Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 March 5

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March 5

Tort

The law of torts may be described as an area that seeks to regulate individual conduct within society discuss. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shimpundu84 (talk • contribs) 08:17, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Right up there at the top it says, "If your question is homework, show that you have attempted an answer first, and we will try to help you past the stuck point. If you don't show an effort, you probably won't get help. The reference desk will not do your homework for you." Discuss. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The reference desk does not answer requests for legal advice. Ask a lawyer instead. R12IIIeloip (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:05, 5 March 2010 (UTC).

Whilst that is true, this is not a request for legal advice, merely an invitation to do someone's homework; and DIR (HK) has already dealt with that. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:07, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

User R12IIIetc was obviously being sarcastic-- you dim wit! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.171.183 (talk) 21:22, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

It saddens me to see a person studying something to do with the law, who not only goes to anonymous people on the internet for basic information, but also insults them by using a run-on sentence. How long will it be now before we see such an undreamt of thing in an actual law? Oh, I see that's already covered @ Legal writing: Similarly, see Professor Fred Rodell's "Goodbye to Law Reviews," whose opening lines contain the classic statement of the problem: "There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content."  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 14:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I supposed that society discuss must be a term of art (a compound noun). —Tamfang (talk) 21:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Possible, but then, we wouldn't have a question at all to deal with. (Not that "Discuss" is a question as such, more a command. But still ...) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, that could be a letout for a school smartass. The exam paper has the instruction "You must answer all questions", but one of the "questions" is "The Second World War was a good thing for the film industry. Discuss." -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Word War

Is it true that during WW1 the British had plans to tell the Germans on the battle field via loudspeakers, jokes so funny that it would incapacitate them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jetterindi (talk • contribs) 09:34, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You may be thinking of this? --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:41, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The answer is no, but the Germans did seriously consider that the British sense of humour gave us a tactical advantage. Brits tend to make a joke out of a bad situation, which may make it more endurable. A German staff textbook published just after WWI includes a reprint of a Bruce Bairnsfather cartoon to illustrate the point. "Old Bill" is sitting in the ruins of a house and a younger soldier asks him what had made the large holes in the walls. Bill replies "mice". The textbook felt it necessary to state that it wasn't mice but shells that had made the holes, just in case any German officers didn't understand the gag. You're going to ask me for sources now aren't you? Alansplodge (talk) 13:10, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

And the Americans seriously considered a gay bomb. Now that would have been entertaining!--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The language desk has an extended discussion of this Monty Python bit. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:21, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

"Make sure he's dead" (A British bren gunner near Osterbeek 1944 upon shooting a german out of a tree and seeing him run over by a tank) "They'll send a hearse next" (A british engineer in Arnhem 1944 after two SS attacks by commandeered vehicles, the first trucks, the second ambulances)--92.251.205.84 (talk) 17:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Bestsellers lists

Is there a catalogue (publicly available online hopefully) of the New York Times bestseller lists? Similarly for the Amazon book rankings? I'd like something that can be cited in Wikipedia articles about books. (I don't want a URL of the current lists, which change every day.) Staecker (talk) 12:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Did you even bother to look? See The New York Times Best Seller list —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dataport676 (talk • contribs) 21:27, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I did bother to look (not at Wikipedia though). I have a hard time trusting such a ridiculous looking webpage as http://www.hawes.com/no1_f_d.html. Any more RS than that? Like from NYT itself? (Also one which includes trade paperbacks?) How about Amazon? Staecker (talk) 22:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The War

Why did the Allies allow Germany to continue taking land when they knew exactly what he was planning because he's written it all in his book Mien Kamp? Why wasn't there preemptive action? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Candercore1 (talk • contribs) 14:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Appeasers such as Neville Chamberlain thought that Hitler would be content for years to come if he was allowed to take some land in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere, while Britain had time to rearm. Edison (talk) 15:10, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

People often forget that Britain and France are democracies. In 1938, the idea of another world war was hugely unpopular. Chamberlain was doing the will of the people. Most were relieved that war had been apparently averted - very few thought he was making a mistake at the time[1].

Just a note for the OP, the book's title is Mein Kampf. Take special notice of the order of the vowels in "Mein". The german language puts the vowel that is heard/pronounced/etc second. So, "mein" sounds like the english word "mine" and if there was a word such as "mien" then it would sound like the english word "mean". Dismas|^(talk) 15:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Dismas's rule is sort of true, from an English speaker's perspective, but only for the letter combinations ie and ei. Neither eu nor au in German is pronounced like the English u. Marco polo (talk) 16:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

And since we're being exact about spellings, it's initial capitals for 'German' and 'English'. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 17:20, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Jack, for putting your own spin (or should I say english ?), on it. StuRat (talk) 19:34, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You know, I thought that and it was originally typed with capitals E and G but then I changed it thinking that I was wrong. Arg. Dismas|^(talk) 20:20, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, lets not forget that Germany in the 1930s were scaring the s*** out of everyone. Everyone knew that a war with Germany would be absolutely catastrophic. Sure, it seems stupid in hindsight to give the Sudentenland to Hitler, but if you are faced with the option of either doing that, or going to World War II, suddenly the decision is much harder. It was still a dumb thing to do though, the European powers should have realized that they were going to WWII no matter what. But we have to remember that hindsight is 20/20, and it's a lot harder to play hardball when you're eyeball to eyeball with the Wehrmacht. Belisarius (talk) 18:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

How could we claim WWII was a just war if we had not done everything in our power to prevent it peacefully first?--92.251.205.84 (talk) 17:50, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The question does not have any root in the logic of ethics. If a killer shoots person #1 and person #2 in a crowd, and an armed bystander watches and does nothing, then that's morally and ethically wrong, most people would agree; but it does not make it "not just" for the armed bystander to attack the killer when the killer shoots person #3. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:40, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Also note than Mein Kampf is not a book that can be read. It's so boring, incoherent, and badly written that it would need a very dedicated intelligence officer to actually plow through. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I made it through about half, but, I agree, he was no brilliant author (which seems odd, since he was a good public speaker). StuRat (talk) 19:34, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The Allies needed to reoccupy the Rhineland when Germany first started to remilitarized it in 1936. This would have been in accordance with the WWI treaty, and the Nazi party would have been disgraced for losing the Rhineland, and forced out of office. By the time Hitler started invading his neighbors, they were indeed a real threat, with no easy solution. StuRat (talk) 19:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

One explanation is simply that the Allies had no choice. They didn't have the military power to stop Germany any sooner than they did. All the time they were appeasing Germany they were preparing for war. They knew perfectly well that it was very likely to end up with a big war, whatever they did. --Tango (talk) 19:56, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

To the contrary, I'd say they could have won early on, but couldn't later, as Germany was able to rearm far faster than them (England and France). Only the addition to the Allies of the US and, even moreso, the Soviet Union, pushed the balance of power in the Allies' favor. StuRat (talk) 20:44, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Winston Churchill, an authority on the subject, disagreed strongly with Tango's assertion that the Allies could not have stopped Germany sooner; he wrote at length about this in his six-volume work The Second World War. I read the 1-volume condensed version, which I recommend (and which I suspect StuRat may have read). See Hitler's quote in our Remilitarization of the Rhineland article: The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had then marched into the Rhineland we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs, for the military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even a moderate resistance. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:44, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

It's interesting that that article quotes Hitler as having said that after the war (it says Heinz Guderian said it in an interview after the war, and then also Hitler later said it). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

That is interesting. While I don't have the source in question so can't verify it, I have gone ahead and removed the word "later". Anyone with a reliable source regarding Hitler's appearance at a seance are welcome to revert me! --Tango (talk) 04:22, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Hitler and Mein Kampf, one interesting point is that the English translations of the time abridged it, leaving out much of the "good parts." The USA was lucky to be led by FDR, fluent in German, who read the original and understood early on what a wild and crazy guy Hitler was.John Z (talk) 12:35, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that not a single member of British Military Intelligence could speak a word of German? No-one in France? No-one in any other country? Are you suggesting that the only person outside of German borders who could speak German was the US President? (Plus, if your assertion is correct, his unique ability to speak German would only have allowed him to be able to read the "good parts" - what sort of an advantage would that give him?) --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:42, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Certainly there were people in those countries who read German, but having someone tell you what they claim it says is not the same as reading it for yourself. If Chamberlain had read Mein Kampf in German, perhaps he would have agreed with Churchill and avoided making deals with Hitler. StuRat (talk) 18:18, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Livestock

What economic model is used to determine the correct price of livestock such as cows? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jelickios (talk • contribs) 17:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Supply and demand Marco polo (talk) 19:03, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

While that's true in a pure free market economy, the price of food is often regulated by governments, through the use of price supports and other mechanisms. There the price is more likely to be set based on what people can afford to pay or what they've historically paid. StuRat (talk) 19:27, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

In other words: does the OP mean 'correct' according to an economist, or according to a lobbyist, or what? —Tamfang (talk) 21:50, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Livestock trading was also subject of a nice (and famous) article in the area of information asymmetry, of which I have forgotten the name and authors. User:Krator (t c) 19:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Are we talking about livestock futures? Or just buying and selling of individual cows through sales from one farmer to another or possibly during a cattle auction? I took the OP's question to be referring to the latter. In which case, I would think it would vary depending on the genetics of the cow and what the local market for such an animal is. Dismas|^(talk) 23:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

We had a similar question in the past. Markets are the answer. Within that market, the factors that generally matter for cattle are what variety they are, as in dairy cattle or beef cattle, and their weight. Other factors can include grade, such as grass fed, veal, or other variations. Shadowjams (talk) 11:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Deflation

I've read a bunch of articles lately that state that the crisis that Greece is going through right now has a very real risk of leading to deflation (this article most recently), but no one has explained to me why that is. I mean, Greece's currency is the euro, and what I've always been taught is that deflation is the opposite of inflation, i.e. a steady increase in the value of money. But the euro isn't going to deflate, it's backed by an entire continent. So how can there be deflation in Greece and not the rest of the Eurozone when they have the same currency?

Thinking this through, the explanation I've come up with myself is that locally in Greece what will happen is that you will suddenly be able to buy more and more stuff with the same amount of money (which is the definition of deflation, I guess). This will happen since general demand for stuff will decrease, and thus the prices of that stuff will decrease along with it, starting a deflationary spiral. But isn't the whole point of having a monetary union that the rest of the union will compensate and "fill in the gap", so to speak. If I'm a guy in Germany looking to buy grapes (or whatever Greece exports), wouldn't I make a killing buying from Greece instead of, say, France, because of the extremely low prices they're having? And wouldn't that increase in exports pretty much make up for the lack of demand and put a stop to the deflationary spiral? Can someone explain this to me?

(I should say, the reason I'm asking this question is mostly because I'm grouchy. When the politicians were selling us on the euro, one of their primary arguments was that since the whole continent was backing the currency it would be very stable, and things like deflation and hyperinflation wouldn't happen. I'm starting to suspect that I was lied to) Belisarius (talk) 18:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Greece is likely to face deflation, but this deflation will have only a modest effect on consumer prices. There are two ways of defining deflation: 1) a drop in prices; and 2) a drop in the money supply, which in turn tends to lead to lower prices. There will most likely be a drop in the money supply, because government spending will have to drop relative to GDP, and GDP is likely to fall as well as the government's contribution to it falls. This is likely to lead to a drop in certain prices. The prices that are most likely to be affected are 1) the prices of labor in Greece and 2) the prices of real estate in Greece. As you say, tradable goods and services are unlikely to fall in price because a stable money supply and stable wages elsewhere in the euro zone will provide strong support for those prices. So Greeks are not likely to see the cost of food or fuel drop by much. An exception would be goods that are not produced much outside of Greece, such as perhaps retsina. The prices for domestic goods are likely to drop somewhat. The result of the falling price of Greek labor (largely as a consequence of rising unemployment) would be that Greek firms, or firms producing in Greece, will be able to gain market share by offering lower prices on exports. Also, Greek producers are likely to gain market share within Greece over producers from other parts of the euro zone for the same reason. That should slowly help the Greek economy to recover. The downside for most Greeks is that their income would be falling, but, apart from the cost of housing, their cost of living would not fall by much. This would result in a drop in the standard of living for many Greeks. This form of deflation has already happened in Latvia (see this blog post), which faced a serious financial crisis in 2008. (See 2008-2009 Latvian financial crisis.) Because its currency is pegged to the euro, it has had to confront the crisis in the same way that a country within the euro zone, such as Greece, would have to confront it. This is largely a matter of gaining competitiveness by forcing domestic prices down, a process that has also been called an internal devaluation. This term is used because the solution to the crisis before the introduction of the euro would probably have been a devaluation of the currency. The internal devaluation accomplishes much the same thing. Marco polo (talk) 19:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You're right that arbitrage is a strong force against asymmetric price changes (both inflationary and deflationary) across the euro area. Still, we see (large) differences in both absolute prices and price changes today. Distance is still a factor (the chance of a Slovenian buying an X-box in the Netherlands is pretty slim, even if the price difference is €40 [2] [3], even though it's legal.) Probably less of a difference than if all countries still had their own currency, though those who believe independent monetary policy is important may even disagree on that. Politicians tend to exaggerate 'less of a difference' into 'complete and enduring stability.' That doesn't mean they technically lie, they're just doing their job.

This is the answer to your first question, and the politician's thing. Given the fact that price differences do exist, and they're larger for perishable (food) and non-tradeable (haircuts) goods than for things like an xbox, it's at least possible that Greece will go into deflation.

There's several factors that could contribute to deflation in Greece. The simplest economic explanation is when demand goes down (due to putting a halt to the extensive borrowing by their successively more spend-happy governments), ceteris paribus, prices will go down. Of course, things do change in the meantime, and this is where the Euro comes in. With independent monetary policy, a country's central bank could simply change the money supply to prevent deflation. With the euro, it's the question what independent market forces will do with the share of euros that is allocated in Greece at the moment. On a basic level, you would expect interest rates to go down in deflation (more people want to save, fewer people want to borrow) which would decrease the attractiveness of Greece vis-à-vis other countries to invest one's euros in, which would decrease the money supply, which makes things worse. Does this have a lot of effect on the rest of the euro area? I doubt it. User:Krator (t c) 19:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

(ecX2) I agree with you, mostly. While there could be periods of deflation, particularly in areas where prices were higher than most, I wouldn't expect a deflationary spiral, unless Greece is able to pull the whole EU down with it. However, certain sectors of the economy, like real estate, could suffer such a fate, as cheap homes in Greece can't easily be moved to other countries and sold, so an oversupply of houses could indeed lead to a deflationary spiral in the real estate market. There would still be a limit, however, as eventually people from other countries (such as retirees) might start moving to Greece to take advantage of the low prices, and thus prop up real estate values. You might also get foreign speculators who don't intend to live in Greece themselves, but think it likely that Greek real estate prices will recover, allowing them to make a tidy profit. Similarly, if Greek wages remain depressed, more Greeks and resident aliens may choose to work outside of Greece, and fewer people from outside Greece would go there to work, rebalancing the local oversupply of labor. StuRat (talk) 19:10, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The thing is that, even if many Greeks were to emigrate in search of work elsewhere in Europe, wages would be unlikely to rise much on average in Greece in the near term. The reason is that productivity levels in Greece are low. (See this report.) A firm that raised wages in Greece without first achieving productivity gains would quickly price itself out of the market. Firms producing in Greece are more likely to invest in productivity-enhancing equipment or software than they are to bid up wages in response to a hypothetical labor shortage. Marco polo (talk) 20:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all for that lively, clear and helpful explanation. I hope Belisarius is as pleased with this series of responses as I am. Bielle (talk) 22:42, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I most certainly am. I've been going around mulling over the answers in my head, and it really has clarified things. This is why the refdesk rocks :) Belisarius (talk) 01:20, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Style of play from a chess computer opponent?

I do not play chess, but I often play Othello with humans and sometimes with the Othello software called WZebra. When playing WZebra, it is very noticible that the moves are made apparantly chaotically all over the board, often in what would normally be seen as unsafe positions, yet it nearly always wins. Human opponents, on the other hand, keep their pieces together more in a more ordered and less chaotic-looking way.

Is it the same with chess computers? Do they do what would seem to be unwise or chaotic in a human opponent? Thanks 89.243.198.135 (talk) 21:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Playing all over the board is actually a good technique during the early game because it gives you influence over the entire board. If you watch some really good players, you'll probably find they do the same. There have been comments about different playing styles between computers and humans (see here for a particularly well known example). --Tango (talk) 22:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

By the way, for anyone who wants to beat a computer at chess at difficult settings, the way to do it is to use your strategic and positional knowledge, as this is impossible to program algorithmically. We just have absolutely no way to program inductive logic into a computer like fuzzy concepts of "openness" and such. So, the way to do it is to make small token sacrifices for position early on in the game, for example trading a bishop for a knight but leaving the computer with their rooks and knights completely locked in, effectively removing them from play for a while. The computer will always take the best move purely on points, it can never realize that a whole section of the board is really "closed" to them. Another example: unless a computer programmer EXPLICITLY programmed it into their program logic, they would never realize that in the endgame if they only have a bishop of one color, and all of your pieces are on the other color, then while that's true, the biship is effectively DEAD strategically. So, if you want to beat the computer, make offers such as making an exchange that seems great for the computer, but in fact leavse them in a very closed position: their bishop is on the wrong color; they can only move their pieces to a few different positions, and so on. One thing you can do if you're playing against a mobile phone or something else that can't look ahead that deep, is get the checkmate together "out of the blue" for example with two knights and two bishop, where until you make the checkmate none of them are "in position". A mobile phone's computer can't look ahead far enough to see that you can do it (for example repeatedly checking them or forking a very valuable piece with their knight). I have ALWAYS been able to beat ALL of my mobile phone chess games using strategies like the above. The most important thing is to remember HOW a computer thinks, which is with a look-ahead tree that is ONLY able to give a score to each position, based on things that have been EXPLICITLY programmed into it, which is 98% of the time just points for material, and maybe slight modifications for doubled pawns and so on.
Oh yeah one more thing: get them out of the opening book, since they will end up with a better position since they probably have a better database of opening book moves than you have memorized. Instead, make an early offer of your big pieces for their poor position, which they will take, and then exploit it fiercely along the lines I've mentioned. If you play right, then you will find yourself quickly having traded all your pieces, but the checkmate doesn't come together. So you start over: quickly trading in your pieces for position, and again, they evade the checkmate, so you have to start over. A few times doing this and you learn to realize how far ahead the computer looks, and then WHAM, you trade a few pieces for position, but htey don't SEE that, at all, and you just have them cornered. They play SO dumb with respect to position, you just have to make sure on a pure point basis they're always making the moves that get them "ahead". It's kind of like how these people who always try to save every last penny end up eating and having nothing but crap around their house. The computer is always trying to get every last point, down to always taking the bishop for their knight (ALWAYS), even though it ends up with nothing but crap in its fridge. 82.113.121.94 (talk) 22:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

This article by Kasparov [4] Briefly mentions that computers play "prejudice and doctrine", and suggests that humans that train against computers player better than those who grew up playing against other humans. APL (talk) 23:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Modern computer chess programs can beat even the world's best chess players. The kind of tricks you describe don't work any more. --Tango (talk) 03:13, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

When I said "at difficult settings", I was referring to everyday chess programs you or I or anyone here might download and use. They do work against these kinds of programs. 82.113.121.104 (talk) 10:03, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Rybka, the current computer chess world champion, is available for download for anyone that wants it and will run effectively on a typical modern laptop. I think it costs money, but not an enormous amount. --Tango (talk) 18:29, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The article Arimaa might be interesting. AnonMoos (talk) 03:37, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Nobody has pointed yet to our long article Computer chess, which has a number of other relevant article links. Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:11, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think good chess computer programs play as differently from people as good Othello programs. The reason is that something like Othello can be approached using a brute force strategy, where you simply look at all possible moves and outcomes, to a certain depth, and evaluate them based on a point system (more points for corners and secured adjacent edges, for example). This is possible because of the relatively few moves avaiable each turn in Othello. Chess, on the other hand, has too many moves available each turn for this approach to work well, so the chess program must adapt a method of thinking more like what a human uses, looking at board position more and relying on brute computing power less. StuRat (talk) 18:10, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Strait of Gibraltar during WW2?

Were the British situated in Gibraltar, able to prevent all movements of Axis ships between the Atlantic and the Meditteranean? Or could Axis ships get through, either by taking a chance on not gettting hit by a shell, or sneaking past undetected at night? Thanks 89.243.198.135 (talk) 22:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Military history of Gibraltar during World War II may be interesting. User:Krator (t c) 22:49, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree its interesting, and I did read it and some of its links, but it unfortunately does not give any information relevant to the question. 89.240.63.162 (talk) 01:04, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The section titled "Mediterranean U-boat Campaign: 1941 - 1944" does. This article agrees: of 62 U-boats that tried to sneak through, 9 were sunk, and 21 aborted either due to being damaged or because their commanders thought it was too risky. The rest got through, but were all eventually either sunk or scuttled in the Mediterranean. I infer from this that no German surface ships tried it. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:59, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Under the heading "Mediterranean U-boat Campaign: 1941 - 1944", the article states that the Germans sent 60 U-boats into the Mediterranean during that 3-year period. Of these, nine were sunk and ten were damaged. So some U-boats were able to get through the strait, but at a heavy risk. As for surface shipping, I agree with you that our article fails to address it. After doing some research on the web, I found this article and this one, both of which indicated that the British imposed a blockade on the Strait of Gibraltar. Their unbroken possession of Gibraltar would have enabled them to impose an effective blockade of the Mediterranean throughout the war. Certainly, they would have patrolled the straits at night. Even the primitive British radar of 1939 would have allowed them to detect an approaching ship, regardless of visibility. They would not just have shelled a ship attempting to enter the Mediterranean without making for the port of Gibraltar, they would have launched aerial bombers and would probably have sent a destroyer or other fast combat ship to pursue it. Marco polo (talk) 02:02, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

However, the Germans would just as easily have been able to 'enter' the Mediterranean from the shores of their ally, Italy, as well as from any Mediterranean port in any German-occupied country. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:06, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

There was a memorable scene in the film Das Boot depicting such an attempt (though inaccurately on the surface rather than submerged). Clarityfiend (talk) 02:18, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

No, in the movie they planned to pass through the strait while underwater; they only ran on the surface because they were detected and therefore wanted maximum speed. --Anonymous, 05:44 UTC, March 6, 2010.

Germans could certainly enter the Mediterranean from Italy or Vichy France, but they could not travel between the Mediterranean and any other sea, except perhaps the Black Sea. Marco polo (talk) 22:11, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

(EC)Of course, which is where their northern European shores came in handy. Considering Germany placed more emphasis on land and air forces and not so much on shipping, Gibraltar was not a huge priority for basically the entire war (and became progressively less so as the situation in the East worsened, and after the Italians surrendered). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:22, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Italian submarines also passed the opposite direction, and several operated in the Atlantic from a base in France (Bordeaux, from memory). Nick-D (talk) 10:14, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Ownership of Language

Is it true that some Americans call English "American" and instead of English classes they have "American classes"? Are there any other cases of this happening with other languages, for example people who speak French in Africa calling it "African" instead of French? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Faller999 (talk • contribs) 23:03, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

No.

Occasionally we'll call the language "American" as a joke (Typically to parody over-zealous patriotism, but occasionally just to irritate British people.), but never in any serious context. APL (talk) 23:30, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I would say yes, cases exist. The most famous example is Afrikaans, which developed from 17th century Dutch.

Another example would be Spanish. See Names_given_to_the_Spanish_language where español and castellano are used to distinguish the Spanish spoken in the new world and in metropolitan Spain.

It's also common to shorten the name of the dialect by just idenifying the region.

Ex. "He speaks Acadian." - It's understood the subject speaks a variety of French. --Kvasir (talk) 00:06, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually the "español" / "castellano" divide is much more varied and subtle than Kvasir states; the article he linked to does a good job of explaining. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:16, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm American and have never heard of any student taking "American classes". And yes, we do use the term "American" but like what's been said, it's usually just to rile the speakers of British English. Additionally, software when it has a language preference will often have a choice of either American or British English. Dismas|^(talk) 00:10, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Aside from an ill-educated few, Americans do not refer to their language as "American" except to make a point, humorous or otherwise, as H.L. Mencken did when he titled his book The American Language. That said, I think most Americans do have a sense of ownership of the English language. Unlike some denizens of England, we do not claim exclusive ownership. We recognize that native speakers in other countries (including, for example, Australia) have an equally legitimate claim on our common language. While we call our language "English" and recognize that it originated in England before spreading to America some 400 years ago, I don't think that most Americans would agree that the present-day English "own" the language. Marco polo (talk) 01:24, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

That's interesting. We Brits sometimes call the language spoken by Americans "American" in order to insult Americans and say that you aren't speaking English properly. --Tango (talk) 03:07, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Or "I don't mind what the Americans talk, but I wish they wouldn't call it 'English'" --ColinFine (talk) 10:59, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

"American" as a language is only used as a joke, or as a juxtaposition with Commonwealth English. I've never heard of an actual language class called "American" as opposed to "English". Shadowjams (talk) 11:28, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The distinction is made in French. As a book collector who has occasionally bought French editions of works, I have noticed that translations from British-English authors (e.g. Arthur C. Clarke) often carry on the verso something like "Traduit par l'Anglaise," whereas translations from American-English authors (e.g. Robert Heinlein) sometimes carry "Traduit par l'Americain." [Precise wording uncertain as I don't have any actual examples readily to hand - I might update later.] Personally I think this would be a useful distinction to introduce, as it might help to defuse arguments by ill-educated users of either variety that variations characteristic of the other are "wrong" (unless the two are being improperly mixed). No disrespect need be implied by acknowledging genuine differences. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 19:14, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

There are plenty of English who are just as capable of butchering the language as any American, and the arrogant comments by Colin Fine and Tango prove my point about the perverse desire of the English for exclusive rights to the English language. In fact, the English benefit from sharing their language with the Americans, since it would otherwise be just another rather unimportant European language of a former colonial power. Marco polo (talk) 21:52, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think comments by two editors "prove" anyone's point. As another Brit, I wouldn't take their opinions too seriously - any more seriously than I would take the views of anyone who thinks that Americans are more "important" than anyone else.  ;-} Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:22, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Traduit de l'anglais is what I'd expect to see. — A French-speaker once asked me whether the book in my hands was "English or American". I said I didn't know. Later I noticed that the story called a vehicle's hood a bonnet. —Tamfang (talk) 21:58, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Didn't Noah Webster call the form of English spoken in America "American"? DuncanHill (talk) 21:54, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

So it would seem, or at least he wrote it down. My Webster's gives several definitions for the noun form of "American" and the last of them states it as a short form of "American English", which has a separate entry in the dictionary, a few entries down the page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:53, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Noah Webster must have been an attrocious speller. 84.13.166.170 (talk) 00:17, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

!! (can't talk now, having apoplexy) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:20, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't quite know where to post this, but it belongs to 87.81s comment on the usage of l'Americain in French. The same specific usage exists in German, where you occasionally see "Aus dem Amerikanischen übersetzt" ("translated from American"). [5] ---Sluzzelin talk 02:24, 7 March 2010 (UTC)