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December 21

Everything You Can Do, We Can Do Meta: source?

I once read in a George Will article (or it might have been in one of his short columns) that the University of Chicago or one of its departments used "Everything You Can Do, We Can Do Meta" as a motto, but it turned out this was completely (if unintentionally, at least on Will's part) made up. Does anyone else remember George Will making that claim? Regardless, has anyone any idea how George Will may have mis-heard or mis-remembered it? (I could never believe that he intentionally made it up.) Anyway, does anyone know the source of the phrase, or at least an earliest source. (Obviously it may have occurred to several people independently.) The earliest I've found on Google is a 2007 article in the MIT Technology Review. Anything earlier? 178.51.16.158 (talk) 04:09, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

describes it as "John Bell’s motto" and uses the reference J. Bell, ‘Legal Theory in Legal Education – “Everything you can do, I can do meta…”’, in: S. Eng (red.), Proceedings of the 21st IVR World Congress: Lund (Sweden), 12-17 August 2003, Wiesbaden: Frans Steiner Verlag, p. 61.. Polygnotus (talk) 05:51, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

In his book I've Been Thinking, Daniel C. Dennett writes: 'Doug Hofstadter and I once had a running disagreement about who first came up with the quip “Anything you can do I can do meta”; I credited him and he credited me.' Dennett credited Hofstadter (writing meta- with a hyphen) in Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds (1998). Hofstadter disavowed this claim in I am a Strange Loop, suggesting that the quip was Dennett's brainchild, writing, 'To my surprise, though, this “motto” started making the rounds and people quoted it back to me as if I had really thought it up and really believed it.'

It is, of course, quite possible that this witty variation on Irving Berlin's "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)" was invented independently again and again. In 1979, Arthur Allen Leff wrote, in an article in Duke Law Journal: 'My colleague, Leon Lipson, once described a certain species of legal writing as, “Anything you can do, I can do meta.”' (Quite likely, John Bell (mis)quoted Lipson.) For other, likely independent examples, in 1986, it is used as the title of a technical report stressing the importance of metareasoning in the domain of machine learming (Morik, Katharina. Anything you can do I can do meta. Inst. für Angewandte Informatik, Projektgruppe KIT, 1986), and in 1995 we find this ascribed to cultural anthropologist Richard Shweder.  --Lambiam 14:40, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

(ec) He may have been mixing this up with "That's all well and good and practice, but how does it work in theory?" which is associated with the University of Chicago and attributed to Shmuel Weinberger, who is a professor there. Dekimasuよ! 14:42, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Did Sir John Hume get entrapped in his own plot (historically)?

In Shakespeare's "First Part of the Contention..." (First Folio: "Henry VI Part 2") there's a character, Sir John Hume, a priest, who manages to entrap the Duchess of Gloucester in the conjuring of a demon, but then gets caught in the plot and is sentenced to be "strangled on the gallows".

My question: Was Sir John Hume, the priest, a historical character? If he was, did he really get caught in the plot he laid for the Duchess, and end up being executed?

Here's what goes on in Shakespeare's play:

In Act 1, Scene 2 Sir John Hume and the Duchess of Gloucester are talking about using Margery Jordan "the cunning witch of Eye" and Roger Bolingbroke, the conjuror, to raise a spirit that will answer the Duchess's questions. It is clear Hume is being paid by the Duke of Suffolk to entrap the Duchess. His own motivation is not political but simple lucre.

In Act 1, Scene 4 the witch Margery Jordan, John Southwell and Sir John Hume, the two priests, and Roger Bolingbroke, the conjuror, conjure a demon (Asnath) in front of the Duchess of Gloucester in order that she may ask him questions about the fate of various people, and they all get caught and arrested by the Duke of York and his men. (Hume works for Suffolk and Cardinal Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, not for York, so it is not through Hume that York knows of these goings on, but York on his part was keeping a watch on the Duchess)

Act 2, Scene 3 King Henry: (to Margery Jordan, John Southwell, Sir John Hume, and Roger Bolingbroke) "You four, from hence to prison back again; / From thence, unto the place of execution. / The witch in Smithfield shall be burned to ashes, / And you three shall be strangled on the gallows."

178.51.16.158 (talk) 16:14, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

John Home or Hume (Home and Hume are pronounced identically) was Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester's confessor. According to this and this "Home, who had been indicted only for having knowledge of the activities of the others, was pardoned and continued in his position as canon of Hereford. He died in 1473." He does not seem to have been Sir John. I'm sure someone who knows more than me will be along soon. DuncanHill (talk) 16:35, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

At this period "Sir" (and "Lady") could still be used as a vague title for people of some status, without really implying they had a knighthood. Johnbod (talk) 20:46, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Identically /hjuːm/ (HYOOM), to be clear.  Card Zero  (talk) 20:17, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh, and the First Part of the Contention is Henry Sixt Part II, not Part I! We also have articles about Roger Bolingbroke and Margery Jourdemayne, the Witch of Eye. DuncanHill (talk) 16:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I corrected it now. 178.51.16.158 (talk) 20:34, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

There's also an article for a Thomas Southwell (priest). In Shakespeare he is "John Southwell". The name "John Southwell" does appear in the text of the play itself (it is mentioned by Bolingbroke). I haven't checked if the quarto and the folio differ on the name. His dates seem to be consistent with this episode and Roger Bolingbroke does refer to the other priest as "Thomas Southwell". But nothing is mentioned in the article Thomas Southwell (priest) itself, so that article may be about some other priest named Thomas Southwell. In any case Roger Bolingbroke points out that only Roger Bolingbroke and Margery Jourdemayne were executed in connection with this affair. Shakespeare has them all executed. He must have been in a bad mood when he wrote that passage. Either that, or he just wanted to keep things simple. 178.51.16.158 (talk) 11:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that may well be our Southwell, according to "Chronicle of Gregory 1441. 27 Oct 1441. And on Syn Symon and Jude is eve was the wycche (age 26) be syde Westemyster brent in Smethefylde, and on the day of Symon and Jude the person of Syn Stevynnys in Walbroke, whyche that was one of the same fore said traytours , deyde in the Toure for sorowe." The Chronicle of Gregory, written by William Gregory is published by the Camden Society DuncanHill (talk) 12:26, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Some experienced editor may then want to add these facts to his article, possibly using the Chronicle of Gregory as a source. 178.51.16.158 (talk) 12:39, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

December 22

Mike Johnson

I saw Mike Johnson on TV a day or two ago. (He was speaking from some official podium ... I believe about the recent government shutdown possibility, the Continuing Resolution, etc.) I was surprised to see that he was wearing a yarmulke. The color of the yarmulke was a close match to the color of Johnson's hair, so I had to look closely and I had to look twice. I said to myself "I never knew that he was Jewish". It bothered me, so I looked him up and -- as expected -- he is not Jewish. Why would he be wearing a yarmulke? Thanks. 32.209.69.24 (talk) 07:40, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Presumably to show his support for Israel and anti-semitism (and make inroads into the traditional Jewish-American support for the Democratic Party). Trump wore one too. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I did not know that was a "thing". To wear one to show support. First I ever heard of that or seen that. Thanks. 32.209.69.24 (talk) 13:12, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

He may also have just come from, or be shortly going to, some (not necessarily religious) event held in a synagogue, where he would wear it for courtesy. I would do the same, and have my (non-Jewish) grandfather's kippah, which he wore for this purpose not infrequently, having many Jewish friends. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 16:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I assume you mis-spoke: to show his support for ... anti-semitism. 32.209.69.24 (talk) 13:16, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

It is somewhat customary, also for male goyim, to don a yarmulke when visiting a synagogue or attending a Jewish celebration or other ceremony, like Biden here while lecturing at a synagogue in Atlanta, Georgia (and under him Trump while groping the Western Wall). Was Johnson speaking at a synagogue?  --Lambiam 16:38, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

It may have been a Hanukkah reception.  --Lambiam 16:50, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Precisely, Lambian. Here is Johnson's official statement. Cullen328 (talk) 17:17, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

This year Hanukkah begins unusually late in the Gregorian calendar, starting at sundown on December 25, when Congress will not be in session. This coincidence can be described by the portmanteau Chrismukkah. So, the Congressional observance of Hanukkah was ahead of schedule this year. Back in 2013, Hanukkah arrived unusually early, during the US holiday of Thanksgiving, resulting in the portmanteau of Thanksgivukkah. Cullen328 (talk) 17:15, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

When you want to check the correlation between Jewish and Christian holidays, you can use the fact that Orthodox Christian months almost always correspond to Jewish months. For Chanucah, the relevant correlation is Emma/Kislev. From the table Special:Permalink/1188536894#The Reichenau Primer (opposite Pangur Bán), in 2024 (with Golden Number 11) Emma began on 3 December, so 24 Emma is 26 December. 92.12.75.131 (talk) 15:45, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, all! Much appreciated! 32.209.69.24 (talk) 02:05, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Joseph Mary Thouveau, Bishop of Sebastopol

Who was Joseph Mary Thouveau, Bishop of Sebastopol? There is only one reference online ("Letter from Joseph Mary Thouveau. Bishop of Sebastopol, to Philip Lutley Sclater regarding Lady Amherst's Pheasant", 1869), and that has no further details. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

After that search engine I used insisted I was looking for a Chauveau I finally located this Joseph Marie Chauveau - So the J M Thouveau item from maxarchiveservices uk must be one of the eccentricities produced by that old fashioned hand-written communication they had in the past. --Askedonty (talk) 22:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Of interest that other notice Joseph, Marie, Pierre. The hand-written text scribbled on the portrait stands as 'Eveque de Sebastopolis'. Pierre-Joseph Chauveau probably, now is also mentioned as Pierre-Joseph in Voyages ..even though, Lady Amherst's Pheasant is referred, in the same, through an other missionary intermediary: similar. --Askedonty (talk) 23:28, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Also in Contribution des missionnaires français au progrès des sciences naturelles au XIX et XX. (1932). Full texts are not accessible though it seems there is three times the same content in three different but more or less simultaneously published editions. Askedonty (talk) 23:59, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

There is a stub at fr:Joseph-Marie Chauveau (there is also a zh article) and a list of bishops at fr:Évêché titulaire de Sébastopolis-en-Arménie. TSventon (talk) 03:31, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

@Askedonty: Awesome work, thank you; and really useful. I'll notify my contact at ZSL, so they can fix their transcription error.

. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:34, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Those results were in fact detailed enough that we may even document the circumstances associated with Mgr. Chauveau writing the original letter to the Society. Louis Pierre Carreau recounts his buying of specimens in the country, then his learning about the interest for the species in British diplomatic circles about. The French text is available, with the Gallica servers not under excessive stress, in Bulletin de la Société zoologique d'acclimatation 2°sér t. VII aka "1870" p.502 at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb345084433/date; an other account mentioning the specific species is to be found p.194 . --Askedonty (talk) 22:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

December 23

London Milkman photo

I am writing a rough draft of Delivery After Raid, also known as The London Milkman in my sandbox. I’m still trying to verify basic information, such as the original publication of the photo. It was allegedly first published on October 10, 1940, in Daily Mirror, but it’s behind a paywall in British Newspaper Archive, but from the previews I can see, I don’t know think the photo is there. Does anyone know who originally published it or publicized it, or which British papers carried it in the 1940s? For a photo that’s supposed to be famous, it’s almost impossible to find anything about it before 1998. Viriditas (talk) 04:01, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Somewhat tellingly, this article about this photo in The Times just writes, "On the morning of October 10, 1940, a photograph taken by Fred Morley of Fox Photos was published in a London newspaper." The lack of identification of the newspaper is not due to reluctance of mentioning a competitor, since further on in the article we read, "... the Daily Mirror became the first daily newspaper to carry photographs ...".  --Lambiam 11:45, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

I see it credited (by Getty Images) to "Hulton Archive", which might mean it was in Picture Post.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:29, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

It was Fox Photos, they were a major agency supplying pictures to all of Fleet Street. DuncanHill (talk) 13:22, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

You mean it might have appeared in multiple papers on October 10, 1940?  Card Zero  (talk) 14:06, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

No, I mean the Hulton credit does not imply anything about where it might have appeared. DuncanHill (talk) 14:14, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

I can't join the dots. Doesn't being credited to the photographic archive of Picture Post imply that it might have appeared in Picture Post? How does the agency being Fox Photos negate the possibility?  Card Zero  (talk) 14:21, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

It wasn't a Hulton picture, it was a Fox picture. The Hulton Archive absorbed other archives over the years, before being itself absorbed by Getty. DuncanHill (talk) 14:31, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh! Right, I didn't understand that about Hulton.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:38, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Not in the Daily Mirror of Thursday 10 October 1940. DuncanHill (talk) 13:19, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: Maybe the 11th, if they picked up on the previous day's London-only publication? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:38, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

a lot of searches suggest it was the Daily Mail. Nthep (talk) 18:05, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: I've checked the Mirror for the 11th, and the rest of the week. I've checked the News Chronicle, the Express, and the Herald for the 10th. Mail not on BNA. DuncanHill (talk) 19:38, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

As general context, from my professional experience of picture researching back in the day, photo libraries and agencies quite often tried to claim photos and other illustrations in their collections as their own IP even when they were in fact not their IP and even when they were out of copyright. Often the same illustration was actually available from multiple providers, though obviously (in that pre-digital era) one paid a fee to whichever of them you borrowed a copy from for reproduction in a book or periodical. Attributions in published material may not, therefore, accurately reflect the true origin of an image. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 18:06, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

I just discovered this for myself with Bosman 2008 in The National Gallery in Wartime. In the back of the book it says the London Milkman photo is licensed from Corbis on p. 127. I was leaning towards reading this as an error of some kind before I saw your comment. Interestingly, the Wikpedia article on Corbis illustrates part of the problem. Viriditas (talk) 21:47, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• Are we sure it was published at the time? I haven't been able to find any meaningful suggestion of which paper it appeared in. I've found a few sources (eg History Today) giving a date in September. I've found several suggesting it tied in with "Keep Calm and Carry On", which of course was almost unknown in the War. DuncanHill (talk) 20:14, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

  That's the thing. There's no direct evidence it was ever published except for a few reliable sources asserting it was. However, I did find older news sources contemporaneous to the October 1940 (or thereabouts) photograph referring to it in the abstract after that date, as if it had been widely published. Just going from memory here, and this is a loose paraphrase, but one early-1940s paper on Google newspapers says something like "who can forget the image of the milkman making his deliveries in the rubble of the Blitz"? One notable missing part of the puzzle is that someone, somewhere, did an exclusive interview with Fred Morley about the photograph, and that too is impossible to find. It is said elsewhere that he traveled around the world taking photographs and celebrated his silver jubilee with Fox Photos in 1950-something. Other than that, nothing. It's like he disappeared off the face of the earth. Viriditas (talk) 21:58, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

  I should also add, the Getty archive has several images of Fred Morley, one of which shows him using an extremely expensive camera for the time. Viriditas (talk) 22:20, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

And furthermore, I haven't found any uses of it that look like a scan from a newspaper or magazine. They all seem to use Getty's original. DuncanHill (talk) 20:16, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

I've searched BNA for "Fox Photo" and "Fox Photos" in 1940, and while this does turn up several photos from the agency, no milkmen are among them. DuncanHill (talk) 22:14, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

No relevant BNA result for "Fox Photo" plus "Morley" at any date. DuncanHill (talk) 22:32, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Has anyone checked the Gale Picture Post archive for October 1940? I don't have access to it. Viriditas (talk) 22:10, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

@Viriditas: You might find someone at WP:RX. DuncanHill (talk) 01:27, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Will look, thanks. Viriditas (talk) 01:33, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Update: The NYT indirectly refers to the photo in the abstract several days after it was initially published in October 1940. I posed the problem to ChatGPT which went through all the possible scenarios to explain its unusual absence in the historical record. It could find no good reason why the photo seems to have disappeared from the papers of the time. Viriditas (talk) 00:33, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Interestingly, this 1942 report by a New York scientific organization indicates that the image (or the story) was discussed in the NY papers. Viriditas (talk) 01:01, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I did find a suggestion somewhere that the picture was one of a pair with a postman collecting from a pillar box, with the title "The milk comes... and the post goes". Now THAT I have been able to track down. It appears on page 57 of Front Line 1940-1941. The Official Story of the Civil Defence of Britain published by the Ministry of Information in 1942. It's clearly not the same photo, or even the same session, but expresses the same idea. DuncanHill (talk) 01:38, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. Viriditas (talk) 01:43, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Belgia, the Netherlands, to a 16th c. Englishman?

In Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors" (Act 3, Scene 2) Dromio of Syracuse and his master Antipholus of Syracuse discuss Nell the kitchen wench who Dromio says "is spherical, like a globe. I could find out countries in her." After asking about the location of a bunch of countries on Nell (very funny! recommended!), Antipholus ends with: "Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?" Dromio hints "Belgia, the Netherlands" stood in her privates ("O, sir, I did not look so low.") My question is not about how adequate the comparison is but on whether "Belgia" and "the Netherlands" were the same thing, two synonymous designations for the same thing to Shakespeare (the Netherlands being the whole of the Low Countries and Belgia being just a slightly more literate equivalent of the same)? Or were "the Netherlands" already the Northern Low Countries (i.e. modern Netherlands), i.e. the provinces that had seceded about 15 years prior from the Spanish Low Countries (Union of Utrecht) while "Belgia" was the Southern Low Countries (i.e. modern Belgium and Luxembourg), i.e. the provinces that decided to stay with Spain (Union of Arras)? 178.51.16.158 (talk) 13:40, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Essentially they were regarded as the same - you might look at Leo Belgicus, a visual trope invented in 1583, perhaps a decade before the play was written, including both (and more). In Latin at this period and later Belgica Foederata was the United Provinces, Belgica Regia the Southern Netherlands. The Roman province had included both. Johnbod (talk) 15:40, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Johnbod, I agree with your explanation, but I thought that Gallia Belgica was south of the Rhine, so it only included the southern part of the United Provinces. TSventon (talk) 16:39, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it seems so - "parts of both" would be more accurate. The Dutch didn't want to think of themselves as Inferior Germans, that's for sure! Johnbod (talk) 17:40, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

This general region was originally part of Middle Francia aka Lotharingia, possession of whose multifarious territories have been fought over by themselves, West Francia (roughly, France) and East Francia (roughly, Germany) for most of the last 1,100 years. The status of any particular bit of territory was potentially subject to repeated and abrupt changes due to wars, treaties, dynastic marriages, expected or unexpected inheritances, and even being sold for ready cash. See, for an entertaining (though exhausting as well as exhaustive) account of this, Simon Winder's Lotharingia: A Personal History of Europe's Lost Country (2019). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 18:19, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Actually Middle Francia, Lotharingia, different birds: Middle Francia was allocated to Lothair 1 (795-855), Lotharingia was allocated to (and named after) his son Lothair 2 (835-869) (not after his father Lothair 1). Lotharingia was about half the size of Middle Francia, as Middle Francia also included Provence and the northern half of Italy. Upper Lotharingia was essentially made up of Bourgogne and Lorraine (in fact the name "Lorraine" goes back to "Lotharingia" etymologically speaking, through a form "Loherraine"), and was eventually reduced to just Lorraine, whereas Lower Lotharingia was essentially made up of the Low Countries, except for the county of Flanders which was part of the kingdom of France, originally "Western Francia". In time these titles became more and more meaningless. In the 11th c. Godefroid de Bouillon, the leader of the First Crusade and conqueror of Jerusalem was still styled "Duc de Basse Lotharingie" even though by then there were more powerful and important rulers in that same territory (most significantly the duke of Brabant) 178.51.16.158 (talk) 19:18, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh sure, the individual blocks of this historical lego construction were constantly splitting, mutating and recombining in new configurations, which is why I said 'general region'. Fun related fact: the grandson of the last Habsburg Emperor, who would now be Crown Prince if Austria-Hungary were still a thing, is the racing driver 'Ferdy' Habsburg, whose full surname is Habsburg-Lorraine if you're speaking French or von Habsburg-Lothringen if you're speaking German. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 22:54, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Down, from the lego to the playmobil - a country was a lot too much a fuzzy affair without a military detachment on the way to recoinnaitre! --Askedonty (talk) 00:07, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

In Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico, the Belgians (Belgae) were separated from the Germans (Germani) by the Rhine, so the Belgian tribes then occupied half of what now is the Netherlands.  --Lambiam 00:11, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

More like a third, but this is complicated by the facts that: (A) the Rhine is poorly defined, as it has many branches in its delta; (B) the branches shifted over time; (C) the relative importance of those branches changed; (D) the land area changed with the changing coastline; and (E) the coastline itself is poorly defined, with all those tidal flats and salt marshes. Anyway, hardly any parts of the modern Netherlands south of the Rhine were part of the Union of Utrecht, although by 1648 they were mostly governed by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. In Shakespeare's time, it was a war zone. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:57, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

The Rhine would have been the Oude Rijn. Several Roman forts were located on its southern bank, such as Albaniana, Matilo and Praetorium Agrippinae. This makes the fraction closer to 40% (very close if you do not include the IJsselmeer polders).  --Lambiam 02:41, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Indigenous territory/Indian reservations

Are there Indigenous territory in Ecuador, Suriname? What about Honduras, Guatemala, and Salvador? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaiyr (talk • contribs) 18:31, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

In Suriname not as territories. There are some Amerindian villages. Their distribution can be seen on the map at Indigenous peoples in Suriname § Distribution.  --Lambiam 23:58, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

December 24

Testicles in art

What are some famous or iconic depictions of testicles in visual art (painting, sculpture, etc)? Pre 20th century is more interesting to me but I will accept more modern works as well. 174.74.211.109 (talk) 00:11, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately not pre-20th century, but the first thing that comes to mind is New York's Charging Bull (1989) sculpture, which has a famously well-rubbed scrotum. GalacticShoe (talk) 02:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

What's "iconic"? There's nothing special about testicles in visual arts. All male nudes originally had testicles and penises, unless they fell off (penises tended to do that more, leaving just the testicles) or were removed. There was a pope who couldn't stand them so there's a big room in a basement in the Vatican full of testicles and penises. Fig leaves were late fashion statements, possibly a brainstorm of the aforementioned pope. Here's one example from antiquity among possibly hundreds, from the Moschophoros (genitals gone but they obviously were there once), through the Kritios Boy, through this famous Poseidon that used apparently to throw a trident (über-famous but I couldn't find it on Misplaced Pages, maybe someone else can; how do they know it's not Zeus throwing a lightning bolt? is there an inscription?), and so many more! 178.51.16.158 (talk) 05:07, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

The article you're looking for is Artemision Bronze. GalacticShoe (talk) 07:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

And maybe the Cerne Abbas Giant. Shantavira| 10:21, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Bake-danuki, somewhat well-known in the West through Pom Poko.  Card Zero  (talk) 11:16, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Racoons are often depecited in Japanese art as having big balls. As in 1/4 the size of the rest of their body. 146.90.140.99 (talk) 23:44, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

These are raccoon dogs, an entirely different species, not even from the same taxonomic family as raccoons. The testicularly spectacularly endowed ones are bake-danuki, referred to in the reply above yours.  --Lambiam 02:28, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

European dynasties that inherit their name from a female: is there a genealogical technical term to describe that situation?

The Habsburg were descended (in the male line) from a female (empress Maria Theresa). They were the Habsburg rulers of Austria because of her, not because of their Lorraine male ancestor. So their name goes against general European patrilinear naming customs. Sometimes, starting with Joseph II they are called Habsburg-Lorraine, but that goes against the rule that the name of the father comes first (I've never heard that anyone was called Lorraine-Habsburg) and most people don't even bother with the Lorraine part, if they even know about it.

As far as I can tell this mostly occurs in states where the sovereign happens at some point to be a female. The descendants of that female sovereign (if they rule) sometimes carry her family name (how often? that must depend on how prominent the father is), though not always (cf. queen Victoria's descendants). Another example would be king James, son of Mary queen of Scots and a nobody. But sometimes this happens in families that do not rule over anything (cf. the Chigi-Zondadari in Italy who were descended from a male Zondadari who married a woman from the much more important family of the Chigi and presumably wanted to be associated with them).

What do genealogists, especially those dealing with royal genealogies, call this sort of situation? I'm looking for something that would mean in effect "switch to the mother's name", but the accepted technical equivalent if it exists.

Also do you know of other such situations in European history?

In England where William (Orange) and Mary (Stuart) were joint sovereign did anyone attempt to guess what a line descended from them both would be called (before it became clear such a line would not happen)?

178.51.16.158 (talk) 03:46, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

It happens a fair amount in European history, but I'm not sure it means what you think it means. It's generally a dynastic or patrilineal affiliation connected with the woman which is substituted, not the name of the woman herself. The descendents of Empress Matilda are known as Plantagenets after her husband's personal nickname. I'm not sure that the Habsburg-Lorraine subdivision is greatly different from the Capetian dynasty (always strictly patrilineal) being divided into the House of Artois, House of Bourbon, House of Anjou, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 09:52, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

By the name of the mother I didn't mean her personal name (obviously!) but her line. The example I used of Maria Theresa should have been enough to clarify that. The cases of the Plantagenets (like that of the descendants of Victoria who became known as Saxe-Cobourg, not Hanover) are absolutely regular and do fall precisely outside the scope of my question. The Habsburg-Lorraine are not a new dynasty. The addition of "Lorraine" has no importance, it is purely decorative. It is very different from the switch to collateral branches that happened in France with the Valois, the Bourbon, which happened because of the Salic law, not because of the fact that a woman became the sovereign. Obviously such situations could never occur in places where the Salic law applied. It's happened regularly recently (all the queens of the Netherlands never prevented the dynasty continuing as Oranje or in the case of England as Windsor, with no account whatsoever taken of the father), but I'm not sure how much it happened in the past, where it would have been considered humiliating for the father and his line. In fact I wonder when the concept of that kind of a "prince consort" who is used to breed children but does not get to pass his name to them was first introduced. Note neither Albert nor Geoffrey were humiliated in this way and I suspect the addition of "Lorraine" was just to humor Francis (who also did get to be Holy Roman Emperor) without switching entirely to a "Lorraine" line and forgetting altogether about the "Habsburg" which in fact was the regular custom, and which may seem preposterous to us now given the imbalance of power, but was never considered so in the case of Albert even though he was from an entirely inconsequential family from an entirely inconsequential German statelet. I know William of Orange said he would refuse such a position and demanded that he and Mary be joint sovereign hence "William and Mary". 178.51.16.158 (talk) 10:29, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

As a sidenote, the waters of this question are somewhat muddied by the fact that Surnames as we know them were not (even confining ourselves to Europe) always a thing; they arose at different times in different places and in different classes. Amongst the ruling classes, people were often 'surnamed' after their territorial possessions (which could have been acquired through marriage or other means) rather than their parental name(s). Also, in some individual family instances (in the UK, at any rate), a man was only allowed to inherit the property and/or title of/via a female heiress whom they married on the condition that they adopted her family name rather than her, his, so that the propertied/titled family name would be continued. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 13:57, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Or 'surnamed' after their lack of territorial possessions, like poor John Lackland.  --Lambiam 02:09, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

In the old style of dynastic reckoning, Elizabeth II would have been transitional from Saxe-Coburg to Glucksberg, and even under the current UK rules, descendants of Prince Philip (and only those descendants) who need surnames use Mountbatten-Windsor. -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:06, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

In hyphenated dynasty names, the elements are typically not father and mother but stem and branch: Saxe-Weimar was the branch of the Saxon dukes whose apanage included the city of Weimar, Bourbon-Parma the branch of Bourbon (or Bourbon-Anjou) that included dukes of Parma. —Tamfang (talk) 03:48, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

December 25

Death Row commutations by Biden

Biden commuted nearly all of the Federal Death Row sentences a few days ago. Now, what’s the deal with the Military Death Row inmates? Are they considered "federal" and under the purview of Biden? Or, if not, what’s the distinction? Thanks. 32.209.69.24 (talk) 02:29, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

This page and the various tabs you can click from there include a lot of information. There hasn't been a military execution since 1961 and there are only four persons on the military death row at this point. The President does have the power to commute a death sentence issued under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It is not clear why President Biden did not address those four cases when he commuted the sentences of most federal death row inmates a few days ago, although two of the four cases (see here) are linked to terrorism, so would likely not have been commuted anyway. Xuxl (talk) 14:45, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Does anyone have any idea about why Biden did not commute these death sentences? 32.209.69.24 (talk) 06:17, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Coca Romano's portraits of Ferdinand and Marie of Romania

I am trying to work out when Coca Romano's coronation portraits of Ferdinand and Marie of Romania were actually completed and unveiled. This is with an eye to possibly uploading a photo of them to this wiki: they are certainly still in copyright in Romania (Romano lived until 1983), but probably not in the U.S. because of publication date.

The coronation took place in 1922 at Alba Iulia. The portraits show Ferdinand and Marie in their full regalia that they wore at the coronation. They appear to have been based on photographs taken at the coronation, so they must have been completed after the event, not before.

A few pieces of information I have: there is no date on the canvasses. The pieces are in the collection of the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu (inventory numbers 2503 for the picture of Marie and 2504 for Ferdinand) , p. 36-37], and were on display this year at Art Safari in Bucharest, which is where I photographed them. If they were published (always a tricky concept for a painting, but I'm sure they were rapidly and widely reproduced) no later than 1928, or in a few days 1929, we can upload my photo in this wiki. - Jmabel | Talk 04:58, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

(I've uploaded the image to Flickr, if anyone wants a look: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmabel/54225746973/). - Jmabel | Talk 05:25, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Was it ever mentioned in the Bible that the enslaved Jews in Egypt were forced to build the pyramids?

The question as topic. I'm pretty rusty on the good book, but I don't recall that it was ever directly specified in Exodus, or anywhere else. But it seems to be something that is commonly assumed. 146.90.140.99 (talk) 23:39, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

According to this video, the story that the pyramids were built with slave labour is a myth; the builders were skilled workers, "engineers, craftsmen, architects, the best of the best". The people of the children of Israel being forced to work for the Pharaoh is mentioned in Exodus 1:11: "So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.". The pyramids are not mentioned in the Bible.  --Lambiam 02:06, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I thought that was the case. It's been 30 years since I read the Bible from cover to cover (I mainly just have certain passages highlighted now that I find helpful). But I do remember Zionist people very recently online Facebook claiming that the Jews built the pyramids and that Egyptian nationalists can go fuck themselves with their historical complaints about Israeli invasions of the Sinai Peninsula. 146.90.140.99 (talk) 02:43, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Right. You people can't help yourselves, can you? You didn't have to read the Bible cover to cover to find the answer. It's there in the first paragraphs of the book of Exodus. But you were looking for an excuse to talk about "Zionist people", weren't you? Of course any connection between pyramids and the Sinai is nonsensical (if it was actually made and you didn't just make it up) and there are idiots everywhere including among "Zionist people". Except you're no better, since you decided to post a fake question just to have an excuse to move the "conversation" from Facebook to Misplaced Pages. 178.51.7.23 (talk) 03:36, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

You are mistaken. I support Israel 100%. I maybe shouldn't have said "Zionist" but I had a few drinks - what is the correct term to use for people who support Israel??. I was legit interested from half the world away about some historical arguments I saw online. 146.90.140.99 (talk) 03:50, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Anyway, Egyptian pyramids (certainly stone pyramids) were mainly an Old Kingdom thing, dating from long before Hyksos rule or Egyptian territorial involvement in the Levant. At most times likely to be relevant to the Exodus narrative, the Valley of the Kings was being used for royal burials... AnonMoos (talk) 03:05, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

The chief pyramid-building era was around the 26th century BCE. Exodus, if it happened, would have been around the 13th century BCE, 1300 years later. A long time; we tend to misunderstand how long the ancient Egyptian period was. Acroterion (talk) 04:00, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

One factoid that turns up here and there is that Cleopatra, as ancient as she is to us, is chronologically closer to our time than to the time the pyramids were built. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 14:11, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

December 26

What would the president Trump brokered peace treaty in Ukraine look like?

I know this is probably speculation, but going by what I've read in a few articles - how would the new president sort this out?

- the war stops

- Russia withdraws all troops from the invaded regions of Ukraine

- Ukraine withdraws all troops from the same regions

- these regions become a DMZ, under control of neither party for the next 25 years, patrolled by the United Nations (or perhaps the USA/Britain and China/North Korea jointly)

- Russia promises to leave Ukraine alone for 25 years

- Ukraine promises not to join NATO or the EU for 25 years

- A peace treaty will be signed

- The can will be kicked down the road for 25 years, at which point more discussions or wars will commence

So maybe the Americans will say "this is the best deal you're going to get, in the future we're going to be spending our money on our own people and no-one else - if you don't take it, we'll let the Russians roll right over you and good luck to you".

Is this basically what is being said now? I think this is what Vance envisioned. 146.90.140.99 (talk) 03:01, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

The downside is that the residents of the buffer zone will be compelled to eat their pets. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:12, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Or each other's pets. —Tamfang (talk) 21:52, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

You seem to be overlooking one of the major obstacles to peace -- unless it suffers a stinging military defeat, Russia won't withdraw from territories belonging to 1990s Ukraine which it's formally annexed -- Crimea and Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia... -- AnonMoos (talk) 03:14, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

You're right, Russia won't withdraw from territories belonging to 1990s Ukraine, but it is likely that Ukraine does not expect Russia to do so too. Restoring to pre-war territories and the independent of Crimean, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia are the best Ukraine can hope for. Stanleykswong (talk) 10:10, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Never heard of any such plan. 25 years? This is completely made up. Can't say I'm surprised since this is the same guy who asked the previous "question". My understanding is that Misplaced Pages and the Reference Desk are not a forum for debate. This is not Facebook. But this guy seems to think otherwise. Anyway, there's no way that the territories Russia has annexed will ever go back to the Ukraine. The only question which remains is what guarantees can be given to Ukraine that Russia will never try something like this ever again and eat it up piecemeal. The best answer (from Ukraine's point of view) would have been that it join NATO but of course Russia won't have it. If not that, then what? This's exactly where the "art of the deal" comes in. Speculating in advance on Misplaced Pages is pointless. Better to do that on Facebook. 178.51.7.23 (talk) 03:49, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

You're right, by policy Misplaced Pages is not a forum and not a soapbox. But attend also to the policy Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks. Oh, and the guideline assume good faith is another good one.  Card Zero  (talk) 10:27, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Further, it's a bit pointless to tell an OP that WP is not a forum or a soapbox, but then immediately engage in debate with them about the matter they raise. -- Jack of Oz 18:57, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

A politician's butt dominates his brain. What he is going to do is more important than what he had said. Stanleykswong (talk) 09:57, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Expect that a concept of a peace plan will be ready soon after day one. Until then we can only speculate whose concept. Will it be Musk's, Trump's, Vance's, Rubio's, Hegseth's, Kellogg's? The latter's plan is believed to involve Ukraine ceding the Donbas and Luhansk regions, as well as Crimea, to Russia, after which the negotiators can proclaim: "Mission accomplished. Peace for our time."  --Lambiam 10:17, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

• There may also be peace plans required for a possible US incursion in Canada and Greenland / Denmark. All three are members of the NATO, so this may be tricky. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:42, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Isn't this one of those "crystal ball" things we are supposed to avoid here? - Jmabel | Talk 21:40, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Agree Slowking Man (talk) 00:37, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

If the OP provided an actual source for this claim, then it could be discussed more concretely. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:40, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

It is not a claim, but a question, "What is being said now about the prospects and form of a Trump-brokered peace treaty?" Should the OP provide a source for this question? If the question is hard to answer, it is not by lack of sources (I gave one above), but because all kinds of folks are saying all kinds of things about it.  --Lambiam 19:27, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Whatever the plan may be, Putin reportedly doesn't like it.  --Lambiam 22:38, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

ID card replacement

In California you can get a drivers' license (DL) from the DMV, which both serves as an ID card and attests that you are authorized to drive a car. Alternatively, from the same DMV, you can get a state ID card, which is the same as a DL except it doesn't let you drive. The card looks similar and the process for getting it (wait in line, fill in forms, get picture taken) is similar, though of course there is no driving test.

If you need a replacement drivers' license, you can request it online or through one of the DMV's self-service kiosks installed in various locations. That's reasonably convenient.

If you need a replacement ID card, you have to request it in person at a DMV office, involving travel, waiting in line, dealing with crowds, etc. DMV appointment shortens the wait but doesn't get rid of it. Plus the earliest available appointments are several weeks out.

My mom is elderly, doesn't drive, doesn't handle travel or waiting in line well, and needs a replacement ID card. I'm wondering why this discrepancy exists in the replacement process. Not looking for legal advice etc. but am just wondering if I'm overlooking something sane, rather than reflexive system justification. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:DA2D (talk) 19:39, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

European (Brit) here, so responding with logic rather than knowledge, but . . . . If a replacement ID could be requested remotely and sent, it would probably be easier for some nefarious person to do so and obtain a fake ID; at least if attendance is required, the officials can tell that the 25-y-o illegal immigrant (say) they're seeing in front of them doesn't match the photo they already have of the elderly lady whose 'replacement' ID is being requested.

Drivers' licences have the additional safeguard that drivers are occasionally (often?) stopped by traffic police and asked to produce them, at which point discrepancies may be evident. {The poster formerly known as 87.812.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 00:30, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I guess there is some sense to that, though I haven't been stopped by police in quite a few years. I reached the DMV by phone and they say they won't issue an actual duplicate ID card: rather, they want to take a new picture of my mom and use that on the new card. Of course that's fine given that we have to go there anyway, but it's another way the DL procedure is different. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:DA2D (talk) 00:46, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

What purpose does the ID card serve? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 04:27, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

See Identity documents in the United States. These cards can be used for such purposes as boarding a plane, purchasing alcohol or cigarettes where proof of age is required, cashing a check, etc. Most folks use their driver's license for these purposes, but for the minority that does not drive, some form of official id is required from time to time, hence the delivery of such cards by states. --Xuxl (talk) 13:34, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm just wondering under what circumstances a shut-in would ever use it. The OP could maybe explain. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:52, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

OP did not describe a "shut-in". And anyway, have you ever heard the well-known phrase-or-saying "none of your fucking business"? DuncanHill (talk) 21:59, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Are you the OP? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:46, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Not OP and not a shut-in, but ID is necessary for registration for some online services (including ID requirements for access to some state and federal websites that administer things like taxes and certain benefits). I've had to provide photos/scans of photo ID digitally for a couple other purposes, too, though I can't remember off the top of my head what those were. I think one might have been to verify an I-9 form for employment. And the ID number from my driver's license for others. At least a couple instances have been with private entities rather than governments. The security implications always make me wary. -- Avocado (talk) 23:05, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Virtually all of the private information of US citizens has been repeatedly compromised in the last decade. Not a single company or government entity has faced consequences, and no US legislation is in the works to protect our private information in the future. For only one small example, the personal info of 73 million AT&T account holders was released on the dark web this year. In the US, if you're a private company, you can do just about anything and get away with it. If you're a private citizen, there's an entirely separate set of laws for you. Viriditas (talk) 21:25, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Unless someone affiliated with the CA DMV drops by here, I'm afraid none of us are going to be able to tell you why something is the way it is with them. Essentially it's requesting people to guess or predict at why X might be the case. Have you tried contacting them and asking them for an answer? You and/or her could also contact her CA state elected representatives and let them know your feelings on the matter. Sometimes representatives' offices will assist a constitutent with issues they're having involving government services ("constitutent services"). --Slowking Man (talk) 01:43, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

If your mom is old and her medical condition affects her ability to perform daily activities (she couldn't handle the travel or waiting in line well), she can ask her medical doctor to complete a DS 3234 (Medical Certification) form to verify her status. Then you can help her to fill out a DS 3235 application form on the DMV website and submit the required documents accordingly. Stanleykswong (talk) 09:14, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm wondering why this discrepancy exists in the replacement process.

The Real ID Act contributed to the discrepancy in the replacment process, as did several notable fake ID rings on both coasts. In other words, "this is why we can't have nice things". Viriditas (talk) 21:17, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

We can't have nice things because those in power regulate the allocation of goods. To distinguish between the deserving and undeserving they need people to have IDs.  --Lambiam 10:05, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

December 27

Building containing candle cabinets

Is there a term (in pretty much any language) for a separate building next to a church, containing candle cabinets where people place votive candles? I've seen this mostly in Romania (and in at least one church in Catalonia), but suspect it is more widespread. (I've also seen just candle cabinets with no separate building, but I'm guessing that there is no term for that.) - Jmabel | Talk 01:40, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Shrine might cover it, but I suspect there's a more specific term in at least one language. {The poster fornerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 21:49, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Somebody contributed a couple of photos of these kind of cabinets to commons. File:Orthodoxe_Nonne_putzt_Kerzenöfchen.JPG and File:Behälter_für_Opferkerzen_an_einer_orthodoxen_Kirche_in_Rumänien.JPG. Both are in Romania, and outdoor. I suppose the purpose of the cabinet is to protect the candles from the weather? I see pictures of indoor racks for candles. One example is File:Religión en Isla Margarita, Valle del Espíritu Santo.jpg which is an upcoming Commons picture of the day. This small dark metal shed full of dripping wax is apparently located in or near to the rather pretty and well-lit Basilica of Our Lady of El Valle, but I saw nothing to tell me the spatial relationship. Some discussion, again about Romanian Eastern Orthodox traditions, in this Flickr photo's text, which calls them ... candle cabinets. (They protect the candles from wind and rain, and protect the church from the candles.)  Card Zero  (talk) 11:11, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

@Card Zero: the things you are posting are, precisely, candle cabinets. What I'm talking about are structures like a proper building, but with just a portal, no doors as such. Here's a rare non-Romanian example I photographed in 2001: File:Montserrat - prayer candles.jpg. Remarkably, I don't see any Romanian examples that really show the structure, they are all too close-in detailed. I'll try to see if I can find an example I may have shot but not yet uploaded. - Jmabel | Talk 04:44, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

December 28

Truncated Indian map in Misplaced Pages

Why is the map of India always appears truncated in all of Misplaced Pages pages, when there is no official annexing of Indian territories in Kashmir, by Pakistan and China nor its confirmation from Indian govt ? With Pakistan and China just claiming the territory, why the world map shows it as annexed by them, separating from India ? TravelLover05 (talk) 15:05, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

The map at India shows Kashmir in light green, meaning "claimed but not controlled". It's not truncated, it's differently included.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:17, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Please see no 6 in Talk:India/FAQ ColinFine (talk) 20:18, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

December 29

Set animal's name = sha?

"In ancient Egyptian art, the Set animal, or sha," - this seems like a major citation needed. Any help? Temerarius (talk) 00:12, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Which article does that appear in? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:18, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

It must be this article. Omidinist (talk) 04:22, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

That term was in the original version of the article, written 15 years ago by an editor named "P Aculeius" who is still active. Maybe the OP could ask that user about it? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:00, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

• Each time, the word šꜣ is written over the Seth-animal.
• Sometimes the animal is designated as sha (šꜣ) , but we are not certain at all whether this designation was its name.
• When referring to the ancient Egyptian terminology, the so-called sha-animal, as depicted and mentioned in the Middle Kingdom tombs of Beni Hasan, together with other fantastic creatures of the desert and including the griffin, closely resembles the Seth animal.
• šꜣ ‘Seth-animal’
• He claims that the domestic pig is called “sha,” the name of the Set-animal.

Wiktionary gives šꜣ as meaning "wild pig", not mentioning use in connection with depictions of the Seth-animal. The hieroglyphs shown for šꜣ do not resemble those in the article Set animal, which instead are listed as ideograms in (or for) stẖ, the proper noun Seth.  --Lambiam 08:27, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! The reason I brought it up was because the hieroglyph for the set animal didn't have the sound value to match in jsesh.

Temerarius (talk) 22:15, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

The word sha (accompanying depictions of the Set animal) in hieroglyphs

IMO they should be removed, or, if this can be sourced, be replaced by one or more of the following two:  --Lambiam 09:49, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

The article—originally "Sha (animal)" was one of the first I wrote, or attempted to write, and was based on and built on the identification by E. A. Wallis Budge, in The Gods of the Egyptians, which uses the hieroglyph for the word "sha", and includes the illustration that I traced from a scan and uploaded to Commons (and which was included in the article from the time of its creation in 2009 until December 21, 2024 when User:PharaohCrab replaced it with his original version of the one shown above; see its history for what it looked like until yesterday). I have had very little to do with the article since User:Sonjaaa made substantial changes and moved it to "Seth animal" in 2010; although it's stayed on my watchlist, I long since stopped trying to interfere with it, as it seemed to me that other editors were determined to change it to the way they thought it should be, and I wasn't sophisticated enough to intervene or advocate effectively for my opinions. In fact the only edit by me I can see after that was fixing a typo.

As for the word sha, that is what Budge called it, based on the hieroglyph associated with it; I was writing about this specific creature, which according to Budge and some of the other sources quoted above has some degree of independence from Set, as it sometimes appears without him and is used as the determinative of one or two other deities, whose totemic animal it might also have been. One of the other scholars quoted above questions whether the word sha is the name of the animal, but still associates the word with the animal: Herman Te Velde's article, "Egyptian Hieroglyphs as Signs Symbols and Gods", quoted above, uses slightly modified versions of Budge's illustrations; his book Seth, God of Confusion is also quoted above, both with the transliteration šꜣ, which in "Egyptian Hieroglyphs" he also renders sha. Percy Newberry is the source cited by the Henry Thompson quotation above, claiming that sha referred to a domestic pig as well as the Set animal, and a different god distinct from Set, though sharing the same attributes (claims of which Thompson seems skeptical). Herman Te Velde also cites Newberry, though he offers a different explanation for the meaning of "sha" as "destiny". All Things Ancient Egypt, also quoted above, calls the animal "the so-called sha-animal", while Classification from Antiquity to Modern Times just uses šꜣ and "Seth-animal".

I'm not certain what the question here is; that the hieroglyph transliterated sha is somehow associated with the creature seems to have a clear scholarly consensus; most of the scholars use it as the name of the creature; Herman Te Velde is the only one who suggests that it might not be its name, though he doesn't conclude whether it is or isn't; and one general source says in passing "so-called sha-animal", which accepts that this is what it's typically referred to in scholarship, without endorsing it. Although Newberry made the connection with pigs, none of the sources seems to write the name with pig hieroglyphs as depicted above. Could you be clearer about what it is that's being discussed here? P Aculeius (talk) 16:47, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

December 30

I do not say the Frenchman will not come. I only say he will not come by sea.

1. What is the ultimate source of this famous 1803 quote by John Jervis (1735 – 1823), 1st Earl of St Vincent, First Lord of the Admiralty at the time. I googled Books and no source is ever given except possibly another collection of quotations. The closest I got was: "At a parley in London while First Lord of the Admiralty 1803". That's just not good enough. Surely there must be someone who put this anecdote in writing for the first time.

2. Wouldn't you say this use of the simple present in English is not longer current in contemporary English, and that the modern equivalent would use present continuous forms "I'm not saying... I'm only saying..." (unless Lord Jervis meant to say he was in the habit of saying this; incidentally I do realize this should go to the Language Desk but I hope it's ok just this once)

178.51.7.23 (talk) 11:47, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Assuming he's talking about England, does he propose building a bridge over the Channel? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 12:13, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

How about a tunnel? --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:29, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

It's a joke. He's saying that the French won't invade under any circumstances (see English understatement). Alansplodge (talk) 20:30, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

The First Lord of the Admiralty wouldn't be the one stopping them if the French came by tunnel (proposed in 1802) or air (the French did have hot air balloons). Any decent military officer would understand that an invasion by tunnel or balloon would have no chance of success, but this fear caused some English opposition against the Channel Tunnel for the next 150 years. Just hinting at the possibility of invasion by tunnel amongst military officers would be considered a joke.

Unless he was insulting the British Army (no, now I'm joking). PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:30, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The quoted wording varies somewhat. Our article John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent has it as "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea" in an 1801 letter to the Board of Admiralty, cited to Andidora, Ronald (2000). Iron Admirals: Naval Leadership in the Twentieth Century. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-313-31266-3.. Our article British anti-invasion preparations of 1803–05 has Jervis telling the House of Lords "I do not say the French cannot come, I only say they cannot come by sea", and then immediately, and without citation, saying it was more probably Keith. I can't say I've ever seen it attributed to Keith anywhere else. DuncanHill (talk) 13:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, Andidora does not in fact say it was in a letter to the Board of Admiralty, nor does he explicitly say 1801. And his source, The Age of Nelson by G J Marcus has it as Jervis telling the House of Lords sometime during the scare of '03-'05. Marcus doesn't give a source. DuncanHill (talk) 13:52, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Robert Southey was attributing it to Lord St Vincent as early as 1806, and while I don't want to put too much weight on his phrase "used to say" it does at any rate raise the possibility that St Vincent said (or wrote) it more than once. Perhaps Marcus and our St Vincent article are both right. --Antiquary (talk) 16:38, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks. Some modern accounts (not Southey apparently) claim Lord St Vincent was speaking in the House of Lords. If that was the case, wouldn't it be found in the parliamentary record? How far back does the parliamentary record go for the House of Commons and/or the House of Lords. 178.51.7.23 (talk) 17:18, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

As for (2), the tense is still alive and kicking, if I do say so myself. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:12, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

You don't say? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 02:47, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

This is not what I am asking. 178.51.7.23 (talk) 05:05, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Then I will answer you more directly. You are wrong: while the usage you quote is less common than it once was, it is still current, according to my experience as a native BrE speaker for over 65 years. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 13:32, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I kid you not.  --Lambiam 23:47, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

What percentage of Ancient Greek literature was preserved?

Has anyone seen an estimate of what percentage of Ancient Greek literature (broadly understood: literature proper, poetry, mathematics, philosophy, history, science, etc.) was preserved. It doesn't matter how you define "Ancient Greek literature", or if you mean the works available in 100 BC or 1 AD or 100 AD or 200 AD... Works were lost even in antiquity. I'm just trying to get a rough idea and was wondering if anyone ever tried to work out an estimate. 178.51.7.23 (talk) 17:58, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't have an answer handy for you at the moment, but I can tell you that people have tried to work out an estimate for this, at least from the perspective of "how many manuscripts containing such literature managed to survive past the early Middle Ages". We've worked this one out, with many caveats, by comparing library catalogues from very early monasteries to known survivals and estimating the loss rate. -- asilvering (talk) 20:38, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

One estimate is (less than) one percent. --Askedonty (talk) 20:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

We have a Lost literary work article with a large "Antiquity" section. AnonMoos (talk) 21:15, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

These are works known to have existed, because they were mentioned and sometimes even quoted in works that have survived. These known lost works are probably only a small fraction of all that have been lost.  --Lambiam 23:35, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Few things which might be helpful:

1. So profuse was Galen's output that the surviving texts represent nearly half of all the extant literature from ancient Greece.
2. Although not just Greek, but only 1% of ancient literature survives. --ExclusiveEditor _{🔔 Ping Me!} 11:12, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The following quantities are known: ${\displaystyle S,}$ the number of preserved works, ${\displaystyle L,}$ the (unknown) number of lost works, and ${\displaystyle M_{L},}$ the number of lost works of which we know, through mentions in preserved works. In a (very) naive model, let ${\displaystyle \mu }$ stand for the probability that a given work (lost or preserved) is mentioned in some other preserved work (so ${\displaystyle M_{L}=\mu L}$). The expected number of mentions of preserved works in other preserved works is then ${\displaystyle M_{S}=\mu (S-1).}$ If we have the numerical value of the latter quantity (which is theoretically obtainable by scanning all preserved works), we can obtain an estimate for ${\displaystyle \mu }$ and compute ${\displaystyle L\approx {\frac {M_{L}}{M_{S}}}(S-1).}$

 --Lambiam 13:09, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

• Even without seeing any professional estimate of the kind I'm asking about here, my ballpark figure was that it had to be less than 1 percent, simply from noting how little of even the most celebrated and important authors has been preserved (e.g. about 5 percent for Sophocles) and how there are hundreds of authors and hundreds of works for which we only have the titles and maybe a few quotes, not to mention all those works of which we have not an inkling, the number of which it is, for this very reason, extremely hard to estimate.

• But as a corollary to my first question I have another three:

• 1. Has any modern historian tackled this paradox, namely the enormous influence that the culture of the Ancient World has had on the West while at the same time how little we actually know about that culture, and as a consequence the problem that we seem to believe that we know much more than we actually do? in other words that our image of it that has had this influence on Western culture might be to some extent a modern creation and might be very different of what it actually was?

• 2. I understand that in this regard there can be the opposite opinion (or we can call it a hypothesis, or an article of faith) which is the one that is commonly held (at least implicitly): that despite all that was lost the main features of our knowledge of the culture of the Ancient World are secure and that no lost work is likely to have modified the fundamentals? Like I said this seems to be the position that is commonly implicitly held, but I'm interested to hear if any historian has discussed this question and defended this position explicitly in a principled way?

• 3. Finally to what extent is the position mentioned in point 2 simply a result of ignorance (people not being aware of how much was lost)? How widespread is (in the West) the knowledge of how much was lost? How has that awareness developed in the West, both at the level of the experts and that of the culture in general, since say the 15th century? Have you encountered any discussions of these points?

178.51.7.23 (talk) 08:40, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The issues touched upon are major topics in historiography as well as the philosophy of history, not only for the Ancient (Classical) World but for all historical study. Traditionally, historians have concentrated on the culture of the high and mighty. The imprint on the historical record by hoi polloi is much more difficult to detect, except in the rare instances where they rose up, so what we think of as "the" culture of any society is that of a happy few. Note also that "the culture of the Ancient World" covers a period of more than ten centuries, in which kingdoms and empires rose and fell, states and colonies were founded and conquered, in an endless successions of wars and intrigues. On almost any philosophical issue imaginable, including natural philosophy, ancient philosophers have held contrary views. It is not clear how to define "the" culture of the Ancient World, and neither is it clear how to define the degree to which this culture has influenced modern Western society. It may be argued that the influence of say Plato or Sophocles has largely remained confined to an upper crust. I think historians studying this are well aware of the limitations of their source material, including the fact that history is written by the victors.  --Lambiam 13:42, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

178.51.7.23 -- Think of it this way: What did it mean to "publish" something in the ancient world? You had at least one written manuscript of your work -- rarely more than a handful of such manuscripts. You could show what you had written to your friends, have it delivered to influential people, bequeath it to your heirs, or donate it to an archive or research collection (almost none of which were meaningfully public libraries in the modern sense of that phrase). However you chose to do it, once you were gone, the perpetuation of your work depended on other people having enough interest in it to do the laborious work of copying the manuscript, or being willing to pay to have a copy made. Works of literature which did not interest other people enough to copy manuscripts of it were almost always eventually lost, which ensured that a lot of tedious and worthless stuff was filtered out. Of course, pagan literary connoisseurs, Christian monks, Syriac and Arabic translators seeking Greek knowledge, and Renaissance Humanists all had different ideas of what was worth preserving, but between them, they ensured that a lot of interesting or engaging or informative works ended up surviving from ancient times. I'm sure that a number of worthy books still slipped through the gaps, but some losses were very natural and to be expected; for example, some linguists really wish that Claudius's book on the Etruscan language had survived, but it's not surprising that it didn't, since it would not have generally interested ancient, medieval, or renaissance literate people in the same way it would interest modern scholars struggling with Etruscan inscriptions.

By the way, college bookstores on or near campuses of universities which had a Classics program sometimes used to have a small section devoted to the small green-backed (Greek) and red-backed (Latin) volumes of the Loeb Classical Library, and you could get an idea of what survived from ancient times (and isn't very obscure or fragmentary) by perusing the shelves... AnonMoos (talk) 01:03, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Indeed - at the other end of the scale, the Description of Greece by Pausanias seems to have survived into the Middle Ages in a single MS (now of course lost), and there are no ancient references to either it or him known. Since the Renaissance it has been continuously in print. Johnbod (talk) 03:00, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

References

1. Galen's article
2. https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2009/10/26/reference-for-the-claim-that-only-1-of-ancient-literature-survives/

December 31

Was the fictional character "The Jackal" (as played by Edward Fox and Bruce Willis) based on Carlos The Jackal?

Talking about the fictional assassin from the books and films. I once read somewhere that the real Carlos The Jackal didn't like being compared to the fictional character, because he said he was a professional Marxist revolutionary, not merely a hitman for hire to the highest bidder (not in the article about him at the moment, so maybe not true). 146.90.140.99 (talk) 02:47, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

No, the character wasn't based on Carlos. The films are based on the 1971 historical fiction novel The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, which begins with a fairly accurate account of the actual 1962 assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle by the French Air Force lieutenant colonel Jean Bastien-Thiry, which failed. Subsequently in the fictional plot the terrorists hire an unnamed English professional hitman whom they give the codename 'The Jackal'.

Carlos the Jackal was a Venezuelan terrorist named Ilich Ramírez Sánchez operating in the 1970s and '80s. He was given the cover name 'Carlos' when in 1971 he joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. When authorities found some of his weapons stashed in a friend's house, a copy of Forsyth's novel was noticed on his friend's bookshelf, and a Guardian journalist then invented the nickname, as journalists are wont to do. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 03:15, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

There's also the fictionalised Ilich Ramírez Sánchez / Carlos the Jackal from the Jason Bourne novels. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:44, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

References

I am on to creating an article on Lu Chun  soon. If anyone has got references about him other than those on google, it would be great if you could share them here. Thanks, ExclusiveEditor _{🔔 Ping Me!} 11:20, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Did you try the National Central Library of Taiwan? The library has a lot of collection about history of Tang dynasty. If you want to write a research paper for publication purpose, you need to know what have been written by others. Then the National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertation in Taiwan under the central library can be a good starting point. Stanleykswong (talk) 09:16, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Battle of the Granicus

This month some news broke about identification of the Battle of the Granicus site, stating in particular: "Professor Reyhan Korpe, a historian from Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (ÇOMÜ) and Scientific Advisor to the “Alexander the Great Cultural Route” project, led the team that uncovered the battlefield". However, per Battle of the Granicus#Location it seems that the exact site has been known since at least Hammond's 1980 article. Am I reading the news correctly that what Korpe's team actually did was mapping Alexander’s journey to the Granicus rather than identifying the battle site per se? Per news, "Starting from Özbek village, Alexander’s army moved through Umurbey and Lapseki before descending into the Biga Plain". Brandmeister 23:38, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

If Körpe and his team wrote a paper about their discovery, I haven't found it, so I can only go by news articles reporting on their findings. Apparently, Körpe gave a presentation at the Çanakkale Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism for an audience of local mayors and district governors, and I think the news reports reflect what he said there. Obviously, the presentation was in Turkish. Turkish news sources, based on an item provided by DHA, quote him as saying, "Bölgede yaptığımız araştırmalarda antik kaynakları da çok dikkatli okuyarak, yorumlayarak savaşın aşağı yukarı tam olarak nerede olduğunu, hangi köyler arasında olduğunu, ovanın tam olarak neresinde olduğunu bulduk." Google Translate turns this into, "During our research in the region, by reading and interpreting ancient sources very carefully, we found out more or less exactly where the war took place, which villages it took place between, and where exactly on the plain it took place." I cannot reconcile "more or less" with "exactly".

The news reports do not reveal the location identified by Körpe, who is certainly aware of Hammond's theory, since he cited the latter's 1980 article in earlier publications. One possibility is that the claim will turn out to have been able to confirm Hammond's theory definitively. Another possibility is that the location they identified is not "more or less exactly" the same as that of Hammond's theory.  --Lambiam 02:08, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

January 1

Has there ever been an incident of a serial killer murdering another serial killer?

Question as topic. Has this ever happened outside of the movies? 146.90.140.99 (talk) 05:30, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

This is an interesting question. Just because you can't find any incident, doesn't mean this kind of case never happened (type II error). Stanleykswong (talk) 09:57, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Apparently yes: Dean Corll was killed by one of his his accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley. --Antiquary (talk) 12:13, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Of course it would be more notable if the two were not connected to each other. --142.112.149.206 (talk) 08:22, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

If you're including underworld figures, this happens not infrequently. As an Aussie, a case that springs to mind was Andrew Veniamin murdering Victor Pierce. Both underworld serial murderers. I'm sure there are many similar cases in organised crime. Eliyohub (talk) 08:40, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Aren't hired killers distinct from the usual concept of a serial killer? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:11, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Outside the movies? Sure, on TV. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:09, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

The Dexter character from the multiple Dexter series is based on Pedro Rodrigues Filho, who killed criminals, including murderers. It is necessary to decide how many merders each of those murders did in order to decide if you would want to classify them as serial killers or just general murderers. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 19:04, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

It sounds like the Death Wish (1974 film) film series might have also drawn inspiration from Filho. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:24, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Another serial killer question

about 20 years ago, I saw a documentary where it was said that the majority of serial killers kill for sexual gratification, or for some sort of revenge against their upbringing, or because in their head that God (or someone else) told them to kill. But the FBI agent on the documentary said something about how their worst nightmare was an extremely intelligent, methodical killer who was doing what he did to make some sort of grand statement about society/political statement. That this sort of killer was one step ahead of law enforcement and knew all of their methods. Like a Hannibal Lecter type individual. He said that he could count on the fingers of one hand the sort of person who he was talking about, but that these killers were the most difficult of all to catch and by far the most dangerous. Can you tell me any examples of these killers? 146.90.140.99 (talk) 05:49, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Ted Kaczynski ("the Unabomber") comes to mind. --142.112.149.206 (talk) 07:06, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I second this. Ted the Unabomber only got finally caught by chance, only after his brother happened to recognise him. Eliyohub (talk) 08:43, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

More than a few killed for money; Michael Swango apparently just for joy. The case of Leopold and Loeb comes to mind, who hoped to demonstrate superior intellect; if they had not bungled their first killing despite spending seven months planning everything, more would surely have followed.  --Lambiam 15:09, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Missing fire of London

British Movietone News covered the burning down of the Crystal Palace in this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but apparently factual, film. At 00:15 it refers to 'the biggest London blaze since 1892'. What happened in 1892 that could be considered comparable to the Palace's demise, or at least sufficiently well-known to be referred to without further explanation?

I can see nothing in History of London, List of town and city fires, List of fires or 1892. The London Fire Journal records "May 8, 1892 - Scott's Oyster Bar, Coventry Street. 4 dead.", but also lists later fires with larger death tolls. Does anyone have access to the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society's article Fires in London and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade in 1892? -- Verbarson  _edits 13:48, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I see the Great Fire of 1892 destroyed half the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador. But comparing that to the Crystal Palace fire, which destroyed only the Crystal Palace, is an odd choice.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:45, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

It would also be odd to call it a "London blaze".  --Lambiam 15:15, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

The closest I found was the 1861 Tooley Street fire. Alansplodge (talk) 16:30, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Also a large fire at Wood Street in the City in 1882 (perhaps later mistaken for 1892?). Alansplodge (talk) 16:40, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I too wonder whether the Movietone newsreader was the victim of a typo. In December 1897 Cripplegate suffered "the greatest fire...that has occurred in the City since the Great Fire of 1666". . --Antiquary (talk) 11:46, 2 January 2025 (UTC) That's also mentioned, I now see, in Verbarson's London Fire Journal link. --Antiquary (talk) 12:24, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

@Verbarson: Fires in London and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade in 1892 is available on JSTOR as part of the Misplaced Pages Library. It doesn't give details of any individual fires. DuncanHill (talk) 16:51, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

@DuncanHill:, so it is. The DOI link in that article is broken; I should have been more persistent with the JSTOR search. Thank you. -- Verbarson  _edits 17:15, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Unexpectedly, from the Portland Guardian (that's Portland, Victoria): GREAT FIRE IN LIONDON. A great fire is raging in the heart of the London ducks. Dated 26 November 1892.  Card Zero  (talk) 07:02, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh, the poor ducks.  --Lambiam 12:05, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

The whole OCR transcript of that blurred newspaper column is hilarious. "The fames have obtained a firm bold", indeed! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.84.253 (talk) 12:07, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Setting aside the unsung history of the passionate ducks of London, what I see in that clipping is:

• 1892 - Australia is still a colony (18+ years to go)
• which is linked to the UK by (i) long-distance shipping, and (ii) telegraph cables
• because of (i), the London docks are economically important
• because of (ii), they get daily updates from London

Therefore, the state of the London docks (and the possible fate of the Australian ships there) is of greater importance to Australian merchants than it is to most Londoners. So headlines in Portland may not reflect the lesser priority of that news in the UK? -- Verbarson  _edits 17:15, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I was highly impressed by the rapidity of the Victorian Victorian telegraph system there. But my money's on Antiquary's theory, above - I think the newsreel announcer's script had 1892 as a typo for 1897.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:31, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Which I have finally found (in WP) at Timeline of London (19th century)#1890 to 1899 (using the same cite as Antiquary). It does look persuasively big ("The Greatest Fire of Modern Times" - Star), though there were no fatalities. Despite that, an inquest was held. It sounds much more likely than the docks fire to have been memorable in 1936. -- Verbarson  _edits 19:26, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

January 4

Could the Sack of Jericho be almost

historical in the sense that the story of what happened, happened to a different city but was transferred to Jericho?Rich (talk) 05:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

It might be. But then again, it might not be. Following whatever links there are to the subject within the article might be a good start for finding out about whatever theories there might be. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 07:19, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

To believe that the events in the story are historical, whether for Jericho or another city, amounts to believing in a miracle. Barring miracles, no amount of horn-blowing and shouting can bring defensive walls down.

Jericho was destroyed in the 16th century BCE. The first version of the Book of Joshua was written in the late 7th century BCE, so there are 9 centuries between the destruction and the recording of the story. An orally transmitted account, passed on through some thirty generations, might have undergone considerable changes, turning a conquest with conventional war practices, possibly with sound effects meant to install fear in the besieged, into a miraculous event.  --Lambiam 10:50, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

The sack was described in the Book of Joshua, which however was likely compiled around 640–540 BCE, some six or seven centuries after the supposed Hebrew conquest of Canaan. Some scholars now discount the whole Exodus and Conquest narrative as political lobbying written by Jewish exiles in Babylonia (which the Persians later took over) hoping to be given control over the former territory of Israel as well as being restored to their native Judah.

The narrative logically explains why a people once 'Egyptian slaves' (like all subjects of the Pharoah) were later free in Canaan, but by then it was likely forgotten that Egypt once controlled almost the entirety of Canaan, from which it withdrew in the Late Bronze Age Collapse. The Hebrew peoples of the (always separate) states of Israel and Judah emerged from Canaanite culture in situ, though minor folk movements (for example, of the Tribe of Levi, who often had Egyptian names) may have had a role. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.84.253 (talk) 10:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Accessibility, for URLs in text document

We've been asked to increase the accessibility of all documents we produce, esp. syllabi. I use WordPerfect, where I don't seem to be able to have a URL with a descriptive text in the way Word allows. 508 is the operative term. I'm trying this out: "Princeton University has some handy tips on what is called “active reading, on this webpage: https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/active-reading-strategies." In other words, descriptive text followed by a bare URL. Is that good for screen readers? Graham87, how does this look/sound to you? Thanks for your help, Drmies (talk) 18:03, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Drmies: I wouldn't make a general rule about that as it's context-dependent ... depending on how many URL's are in a document, reading them might get annoying. In general I'd prefer to read a link with descriptive text rather than a raw URL, because the latter aren't always very human-readable ... but I don't think this is really an accessibility issue; just do what would make sense for a sighted reader here. Graham87 (talk) 00:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

January 5

• Misplaced Pages resources for researchers
• Misplaced Pages help forums
• Misplaced Pages reference desk