduced, with his name not blanked-out. This inconsistency is why I have doubts. --66.235.32.3 (talk) 06:49, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

It is hardly for legal reasons, but were a common trick for writers at the time to convey a feeling of realism to the story, as in "I won't divulge the name of this character or this town, because they exist in real life" (but of course they didn't). --Saddhiyama (talk) 08:54, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

(ec)The author is conveying a sense of reality and a sense of focus and urgency. By omitting the names, on the one hand he adopts a style that might be found in newspaper reports of real events, and as a side effect he communicates to the reader that he will not bother him or her with unnecessary detail. It has nothing to do with legal concerns, but is a literary device. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:06, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Reinforcing the above editors, they censored Mr. S————'s name for the same reason that fictive television blurs characters' faces, or censors words they are permitted to broadcast: an appearance of verisimilitude by mimicking artefacts of media that claim to present fact. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:22, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I always thought that it was the result of the author 'not bothering' finding a name for a minor character who would not appear again. Kafka uses this in some of his novels, at least in 'The Castle', and Dostoyevsky also does it in Crime and Punishment. I believe (can't remember) that in both cases it's done with characters who appear once, and are never heard of again. Why insult all the people who share a last name, when a simple initial can do the trick? V85 (talk) 15:39, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

It is not from laziness. Stephan Schultz's answer is correct. It is an attempt to imply (or reference others who imply) that the characters and locations are real. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

So, clearly, that strategy didn't work on me, since the characters seemed less real, than had they been given actual names. :-) V85 (talk) 19:19, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I just saw this in a China Miéville short story, which surprised me because I thought that that practice had died out. Supporting what folks have said above, it was the only story in the collection in which the narrator was a London-based author named "China Miéville". Paul (Stansifer) 19:51, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Letters of Marque

I would like to know if there is any location archiving Letters of Marque issued in Britain, specifically the Elizabethan era, where it is and if they permit access to their records.86.161.81.212 (talk) 14:05, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I suggest the first port of call is the National Archives at Kew. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:45, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Carl Sagan and sekded-ef em khetkhet

On page 39 of his work Cosmos,[10] the astronomer Carl Sagan made reference to an ancient Egyptian phrase sekded-ef em khetkhet, or "who travels backwards". It is apparently used as an epithet for Mars, describing the planet in terms of its occasional retrograde motion at opposition. There are a few other books that make reference to this, but I can't find a published paper about it. I would like to track down the original scholarly source for this phrase. Does anybody have a good suggestion? Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:42, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

The earliest reference I could find in English was R. A. Parker, "Ancient Egyptian Astronomy," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A 276, no. 1257, (1974), 51-65. It is not referenced specifically (very little is referenced specifically in the article). --Mr.98 (talk) 18:03, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I would just point out that it's apparent retrograde motion (rather than actual retrograde motion), and it's exhibited by all the planets, not only Mars.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:45, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

It looks like this comes from the astronomical paintings on the ceiling of the burial chamber ("Hall K") of KV17 (Seti I's tomb). A detailed description of the ceiling, with citations, starts here (see "Column 26" for the description of Mars).---Cam (talk) 19:11, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

other olympic events

apparently some of the earlier olympic gameses used to include non-sporting events, mostly artistic in nature I think, but having searched around a bit, I can find no mention of these. Did this actually happen, and if so, can anyone direct me towards a list of these events?

79.66.102.253 (talk) 20:16, 18 June 2012 (UTC)