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October 2

Philip II of Spain and his 1565 decision on theatre

The reputation of Philip II of Spain, an actor of the counter-reformation, for rigor in religious, political and social matters leads me to ask this question: Could you give me the reason why Philip II of Spain decided to authorize in 1565 the creation of permanent brotherhoods with buildings for the representation of comedies? This information appears in various places including this one I am looking for reliable sources. Thank you already for your answer. Égoïté (talk) 08:44, 2 October 2024 (UTC) (sorry for my bad english)[reply]

Don't have an answer, but there seems to be some academic literature on the topic. You might find something in: Suárez García, José Luis. “La licitud del teatro en el reinado de Felipe II. Textos y pretextos”, XXI Jornadas de Teatro Clásico. Almagro, 1998, pp. 219-251. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:55, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. A French-speaking Wikipedian gave me some references here. Have a nice day, Égoïté (talk) 13:07, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Égoïté, you may be interested in PHILIP II AND THE ORIGINS OF BAROQUE THEATRE which describes how religious brotherhoods or cofradías de socorro petitioned the king for licences for theatrical performances to increase their income, as charitable donations alone could not fulfil the demand for the hospitals, orphanages and homeless hostels that the brotherhoods provided (p. 20 onwards). Alansplodge (talk) 17:28, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK Thanks. I 'll read that this evening or to-morrow. Good night, Égoïté (talk) 18:13, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Military ambulance and rescue ships in WW2

Why were (and still are?) ambulance and rescue ships in WW2 not given Geneva Convention protections? It seems such protections were not even sought. I'm using WW2 Hospital Ships, US Medical Research Centre as a source on ambulance ships being armed, and in part yesterday's reply on a previous thread here by User:Alansplodge, to get me curious that convoy rescue ships were also armed (which seems triply odd to me given their reported war stats).

Our only relevant article to ambulance ships (not hospital ships) seems to be Ambulance § Military use, which does not cover the issue. The armed unmarked ambulance use cases are for modern urban warfare, and ships seem antithetical to that, particularly as hospital ships and coastal rescue are protected classes that exist at the same time and place as ambulance ships. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:10, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Introduction (2017 Commentary)". International Humanitarian Law Databases. Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea. Geneva, 12 August 1949. International Committee of the Red Cross. Commentary of 2017. paragraphs 83-91 might be a good starting point, but don't have time to look further right now. fiveby(zero) 19:56, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but as a starting point it just raises the same "why not" question. It indicates the last maritime IHL treaty in force for the major powers of WW2 was Hague Convention X 1907, which states plainly in Article 1 that a "military hospital ship" is any ship assigned "specially and solely with a view to assisting the wounded, sick and shipwrecked". (Article 16 further seems to indicate that rescue should be accommodated regardless of ship.) So the specialized rescue and ambulance ships can be protected as such, and the USMRC article indicates that marked hospital ships were honored by U-boats, so I'm again asking why they didn't even try to mark rescue and ambulance ships? SamuelRiv (talk) 22:00, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I don't know the answer, but my suspicion is that it's connected with the British policy of shooting down German rescue flying-boats during the Battle of Britain (described at Seenotdienst#World War II), and that consequently the Germans were highly unlikely to respect any claimed immunity from attack and so the ships might as well be defensively armed. Alansplodge (talk) 22:05, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note also that in the 1982 Falklands War, the survey ship HMS Hecla (A133) was converted into an ambulance ship and was given the appropriate Red Cross livery; so the decision not to do this in WWII must have been peculiar to the circumstances of that conflict, rather than a long-term policy. Alansplodge (talk) 22:14, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another thought (after re-reading our article) is that there is a requirement in the Hague Convention for a belligerent to advise the location of any hospital ship. As a convoy's route and location was a secret on which the survival of the convoy depended, giving away that information to the enemy would be undesirable, to say the least. Alansplodge (talk) 22:28, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I had pulled up the Hague X text and I don't see where it says anything resembling a rule like "Belligerents will establish the location of a hospital ship". It says that the ships' names must be shared. (The seenotdienst article is interesting, as it indicates that sea rescue of pilots at least was not a high priority for the Brits for quite a while, but ship rescue would still be quite different.) SamuelRiv (talk) 22:52, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're right, perhaps we should remove that bullet point from the list? I have added a "dubious" template. Alansplodge (talk) 16:00, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So not why were rescue ships not afforded protections under the conventions, but why were rescue ships not designated Hospital Ships under the existing conventions?

On "Ambulance Ship" this might just be the usage of the term. There was a need for ships that carried out the same functions of caring for wounded and transporting from the theater of operations to interior zones but were armed and could perform other duties. As the reference you were using pointed out there were no US hospital ships mid-1942. There was at least initially debate on the issues and inter-service rivalry. The army wanted Hospital Ships but in the Pacific the navy was unsure if the Japanese would respect the convention and they wanted ships which could operate tactically with the fleet and were armed for protection. Also remember that there was a critical shortage of Allied shipping, if you designate a hull as a Hospital Ship it cannot perform other functions. Can't find a definitive source here but will keep looking.

For the convoy rescue ships i'll try and get access to Schofield and Hague but one thing that is probably missing from the article is Doenitz' order to specifically target them

To each convoy a so-called rescue ship is generally attached, a special vessel up to 3,000 tons which is designed to take aboard the shipwrecked after U-boat attacks. These ships are in most cases equipped with catapult planes and large motor boats. …They are heavily armed with depth charge throwers and very maneuverable, and are often taken for U-boat traps by commanders. In view of the fact that the annihilation of ships and crews is desired, their sinking is of great importance.
— "The Trial of Admiral Doenitz". Naval History and Heritage Command.

It might be that a calculation was made that a small ship operating at the rear of the convoy was much too valuable for defense of the convoy to designate as a Hospital Ship. Would the Germans believe that such a vessel might not for instance radio other ships if they spotted a submarine, try and salvage ships, or assist the convoy in some other way? If the allies had some ships that were operating as Hospital Ships that the Germans might not consider completely legitimate would it endanger all Hospital Ships or give ammunition for them to claim that the allies were not respecting the conventions? Sorry about the reference free answer, but will look for more later. fiveby(zero) 16:57, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, British rescue ships were (despite what Doenitz believed) only fitted with light guns, the same as any other defensively equipped merchant ship.

One Geneva Convention requirement which might be relevant here is the last clause of Article 5:

The ships and boats above mentioned which wish to ensure by night the freedom from interference to which they are entitled, must, subject to the assent of the belligerent they are accompanying, take the necessary measures to render their special painting sufficiently plain.

In other words, designated hospital ships needed to be illuminated at night. As the great majority of U-boat attacks took place after dark, this would be problematic, as it would give away the position of the whole convoy.

Alansplodge (talk) 08:04, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't interpret that as that they need to be illuminated at night. Just that if they don't want to be protected at night, they need to be sufficiently visible. It seems to imply that you can be fine as a named hospital ship that is visible and protected by day, and less-visible and unprotected by night. It also is explicit that if you are in a convoy ("the belligerent they are accompanying"), and the convoy tells you to be invisible at night, you need to be invisible, and that will not jeopardize your protection during the daytime either. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:02, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So there was not much point in seeking protection that would only apply in daylight, because the risk of attack was at night. Alansplodge (talk) 19:31, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

At first sight, it may seem strange that, confronted with the need to inaugurate a Rescue Service for the victims of the German submarine offensive against merchant shipping, the Admiralty did not fit out a number of hospital ships to cruise in the areas where the Uboats were active, ready to pick up survivors. In theory, provided they carried the markings and behaved as required by the Hague Convention of 1907, they should have been perfectly safe, and this would have been an admirable solution to the problem. Larger ships could have been used. These would not have suffered in the same way as the Rescue Ships from the savage buffeting of the elements, and possibly their facilities would have been better. There were, however, several reasons why hospital ships were not used.
In the First World War, Germany had refused to grant immunity from attack to hospital ships in the English Channel, parts of the North Sea and in the Mediterranean, even if their identify had been notified. Similarly, during the Second World War, from the outbreak of hostilities, it was known that Germany, under Hitler’s dictatorship, took little stock of international agreements unless it was to their advantage, illustrated by the occasions when Germany, and later Italy, disregarded the provisions of the Hague Convention: by the middle of 1941 no fewer than 13 hospital ships and carriers had been sunk, although all had been clearly marked as such.
The nine hospital ships were...
The British Government therefore had every reason to distrust the use of hospital ships in dealing with casualties on the high seas. In any case, under the regulations a hospital ship had to be lighted up at night. This meant that she could not keep close touch with a convoy without giving away its position to any U-boats which might be lying in wait. Yet, as we have seen, the speed with which a rescue could be effected was more often than not a matter of life or death. So if the rescuing ship was not in company with the victim of the attack, her usefulness would have been reduced.
Thus the arguments against fitting out and employing hospital ships for use with the convoys were decisive and their use was never given serious consideration. There was, however, a suggestion that fitting the Rescue Ships with HF/DF equipment with which to locate U-boats was perhaps somewhat unethical, having regard to the main purpose for which Rescue Ships were needed. But the ships neither claimed nor received any immunity from attack, so the Admiralty felt perfectly justified in using them for any purpose they had in mind, provided it did not interfere with their primary task of rescuing the survivors of torpedoed vessels. Rescue Ships became, in fact, part and parcel of the anti-submarine effort required to ensure the safety of that merchant shipping so vital to the prosecution of the war, and they accepted – like any other ship of a convoy and its escort – the risk of being sunk.
— Schofield, B.B. (2024) [1968]. The Rescue Ships and the Convoys.

for the Admiralty opinion, or at least Vice-admiral Schofield's. If you are thinking of article content here a warning that Schofield is a pretty scattered account, reads more like a first draft than a careful work. The confusing "nine hospital ships" paragraph i elided was however due to a later editors amendment in my edition. fiveby(zero) 16:09, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like Hague 1998 would require a trip to the stacks at a university library. fiveby(zero) 16:53, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 3

Catherine of Aragon a virgin?

Was Catherine of Aragon really a virgin when she married Henry VIII? Was her previous marriage to his brother really unconsummated? 86.130.9.101 (talk) 18:26, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given that Prince Arthur was only 15 at the time of his death, it is not inconceivable that he and Catherine never had sex. That was certainly the argument that Henry put forward in order to marry her.

Of course that argument was reversed when it came time for him to seek an annulment/divorce. Blueboar (talk) 19:07, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably something that will never be answered.

David Starky in his book, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, argues that Catherine had been brought up to know the politics involved and what was needed to achieve her goals.

Allison Weir in her book, The Six Wives of Henry VIII was of the opinion that Catherine was a pious woman who wouldn't have entertained lying about this, and certainly wouldn't have gone to her death bed maintaining that lie.

Athur, Prince of Wales was said to have reported the morning after 'it was thirsty work' (I don't have the exact quote to hand), whereas Catherines maids reported sexual intercourse didn't happen.

Make of that what you will. Knitsey (talk) 19:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Only 15? This was in the Middle Ages. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:56, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rounde ye backe of ye bike shedde? Alansplodge (talk) 08:21, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't dynastic consummations have to be witnessed? Alansplodge (talk) 07:58, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Alansplodge: Not usually, at least not at that period in time. They were 'put to bed' by a contingent of courtiers/religious figures/relatives and left to it.

Sometimes there were people that 'hung around' to ensure things 'were underway'. (I've no idea why I'm reverting to Euphemisms). Knitsey (talk) 10:56, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They had lots of ways of faking things, such as a maid passing the bride a vial of rabbit's blood to be splashed on the sheets. Abductive (reasoning) 11:01, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Only Catherine knows for sure, and she ain't talkin'. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:25, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In The Spanish Princess, Catherine denied many times that she ever consummated her marriage to Arthur. But in the final episode, she confessed to Henry/Harry about consummating their marriage. 86.130.9.101 (talk) 19:31, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That proves it! :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:49, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is impossible to know that for certain. When Henry VIII wanted to divorce her by annulment on the grounds that she had sex with his brother, it was in his interest to claim that she was not a virgin when she married him because she had sex with Arthur. In the same way, Catherine did not wish to divorce him, and it was in her interest to deny that she had sex with Arthur even if she did. There are no proof for either version.

However most historians appear to considered it likely that Arthur did not have sex with Catherine. It is true that he was 15; but he was a weak and sickly teenager, who appeared much younger than actual his age. When Arthur and Catherine married in 1501, no one really claimed that the marriage had been consummated. Because of Arthur's weak health, it would have been seen as natural that the consumation was postphoned until he had become stronger. The couple's respective parents expressed in their correspondence that they would be "pleased rather than displeased" if the consumation was postphoned somewhat. It seems likely that it did. They had separate rooms. In the divorce trial, Arthur is claimed to have bragged that the marriage was consumated, but that appears not to have been mentioned before.

After Arthur died and Catherine was bethrothed to Henry, the Pope was asked for a dispensation because Catherine had been married to Henrys brother. The dispension claimed that the marriaged "maybe" had been consumated; but if it had really been consumated, they would simply have stated that it had been, since that was an important part of the dispensation.

When Henry VIII married Catherine in 1509, he himself claimed very clearly that his bride had been a virgin on their wedding night. It was not until the wedding proceedings twenty years later that he started to claim otherwise. That means he changed his story according to his wishes.

Catherine herself never changed her story. When Arthur died in 1502, she clearly stated that the marriage was unconsumated; she continued to say so until her marriage to Henry in 1509, and she said the same thing during the divorce in the 1520s and 1530s. Notably, she was also genuinly religious, and historians therefore assume that it would not be in characther for her to lie to her priests and the church. --Aciram (talk) 16:02, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 5

pAmherst 63 full transcription

Kister 2019^[1] has a few lines of papyrus Amherst 63 in plain square script, is there similar somewhere for the whole document? I can't find one in any script. Temerarius (talk) 16:38, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(from the source's sources) If Steiner and Nims 2017 (free academia.edu account required) doesn't have what you're looking for, OCLC 1025256342 might be the other option (it only turned up in academic libraries for my location, but you can often just uh walk in there if you have a backpack). I looked into some of the older sources the source cites: Steiner 1983 doesn't have it; doi:10.1086/370721 might, but University of Chicago does not grant TWL access to that eighty-year-old paper, as if anyone who had anything to do with the research or original publication were still alive to profit from it. Got no results from either the British Museum or the JP Morgan Museum, each of which were said by one source or another to house the physical document. Folly Mox (talk) 20:30, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thanks! I'll take a look.

Temerarius (talk) 20:32, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Steiner does say there are likely careless errors in the first column, the transliterated Demotic. I hope his three-column attempt isn't the last. I just downloaded Van der Toorn's "Becoming Diaspora Jews" and the fact there's only a translation there seems wrong somehow, either cocky or the opposite. Like why go to all the trouble of doing all the steps yourself then fail to show your work? Steiner's is invaluable, but fallible. He's got a very "trust me" tone, but makes some far-flung extractions over simpler solutions. Anyways, I'll be poring over it for some time, and I really appreciate you going to the effort to help me. The two latter options weren't available to me.

Temerarius (talk) 03:52, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Temerarius, it turns out I'm dumb and missed the obvious step of checking whether Bowman's 1944 publication was shared with Jstor by University of Chicago Press. Of course it had been, and JSTOR 542994 does reproduce portions of the text in a script similar to the one used by the source you originally posted here. TWL does grant access to the paper via Jstor.

As to Karel van der Toorn's 2018 book length treatment published by Ugarit-Verlag, that seems like it would be a great source to use for the article, but yeah Worldcat showed availability only in libraries at least 1300km away from me, and the two online booksellers I saw have it in stock were asking nearly $200 for a copy. The publisher's website was also malconfigured and wouldn't serve me the page about the book.

I suppose as a last ditch effort, you might be able to email contact van der Toorn, explaining that you're an independent scholar working on the Wikipedia article about the subject of their recent book, but aren't able to access it to use it as a source. They may be willing to share sections of their author's proof with you (most academics are significantly more interested in sharing their research than in their publisher profiting from it). (I have contacted individual academics with research questions before, although not since grad school. Most are pretty busy.)

That said, van der Toorn's own doi:10.1515/zaw-2016-0037 (2017, De Gruyter; TWL yes) states that their own work on papyrus Amherst 63 is based on the Chicago photographs of 1901, so obviously direct inspection of this historical document has been difficult for everyone. Folly Mox (talk) 12:46, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I will email the professor! Thanks.

Is there a way to download the high resolution at the Morgan library's site? Other than pixel-perfect is asking for a headache. I'd screenshot and stitch but there's no view at 100% button. https://www.themorgan.org/manuscript/318272

Temerarius (talk) 16:05, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This link resolves the 3.2MP version. Unsure if they have a higher resolution somewhere; you might be able to use photo manipulation to help the glyphs stand out better from the papyrus ground. Folly Mox (talk) 16:15, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Click 'zoom' and it goes bigger with no jpg download. But it looks like it does go to 100% and max out there, after all, so I can pan and stitch. Worth the effort.

Temerarius (talk) 16:20, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Re: U Chicago Press, God, it seems my Wikipedia library account was--it says permission denied, I'm not allowed to do that, did not receive a valid oauth response. I used to have access.

Temerarius (talk) 16:38, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm able to access University of Chicago Press via TWL, but they're pretty selective about which publications our institutional subscription can access. From a pretty vague test search, it seems like around ⅓ of their content is still locked for us. Folly Mox (talk) 17:47, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Richard C. Steiner's writings are downloadable from https://repository.yu.edu/ , but I'm not sure if there's an overall listing page. I actually have a PDF of Steiner and Nims 1983 on my hard drive, but I didn't make the connection with the alphanumeric reference "pAmherst 63" until Steiner's name was mentioned... AnonMoos (talk) 17:15, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, he wrote a lot of papers. Thanks for linking, there's some stuff you won't find anywhere.

Temerarius (talk) 02:37, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Kister, Menahem (2019-09-09). "Psalm 20 and Papyrus Amherst 63: A Window to the Dynamic Nature of Poetic Texts". Vetus Testamentum. 70 (3). Brill: 426–457. doi:10.1163/15685330-12341400. ISSN 0042-4935.

October 6

Physical geography

P 41.89.220.5 (talk) 07:37, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Identify which area of your homework this is. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:39, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Identity of a painting

There's a discussion on Commons here:[1] about if a painting is Cardinal Richelieu or Henri, Duke of Rohan. Knowledgeable views welcome. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:56, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gråbergs Gråa Sång, I am not knowledgeable, but I have provided some information anyway. TSventon (talk) 15:46, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Old Manipur maps?

Hi. Anyone knows where online it would be possible to find some good maps of Manipur from 1950s or 1960s, in which administrative division borders like tehsils, circles, subdivisions, panas could be found? My google search didn't come up with anything good so far. -- Soman (talk) 17:17, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've spent some time looking, and have also come up empty. The National Archives of India at abhilekh-patal.in only seem to have digitised cartographic material through the late 1800s. Archive.org hosts An Historical Atlas of the Indian Subcontinent, but this was published 1949. The National Atlas of India (1959, ed. S.P. Chatterjee) seems like a promising source, but I haven't found it digitised anywhere. The National Atlas has many further editions and supplementa, none of which appear to be available online. I haven't done a thorough TWL search, but maybe that's the next step. Folly Mox (talk) 18:12, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 7

number of people on ship

[2] says 78 and [3] says 75. Why? (it's for this). Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 05:56, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Only the initial statement in the first source says 78; all of the updates there say 75. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:44, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vault of Horror

The "Bargain in Death" segment of the Amicus anthology film Vault of Horror is very obviously cribbed from the Ambrose Bierce short story "One Summer Night". Can anyone find a reliable source that we could use in the article to say so? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 20:36, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure you're already aware of this, but just to cover all the bases: the intermediate step of course is the comic book Tales from the Crypt #28 from Feb/Mar 1952, which is where the movie got its direct inspiration from. EC is, in my experience, more studied than Amicus, which is now mostly forgotten (I'm a fan, but they and Tigon tend to get overshadowed or lumped-in with their more famous contemporary, Hammer). So, my suggestion is to establish that connection (Bierce => EC). The original credits unfortunately do not help. It's user-edited like WP, so the Grand Comics Database won't qualify as a WP:RS anyway, but their write up here claims Gaines and Feldstein as co-plotters and Feldstein as the writer of the script. So, not a great start, but it still seems the likeliest connection. What I'd suggest is getting a hold of something like Von Bernewitz, Fred; Geissman, Grant (2000). Tales of Terror: The EC Companion or one of the other sources listed at the bottom of EC Comics and see if you can find something there.

I'm not familiar with the Bierce work, so I can't comment directly, but EC (and their later brethren Creepy, Eerie, etc.) were usually (but not always) pretty good about acknowledging sources, so it's a little unusual that they didn't do that here. Any chance it's a coincidence? Matt Deres (talk) 02:49, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Matt Deres: Many thanks - the von Bernewitz & Geissman book is available at Archive.org, and on page 118 says Bargain in Death! is inspired by "One Summer Night" by Ambrose Bierce. You can read the Bierce story here. DuncanHill (talk) 10:59, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@DuncanHill: If you're reading Bierce, don't miss "The Death of Halpin Frayser". A classic! Deor (talk) 17:56, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Deor: Thank you for the recommendation - I'm actually working my way through numerous horror/mystery/ghost/weird short-story anthologies I have accumulated over the years. I see that "The Death of Halpin Frayser" is in Blair, David (2002). Gothic Short Stories. Wordsworth Classics. Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 1-84022-425-8., which is next-but-one (or two, if the latest from the British Library "Tales of the Weird" series turns up before I get to it) on my reading list. I won't read the Wikipedia article until I read the story. DuncanHill (talk) 18:12, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Public knowledge of the FFF system in the 60s

This needs a little explanation before the actual question, which is a mix of history and science - bear with me.

The FFF system (furlong-firkin-fortnight) is a humourous set of measurement units, mostly used for jokes about obscure measurement systems. I'm not sure when it was first proposed, since the article about it is lacking in historical detail.

In the book The Prospect of Immortality by Robert Ettinger, he states that "electrical signals travel essentially with the speed of light, namely about 1,560,000,000,000,000 furlongs per fortnight". There is no indication of this being a joke, and the source given for this paragraph gives the speed of light in the more typical metres per second, not furlongs per fortnight. The book is aimed towards the average layman of the 1960s (specifically "it is meant to be understandable to anyone who gets his money's worth out of a newspaper", from the foreword) and does have some humourous aspects to its writing, but it's strange to me that this measurement is used with zero explanation and zero indication that it's meant to be a joke and not a genuine way of measuring speed - Ettinger doesn't even give the speed in more usual terms afterwards.

So, my question is: would the average person of the 1960s (or even an academic of the 1960s) know about the FFF system enough to know that it's a joke? And would an average person roughly know the speed of light in the 1960s without having to research it, meaning Ettinger wouldn't have to give the speed in the usual units?

Let me know if this would be more well-suited for one of the other reference desks. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 21:06, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of FFF, but it's patently obvious to me that "furlongs per fortnight" is a joke (I went to school in London the 1960s when furlongs were not obscure, if that's pertinent). Alansplodge (talk) 21:43, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One question is whether the figure given for "furlongs per fortnight" is reasonably accurate. In school we learned that the speed of light was about 186,000 miles per second. A furlong is an eighth of a mile, so that would be 1,488,000 furlongs per second. There are 60 x 60 x 24 = 86,400 seconds per day. A fortnight is 14 days, which would be 1,209,600 seconds. So the figure could be 1,488,000 x 1,209,600 = 1,799,884,800,000,000. That's considerably more than 1,560,000,000,000,000, though it's in the general neighborhood. Or is my calculation incorrect? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:44, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Baseball Bugs, too many zeroes. 1,488,000 × 1,209,600 = 1,799,884,800,000. You gave the number of furlongs in 1,000 fortnights, i.e. about 38⅓ years. Nyttend (talk) 06:55, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't that also then be a problem with the 1,560,000,000,000,000 figure? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:44, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, yes, you're right. Nyttend (talk) 21:20, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure I first heard of furlongs/fortnight in an undergraduate physics class ca. 1980. It's the kind of geeky humor which would probably have been confined to certain groups then -- though later on in the Internet era some such things have achieved wider publicity ("Pi Day" as March 14th, "unobtainium" given prominence by the Avatar movie, and so on)... AnonMoos (talk) 19:52, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Spelled "unobtanium" in the film script. --Lambiam 05:34, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Surely Pi Day is the 22nd of July? DuncanHill (talk) 21:47, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pi Day -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:10, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Versus Pi Approximation Day. --Lambiam 05:27, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are they claiming 3.14 is exact? DuncanHill (talk) 10:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just before 4 PM on March 14, it will be 15.926535897932... hours on the 24-hour clock. --Lambiam 16:13, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are y'all talking about me? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:20, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 8

Ottoman 15th century Molla Lutfî, Pl. help confirm

Draft:Molla Lutfi was a 15th century Ottoman scholar, Pl. help confirm following:

1) tr:Molla Lutfî is different from Lutfi (court official) ?

2) Date and year of execution, RS sources I came across seem to give 1494 (possibly December 24) as date of execution where as tr:Molla Lutfî seem to give January 23, 1495 as date of death please help confirm which is more likely to be correct one?

3) Molla Lutfi was executed at Hippodrome of Constantinople or Covered Hippodrome?

4) The Reference number 9 in "Crafting History: Essays on the Ottoman World and Beyond in Honor of Cemal Kafadar. Germany, Academic Studies Press, 2023." refers to a letter compiled in Tokapi Palace Museum archive E 8101/1 which had complained that Lutfi to have had stolen nefis books from collection of late Sinan Pasha, who was mentor to Lutfi. A corroborating ref is preferred saying wording used in the letter meant 'stolen' since late Sinan Pasha was a close mentor of Lutfi.

5) Last but not least, I would also request list of Molla Lufti's books with Arabic and roman script nomenclatures and translations of the names, if possible.

Bookku (talk) 03:06, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bookku, the difference between 24 December 1494 and 23 January 1495 is too great for solely Julian–Gregorian conversion to account for, but that may be part of the discrepancy. I've noticed that English language sources seem to prefer Julian where other languages tend to prefer Proleptic Gregorian. If you determine this is part of the problem, you may wish to include the other calendar's date in a footnote like we did at Zhu Yuanzhang to prevent people from changing it to be "consistent" with their own language sources. Folly Mox (talk) 18:02, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why would any reference use Proleptic Gregorian? That's saying, "this is the date it would have been if Pope Gregory had decreed the new calendar earlier than he actually did - except he didn't". There's obviously a case for converting Julian dates to Gregorian in cases where the country concerned had not yet adopted the Gregorian calendar; that can apply from 1582 onwards. But going backwards from 1582 makes no sense; the new calendar was not retrospective, and Julian dates right up to Wednesday 4 October 1582 are correct and should not be converted. That that date was immediately followed by Thursday 15 October 1582 as the first day of the new Gregorian calendar was just a result of correcting the discrepancies that had built up over 15 centuries. There was always meant to be a disconnection, the famous 10-day gap (which increased every century the longer it took for countries to convert). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:36, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cultures that did not start out with the Julian calendar (Chinese calendar, Islamic calendar, e.g.) have a choice to make when converting pre-Gregorian dates to use a Western calendar, and many sources make the reasonable choice of using Proleptic Gregorian for consistency and ease of calculation rather than having to remember and account for the 1582 reform. Folly Mox (talk) 11:44, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) In the 15th-century sources, which are written in Ottoman Turkish, all dates are given in the Islamic calendar. I suppose that present-day scholars, translating such dates to a form accessible to their readership, see no reason to use another calendar that was current in the 15th century but is antiquated now. --Lambiam 11:47, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I get what you are both saying. I suppose it makes a kind of sense if those sources are considered in isolation. But the moment you introduce events in other countries around the same times, and those countries were using the Julian calendar, hey presto! there's an instant mismatch between the dates, making it seem as if one event preceded the other by up to 10 days in real time when in fact they were coincident. That seems less than useful as an aid to scholarship. Also, the conversion they use seems to be based on the view that Julian dates up to 4 October 1582 were somehow "inaccurate" and need to be corrected. That's just not so. Yes, the calendar itself got out of synch over a period of centuries, which is why Gregory decreed a new one - but the labels that were actually given to days before then (i.e. the dates) were the ones that the entire Western world used, the only official and correct ones (which were NOT retrospectively adjusted by Gregory's reform), and to fiddle with them from the lofty perspective of 20th-21st century scholarship seems somewhat wrong-headed, imo. It may sometimes be helpful to make it clear that, e.g. 15 July 1374 was a date in the Julian calendar. That's the solution, if one were required. But to convert that to 25 July in the Proleptic Gregorian is a step too far, and in the wrong direction. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:36, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bookku, according to Lutfi (court official), [Lutfi's] letter was "written in the middle of the month of Cemazi the Second in the year three and seventy and nine hundred²" which roughly translates to August 1565-6. (Where ² is a malformed ^[2] citing "Casale pg 70", and Casale authored two works cited...) Anyway this seems to exclude identity between the two subjects (they also have different Wikidata QIDs, although no overlapping authority control IDs to help verify). Folly Mox (talk) 11:55, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also the tr.wp article links Hippodrome of Constantinople (technically, tr:Sultanahmet Meydanı; I just checked the language switcher), in re your question 3. Folly Mox (talk) 12:01, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) The article on the scholar on the Turkish Wikipedia identifies the place of execution unambiguously as the Hippodrome of Constantinople. I don't think the Covered Hippodrome was then still extant. --Lambiam 12:08, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gregorian calendar date January 23, 1495 corresponds to Julian calendar date January 14, 1495 or 1494. The uncertainty in the year is due to the fact that the new year did not everywhere start on January 1st; see Julian calendar § New Year's Day. In England, March 24, 1494 was followed by March 25, 1495. Both dates fall in April 1495 with Gregorian reckoning. --Lambiam 05:20, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Date conversions seem bit confusing to me. Trying to study and understand. Bookku (talk) 05:30, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What's confusing is the use of the proleptic Gregorian calendar. If sources actually employ this, they're doing a disservice to their readers, imo. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:18, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 9

Difference between marriage in the USA and “elsewhere”?

Hello from France to the Reference Desk Users. My « strange » question comes from the end of Andrea Dworkin's strange quote in a book about “The Economics of Sex” (I can't find the exact title): “A man wants what a woman has - her sex. He can steal it (rape), convince her to give it to him (seduction), rent it (prostitution), lease it long-term (marriage in the US), or acquire it outright (marriage in most countries of the world).” I read that quotation in Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature (a translated book to French). My question concerns the words in bold.
I'll take the risk of trying to answer my question: Could this be an allusion to the fact that, statistically, marriages end much (?) more often in the USA than elsewhere in divorce, followed by marriages, then divorce, then marriages, sometimes with the same person (rare in France, I think?). Thank you for your matrimonial cogitations. Jojodesbatignoles (talk) 12:04, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Andrea was kind of "damaged", and it's hard to tell what she thought she was getting at. But if you google "divorce rate in france vs us", for example, you'll find they are comparable. A century ago and more, divorces were much harder to get in America, and probably elsewhere as well. You couldn't just say "we want a divorce". You had to show "cause", which led to bitterly contested trials. (That still happens sometimes.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:03, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

However, since colonial times, divorce laws in British North America / The United States were much more rational than the horrible pre-1857 divorce system in England, and during parts of U.S. history, there has been a state with noticeably laxer divorce laws than most of the other states (Indiana during part of the 19th century, Nevada during much of the 20th century). AnonMoos (talk) 19:50, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This would be my assumption, a sarcastic allusion to the serial marriage practice found particularly among the rich and powerful. I doubt that Dworkin undertook a serious statistical examination comparing the US with other Western countries in the 1970s, or whenever she penned these words. (Rather unscholarly, neither Pinker nor others quoting these sentences provide a traceable bibliographic citation that allows me to date this passage.) --Lambiam 14:01, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as P. G. Wodehouse wrote in Summer Moonshine, "Like so many substantial citizens of America, he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag." Deor (talk) 16:05, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The original seems to be called "Sexual Economics: The Terrible Truth", possibly first published in 1972 in Ms.. Having skimmed the article, she never explains that aside remark - she actually talks mostly about socialist Czechoslovakia and the USSR in the rest of the piece. Some modern quotations of her adapt the quote to "lease it over the long-term (modern marriage/relationship) or own it outright (traditional marriage)" That said, 1972 was just after the first no-fault divorce law was passed in the United States (in California), and looking at Divorce law by country, slightly before most European countries (which liberalized in the mid 70s. Smurrayinchester 14:12, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is the full original quote:

In fucking, as in reproduction, sex and econom ics are inextricably joined. In male-supremacist cultures, women are believed to embody carnality; women are sex. A man wants what a woman has—sex. He can steal it (rape), persuade her to give it away (seduction), rent it (prostitution), lease it over the long term (marriage in the United States), or own it outright (marriage in most societies). A man can do some or all of the above, over and over again.

It is indeed from "Sexual Economics: The Terrible Truth", first given as a speech to women at Harper & Row in 1976, and later published by Ms. in what Dworkin calls an "edited" version (her air quotes). The full original speech is published in Letters From a War Zone (1989). See p. 120. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:22, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Economics certainly figure into it, for example ugly rich guys getting pretty women. That's a universal truth. Did Dworkin ever elaborate on her perceived differences between American and other marriages? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:40, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes economics figures into everything and that's a truth, but what's supposedly this universal truth? How about a source? Where in pre-20th-century history was it not true that a rich and high status person, regardless of superficial appearance or indeed gender, could not exert comparable influence on any in the lower classes? In the 21st century so-called-middle-class of developed economies, are there numbers on those who would sell themselves into the described effective rape and slavery to marry those in the uppermost socioeconomic classes? These are all economic questions that are hardly universal, which is the point others are making of how this was an aside remark. SamuelRiv (talk) 05:12, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A source for the obvious? What color is the sky in your world? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Marriage and divorce ratios in selected countries: 1960 to 1992 shows that the divorce rate in the USA was more than double that of any Western European nation throughout the late 20th century. Alansplodge (talk) 11:43, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Even before that, the ease of divorce in some of those there United States was proverbial. "King's Moll Renoed in Wolsey's Home Town". DuncanHill (talk) 17:32, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty much a modern expression of an old theory of Marx's. He was writing polemically at the time—hyperbolically, even, perhaps with an element of tongue-in-cheek for the worthy tailors—but the topic is similar:

Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other's wives ... Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common.^[1]

Dworkin's was an updated working, in theme and language, but the hyperbole is akin. SerialNumber54129 12:59, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not, however, the hyperbolic nature of Dworkin's passage, or the contrast between bourgeois and proletariat, but the alleged contrast between the US and "most societies", something Marx is mum about. --Lambiam 15:03, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Freud had something to say about Marx's Mum. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:13, 11 October 2024 (UTC) [reply]

References

^ Marx, K., The Communist Manifesto (London, 1888; repr. 1985), p.101.

October 11

"The white one"

Who is the white one in myth? In Egypt,: Krauss^[1] says "For White One as a synonym for the eastern eye of Horus, cf the Hymns to the Diadem, above." Adolf Erman 1911 gives only one result for "der Weiße". Krauss didn't mention which of the 600-some pages. Any help? (And where does Hathi get off restricting downloads of materials marked public domain?) Temerarius (talk) 03:24, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

^ Steele, John M.; Imhausen, Annette (2002). Under One Sky. Münster: Ugarit. p. 193. ISBN 3-934628-26-5.

Temerarius (talk) 03:24, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Hedjet. 196.50.199.218 (talk) 05:38, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see it. Now what?

Temerarius (talk) 19:25, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, depending on the context of the article you're working on, the next step is to reframe your question from Who is the white one in myth? to "What is the White One in ancient Egyptian tradition?"

If that step is taken, then Hedjet is your answer. If your context does not allow for that interpretation, perhaps more information would help people zero in on an aswer that meets your requirements. Folly Mox (talk) 19:50, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Was their east the same as our east?

Temerarius (talk) 17:01, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not familiar with ancient Egyptian cartography and orienteering. Are you consulting documents in the original Egyptian? I'd imagine translators would likely interpret this correctly, unless like me they suffer directional dyslexia.

I speculate that Egyptians may have used "East" to refer to other cultures that were more northerly / northeasterly than strictly East, which I base on no research whatsoever.

Would you be willing to share the context for these questions? You done got me curious. Folly Mox (talk) 10:44, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's actually a few things, in part I'm wondering if there's a lunar or solar quality to the whtite one. It sounds like the moon, but here pages 228-9 make me think dawn < radiate/radiant might be the source meaning.

Temerarius (talk) 02:04, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It being public domain means that if you get your hands on it, then you can freely redistribute it. It doesn't mean that anyone else is obliged to give it to you... AnonMoos (talk) 14:08, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

0 with Roman numerals

In the Sola Busca tarot, the Fool has number 0 alongside the other trumps with Roman numerals. The existence of such a combination is not mentioned in Roman numerals#Zero. Are there other examples? When did this first occur, as far as we know? --KnightMove (talk) 12:16, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

0 – Mato
I – Panfilio
II – Postumio
III – Lenpio

KnightMove (talk) 12:16, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@KnightMove: Also see The Fool (tarot card). SerialNumber54129 13:02, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The ancient Romans didn't really have a concept of zero as a numerical digit in ordinary reckoning (though of course they had several words meaning "nothing"), and a zero numerical digit symbol would not have been needed or useful when writing positive numbers with Roman numerals. The closest they had to a positional notation system was sexagesimal (base-60) and was mainly used by astronomers. The sexagesimal system had a limited internal zero (used when flanked by other numbers on both sides, to indicate an empty place). AnonMoos (talk) 14:01, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See 0#Transmission to Europe. Arabic numerals including 0 were introduced to Western Europe early in the 13th century, so any time from then on an individual using Roman numerals (and they are of course still in active use today) might have found it convenient to combine 0 with them. Some may have known of classical Greek use of omicron (οおみくろん) when working with Babylonian texts that had a 'placeholder' zero symbol, and Hipparchus, Ptolemy and other astronomers' use of the Hellenistic zero (see 0#Classical antiquity) (which the Romans failed to adopt into Roman numerals) around 150 CE (mentioned in the 0 article): I can't reproduce it here, but it comprised a long 'overline' above a tiny circle. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 20:25, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By the magic of unicode: 𐆊, U+1018A GREEK ZERO SIGN. This is also at the top of the article Greek Numerals. Card Zero (talk) 20:48, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Amusingly, that (like several other characters in the article) doesn't render on my PC: presumably I lack the font. No matter, because I don't myself need to. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 04:26, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like this:

, a small circle with a long overbar. --Lambiam 09:08, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The first font I install on any new computer is Unifont for precisely this kind of purpose. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:50, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that information. Maybe someone knows a specific example of "any time from then on an individual using Roman numerals (and they are of course still in active use today) might have found it convenient to combine 0 with them".? --KnightMove (talk) 16:19, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It may be that both (a) this late 15th century tarot is actually the first such example, and (b) you are the first person to have wondered about this point. I have not been able to find any work mentioning it; probably the expertise of a scholar specialising in Mediaeval MSS is needed.

For tangential interest, I have while searching encountered a 52-page work The Elements of abbreviation in medieval Latin paleography by Adriano Cappelli, translated by David Heiman & Richard Kay, University of Kansas Libraries 1982 (googling the title gives access to downloadable pdfs). It doesn't address this particular question, but may be of interest nonetheless. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 19:42, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If a modern example is of use to you, not the earliest (it seems you asked for both?), see Shepherd Gate Clock. Card Zero (talk) 22:11, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting, thank you both! --KnightMove (talk) 08:55, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the existence of such examples was worth to be added to the article. --KnightMove (talk) 15:07, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is not clear, though, that the creator of the deck thought of his use of the mark "0" as being a Roman numeral. Rather, I think it quite plausible that the creator, lacking a Roman numeral for zero, decided to use a large Arabic numeral instead. --Lambiam 18:25, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 12

Graham Greene and R. L. Stevenson as "cousins"

Our article on Graham Greene (citing a biography) says that his mother Marion Raymond Greene (1872-1959, the daughter of Carleton Greene and Jane Whytt Elizabeth Anne Wilson) was a cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson. This source specifies they were first cousins. R.L.S.'s grandparents are well known: 1) Robert Stevenson (1750-1852) and his wife Jean Smith, 2) Rev. Lewis Balfour and his wife Henrietta Scott Smith. The names like Greene and Wilson are not listed among R.L.S.'s ancestors, as well as the Scottish names like Stevenson and Balfour are absent among Marion Raymond's ancestors. Could anyone clarify this mystery? Ghirla^-трёп- 23:36, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The ODNB says "Greene, (Henry) Graham (1904–1991), author, was born on 2 October 1904 at St John's, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, the fourth of six children of Charles Henry Greene (1865–1942), teacher, and his wife and cousin, Marion Raymond (1872–1959), eldest daughter of the Revd Carleton Greene, whose wife, Jane Wilson, was a first cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson." - so Graham Greene's grand-mother was a first cousin of RLS. DuncanHill (talk) 23:54, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Indeed, Jane's mother Marion Balfour (1811-1884) was the daughter of the above-mentioned Lewis Balfour! Ghirla^-трёп- 00:06, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That means that Greene was RLS's first cousin twice removed. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well found out, I didn't get there yet. What's your source? Gratuitous extra details: robert-louis-stevenson.org has him attending cousin Jane's marriage in Cockfield, Suffolk, in 1870, and cockfield.org.uk confirms that these (Jane and her sister Maud) were the English cousins mentioned in our article, who he was visiting in 1873. Card Zero (talk) 00:23, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Try this link. Ghirla^-трёп- 10:04, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 13

Musical score on keyboard and PC

I was playing a Yamaha dgx-670, I pressed the "score" button, and was displeased to see there's not an option to have the digital display's staff show the keys you're hitting. Is there a keyboard with that feature? But more immediately, what's a well-regarded PC or browser app to make a score? Failing that, to print totally custom blank score sheets? Temerarius (talk) 00:48, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I often hear LilyPond mentioned. Card Zero (talk) 00:56, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've had the (proprietary and now ancient) Sibelius v1.4 for many years, but later versions seem fairly unwieldy. Compared to the professional Sibelius with its full GUI, the text-based Lilypond by itself is fairly slow and tedious, but Frescobaldi (software) provides a front end (Win, MacOS, Linux), which I haven't tried yet. See also List of scorewriters and Comparison of scorewriters. For basic stuff I used to use Cakewalk Express 3.01, (NB Windows 3.1, 8-character file names etc.) It's still available here. If you want step-time or real-time MIDI input, to show on screen what what you're playing, free-ish MuseScore seems to fit the bill but I've never tried it. Most of these programs have a fairly steep learning curve involved. The more music theory you know, the better. MinorProphet (talk) 09:10, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've always used Mozart the music processor. ColinFine (talk) 16:21, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pasternak imprisoned?

A question has been raised at Talk:Hamlet on screen whether a source is correct in asserting that Pasternak and Smoktunovski had been imprisoned by Stalin. See what is currently the last topic on that talk page, but also the one above it, from over a decade before. It seems probable anon is right but, while I accept that sources don't need to be in the English language, I personally cannot verify anything written in another language. Can anyone here help to resolve that? If it proves wrong I expect the right solution is to simply remove the offending sentence rather than replacing it. AndyJones (talk) 11:05, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've answered there, having checked the Google books copy of the source. It doesn't say he was imprisoned, rather that "both the translator of the text, Boris Pasternak, and the actor playing Hamlet, Innokenti Smoktunovski, had bitter experience of Stalin's regime" DuncanHill (talk) 11:21, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See also Doctor Zhivago for more info for his "experiences". It was his mistress Olga Ivinskaya who had been in the Gulag under Stalin. MinorProphet (talk) 12:25, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 14

New Spain

Block evasion
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
What was the penal colony for the State enemies in New Spain until the Spanish domination's end?

Execution by garrote?
Sleigh (talk) 11:02, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently, there were no penal colonies as such, convicts worked where they were needed:

In Spanish America penal servitude followed the peninsular model with the exception that the line between public and private interests was blurred. In Spain convicts could be used only in projects deemed to be in the interest of the state; for example, they labored on the galleys and in the presidios in the service of the king and were under military control and jurisdiction. In the New World there was no such distinction, and anything that helped to further develop the economy was deemed in the public interest. Faced with a severe shortage of labor because of the decline in Indian population from the middle of the sixteenth century, the colonial courts sentenced men to terms of service at hard labor and then turned them over to private employers who used them in mines, factories and mills.

Penal Servitude in the Spanish Empire: Presidio Labor in the Eighteenth Century - Hispanic American Historical Review (1978)

Alansplodge (talk) 11:39, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Leonid Ogarev

Block evasion.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Are there info about the full life of the one who tried to assassinate Stalin in 1931? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.207.179.195 (talk) 21:34, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Where have you seen anything about that guy? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:56, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The article "The 4 times they tried to assassinate Stalin says he was "a former White Guard officer, a member of the Russian All-Military Union organization of emigres and, moreover, a British intelligence agent." Reliable source? Who knows. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:29, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 15

Aircraft carrier near 8G78+MR Camp Pendleton North, California

I spotted an aircraft carrier near 8G78+MR Camp Pendleton North, California around Oct 14th 8:20 AM local time. I did not have any binoculars or scopes so I could not make out any identifying marks. Is there any online public information on which carrier this might have been?

From this site[4], it might have been CVN 68, 70, or 71. That's all I've been able to find so far. Epideurus (talk) 01:52, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

According to Navy news, the only carrier close enough to Southern California to be seen is USS Nimitz (CVN-68). Nearby, USS Tripoli (LHA-7) is in Northern California and USS George Washington (CVN-73) is near Southern California, but too far from shore to be seen. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 13:00, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I did google quite a bit beforehand, but there were many purported "US carrier tracker" sites and it was hard to tell which one was correct. Epideurus (talk) 20:11, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proletariat, etymology

Please see this quote from Terry Eagleton's "Why Marx was Right?" published in 2011.

"The word ‘‘proletariat’’ comes to us from the Latin word for ‘‘offspring,’’ meaning those who were too poor to serve the state with anything but their wombs. Too deprived to contribute to economic life in any other way, these women produced labour power in the form of children."

In ancient Rome, the Latin form of the modern expression carried the meaning of people having no other property than their children, according to many sources. None mentions it has anything to do with womb or giving birth. The sources I checked would rather suggest a destitute class of the society rather than a female section of that class. Eagleton cites no source. Anybody knows any scholarly source suggesting a meaning akin to Eagleton's? Thanks for any information. Narrativist (talk) 05:31, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The word "proletariat" comes from French "prolétariat", which is derived from Latin "proletarius"^[1]^[2]

• In ancient Rome, "proletarius" referred to a citizen of the lowest class, whose only contribution to the state was their offspring (proles)

• The Latin word "proles" means "offspring" or "progeny"

• Breaking it down further:

"Proles" comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *pro-al-, composed of:

• pro- meaning "forth"

• al- meaning "to grow, nourish"

The modern political and economic sense of "proletariat" to mean the working class or wage-earners emerged in the mid-19th century.^[3]

It was notably used by Karl Marx and gained prominence in Marxist theory to refer to the class of wage workers engaged in industrial production.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b "proletariat". Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 3 October 2024.
^ "proletariat". www.etymonline.com.
^ "proletariat, n". OED. Oxford English Dictionary.

--136.56.165.118 (talk) 06:47, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many dictionaries use this phrase "only contribution to the state". For instance, I looked at Chambers's from 1908 (since it's on Gutenberg), same phrase. I assume they all come from the same source, perhaps a Roman author? It carries a strange inbuilt assumption about Romans having a raison d'être of supporting their hive, like ants. Proletarians seem to be specific to the Centuriate assembly. Card Zero (talk) 08:18, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I got to know as much but my question is, are there any sources saying that the expression had a female specific meaning in ancient Rome. Narrativist (talk) 09:27, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If there are other sources with the same misunderstanding, they probably are based on a common source whose wording was, perhaps, ambiguous. The Latin noun proletarius is masculine; there is no noun *proletarias from which one might surmise prolétariat, first attested in 1832, to have been derived. Lewis & Short write: "According to a division of the people by Servius Tullius, a citizen of the lowest class, who served the State not with his property, but only with his children (proles), a proletary".^[5] --Lambiam 17:36, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that the specific references to women and their wombs is Eagleton's own poetic flourish (which though florid is not factually inaccurate) rather than a reflection of exact wording in any original source. Since he's still a practising academic, you could always try asking him directly. {The poster formerly known as 87.812.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 03:52, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Women's suffrage in Afghanistan

I wonder where the information that Women's suffrage in Afghanistan was introduced in 1919 comes from? I have often seen the claim that women where given the wote in Afghanistan in 1919 in online discussions, debates, blogs, online comments, etc. But this is never claimed in any reference text book anywhere. On the contrary, text books always state that women in Afghanistan was given the vote in 1964. Where does the 1919 claim come from? Is it some sort of internet myth? --Aciram (talk) 16:47, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I can point you to one textbook which states that Afghan women were given the vote in 1919, had it revoked in 1929, and regained it in 1964 ([6]); and to another which says more vaguely that the right of women to vote, initially granted in 1919, "was revoked and reinstated several times before most recently being implemented in 2004" ([7]). --Antiquary (talk) 17:37, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Did Afghanistan have a parlamentary system in 1919? Did men vote in 1919? --Aciram (talk) 18:00, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Previous thread on the same subject Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 July 28#Women's suffrage in Afghanistan. DuncanHill (talk) 18:03, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Good Lord. I completely forgot about that.--Aciram (talk) 19:45, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 16

One beating heart

In the R. H. Benson short story 'The Watcher' we read "... I heard pealing out above all other sounds the long liquid song of a thrush somewhere above me. I looked up idly and tried to see the bird, and after a moment or two caught sight of him as the leaves of the beech parted in the breeze, his head lifted and his whole body vibrating with the joy of life and music. As some one has said, his body was one beating heart." Who was it who said "his body was one beating heart"? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 00:05, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps no-one before Benson. Vaguely describing a phrase in one's own prose as a quotation from some unidentified other's work is, I think, not unknown in literature. P. G. Wodehouse (for one) used to do a similar thing by having his "silly ass" characters mangle and misattribute quotes. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 03:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]