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May 13

GroupMe--Grouply, the site scraper?

The Wikipedia article says that GroupMe started as something called Grouply. Years ago, there was something called Grouply that was famous (infamous) for "scraping" online groups for spamming and mass emailing purposes. Someone would get into a group (Facebook or Yahoo Groups), and collect contact info from the membership. I have some reason to believe that the Grouply that became GroupMe is different from the Grouply that made itself such a nuisance. Can someone find this out definitively? Uporządnicki (talk) 17:13, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

You would have to find a source that a Grouply did the mass scraping and stuff first. Also this blog claims the scrapey Grouply was an extension that ceased operations 2018. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Well, I asked here because I was hoping someone knew better than I do how to find these things. Uporządnicki (talk) 17:36, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

FOUND SOMETHING! https://groups.io/g/wslc/topic/grouply_warning_very/38396754. It's somewhere between a Primary Source and User Created Content, so it wouldn't do for a reference in Wikipedia. But I found a discussion board where some individual warns against Grouply. He points out (now I remember) that if someone joined, it would send invitations to join to everyone in his or her contact list, AND to the entire membership of any Yahoo Group he or she was in. The discussion was dated 2008. According to the Wikipedia article on GroupMe, GroupMe was created in May, 2010, and called Grouply, at first. By August of that year, it was called GroupMe.

So this dangerous nuisance called Grouply began no later than 2008. In 2010, someone starts something else and calls it Grouply; presumably, they realized very soon that the name was problematic, so they changed it to GroupMe. Then, in 2018, that other Grouply met its well-deserved (and, one would hope, painful) death. Uporządnicki (talk) 17:51, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

May 14

Bitcoin

My understanding of bitcoins and blockchains is that each new "transaction"(?) requires some new information plus an encrypted version of all of the information it is "transacting" (is that a word?). Therefore the blockchain files are presumably getting bigger and bigger. So my questions are, how large was the original bitcoin file and how large are bitcoins now? -- SGBailey (talk) 06:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

This website has a nice graph showing that it started very tiny and is now around 640GB. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 10:32, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

If that graph is accurate, the growth has come to a sudden virtual standstill as of 1 May 2025. Extrapolation of the growth from February 2023 to April 2025 would have led one to have expected as of now a number close to 750GB.  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:39, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

The referenced document says "close to reaching 5450 gigabytes in 2024" -- SGBailey (talk) 18:59, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

May 16

Why did Reddit shadow-suspend my account and remove every last comment and post I've ever made on it, just for making 7 cross-posts of the same topic?

Inappropriate questions for the reference desk, also unrelated to computing,
The following discussion has been closed by Lambiam. Please do not modify it.
Now that my username there cannot be used anymore, it was u/TheresJustNoMoney. I don't mind sharing my username elsewhere like here now, for that very reason. THE CROSSPOSTED TOPIC: To all you Nordic guys named Sven: If your name can be Sven, then can my name be Eght? Is Eght a valid name anywhere in the world much like how Sven is in the Nordics? What if I made Eght my nickname only for when I'm around guys named Sven? Where and in which countries is Eght a normal given name? To all of you named Sven: If you met a guy *actually* named Eght, what would your reactions be like? S(e)ven crossposts, in order to keep up with the Seven / 7 / Sven theme: r/NameNerds: r/namenerds/s/gDLfQYlJpU r/NordicCountries: r/Nordiccountries/s/6Ut24lbU6v r/Norway: r/Norway/s/23FiXcvjiI r/Sweden: r/sweden/s/VPYE1ognh7 r/Unket: (A technical difficulty kept me from posting there.) r/Finland: r/Finland/s/3LOvuBrKYo r/Denmark: r/Denmark/s/tDMecViB3J So why also remove all comments, posts and contributions I've EVER made to Reddit under that account when suspending it? Even the good, high-Karma ones? Why not preserve all but the problem submissions? --2600:100A:B054:FB6F:DC3A:927F:EEE9:84B2 (talk) 19:47, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

May 18

GNU/Linux

I want to make a fully-free copy of Tiny Core GNU/Linux whilst developing my own kernel. Should I use busybox? Gnu779 ( talk) 14:22, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Are you prepared to provide the same APIs for BusyBox to talk to your kernel as the GNU Linux kernel does? Then it will probably save you some development effort.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:34, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

No, I'm building fully free TinyCore first. Gnu779 ( talk) 08:44, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

KSP Libre Version

I'm writing a libre version of KSP, licensed under GPL 3 for GNU/Linux platforms. Where can I get 3D assets of KSP vehicle parts because I will write in OpenGL MESA in C? Gnu779 ( talk) 14:25, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Don't say about copyrighted stuff, because I don't want to talk about legal info. Gnu779 ( talk) 14:27, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

If you don't want to talk about copyright, what's the purpose of developing libre software? Aaron Liu (talk) 18:26, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps to make it available to users?  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:26, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Why not just redistribute copies of KSP then? Aaron Liu (talk) 21:37, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Is it me? I assume "KSP" in this question is the initialism of Keyword Services Platform, but for the rest I don't understand the question. What are "KSP vehicle parts"? What are "3D assets of vehicle parts"? Why are they needed for providing information about keywords used in search engine queries?  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:25, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Possibly Kerbal Space Program.-Gadfium (talk) 20:50, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

I meant Kerbal Space Program. Gnu779 ( talk) 08:43, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

When you are being sued, as you will be, it will not help that you don't want to talk about legal info.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:10, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Now I've changed my mind Gnu779 ( talk) 14:00, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

May 22

What is the computational power Q of the world's best N=16-Rechenwerk device?

What is the computational power Q of the world's best N=16-Rechenwerk device? For the meaning of the word "N=16-Rechenwerk", please see German Wikipedia de:Wikipedia:Auskunft/Archiv/2025/Woche_19#Für_eine_gegebene_natürliche_Zahl_N:_Wie_nennt_man_ein_technisches_Gerät,_das_die_in_dieser_Frage_beschriebene_mathematische_Funktion_möglichst_effizient_berechnen_kann?! 2003:ED:B722:800:B46D:A520:F44C:58CF (talk) 11:49, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Edited a link. --CiaPan (talk) 11:52, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Hard to tell, because the speed of supercomputers like El Capitan is typically given in FLOPS, which is not relevant here. In one step there seem to be two fetches and a store. They are mostly of consecutive locations, so a pipeline architecture will accelerate that, but I think memory access will be the bottleneck; much of the arithmetic can be implemented efficiently as bitwise operations. It looks that with some analysis the computation process can also be parallelized. On a single core, one step may take maybe 10 ns, so 10 million cores can do perhaps 10¹⁵ steps per second. For the about 10⁶ steps needed for N = 16, this would then take one nanosecond. Note that this is at best a ballpark figure; it may be off by orders of magnitude.  ​‑‑Lambiam 16:57, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

May 23

Just my concern about Analytic Geometry - Article Inappropriate PIC I feel, I think it is complex, rather. So, make relevant edits in the article connecting the other concepts associated with it

This picture in this article Analytic geometry#/media/File:Stereographic projection in 3D.svg can be changed to this rather, https://drive.google.com/file/d/11LIxCSDGHHScIrgrJOX-6MfiDE4nS6D4/view?usp=sharing. Unfortunately, that cannot be done as I've said, as the picture I'm referring is from the cine world, I mean the cinema as because

Concerning analytic geometry I think this topic which was added earlier - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AAnalytic_geometry&diff=712799894&oldid=712292654 is somewhat relevant in this Talk:Analytic_geometry which was closed and got removed from the Talk Page. He'd gone little outrageous and he made his addition to this talk page which is gibberish, so it got removed. However by Conic Sections we cannot intrude our own world, as, coz, because it is just in 2D. First of all 3D is different. Prior to make our own assumptions on String Theory, we must speculate clearly as because Conic Sections and this analytic geometry sees things that is in / on only in 2D aspect as we know, so it is very dangerous if at all if it is applied to 3D object, clear analysis and clear speculation is very much required before we approach

Editorial team please accord by so and make necessary edits in this Article - Analytic Geometry.

— ~~~~
User:AtTEnigma (talk) 11:26, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Is there a question here? Wikipedia has no editorial team. See Wikipedia:About. The image in the article is that of the infobox Template:General geometry, found on many articles on geometric topics, Absolute geometry, Bernhard Riemann, Circumference, ..., Zero-dimensional space. In no way is it meant to be specific to analytic geometry – although analytic geometry is a useful tool for working out the equations of the stereographic projection.  ​‑‑Lambiam 16:32, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

May 10

Do cops use signal jammers on video doorbells belonging to suspects?

If any Wikipedian here is a cop IRL, please answer here.

If the police are to visit someone's house for a questioning, a raid or to serve a warrant, do they jam the signal to their video doorbell so that the suspect monitoring the doorbell with their smartphone doesn't get tipped off about the cops' presence this way?

If the suspect is not home for whatever reason, and they see that cops are at the door through their video doorbell's camera feed, they may stay somewhere else until the cops go away, or flee the area and disappear from the law.

Or if they're home, and for example, they have to get rid of their drugs, they flush them down the toilet as soon as they see cops on the video feed before they answer their door.

So do you jam their video doorbell's signal when you get to their door?

Or do you let yourselves be seen on their video doorbell?

Also, if their voice comes on the speaker and says "I'm not home, what do you need?" What is your response right then?

If you're wondering "Why are YOU worried about this?" Great question; it's because I, a member of the Anti-Trump Establishment, am paranoid that Trump will soon dismantle democracy and make criticizing and dissing him a criminal offense, even retroactively. I've already posted criticisms of him on social media, so that could be why the cops will someday pick me up, along with millions of other outspoken anti-Trump citizens.

Even though I'll *gladly* go to jail for dissing and criticizing our idiot president, since Democratic employers will be MORE likely to hire me due to seeing THAT on my criminal record, I'll likely drive somewhere else if I see through my doorbell's video feed that the cops show up at my apartment for this reason, while I'm away from home. --2600:100A:B03E:F83A:1168:850E:68A3:D675 (talk) 01:25, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Once state security organizations in authoritarian states have reached a certain competence level, I don't think you need to worry about details like this. And in my part of the world, fleeing the area doesn't work because states turn a blind eye to each other's extraterritorial operations. They just pick people up or disappear them wherever and whenever it suits them, and they have all the best zero-click toys to put on smartphones. On the plus side, in the US context, southern Libya is very beautiful, if you like deserts. Sean.hoyland (talk) 06:11, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

If cops are raiding a house they don't bother with niceties like ringing the doorbell. After covering all escape routes they simply bash the door in without warning. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:49, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Speaking of "Democratic employers", have you not thought of the fact that IF America becomes a right-wing dictatorship like you suggest it might, there WON'T BE any "Democratic employers" left to hire you because THEY would all have been arrested as well??? 2601:646:8082:BA0:8C26:9877:F0E8:7F58 (talk) 09:42, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

I've heard that tinfoil hats deflect those ethereoplasmatic waves. 136.56.165.118 (talk) 00:06, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Why do you think they took real tinfoil off the market? —Tamfang (talk) 19:04, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Keeping a crown sheet covered

Follow-up to my earlier question: when driving a steam locomotive (possibly, but not necessarily, a Black Five like I was asking about in my earlier question) in mountainous terrain, what is the minimum water level in the boiler (in terms of percent above the lowest permissible mark on the water gauge) below which there exists a danger of uncovering the crown sheet of the firebox (which can be very dangerous)? Is it true, for example, that you're completely safe if you keep the water gauge above 50%, even if you go from a 2% climbing grade to a 2% descending grade (e.g. when cresting Binegar Summit)? 2601:646:8082:BA0:8C26:9877:F0E8:7F58 (talk) 09:51, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

That varies a lot from one locomotive to the next. I've seen some locomotives or steam railcars with vertical or even transverse boilers (one in the museum in Luzern) to avoid the issue. It also depends on the gradient expected. There's no need to keep the crownsheet safe when going from 20‰ up to 20‰ down if you're never going to encounter anything steeper than 12‰ (in Europe, rail gradients are usually expressed in permille; Americans use percents; the British use one-in-x ratios). The highest risk is for the Long Boiler locomotives, with long and thin boilers. PiusImpavidus (talk) 16:29, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

BTW, accelerations also affect the apparent boiler water level. Braking at 0.5 m/s² has the same effect as a short 50‰ downhill, causing the water to slosh forward in the boiler. I suppose it may last too short to overheat the crownsheet and melt the fusible plugs.

Simply put (simply, because it approximates the boiler as a box), the change in gradient times half the length of your boiler equals the change in water depth over the crownsheet. Going from +20‰ to -20‰ with a 6 metre boiler will cause a drop of about 12 centimetres. Your typical sight glass is, maybe, 20 centimetres. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:02, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

In 1953, a Chesapeake and Ohio class H-8 (much larger than your Black Five, with four times the tractive effort) exploded at Hinton, West Virginia because the crown sheet ruptured, and the Interstate Commerce Commission produced a detailed incident report. It's too technical for me to know whether it answers your question well, but perhaps you will understand it. Nyttend (talk) 21:03, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

The report mentions that the boiler water level had dropped to 7+1⁄4 in (18 cm) below the highest point of the crown sheet (page 6). The lowest point of the water glass was 6+1⁄2 in (17 cm) above the highest point of the crown sheet (page 9) and the glasses where 6+1⁄2 in (17 cm) tall (page 8). A low water alarm (not present on most classes of steam locomotives) was activated when the water level dropped to less than 6+3⁄4 in (17 cm) above the crown sheet top (page 11). Apparently, a witness told that the low water alarm sounded 1+1⁄2 mi (2.4 km) before the accident (page 13), the injector was closed but in good condition (page 9) and over the past days, problems with one of the feedwater pumps had been reported frequently (page 12), inluding at a stopover 2:30 hours before the accident (page 13). No mention is made of fusible plugs. Not all locomotives were fitted with those, but most were. The accident happened on level track.

The length of the boiler was 23 ft (7.0 m) firetubes + 118 in (3.0 m) combustion chamber + 180 in (4.6 m) firebox equals 574 in (14.6 m), so tilting it from +2% to -2% causes a drop in water lever over the crown sheet of around 3 dm (1 foot). PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:21, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Your numbers do make sense for the gross oversimplification of a boiler as a rectangular box, but it sounds like it would have been very dangerous if this had actually been the case -- the boiler would go from completely full to almost empty at the top of every mountain summit (BTW, on some American lines the ruling gradient is as steep as 3% -- 1 in 33 to you -- which would make these fluctuations even worse by half), so there would have been boiler explosions just about every day! Fortunately the top of a boiler is not a vertical-sided rectangular box, but a circular arc with a quite small central angle (which causes its width to decrease very rapidly with height above mean water level) -- would you say this mitigates the above effect by at least half (or maybe by even more than that, like maybe a factor of 3-5)? 2601:646:8082:BA0:499E:7EB5:39D0:497E (talk) 05:10, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

The accident report above mentions that the diameter of the boiler (back side; it's slightly conical) is 106 in (270 cm) and the bottom of the water glass is 25 in (64 cm) above the axis of symmetry. That means that the width of the boiler at the top of the crownsheet is 99 in (250 cm), at the bottom of the water glass 93 in (240 cm) and at the top of the water glass (still 21.5 in (55 cm) below the top of the boiler) it's 85 in (220 cm) wide, a change of just 15%. When pitching from +20‰ to 0‰, the water depth over the crownsheet drops a bit faster than in the linear approximation, going from 0‰ to -20‰ it drops a bit slower than the linear approximation. In other words, for a symmetric change in gradient, the quadratic term cancels. I'm pretty sure that my gross oversimplification is accurate to within 10%.

There are two additional factors that prevent boiler explosions. First, at mountain passes, the gradient doesn't instantly change from maximum up to maximum down. There's a short stretch of level track between, maybe no more than a passing loop. There, the boiler can be filled if necessary. If the water is very low, the train may even stop there to fill the boiler. Second, the fireman (who's responsible for managing boiler water level and fire) must always take into account not only the current gradient, but also the gradients expected over the next fifteen minutes. He (always he; those were sexist days) has to know the track.

On steep routes, they always used a locomotive designed for steep routes. Driver and fireman must always be familiar with the route; if not, they are accompanied by someone who is.

BTW, it's 30‰ to me. I'm from the European continent (as you might have guessed from my previous comments and less than perfect English skills). It's pretty steep. One of the main railway lines across the Alps, the Gotthard Railway, completed in 1882, has a ruling gradient of 27‰. At the summit, there's a 15 km (9.3 mi) practically level section in a tunnel. Steam operation proved problematic, so the line was electrified in 1920. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:26, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

OK, so am I to understand that the boiler must be completely topped off as you cross the summit, and that being even 10-15% low on the water glass as you go over the top can be dangerous? (Also, regarding all firemen back in the day being men: this wasn't only due to sexism, this was also because stoking a steam train (as well as driving one) is very physical work, which is why you don't often see women on the footplate of a steam train even today!) 2601:646:8082:BA0:2C:610F:A84:CB25 (talk) 02:22, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

May 12

Carbon dioxide poisoning

The Lake Nyos disaster occurred because a lake emitted a huge cloud of carbon dioxide, which spread around the lake and suffocated man and beast in the surrounding area. To my surprise, it mentions occasional effects of poisoning with carbon dioxide, but very little. (I anticipated that a cloud of pure carbon dioxide would be dangerous only because it doesn't contain breathable oxygen, so it would asphyxiate you just as if you were strangled or drowned.) Do we have any article that covers the effects of acute carbon dioxide poisoning like this? Carbon dioxide poisoning is a redirect to hypercapnia, which concentrates on problems when diving and medical problems that can cause excess carbon dioxide more gradually; I know about decompression sickness affecting divers, so I'm left wondering if hypercapnia#physiological effects would still apply in a situation with normal air pressure, or if it's still relevant for people in whom extreme amounts of carbon dioxide are not the result of a pre-existing medical problem. Nyttend (talk) 20:52, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

The section Hypercapnia#CO2 toxicity in animal models, after discussing experiments on dogs with a 50% air/CO₂ mix, goes on to say:

"At higher concentrations of CO₂, unconsciousness occurred almost instantaneously and respiratory movement ceased in 1 minute. After a few minutes of apnea, circulatory arrest was seen. These findings imply that the cause of death in breathing high concentrations of CO₂ is not the hypoxia but the intoxication of carbon dioxide."

In Carbon dioxide#Toxicity we have:

"In humans . . . Concentrations of more than 10% may cause convulsions, coma, and death. CO₂ levels of more than 30% act rapidly leading to loss of consciousness in seconds."

but also

"Because it is heavier than air, in locations where the gas seeps from the ground (due to sub-surface volcanic or geothermal activity) in relatively high concentrations, without the dispersing effects of wind, it can collect in sheltered/pocketed locations below average ground level, causing animals located therein to be suffocated. Carrion feeders attracted to the carcasses are then also killed. Children have been killed in the same way near the city of Goma by CO2 emissions from the nearby volcano Mount Nyiragongo. The Swahili term for this phenomenon is mazuku."

while further on under Ventilation:

"In February 2020, three people died from suffocation at a party in Moscow when dry ice (frozen CO₂) was added to a swimming pool to cool it down. A similar accident occurred in 2018 when a woman died from CO₂ fumes emanating from the large amount of dry ice she was transporting in her car."

It would seem that both toxicity/intoxication and suffocation may be involved, each separately fatal. The references for those passages (which I have omitted here) may give more details. I speculate that the lack of more explicit details may reflect a paucity of research simply because encountering high levels (tens of percent) of CO2 is for humans an extremely rare occurrence (though it is commonly used in animal euthanesia). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.101.226 (talk) 00:51, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

During the Apollo 13 disaster, the astronauts were at one point exposed to acutely toxic CO2 levels due to malfunctioning scrubbers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgJU6Vz1XOs 2601:646:8082:BA0:499E:7EB5:39D0:497E (talk) 06:15, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

May 13

Fluid in vagina upon sexual arousal

When you finger a girl's vagina and it becomes wet, what is the name for the fluid that you feel in there? 2601:18A:C500:E830:DDE4:FB37:5AA9:F249 (talk) 04:15, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Vaginal lubrication is a naturally produced fluid during sexual arousal. It is produced by the Bartholin's gland and/or Skene's gland. Adding the comfort of a Personal lubricant is often appreciated particularly by women affected by vaginal dryness. Philvoids (talk) 08:32, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Physics and category theory

Would Category theory help explain relativity and quantum mechanics?Rich (talk) 04:54, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

The articles Theory of relativity and Introduction to quantum mechanics give well-written introductions to present knowledge and its history. No final consensus has been reached on Interpretations of quantum mechanics or the sought-after Theory of everything to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. Category theory offers math tools to frame the problem but is not helpful to a newcomer. Philvoids (talk) 08:51, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

John C. Baez and Aaron Lauda have applied category theory to these topics:

John C. Baez, Aaron Lauda. "A Prehistory of n-Categorical Physics", Chapter 1 of Deep Beauty, pp. 13–128, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

A preprint on arXiv can be accessed here.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:12, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Hawthorne Math and Science Academy

Is there any evidence that the Hawthorne Math and Science Academy really had a founding principal named Pete Zahut? It sounds like a bad pun based on Pizza Hut, and I can't find any more references to him on the Web, through googling. 2601:644:4301:D1B0:9CFA:E37B:87FE:E7A7 (talk) 18:09, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Looks like the name was changed by an IP editor in This 2018 edit claimed as a typo correction. Seems likely to me that it's simple vandalism. I've gone ahead and corrected the name to the one included prior to that user's edit. Amstrad00 (talk) 18:49, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Just...wow. I checked out that IP, and in this edit, they claim "Fixed grammar", when in reality it's straight-out vandalism. 2601:644:4301:D1B0:9CFA:E37B:87FE:E7A7 (talk) 08:41, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I like your metaphor! 2A02:C7C:3764:A900:9029:B30E:9054:574 (talk) 13:06, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

"Pete Zahut", eh? Sounds like a cousin of Jabba. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:45, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

May 14

Origin of the Moon

What is stopping us from having a solid understanding of the origin of the Moon and resolving the unsolved problems? Is it just the fact that we really haven't been studying it all that long and it takes time? Could new tools help resolve the competing theories and definitely say one way or the other? Or will we never know without a fictional time machine or wormhole viewer to look back into the past? Could we (or have we) spotted a moon forming elsewhere in deep space? Viriditas (talk) 09:06, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

For a time machine to be helpful, it would need to be an actual time machine. A major issue is that current hypotheses fail to explain some known observations, so new ideas seem to be needed. Additionally, the predictive power of these hypotheses is limited, partly because they are incomplete theories giving rise to fuzzy predictions, and partly because some theoretical predictions cannot be tested with available means (similar to how we do not know how to experimentally test hypotheses about the composition of Earth's inner core).  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:34, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Viriditas, I think it is worth noting that despite a number of competing theories and open questions about the precise planetary mechanics, the Theian Impact model remains the overwhelmingly dominant theory. A major factor contributing to stronger confirmation of any one model, in addition to those already noted by Lambiam, is the vast amount of time that elapsed since the formation of the Earth and Luna, and the resulting need to reverse-engineer the material arrangement of the solar system in the relevant far-distant epochs. As to the notion of new tools adding at least some degree of confidence to any scientific consensus, yes, that is always a possibility--to a point. In particular, quantum computing and AI can be expected to lead to some semi-near-term advancements in relevant modelling. But because we have many gaps in in requisite data to fix various of the variables relevant to the existing theories, a much stronger consensus than exists now will probably remain evasive for a long time. As to whether we have a confirmation of a moon in formation outside the solar system, the answer (I believe) is no. Remember that it is actually within just a couple of decades that we could even begin to validate the existence of exoplanets, and we continue to do so through indirect observation of stellar bodies. Being able to confirm fine details of the mechanics of the formation of an exomoon is well outside the scope of our current celestial observation capabilities--indeed, we're not even to the stage of a firm confirmation of a single exomoon's existence. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 03:20, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Gerotranscendence

There used to be a wiki article on Gerotranscendence. Why was it deleted? Cerebrality (talk) 14:45, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

It was deleted in 2008 (!), with "was a very short article providing little or no context" [1] --Wrongfilter (talk) 14:55, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If like me you've never encountered the word see Harald Ofstad (note 4). 2A00:23C7:2B60:8401:74ED:7F23:A69C:1530 (talk) 15:03, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Looking it up on Google, I would see it as a fancy-schmancy word for "getting nicer as you get older". Which does not always happen. Some folks get meaner as they get older. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:43, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

You misunderstand it. Not all elderly people experience gerotranscendence, just some. Cerebrality (talk) 19:38, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes. Some do, and some don't. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:42, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

No the article was available until the past few years or so. Cerebrality (talk) 19:38, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

THe logs don't lie. Maybe there was nothing in it that wasn't already in the Harald Ofstad article? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:45, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

embryology

Apologies if this question has been addressed before, but if so I couldn't locate it.

How does the developing embryro distinguish its left from its right side?

For instance in humans how does it know to grow the liver (mostly) on the right side & the spleen (entirely) on the left? Obviously this isn't an infallible process since very ocasionally there can be revesals, which evidently still result in a viable individual - although in later life they might confuse a surgeon.

Do we know if there's any connection with this and differences at a molecular level (L-amino acids & D-sugars)? Renshaw 1 (talk) 18:25, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

See Situs solitus § Development. If indeed the unidirectional rotation of nodal cilia establishes the usual situs, the next question is why these cilia don't rotate clockwise. This can only be due to chirality of the axonemal dynein (the dynein motor protein animating the cilia). So this is, ultimately, a difference at the molecular level.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:15, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Aside: It looks like you're the same user as Paul Renshaw. You only need one ID here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:19, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

No, we're different users: I am David Renshaw (but Paul and I have a lot in common). Renshaw 1 (talk) 10:31, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

What is the name of the manoeuvre when a bird performs an aileron roll in flight?

Because birds don't have ailerons. But they do perform aileron rolls if something comes at them from above. They strike with claws and beak when inverted and then attempt to spiral away. 146.200.107.90 (talk) 22:49, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

The Aileron article indicates that birds do, in fact, have ailerons. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:41, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I see the term "barrel roll" used for a manoeuvre that, as described, is probably the avian equivalent of an aileron roll: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6].  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:40, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Am guessing this is typically used only by raptors and not by these or these? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:46, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

As I understand it, an aileron roll is performed with the aircraft following a straight path. In the reference frame of the pilot, apparent gravity makes a full rotation in the plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. The pilot has to operate elevators and rudder to perform the trick. A barrel roll is performed at more or less constant angle of attack, sending the aircraft along a helical path, along the surface of a barrel, with the rudder centred and the elevator slightly up. In the pilot's reference frame, apparent gravity constantly points more or less down. Barrel rolls are relatively safe and easy in non-aerobatic aircraft; the largest type I know to have performed a barrel roll is the Boeing 707. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:50, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Birds use wing warping instead of ailerons. So did the Wright brothers. You can call the manoeuvre a roll. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:33, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

May 15

Age of grafts

Does a plant graft have the same age as the original plant? In other words, will it get old when the "donor" organism becomes old? Thanks in advance for the answer! 62.73.72.3 (talk) 21:01, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Well, the original Granny Smith apple is from 1868. It's propagated by grafts. The Roxbury Russet is from the mid 1600s. Abductive (reasoning) 21:10, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

The original Granny Smith apple is from 1868, but that doesn’t mean the grafted tree is 157 years old.  The newly grafted Granny Smith apple plant you purchase from garden center or supermarket may only be a few years old because it was cut from a new growth that occurred one or two years ago and that had been joined to a rootstock of a few years old. Stanleykswong (talk) 07:05, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

That was the point of my response. Abductive (reasoning) 16:46, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Plant senescence of perennials is not well understood. Some clonal tree colonies appear to keep living indefinitely, as long as environmental conditions remain good.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:52, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

This depends on which part of the plant is being grafted.  If you cut off the main trunk (which usually doesn't happen), the grafted plant will be the same age as the original plant.  However, if you cut off a branch that grew two years ago, the grafted plant will only be two years old. Stanleykswong (talk) 06:52, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if grafting a small piece of an ancient bristlecone pine onto a young pine tree would work. If it did, the graft would be a couple thousand years older than its host. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:41, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Most (though not very) likely to work with a stock of Pinus nelsonii. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 16:12, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Why that species? Abductive (reasoning) 16:48, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Because according to both phylogenies in the Pine article, that's the species most closely related to the three Bristlecone pine species, though it's also described in its own article as "not closely related to any other pines in either morphology or genetics", hence my "Most (though not very) likely".

Apparently, although from a very small and remote natural range, P. nelsonii seeds are so edible and tasty that they're sold in Mexico City markets, and the tree is sometimes cultivated elsewhere out of curiosity, so it should be available commercially if anybody wants to try the experiment. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 00:36, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

May 16

Hycean planet being a exoplanet or dwarf planet

OP is a block evader
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This article says that hycean planet is a exoplanet and considered to be part of ocean world. But I'm not sure that if this planet is a dwarf planet. Can you tell me what is this planet classify as? Just for this, is this size of the hycean planet small or large? 2600:1700:78EA:450:75E5:23D1:5B65:DBB4 (talk) 05:52, 16 May 2025 (UTC) The article actually says "They are usually considered to be larger and more massive than Earth." So, Earth is not a dwarf planet and words like "massive" are not usually used to describe small things. 196.50.199.218 (talk) 06:45, 16 May 2025 (UTC) A dwarf planet is defined by its inability to clear the neighbourhood. Abductive (reasoning) 07:54, 16 May 2025 (UTC) Just to clarify: hycean planet is a hypothetical type of planet just like rocky planet is a type of planet. It is not a specific planet. Joe vom Titan (talk) 10:49, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

May 17

Google translate

(Please correct me if this is not the right place to ask this.)

Is Google Translate a reliable enough source for translating common names from other languages to English? For example, if I were to write an article about a plant native to a non-English country, and it has a common name in that language (which is provided, without translation, in a reliable source)  – would it be fine to provide a translation, citing Google Translate as a source, or would I have to use something else (or not provide translation at all)? 🌳 Balsam Cottonwood (talk) ✝ 23:36, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

At best, Google Translate would give a search term to try out. Fortunately, there are sources that list common names for many languages. For starters, there is our own Wikidata and Wikispecies, and there is EPPO. Take a look at all the common names for Quercus suber in its EPPO listing. Also, please drop by WP:WikiProject Plants, unlike many Wikiprojects it is quite active. Abductive (reasoning) 23:48, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't mean finding names in different languages  – I already found those at the website you mentioned. I'm just asking if it would be all right to take those names and translate them into English with Google Translate, so I can list names in other languages in the article, with the translations. 🌳 Balsam Cottonwood (talk) ✝ 23:54, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Ah, the general consensus that I have observed is that foreign common names are not considered to be particularly encyclopedic. I rarely add them to articles that I create, here are two examples where I do; Celtis biondii and Acer diabolicum. Note that the names are only for the language spoken where the plant is native, and that they provide some useful context for the English readership. In other words, if the names are considered important enough to be analyzed by independent secondary sources, then they can be in the article. Just like everything else on Wikipedia. Abductive (reasoning) 00:13, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. 🌳 Balsam Cottonwood (talk) ✝ 00:15, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

If a local vernacular name is considered encyclopedic, it is reasonable to provide it with a translation, if available. But one should not trust Google Translate to give a correct translation of such names. For example, Google Translate as it is today turns the Dutch vernacular name Groot akkerscherm for Ammi majus into "Large field screen". But the meaning of scherm in the compound noun akker + scherm is "umbel". For another example, Google Translate inexplicably turns Persian صنوبر کالیفرنیایی (Populus trichocarpa) into "Californian spruce", instead of "Californian poplar". See also Help:Translation § Machine translation and Help:Translation/Machine translation errors.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:25, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Example: I once pasted a Spanish phrase into Google Translate to translate it into English. It translated "manzana" as "apple" even though in context it clearly meant "block". -- Avocado (talk) 16:25, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Google Translate is useful as a guideline, but falls short of being reliable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:25, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Kind of like Wikipedia. Or anything else, for that matter. Matt Deres (talk) 17:25, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Okay, thank you, @Abductive, @Lambiam, @Avocado, @Baseball Bugs, and @Matt Deres for your answers. I understand; Google translate is somewhat like a Large Language Model, and is not very reliable. Could I provide a translation if I'm able to find it recorded in a reliable source? The specific article is Anthemis tomentosa, which I wrote yesterday (today in UTC time). Also, I should probably replace the translations in Anthemis brachycarpa, which was published as an article a few weeks ago, because I used Google Translate there. Thanks for all the help! 🌳 Balsam Cottonwood (talk) ✝ 18:09, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

In any case, they should not be in the article unless verified in a more reliable way.

All uses I see of קחוון קצר-פירות have קחוון with a double ו, so I'm not sure that the ktiv menuqad קַחְוָן קְצַר-פֵּרוֹת with a single ו is not a typo. Like brachycarpa, Hebrew קצר-פירות means "short-fruited" (the second component from פרי, "fruit").

BTW, Turkish sahil papatyası literally means "shore chamomile" (or "(river) bank chamomile"; the Turkish term sahil can refer to the edge of land adjacent to any body of water, so the best translation may dependent on where this flower grows).  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:08, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. 🌳 Balsam Cottonwood (talk) ✝ 02:04, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

May 19

Does Wikipedia contain a contradiction about whether, the speed of light is only constant in inertial frames of reference?

On the one hand, our article special relativity states:

• In the lead: "The speed of light in vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of the motion of light source or observer".
• In the chapter background: "Two observers in relative motion receive information about two events via light signals traveling at constant speed, independent of either observer's speed".
• In the chapter History: "James Clerk Maxwell presented a theory of electromagnetism...The theory specifically predicted a constant speed of light in vacuum, no matter the motion (velocity, acceleration, etc.) of the light emitter or receiver."
• In the chapter Reference frames and relative motion: "the speed of light is constant in relativity irrespective of the reference frame".

.

So it seems that the speed of light is constant, also in non-inertial frames of reference.

.

On the other hand, that article also states:

• In that chapter: "light in vacuum propagates with the speed c (a fixed constant, independent of direction) in at least one system of inertial coordinates".
• In the chapter Basis: The two postulates both concern observers moving at a constant speed relative to each other.
• In the chapter Lack of an absolute reference frame: "the speed of light in vacuum is always measured to be c, even when measured by multiple systems that are moving at different (but constant) velocities".
• in our article Postulates of special relativity, in the chapter Postulates of special relativity: "As measured in any inertial frame of reference, light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c that is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body. Or: the speed of light in free space has the same value c in all inertial frames of reference".
• In our article speed of light, in the lead: "Albert Einstein postulated that the speed of light c with respect to any inertial frame of reference is a constant...Such particles and waves travel at c regardless of the motion of the source or the inertial reference frame of the observer".
• In that article, in the chapter Fundamental role in physics: "The speed at which light waves propagate in vacuum is independent both of the motion of the wave source and of the inertial frame of reference of the observer...In non-inertial frames of reference (gravitationally curved spacetime or accelerated reference frames), the local speed of light is constant and equal to c, but the speed of light can differ from c when measured from a remote frame of reference".

.

So it seems that the speed of light is only constant in inertial frames of reference.

.

I wonder if the second set of quotes contradicts the first one. HOTmag (talk) 19:04, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

The implicit assumption in the first set is that the observer shares the frame of reference with the measuring instrument.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:08, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Of course, but what about two measuring instruments that accelerate relative to each other? Will they measure the same speed of light, according to each set of quotes mentioned in my original post? HOTmag (talk) 00:04, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

In an inertial frame of reference you can make a local clock by observing a light package bouncing between two parallel motionless mirrors, which can serve as the basis for setting up a coordinate system. The problem is really in how to define a non-local coordinate system from a non-inertial frame of reference. You can write in your lab notes, "Event E was observed at position (x₁, y₁, z₁) at time t₁." How did you measure the values of these non-local coordinates? Will they still be in any sense meaningful at time t₂? Is the space point (x₁, y₁, z₁) still "where it was" at time t₁?  ​‑‑Lambiam 16:31, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

May 20

Is there such a thing as a "heavy gunner" in real life?

You see this in video games a lot. A soldier who is dressed head to toe in a thick kevlar suit/helmet and ballistic plates shooting an LMG or a gattling gun. Often sent out in front of everyone else to cause as much damage to the enemy as possible while standing there and enduring their return gunfire. Does this exist in real life? 146.200.107.90 (talk) 01:58, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Only the ones who ride rhinoceri. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:42, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Even if the bullets don't penetrate the armor, their momentum is transferred to the lone vanguard soldier (see Physics of firearms § Transfer of energy). The momentum of a bullet fired by an AK-47 is about 6 kg⋅m⋅s⁻¹. (See the info box, Ballistic performance, of 7.62×39mm; this supposes that the bullets don't bounce back, otherwise the imparted momentum is higher.) At 10 rounds per second, the effect of one rifle on automatic continually hitting its target is an effective force of 6 kg⋅m⋅s⁻¹ × 10 s⁻¹ = 60 kg⋅m⋅s⁻², about 6 g. For a lighter machine gun like the Colt IAR6940 I still get some 4.5 g. The warrior will have a hard time advancing.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:44, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Wouldn't the g-force experienced depend on the weight of the soldier? Alien878 (talk) 08:12, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

In real life this would be a suicidal tactic, so not one that would be routinely planned for by officers, or willingly performed by most soldiers. A few unusually brave individuals may have done similar things in unusual and desperate situations, for which they might well have been awarded a (probably posthumous) decoration. {The poster formerly known as as 87.812.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 13:53, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

An unfortunate 'lol' at your 'probably posthumously' there. —Fortuna, imperatrix 14:25, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

• It depends what he had for breakfast. —Fortuna, imperatrix 14:26, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the North Hollywood shootout. Abductive (reasoning) 14:55, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

One Mr Edward Kelly was an early pioneer of armour vs firearms tactics, although he didn't use or face automatic weapons or machine guns. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 15:41, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Curiously, Heavy gun is a redirect to Heavy machine gun, but most occurrences of "heavy gun" appear to refer to crew-served artillery. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 16:42, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

An example from the First World War was the Italian Compagnie della morte of late 1915, who were tasked with cutting enemy barbed wire with pliers and wore medieval-style armour.

See this image. Not terribly successful, one Italian officer wrote; "Before going out to attack, they send men with pliers to remove the wires from the enemy fences. Ordinarily, neither pliers nor men return". Alansplodge (talk) 17:34, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Looking at the history, that redirect is positively antediluvian. If you're confident there's a better target (er, pun unintended), I'd say go for it -- Avocado (talk) 16:55, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

I've pointed it to Large-calibre artillery. I have insufficient knowledge to be sure it's the best, but it is definitely better than before. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 20:43, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

The short answer, as people have indicated above is no. However, the video-game/media trope has connections with real-life tactics such as Shock troops and Infantry weapons officer. The problem is the trade-off between power and speed. Eluchil404 (talk) 21:36, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Contaminated oil

If oil which has been contaminated with seawater is used to fuel an oil-burning steam locomotive (assuming that the temperature is above freezing, so that ice crystal formation is not an issue), is there likely to be an immediate (= within no more than a few hours) failure of the burners in the firebox? Or would the engine be OK for a few days while the maintenance department (or the logistics department, or the fueling department if there is one) gets the problem sorted out? 2601:646:8082:BA0:2C:610F:A84:CB25 (talk) 22:32, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

The burners in steam locomotive fireboxes were made of iron or steel. The salt in seawater causes them to corrode through a process called oxidation. But this is not the end of the world.  If caught early, a technician in the maintenance department should be able to resolve the problem without causing significant long-term damage. Stanleykswong (talk) 06:49, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

The oxidation process is also known as rusting.  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:43, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Right, I'm aware of corrosion -- what I wanted to know, though, is whether this could cause more immediate problems, e.g. through phase separation causing blockages in the burners and/or fuel lines (analogously to what would happen to a diesel in this scenario)? 2601:646:8082:BA0:95F1:4DFA:95FD:527C (talk) 11:15, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Even under normal operation, burner and fuel line blockage is inevitable. There is no doubt that the salt in seawater increases the risk. Stanleykswong (talk) 11:23, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Per GWR oil burning steam locomotives, the oil was heated by steam to make it flow, then atomised by steam in the burner to allow rapid combustion. The atomisers had to be removed and cleaned daily. With that level of interaction with steam, and daily maintenance, I doubt that salt water contamination would cause noticeable blockages or further degradation. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 17:31, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

So here's what I really wanted to know: in "Thomas to the Rescue" (where all the diesels break down due to seawater contamination of their fuel and Thomas has to bring them fresh fuel from the depot), had Victor and Timothy (the only two oil-burning steamies on Sodor) been on the NWR at the time (they weren't introduced until much later), would they have broken down as well? (Yes, I'm aware that diesels and oil burner (engine)s use fuel with different volatility parameters, but let's ignore that point in this case!) 2601:646:8082:BA0:95F1:4DFA:95FD:527C (talk) 22:12, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Steam is less corrosive than salt water. Salt water contains large amounts of chlorides, which are more corrosive to metals due to electrochemical reactions, especially at high temperatures and pressures.

There is no mention in the GWR archives of what atomizer design they used. Of course, for a large engine, using steam sounds like it would make more sense than using air. Also, they did not mention whether the water was pre-treated before use. There is no mention in the GWR archives of what atomizer design they used. Of course, for a large engine, using steam sounds like it would make more sense than using air.

Also, they did not mention whether the water was pre-treated before use. In the electronics industry, deionized water is used to clean printed circuit boards, and it is possible that they used a similar process (maybe a more primitive approach) to remove mineral ions from the water. Or, did they use steam injection or other method to physically remove dissolved oxygen from the water before using it? Stanleykswong (talk) 06:52, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

OK, never mind the corrosion (it takes weeks for corrosion to start causing trouble) -- what about more immediate failure modes, like an atomizer blockage or a chemistry-related combustion upset of some sort? 2601:646:8082:BA0:95F1:4DFA:95FD:527C (talk) 21:30, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

This depends on the design of the atomizer.  If it is a pressure atomizer, the design is relatively simple. It is actually an oil nozzle, very similar to a sprayer for gardening. If corrosion causes the atomizer to become clogged, simply removing and cleaning the nozzle may resolve the problem. Stanleykswong (talk) 21:55, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

As stated in the GWR article (and cited to Griffiths 1987, available here, pp.123-124), the GWR ended up with Laidlaw-Drew atomisers, possibly like this.

The same book, p.69, confirms that the GWR had long used water treatment for boiler water, and though was directed to extending boiler life, it would probably have benefitted the atomisers by reducing particulates and dissolved minerals.

Here is a detailed diagram. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 22:03, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Right, but in this case we're talking about water dissolved in the fuel oil as received by the railroad, not water in the form of steam injected into the nozzles to help atomize the oil (which is normal, and which uses purified water from the boiler, as you correctly pointed out). In other words, a scenario similar to that in "Thomas to the Rescue"! 2601:646:8082:BA0:95F1:4DFA:95FD:527C (talk) 01:48, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

You are asking what would happen in an already fictional situation if the writer had written it differently. The fact is, that anything that would suit the story could happen, up to and including Thomas turning green, the er... physically-enhanced Controller resigning, and pigs flying. If you want to ask a science question, you should specify the grade of oil, the concentration of seawater, and the design of the atomiser and associated pipework. Anyway, I was taught that oil and water don't mix. Wouldn't the seawater separate out and float on top? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 17:16, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

To be fair, the author Wilbert Awdry was knowlegeable (for an amateur) about railways and, outside of the fantastic elements of sapient locomotives and rolling stock, attempted to be as realistic as possible in his plots, many of which were based on or inspired by actual incidents on real-life UK railways.

That said, the OP's deliberate ignoring of the fact that diesel fuel and locomotive fuel oil are two completely different things combusted in completely different equipment, and would not have suffered from the same contamination (unless by two acts of sabotage), in my view rather negates any point of discussing the minutiae of oil-burning locomotives. And as others have explained, seawater-contaminated fuel oil might have caused minor corrosion of parts, but would not have caused a quick breakdown, as seawater in diesel fuel would.

[Edited to add] Note that due to the constant physical agitation endured by a running locomotive, the seawater and fuel oil would, I suggest, probably remain in an emulsified mix rather than settling out. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.154.147 (talk) 22:03, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

References

Thanks for the constructive and on-point answer (for once -- Verbarson's latest comment was completely unhelpful, and those of the others were well-meaning but misunderstood the question) -- so, the answer to my question would be "probably not", is that correct? (BTW, the reason why I chose to knowingly ignore the difference in fuel grade is because of the detailed context -- as I think I already have said in an earlier comment, I'm doing some preliminary work on a Thomas & Friends-themed add-on for Train Sim Classic and/or Train Sim World, and this question has to do with one of the scenarios I'm planning, which will be based on "Thomas to the Rescue" -- and in Train Sim Classic at least, oil-burning steamies use the same fueling facilities as diesels (I checked!) And I'm actually kind of glad that the answer to my question is no -- this scenario would already be a marathon of a mission, with the player (driving Thomas) having to haul a train 2-3 times heavier than the normal load for his type all the way up and down the main line (and down and up a few of the branches as well), so I guess the player could do without having to make an extra trip to the china clay quarry to drop off fuel for Timothy!) 2601:646:8082:BA0:95F1:4DFA:95FD:527C (talk) 06:22, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Mostly it would, but a small amount (maybe not even all that small, it could range as high as a few parts per thousand) would remain in the oil as an emulsion (had the separation been complete, there would have been no need for desalting/dewatering the oil at refineries, but the fact is, all of them have desalters installed upstream of the atmospheric distillation unit) -- and also, depending on the grade of oil, the water could actually sink to the bottom upon separation (which could lead to it physically displacing the oil from the fuel line, causing immediate burner flameout regardless of the design of the burner), could it not? Also, this is a science question -- I am asking what would happen in a real-life scenario similar to the fictional one which the Reverend had come up with (don't forget, many of his Thomas stories were actually based on real-life incidents he had personally seen or heard about, including one in which he had personally given his train the highball too early by mistake and stranded his passengers)! As for your question re. fuel specs, just for the sake of the argument, let's go with, say, #4 fuel oil and a seawater concentration of, say, 2000 ppm (which, had it been in diesel fuel instead, would be plenty high enough to cause immediate failure of any diesel engine unfortunate enough to use that batch of fuel, or at least that's what my sources tell me!) 2601:646:8082:BA0:95F1:4DFA:95FD:527C (talk) 21:53, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

May 23

DMEM (explain the joke?)

https: //mander.xyz/pictrs/image/12b51d24-e090-4a6b-9cf7-b6ec674d99c3.jpeg What is this stuff? Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:A690:D665:179B:79F0 (talk) 12:00, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Eagle's minimal essential medium. Not sure about the joke though. I assume it's a single node in some gigantic meme-based causal network i.e. you had to be there. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:24, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

The image is a cut-out of a stock photo. The fridge itself is a household fridge, not a typical lab fridge, even though the image is used by a provider of refrigerators that comply with laboratory standards. The posting (of May 19) is on Facebook here. I don't get the joke, but many of the jokes on the user's page are super nerdy, supposed to appeal to people working in biochemistry labs.  ​‑‑Lambiam 16:00, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks all, I suspect none of us are really missing much. 2601:644:8581:75B0:A690:D665:179B:79F0 (talk) 17:39, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

size vs age of universe, name of discrepancy

The universe is supposed to be 13.8 billion years old, while the observable part has estimated radius 90 billion light years. The discrepancy is explained by the expansion of space, particularly during the inflationary period. I'm not asking about the explanation right now. I'm just wondering whether the apparent contradiction has a name, like "so-and-so's paradox". I couldn't find anything about it by clicking in some of the relevant articles. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:A690:D665:179B:79F0 (talk) 17:38, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

You can read comoving and proper distances. Ruslik_Zero 20:35, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

May 18

Google Deepmind and the future of math

This video talks about some of the new mathematical results from Google Deepmind. Before anyone changes their major, it seems worth pointing out that these are all examples of a certain type of optimization problem and that Deepmind only improved on the best known result, it didn't prove or even claim they were the best possible, only that they were an improvement on what human intelligence was able to find in those particular cases. So I wouldn't count on the Collatz conjecture being solved tomorrow. But it does seem to indicate that the way math is done in the future will be significantly different than the way it was done in the 20th century. Thoughts? RDBury (talk) 02:07, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

The main takeaway of the video is that Matt Parker should take a vacation more often.

Constructing formal proofs is not an optimization problem, but in a sense it is a combinatorial puzzle, and I expect more artificial help there in the future. Formalizing published proofs (possibly uncovering seemingly obvious but unjustifiable skips) could be a nice start. Another area where an indefatigable agent can prove its worth may be finding interesting conjectures connecting different fields, similar to the discovery of the monstrous moonshine, which started as an observation of a curious coincidence.

I do not expect the Collatz or Goldbach conjectures to be solved ever, also not with the help of a superintelligent agent. We cannot, with the knowledge we have, exclude the possibility that although true they are not members of the theory of ZFC. (Consider that a simple generalization of the Collatz problem is undecidable, so it is (non-constructively) certain that some Collatz variants are true but don't hold a ZFC club membership card.)  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:32, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Formalizing proofs and developing proof verifiers is a program which has been underway since well before the recent AI boom.--Antendren (talk) 03:45, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

The use of generative AI in constructing formal proofs is still largely uncharted territory. The Flyspeck project to produce a formal proof of the Kepler conjecture took seven calendar years and an order of magnitude more person years. Where are the formal proofs of Fermat's Last Theorem and the Poincaré conjecture, to mention just two? I know a project for FLT has been under way for about a year now,^[7] but (to the best of my knowledge) current AI systems are not yet helpful for this task.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:22, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

May 10

correct scientific terms for assemblies, chambers, houses of parliament

what is the correct scientific terms for the following:

• a house / chamber representing on national level. NOT a bicameral parliament like US congress, but house of representatives, senate. can this be called "national assembly"?
• a house / chamber representing the people in a "one person one vote" fashion, proportionally. is this called popular chamber?
• a house / chamber representing federated unites, like US senate, swiss ständerat. is this called federal chamber?
• a house representing regions in a unitary state, like french senate. is this called territorial chamber?
• a house representing groups of people along ethnicity, religion, like House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is this called consociotional chamber?

and in which article explaining the different types of houses with such scientific terms would best fit into: national assembly , legislative chamber ? ThurnerRupert (talk) 20:17, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

The terms used for various deliberative legislative assemblies around the world often have historical local roots. Many political scientists concentrate their studies on one or a few countries and will then usually use traditionally established terms. There are no set standards.

The term parliament is used for the single chamber of a unicameral legislature or the collection of chambers of a multicameral legislature. Sometimes the term parliament is seen used for just the popular chamber of a multicameral legislature.

Some authors use popular chamber generically for a lower, directly elected chamber, as seen e.g. here, but it does not imply the election was by "one person, one vote". Instead of popular chamber, national assembly prevails in France or former French colonies; elsewhere lower house, house of representatives or second chamber are more commonly used.

Some authors use federal chamber for a chamber with slots for the several constituent units of a federation, as seen e.g. here.

Some authors use territorial chamber for a chamber with slots representing regions, as seen here. I am not certain this term is reserved to unitary states.

I have found exactly one use of consociotional chamber, referring to the Northern Ireland Assembly, in an unpusblished document. If you intend to use this term, your readers will appreciate an explanation.

Some relevant articles on Wikipedia are List of forms of government, Legislature and Legislative assembly. One might have hoped that Legislative chamber would answer your questions, but it is not very informative.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:35, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

second chamber seems more often to mean the "upper" house (senate, House of Lords). —Tamfang (talk) 04:00, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

May 11

Are ET/Eastern Time, Mountain Time/MT, Central Time/CT etc technically always unambiguous?

It isn't uncommon people use Eastern Standard Time/EST, Mountain Standard Time/MST and Central Standard Time/CST when daylight savings is observed during the date they're referring to, so they actually mean Eastern Daylight Time/EDT, Mountain Daylight Time/MDT, and Central Daylight Time/CDT. Most people and indeed most online timezone conversion tools automatically correct this so it doesn't generally cause too much confusion. The general suggestion to be technically correct and ensure no possible confusion but without having to remember to change depending on whether DST is observed or not is to just say ET/Eastern Time, Mountain Time/MT, Central Time/CT all the time. This got me wondering, it is the general taken that technically ET, MT, CT etc always mean EST/EDT, MST/MDT, CST/CDT based solely on whether DST is observed in that timezone regardless of whether it's observed in the area? So for example, if someone in Arizona MT during DST, they're supposed to be referring to MDT even if it's probably not observed in their area? Nil Einne (talk) 15:41, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Precision

I've run into commentary about the lack of precision before the 20th century several times now, so it's a pattern of some kind and I'm trying to understand it.

I first ran into it while researching the history of recipes. According to various sources, before the 20th century, recipes were poorly defined, lacked exact measurements, and often did not define words and terms in such a way that after several centuries or so, food historians had trouble reconstructing certain recipes because there was little record of what the uniquely named ingredient or instruction meant or tried to convey. Both the ingredients, and in some cases, the measurements that were implied, had been lost to time.

The second example has to do with literature before the 20th century, mostly journalism and some historical accounts. They seemed to care little for getting dates correct, and in some cases talked around the dates for some reason. For example, I was just trying to add a citation for the gravestone donated by the Bohemian Club (BC) to the final resting place of Jules Tavernier. When I looked at the source written by the BC, it says things like "It was in this year that a monument was placed over the grave". There is no year listed anywhere, however, if you closely read the text, you have to scroll several pages up to put together and reconstruct the year in your head based on several pointers. This all seems very odd to me.

So the question: why is there a general lack of precisionism and accuracy before the 20th century? Viriditas (talk) 23:25, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Do any of these Findagrave entries pertain to your particular Jules Tavernier?[8] The cause there I would say is "sloppy writing". As to the general question, spelling of names and other words prior to the 20th century is often atrocious. Governmental and other needs probably drove more rigorous spelling standards. As to recipes and such, and as with many things, the information was known at the time, and maybe no one felt the need for greater precision because they somehow thought it would last forever. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:39, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

That's right, but what I'm getting at is why did people several centuries ago take this approach? I realize, of course, that there's several different interpretations and explanations, perhaps with some of them converging in their explanations. For example, there's the popular explanation having to do with the history of timekeeping, forcing people to become more and more precise over the years as timekeeping exerted its influence more and more in every aspect of their lives. But that doesn't explain the problem food historians have with older kinds of recipe making. I first ran into this when I reviewed criticism about Lautrec's recipes, many of which did not include exact measurements (which I believe were added into later editions of his cookbook after his death). Recently, I heard a podcast about very old recipes which were giving historians a hard time because the names of the ingredients were no longer recognized. Then, while reading about late 19th century art, I ran across several more modern critics who said they were frustrated by contemporaneous accounts of art from that time as they often failed to convey the essential information needed. Which brings me to my point: did people several centuries ago have an altogether different conception and philosophy of time and history? Why not write, "In the year 1890, the monument was placed over the grave." Why was that so difficult or impossible for the writers of that time to do? Was it seen as too proletarian or low class to specify an exact time and place for something? Similarly, why was it difficult for culinary specialists to specify an exact measurement in their recipe? Was that seen as giving away too much knowledge? Finally, there's the aspects of carelessness in 19th century journalism, as if they didn't really care about the notion of facts or accuracy. Viriditas (talk) 23:57, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Or that someone reading it generations later would wonder about it. You could call that "living in the present." So which Tavernier are you talking about? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:01, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Jules, the painter, but I'm offering that as an example, not the subject of this discussion. You can see the source I was talking about here.[9] The source is about the time from 1890 to 1891 (as specified in the introduction), but neither mentions the month (December) day (21) or year (1890) in regards to the monument. Viriditas (talk) 00:07, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Ah, but you didn't link it initially, because you knew exactly who you were talking about. This is how information gets lost over time! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:10, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

My mum was regarded as a champion cook in her community ifrom the 1940s through to the 1990s. There were many ingredients she hardly ever measured at all. She would just pick up the container and pour until she felt the amount was right. It almost always was. She could NOT have written precise amounts if asked. HiLo48 (talk) 00:43, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, I am learning about this. Viriditas (talk) 00:53, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

@Viriditas It's also to do with the loss of intuitive and learned technical skills and the rise of automation, which requires far more precision than was previously necessary. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:44, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Also today, recipes are often woefully imprecise. I read, "Ingredients: ... two tomatoes". The weight of tomatoes I can buy at the market (not considering cherry tomatoes) ranges by an order of magnitude, as does that of apples, cucumbers, eggplants, potatoes, zucchini, you name it. Fortunately, it usually does not really matter. Precision in 19th-century recipes was only specified to the extent that it was useful. The typical 19th-century kitchen didn't have weighing scales, and precision that is unachievable with the available means is useless.

You need high-precision engineering to make high-precision measuring instruments, but you can't achieve high-precision engineering without high-precision measuring instruments. Progress in affordable precision has been gradual. The problem of high-precision mechanical engineering of gearwheels was part of why Charles Babbage never completed his difference engine – he could not get the precision required for the gearwheels to operate with very low friction. But his renown in improving precision engineering was such that apprentices came from Europe to his workshop to learn the craft from the master.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:01, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

It is possible that Babbage's tolerances were too exact and that his design was over-engineered. However, a Swedish printer named Georg Schütz and his son Edwin did actually succeed in building a working Difference Engine with lesser tolerances in 1853. Two were made; one was sold to the Dudley Observatory in Albany, NY in 1858 (the director was fired for the expense): the other was sold to the Registrar General of Births, Marriages and Deaths in Somerset House, London.

• Raymond C. Archibald. "P. G. Scheutz, publicist, author, scientific mechanician, and Edvard Scheutz, engineer—biography and bibliography".Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation, Vol. 2, issue 18: pp 238–245, April 1947. CODEN. MTTCAS. American Mathematical Society

• So now, in the age of Trump, we live in a world of precision? Perhaps better no numbers than fake numbers. Johnbod (talk) 13:41, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
  • "Figures don't lie, but liars do figure." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:24, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

• What's important to us was not necessarily so to people back then. And vice-versa. Take the case of birth dates. They were frequently not recorded, simply because they were considered trivial and irrelevant compared to the date of the child's baptism/christening. Now, baptisms were typically done a day or two after the birth, but not always. Sometimes there was a year or more between them. The baptism date was always recorded; the birth date, not so much. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:55, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
  • That's not it at all! Actual birthdays were not "considered trivial and irrelevant compared to the date of the child's baptism/christening", but regarded much as we do now. But the baptism was always (by law in most places) written down in the parish register which, barring accidents, still survives in most cases, while the family memory has vanished. Johnbod (talk) 13:41, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  I feel like we've had this discussion before! Thanks for the reminder. Viriditas (talk) 01:07, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Some people are simply lazy and imprecise. A glance at the refs and bibliography of almost any WP page (including FAs and GAs) will reveal a disdain for accuracy. On a slightly different precision track than time and history: Weights and measures were in vast disarray for a very long time. In Britain, the Second Report of the Commissioners Appointed by His Majesty to consider the subject of weights and measures (1820), contains a page of different customary acres and nearly two pages of barrels, four fothers, fourteen hundredweights, and 24 different tons, all depending on what you were measuring and where. Scientists have become more and more able to define quantities with increasing precision, but it took most of the 19th century and beyond into the 20th. The rapid progress of the railways in Britain in the 1840s made it necessary to publish timetables based on a standard time, Railway time, for example Bradshaw's. History of the metre shows that the metre was redefined in 1889. Invar was only invented in 1920. The measurement of time is still under consideration. Joseph Whitworth worked out how to make a very accurate Surface plate, essential for making lathes; is thought to have come up with the thou, and invented British Standard Whitworth in 1841, the world's first national screw thread standard. Dmitri Mendeleev published the first modern periodic table in 1869; William Ramsay discoverd the noble gases from 1894, which fill a large and unexpected gap in the periodic table and led to models of chemical bonding; J. J. Thomson discovered the electron using the cathode ray tube in 1897. The size of an atom was only determined after the invention of X-ray crystallography in the 1920s. So, an enormous amount of scientific discovery had to take place before anything like precision could be agreed on. And of course Herman Hollerith, who began building punch card-based data processing machines as early as 1884, and applied it to tabulating the results of the 1890 United States census. Even then, age was only recorded as "Age at nearest birthday". Hope you are well, old colleague. MinorProphet (talk) 20:02, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Precisionism?  Card Zero  (talk) 07:08, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

May 12

Confusing video of late Pope Francis (?)

Can somebody please explain this? 89.1.215.232 (talk) 22:43, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

What's to explain? People post all sorts of weird stuff on YouTube, and it isn't advisable to take it seriously. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:39, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrump: But the footage actually appears authentic to me, not like AI-generated or something. 🤷‍♂️ 89.1.215.232 (talk) 11:27, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

It would help if you could say what you find it confusing about it. It's obviously a video of the late Pope Francis conducting a church service towards the end of his life. What is so confusing about that? --Viennese Waltz 11:31, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

@Viennese Waltz: Certainly. Firstly, if it's really him, he would obviously be conducting an orthodox service wearing orthodox regalia, which would be totally unusual for a Roman Catholic priest. Telling by the surrounding priests all wearing masks, this must have been during the COVID crisis. Yet, I was unable to identify any pertinent coverage on such an event ever having actually taken place. Secondly, his posture doesn't look like him at all ... 89.1.215.232 (talk) 11:53, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

It looks like inside the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi. Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia is quite old and there is footage of him being supported by men wearing face masks (see e.g. this eurasianet.org article). I don't believe your clip is "authentic". ---Sluzzelin talk 12:09, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

It may well be authentic, but it's clearly not Pope Francis in the video. Good job identifying the church and the likely subject. It looks like even the masked helpers in the video might be the exact same men as in the photo you found. The ceremony with the two candles they are performing may be part of the Orthodox Easter service, if I remember correctly. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:21, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Quite obviously not Pope Francis, if for no other reason than Francis was much balder than that. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 12:23, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Exactly. The captions aside, if I had come across that video by chance, there's nothing in it that would have suggested to me that it's Pope Francis. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:26, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Having money instead of spending it

Have there ever been situations where the rich have had their way because of having money, not spending it? In other words, the money had just acted as some sort of catalyst, whomever the rich were trying to influence had not actually benefited from it. JIP | Talk 23:50, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, this kind of thing happens all the time. Blackballing is one of the most popular examples. If you're not part of the club, you're not going to get anywhere in your respective field. If someone who is rich doesn't like you, they will pull strings in the background. In this respect, power and money are almost interchangeable. I was just watching Frontline's "The Man Who Knew", which is about FBI agent John P. O'Neill. He tried to stop 9/11 from happening, but the FBI fought him every step of the way. Viriditas (talk) 00:29, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

See also The Million Pound Note. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:36, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Many defendants sued by a plaintiff with deep pockets choose to settle, even when they would almost certainly win in court, because they cannot afford the cost of a full-blown court case, including appeals. The rich party does not have to spend their money; it is sufficiently chilling to know that they could spend it.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:49, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

At a certain mega-level of wealth, you stop having to spend money because people will do you favours in exchange for goodwill that they hope to cash in for better treatment in business, social or government deals. I think the best known example is Steve Jobs, who famously got paid a one dollar salary - of course, he also sat on a ton of Apple stock and got things like private planes as bonuses, but he mostly didn't need to actually spend his assets to maintain his lifestyle (I think a private yacht was his one big splurge). He was influential because he was cool, rich and controlled the fastest growing company on the planet. Smurrayinchester 09:33, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

He was also mortal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:35, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

May 13

Atlantic Business Magazine

Hello everyone. I recently wrote the article Atlantic Insight, and then decided to write about their subsidiary magazine of the time, Draft:Atlantic Business Magazine. I'm basically certain the Atlantic Business Magazine mentioned in this news article is the same one I'm writing about in the draft, but this magazine claims to be founded in 1989, and the one related to Atlantic Insight was founded in 1982. I can pretty well confirm they're the same company via records in the Registry of Joint Stock Companies, but that's not really an appropriate source to use. If anyone could pull up a good source that proves the connection, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, MediaKyle (talk) 11:16, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Other sources agree that a magazine named Atlantic Business was acquired by Lorimer in 1988.^[10] My impression is that there was a magazine named Atlantic Business, and a later one, perhaps its successor but nevertheless a different periodical, not a continuation, named Atlantic Business Magazine. While the older Atlantic Business was based in Halifax, Nova Scotia,^[11] the current Atlantic Business Magazine is based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. References to articles in the earlier magazine use a two-word name for the magazine.^[12] The volume number in "Atlantic Business, 7:3 (May 1988)" is consistent with a magazine founded in 1982. References to articles in the later magazine use a three-word name for the magazine, as does the magazine itself ("Founded in 1989, Atlantic Business Magazine is the longest publishing and most award-winning regional business magazine in Atlantic Canada."^[13]). The volume number in "Enachescu, M.E., 2004a. Doing business in the Atlantic offshore: Essential information every explorer needs to know. Atlantic Business Magazine, Volume 15, No 4, p. 12-22."^[14] is not consistent with a magazine founded in 1982.

The term "Atlantic Business" occurs in Canadian Bankruptcy Reports 1993,^[15] but we can't see if this refers to a magazine.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:13, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for this, I don't know how you do it. This is some good information. I may have to begrudgingly accept that they are separate publications... There's something weird about it for sure, though. Someday I'll have to track down the last copy of Atlantic Business and the first copy of Atlantic Business Magazine. MediaKyle (talk) 15:18, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

May 14

"Club 22", Bucharest

While in Bucharest last October, I took this photo. I haven't been able to find out anything about "Club 22". There are a few online mentions of an organization of that name that seems to be involved with commemorating the 1989 revolution, but I suspect that is coincidence. There were several signs with this name along an undoubtedly valuable tract of wooded land in the Primăverii neighborhood, enough land that it could fit at least half a dozen buildings, in one of the wealthiest parts of Bucharest. I've written up a bit more in the description of the linked photo (including more on the precise location); I'm wondering if there is anything at all notable here: if not Wikipedia-notable, whether this is at least a photo we should have on Commons. - Jmabel | Talk 20:33, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Romanian Wikipedia mentions that Vasile Emilian Cutean was the founder of the Association Club 22, and according to this article its HQ was located in the Primăverii neighborhood, and used to be Emil Bobu's house (Blvd Mircea Eliade 12). ---Sluzzelin talk 21:29, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

@Sluzzelin: that looks like a solid lead, thanks! - Jmabel | Talk 23:06, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

There is a website https://club22buc.portalulrevolutiei.ro/ but it lacks content. DuncanHill (talk) 21:51, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Yup, that is one of the trivial mentions online that I found. - Jmabel | Talk 23:06, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

 This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Jmabel | Talk 23:31, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

May 16

Le Fanu and Shalken and Douw

Sheridan Le Fanu wrote "Strange Event in the Life of Shalken the Painter" in 1839, when he was 25. Would he have had the opportunity to see many, or any, of Godfried Schalcken's paintings by then? From our article on Le Fanu he doesn't seem to have travelled outside Ireland at this point, so were there any Shalcken's in Dublin or elsewhere in Ireland at the time that we know of? Also, I know Gerard Douw had a niece Anthonia van Tol, but did he have any others? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 00:14, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Le Fanu wrote the name of the painter as "Godfrey Schalken". Artcyclopedia does not list any Schalcken paintings in Irish museums.

"Velderkaust", reused by Le Fanu in The Wyvern Mystery, is not a plausible Dutch surname, so this niece is almost certainly entirely fictional.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:32, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but did he have any other nieces? DuncanHill (talk) 08:12, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Genealogieonline.nl (not a reliable source) mentions another daughter, Marya van Tol, among Simon van Tol and Catharina Vechters's children, but I found no further information (or corroboration). ---Sluzzelin talk 10:12, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

More precisely, these were stepnieces, being daughters of Dou's older stepsister Trijntge (Catharina) Vechters.^[16]  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:37, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

US state in lawsuit with foreign country

I just learnt about Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, decided by SCOTUS in 1934. Are there any other incidents of foreign countries suing, or being sued by, a US state in US federal court? Mississippi seems to have argued against the suit on the constitutional grounds that states may not have relations with foreign countries without congressional consent (although I didn't see this being addressed by the court's opinion, which ruled for Mississippi on other grounds), and if other lawsuits of this sort have occurred, I'm left wondering if this constitutional provision has ever had an effect in those cases. Nyttend (talk) 02:42, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

May 17

US District Court for southern Florida on the Georgia border

The United States Post Office, Custom House, and Courthouse (Fernandina, Florida) was once the seat of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida before the Middle District was created. Surprising, since Fernandina Beach, Florida is in the state's extreme north, the district's original northern border was at the latitude of Charlotte Harbor, Florida — 400 km south of Fernandina Beach — and the article makes no mention of boundary amendments before the creation of the Middle District. Why would the court have met outside its jurisdiction — especially extremely outside its jurisdiction, not just a tiny bit over the border? Nyttend (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

A quote from a 1954 hearing before a subcommittee of the United States House Committee on Appropriations: "Court for the southern district is held at Fernandina, Fort Myers, Fort Pierce, Jacksonville, Key West, Miami, Ocala, Orlando, Tampa, and West Palm Beach." So Fernandina Beach was not the sole location. Our article David W. Dyer Federal Building and United States Courthouse (located in Miami) calls it "an historic United States Post Office and federal courthouse of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida" and states: "In 1926, a devastating hurricane decimated southern Florida, prompting Congress to appropriate more than $2 million for a new courthouse in Miami in 1928", and "When it opened [in 1932], the building housed all Miami-area federal agencies with the exception of the Weather Service. ... It was occupied by federal courts and various federal agencies until 2008."

The single source cited in our article on the Fernandina Beach building only refers to it as "Post Office and Custom House, built in 1910",^[17] not mentioning a function as courthouse.  ​‑‑Lambiam 00:28, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Fernandina Beach is in Nassau County, which until 1962 was in the Southern District of Florida, so the court location there was not outside of its district, notwithstanding that Nassau County, Florida is on the northern border of Florida. “Southern District,” in other words, was and is a misnomer, as you can see from the map of current district court boundaries at List of United States district and territorial courts#/media/File:US Court of Appeals and District Court map.svg. John M Baker (talk) 15:48, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

French graffiti style

There is a particular graffiti style which I have often seen in continental Europe: each word is hand-painted in blocky black capitals, on its own painted rectangle not shared with any other word. The rectangles are all the same colour. Like this:

I have never seen this in the UK, Ireland, or the US. Does the style have a name of its own? Is it found elsewhere? Marnanel (talk) 12:28, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

@Marnanel It appears to be on sheets of paper glued to the wall rather than graffiti. I suspect this is to avoid being accused of vandalism. Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:44, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

In Britain you'd still be accused of vandalism. Is there some French law permitting bill stickers for political purposes? DuncanHill (talk) 19:05, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Well, there's a legitimate-looking poster pasted up right beside it, so it seems plausible. Matt Deres (talk) 00:12, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure you are allowed to affix a poster to your own building, or else with the permission of the owner, so a political poster on a wall is not by itself unlawful. I'm also fairly sure that in many countries it is not unheard of that supporters of political parties put up election posters in ways that are not approved by the authorities.  ​‑‑Lambiam 00:36, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Indeed. And sometimes civic-minded citizens take matters into their own hands to remove such egregious offences. (The fact that the citizen in this case was the husband of the opponent of the candidate in the poster was an irrelevant coincidence.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:51, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

If it's sheets of paper glued to the wall then it would be Street poster art. The paper may be stuck on with Wheatpaste, and "wheatpasting" is sometimes used as a term for flyposting like this. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 08:30, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

May 18

Possible degree mill?

So, I don't know if this topic fits this forum, but I'll just try anyways. Recently I wrote an article about this parliament member, and here it says that he received an M.B.A. John Luther University, Utah, 1992-1993. I tried to search about this university everywhere, and I can't find the named being mentioned alone, except its distance education program in Indonesia, the John Luther Institute of Management. I suspect that this university is a degree mill, but how do I know if this is true or not? Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 22:46, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

I looked for "John Luther University" in both Newspapers.com and Google. Nothing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:26, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

I also could not find any papers published by faculty or students of the institute. Stanleykswong (talk) 06:41, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

A Google search for "John Luther Institute of Management" also draws a blank. BTW, I do not see what this ex-MP is notable for.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:33, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Being an MP? (WP:NPOL): Politicians and judges who have held...national...have been members of legislative bodies at those levels. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 08:40, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

@Jeromi Mikhael You don't say where that university is mentioned, but it is obviously an unreliable source, so ignore it. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:35, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

It's ref no. 1 in the article Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 08:41, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

That reference's first use is for the statement "He received a degree in administrative sciences from the College of Administrative Sciences of the Institute of State Administration in 1991."

From websearching, this presumably refers to the Lembaga Administrasi Negara - LAN, variously translated as 'The Indonesian Institute of State Administration', 'National Institute of Public Administration Indonesia', etc.

Academic institutions in developing countries often collaborate with other such bodies overseas to teach and/or administrate and award particular qualifications. It may be that LAN has or had such an arrangement with this "John Luther Institute of Management", which does not necessarily speak to the nature or academic validity of the latter. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 09:05, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

I havent inserted the statement on his MBA because I think it's unreliable. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 10:09, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

I found another recipient, Riswansyah Djahri, apparently an ex-member of the DPD, being interviewed in Radar Lampung: "Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) John Luther University Sait [sic] Lake City, Utah, USA 1995".  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:54, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

May 19

Virgin Money's offer to buy Northern Rock - in 2007, then in 2011. Why the wait?

When Northern Rock collapsed and was nationalized back in 2007, the government sought a buyer. Virgin Group stepped forward with an offer in October 2007.

The government rejected that offer (and all other offers) at that point, and none of the suitors for the collapsed bank were offering to cover all of the bank's liabilities, which was the government's hope and goal.

Now, four years later, On 17 November 2011 the UK Government announced the sale of Northern Rock to... Virgin Money (part of the aforementioned Virgin Group) for £747 million. The deal went through.

My question is, did the U.K. government gain anything from the four year delay? If the best deal that could be obtained, would fail to cover all of Northern Rock's liabilities, why wait four years for a deal that had been offered and rejected back in 2007?

Did it take four years of government scrutiny to simply appreciate the inevitable reality of the situation? Or is there a different explanation?

@DOR (HK):, you're our resident economist; do you have any thoughts? Also @John M Baker: - you're our resident corporate lawyer. I know this isn't really a legal question; but I wonder if your corporate expertise can shed any light on this sort of situation. Others feel free to add their $0.02, of course. EDIT: Pinging also @John Z: and @Dragons flight: as you two have answered banking-related questions from me in the past. I'd love to hear your thoughts and insights on this. Eliyohub (talk) 12:36, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

I can’t say that I am too familiar with the Northern Rock transaction, but obviously the situation in 2011 was very different from that in 2007, and there is nothing inherently surprising in the government making a different decision. The government always planned to sell Northern Rock at some point. It apparently believed in 2007 that temporary nationalization, with perceived governmental support, would be less costly than a sale to a third party. John M Baker (talk) 14:19, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

As well as the economic situation being very different, it was two different governments (one Labour, one mostly Conservative) with different views on the merits of nationalisation and privatisation.

PS: WP:ENGVAR would suggest we should be offering our two penn'orth rather than $0.02 ;) AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:03, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

If the ‘’best’’ deal was the one offered in 2007, AND WE KNEW IT AT THE TIME, then we can draw conclusions about what might be gained by waiting. What we knew at the time was (a) a buyer was needed; (b) said buyer would ideally cover all of the banks STILL UNKNOWN liabilities; and (c) said buyer would be politically, legally, morally, etc, etc, acceptable. Based on what we know today, there is very little to gain (in the Wikipedia milieu) by speculating as to why a decision was made later, rather than earlier. DOR (ex-HK) (talk)

Two ministers in 1964

In Wilson, Harold. "William Ewart Gladstone". A Prime Minister on Prime Ministers. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph. p. 110. ISBN 0-718-11625-9. we read "When the Labour Government was formed in 1964 , two new ministers met outside the Cabinet room, exchanged jobs, and came back to tell the Prime Minister, who told them to go to the departments to which they had been allocated. Within a week both were saying how glad they were to be where they had been sent." Who were those two ministers? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 20:17, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Possibly Richard Crossman who had been Shadow Education Secretary but was given the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and Michael Stewart who had shadowed housing but was given the education portfolio. See Constitutional Practice: The Foundations of British Government (p. 181). A copy of Crossman's Diaries of a Cabinet Minister might shed more light. Alansplodge (talk) 17:25, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

I think you've got it. "In 1964 Wilson sent Crossman to Housing and Local Government and Stewart to Education. They had held the reverse portfolios in opposition and asked Wilson to give them their old responsibilities back. He refused." [18] --Antiquary (talk) 19:05, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

@Alansplodge: and @Antiquary: Thank you both, I had Crossman in the back of my mind when I read it. Stewart is rather a forgotten figure nowadays. DuncanHill (talk) 20:53, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

May 21

Ralph Adams Cram

According to Blair, David (2002). Gothic Short Stories. Ware: Wordsworth Editions. p. 242. ISBN 1-84022-425-8. in 1919 Ralph Adams Cram "wrote a preface to a book devoted to claiming that the Great War had been predicted in the 'automatic writings' of mediums". I would be grateful to know what that book was. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 00:09, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: The Hill of Vision by Frederick Bligh Bond. Zacwill (talk) 00:35, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 09:45, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

If Arabs ran the Barbary slave trade, is the Barbary slave trade an Arab slave trade?

If Maghrebi Arabs were involved in the Barbary slave trade, would the Barbary slave trade be part of the broader Arab slave trade. 2A0A:EF40:13B6:7201:982F:AB47:AFFC:9E7 (talk) 19:49, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

• That would depend on what the sources say. My understanding is that the Barbary slave trade involved maritime routes, where capture occurred within a day's march of the coastline in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic. Those captured being principally Christians. Those involved in this trade were not only Arabs, but people of many ethnicities including Berbers, Turks Italians, Dutch, English, Albanians and Greeks, all nominally serving the Ottomans. The Arab slave trade usually refers to the enslaving of subsaharan people, and trafficking them either over long distances by land or through the Indian ocean. However, there are many books on these topics, and it would be necessary to read several of them and decide how fair they consider the two phenomena to be separate.Boynamedsue (talk) 22:09, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Home Secretaries and Royal births

According to Jenkins, Roy (1999). "Sir John Simon". The Chancellors. London: Papermac. ISBN 0333730585. "When the present Duke of Kent was born in 1935 he was one of the last Home Secretaries to attend a royal accouchement". Now, Edward was the son of a younger son of the monarch at the time. I would like to know 1) what level of closeness to the monarch was regarded as needing a Home Secretary in attendance (eg, only direct descendants? grand-children but not great-grandchildren? etc), and 2) who WAS the last Home Secretary to attend such an event? Also, were there any occasions when an alternative minister performed the duty?Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 21:23, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

If you trust some gal named Marilyn it was a government minister(s) after the Warming Pan Baby up to Edward VIII when it became Home Secretary, the last Simon for Princess Alexandra. fiveby(zero) 03:31, 22 May 2025 (UTC) Some guy named Charlie confirms. fiveby(zero) 03:46, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

@Fiveby: Thanks, I found the probably more reliable London Gazette had this to say:

From 1894, home secretaries were required to attend royal births for reasons of verification – to ensure that the baby and potential heir to the throne was a descendent of the monarch, and not an imposter. Previous to this, the royal birth room would have been even more crowded with privy councillors and ministers (along with medical practitioners and ladies-in-waiting, among others).

As for the Warming Pan baby:

This Day between Nine and Ten in the morning the QUEEN was safely delivered of a PRINCE at St James’s, his Majesty, the Queen Dowager, most of the Lords of the Privy Council, and Divers Ladies of Quality being present

For the future Edward VIII

ON Saturday, the 23rd instant, at ten o'clock P.M., Her Royal Highness The Duchess of York was safely delivered of a Prince. Their Royal Highnesses The Princess of Wales, The Duchess of Teck, and The Duke of York were present. Mr. Secretary Asquith was also present

And the last Home Secretary was Simon, for Princess Alexandra. DuncanHill (talk) 12:07, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

May 22

Seeking 29 April, 1993 edition of Jakarta Post

Anyone knows where I could find this edition? This is a source cited in Adam Schwarz's A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia in the 1990s. — 王桁霽 (talk) 06:51, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Can you access any of these libraries? AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:57, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

@王桁霽: The best place to try is the Resource Exchange. DuncanHill (talk) 10:11, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=9780813388816

https://www.amazon.com/Nation-Waiting-Indonesia-1990s/dp/0813388813 Stanleykswong (talk) 11:54, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

sanitation

history of sanitation 82.4.170.5 (talk) 14:02, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

history of sanitation. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:12, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

May 23

Looking for a specific Bible . . .

I have seen some people with the Quran, and they would have a digital copy of the Quran, and basically, they can see the Quranic Arabic version and translated version at the same time. I also like how they look into Tafsir too. I want something like this for the Bible. Something that will show the original language and translated language side by side, even though I can't read the dead languages, but a recitation of the biblical text would be nice even if I don't understand a word, also accompanied with scholarly exegesis just so I know what the piece of old text means. Yrotarobal (talk) 21:51, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Good luck finding an official original language Bible. But I googled "bible in hebrew with english translation", as an example, and found various things, typically called "Interlinear Bible". Maybe one or more of those items could help. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:05, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether or not its publications have parallel text as you desire, but you might be interested in the ongoing work of the Original Bible Project. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.154.147 (talk) 00:40, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

May 10

"Purdue" with a Russian accent?

A 1984 article in Sports Illustrated profiled Max Blank, a basketball player who was a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union (specifically Odessa, Ukraine). He was recruited by many colleges. The article said that his mother was "concerned when letters came from Purdue and Drake; both words have an unsavory meaning when pronounced with a Russian accent." I recognize that "Drake" could be pronounced like dreck / дрек / דרעק (meaning "crap"), but what Russian, Yiddish, or Ukrainian unsavory word does "Purdue" correspond to? -- Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:40, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Not sure if it's this, but there's пердун (perdún) which sounds somewhat similar and means "someone who farts". GalacticShoe (talk) 04:30, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, that seems like a plausible explanation. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 20:15, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

May 11

No Navajo language classes? Why is this not visible on United States?

Hello there, is there a reason on why are not there Navajo language classes common in schools? Why are Native American languages not seen anywhere on United States? Why are they mostly limited to reservation areas or cultural centers? Can anyone explain please? 2600:387:15:4915:0:0:0:5 (talk) 12:31, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure myself but I think it has something to do with the significance of Native American culture in the US, and how we as Americans see it. Gommeh ➡️ Talk to me 12:33, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Why Navajo? It has only 170,000 speakers, compared with millions of speakers of some of the other thousand or so Indigenous languages of the Americas. Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:14, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

I think this may be because of the well-known use of Navajo in WWII by code talkers. Of course, Navajo was chosen exactly because it had so few native speakers and there was only one published study of the language, all the copies of which could be located and confiscated from US academic libraries. Alansplodge (talk) 18:08, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Would the code talking still have any significance? I would rather assume it's due to Navajo lacking both soft and hard power. It is of little practical usage outside of the core community, and there are no significant econonomic payoff, if you would go through the trouble of learning a language significantly different from English. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:25, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

A little fact that may or may not be true, but sticks around in my head, is that Navajo is one of the hardest languages for Anglophones to learn. "Essentially unlearnable after childhood" is the exact phrase that sticks in my head. --Trovatore (talk) 22:34, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that does seem to be true. "Research indicated that...after the age of around thirteen it would be virtually impossible for an Anglo to learn the Navajo language." [19] --Antiquary (talk) 16:04, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

It seems exaggerated, considering that foreigners could learn languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Arabic. It's difficult, but it can be done. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:52, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

It may be the case, though, that the Navajo language is much more difficult to learn than Japanese, Chinese and Arabic, both its pronunciation and its grammar.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:55, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm waiting for someone to respond "challenge...accepted". Mildly tempted myself but Arabic seems more useful. --Trovatore (talk) 21:20, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

To me, I would recommend Hungarian or Vietnamese languages. They are complex, but less than Navajo. 205.155.225.249 (talk) 18:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

At the same time, I would mention Hindu, Rapa Nui, and Korean, due to large structure. 2600:1700:78EA:450:4537:9DB6:C80C:63DD (talk) 09:48, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

@Trovatore Yes, Code talkers do have a significance here. 2600:1700:78EA:450:4537:9DB6:C80C:63DD (talk) 09:45, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

In a recent visit to a local museum, I discovered that Google Translate was refusing to speak Navajo to me, and refusing to translate into or out of that language. Despite having knowledge of other indigeneous tongues such as Nahuatl.

And I was led to the same conclusion, that this has something to do with the Code Talkers and the sensitivity, to this day, of the secret codes which they safeguarded. Perhaps Navajo is a difficult language, but I did not encounter trouble finding a lexicon or two in the library of my local research university, and native speakers are likewise easy to find near me.

So the only way I could explain Google's omission is that it is still a sensitive issue of national security. 2600:8800:1E8F:BE00:B56F:F4D0:96B7:6CDF (talk) 21:26, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

It seems very unlikely to me. If I go to translate.google.com and click the language dropdown button, I see six columns of around forty languages each, so call it 250 languages total. Our Navajo language article says that it has about 170,000 speakers who use it at home. According to this link, the 100th most spoken language, Sanaani Spoken Arabic, still has 11 million native speakers. So it seems plausible that Navajo is not in the top 250, or even if it is, it might be that there's not enough training data available for the AI stack. That explanation seems a lot more plausible than the idea that there is still sensitive information in code-talker format that people would be able to understand if only Google would translate it for them. (Note as well that Navajo-based code talking was rather far removed from natural Navajo language.) --Trovatore (talk) 22:12, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

GT does translate Manx though, which according to our article is spoken by 23 people as their first language and 2,200 as their second. That suggests that the number of speakers isn't GT's primary concern when choosing languages. --Antiquary (talk) 11:10, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

A more likely concern is the potential level of use. The Isle of Man is a popular tourist destination, and adds Manx to public signage (Manx being an official language there alongside English), so many visitors will want to translate Manx out of interest, aside from Manx learners (it's taught in schools) wanting to utilise the app. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 15:43, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

When you get down to these more obscure languages I doubt we can expect a fully strategic approach even on the part of a giant like Google. It could come down to whether there's an engineer who wants to take it on as a 20% project or something, getting the corpus together and training the model. --Trovatore (talk) 18:06, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

That is why I'm into obscure languages, if not saved enough, then it would cause the language to be endangered. 2600:1700:78EA:450:4537:9DB6:C80C:63DD (talk) 09:49, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Which languages native to North America have a million speakers? —Tamfang (talk) 00:16, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Just Nahuatl, I think. (Remember that North America goes all the way to Panama.) --Trovatore (talk) 00:56, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Oh, also, Kʼicheʼ language and Qʼeqchiʼ language, which appear to be related but distinct, if our articles can be relied on. They have 1.1M and 1.3M respectively. Google Translate appears to support Qʼeqchiʼ but not Kʼicheʼ, so maybe the line is around there (or maybe there is no exact line; they just support what they can easily support). Anyway they both have many times more speakers than Navajo, which for 2600's comparison has about as many home speakers as the population of Tempe. I don't think we need to bring in spycraft to explain why GT doesn't support Navajo, despite its considerable cultural importance in the American Southwest. --Trovatore (talk) 01:54, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

• Navajo is the most spoken indigenous language in the United States, but it has essentially no cultural cachet and has never been learned by many people except members of the Navajo Nation. Like many Native Americans the Navajo are often stereotyped as lazy, stupid, and prone to alcoholism, and having been betrayed so often by Anglo promises of help are not especially welcoming of outsiders. Many/most Navajo learn English in school and use it to communicate with others. I doubt the language is actually harder for English speakers than Chinese or other tonal, non-Indo-European languages, but I've never really studied it. With limited demand from potential language learners, and limited supply in the form of native speakers trained to teach (especially in places of any size) there is no real way for formal classes to get off the ground. Eluchil404 (talk) 22:54, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

  I agree with you, but how would this impact on the ethnicity, if there are no stereotypes?

  Why do they still learn English though? 205.155.225.249 (talk) 21:24, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Why would they? Some folks take up a new language out of curiousity, but most of them do so for more practical reasons such as travel, immigration, business, etc. which would rarely apply here. Matt Deres (talk) 13:54, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

You absolutely nailed it, there is a reason on why languages are used differently. 2600:1700:78EA:450:2406:5A80:A2E8:410D (talk) 17:00, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

It's worth mentioning that this is hardly unique to Navajo. Language teaching and learning overwhelmingly focusses on a small number of languages with a lot of speakers. Whether it's for travel, or for business, or just to enjoy foreign language films, the main consideration is how many people speak it, and how that intersects with your holiday plans/business relationships/tastes in movies.

Minority languages tend to only get taught if there's a government promoting them. Welsh e.g. has the strong support of authorities in Wales, who stopped and reversed its decline partly through education. Other examples include Basque and Catalan supported by their own regional governments. Or even French in Quebec (French is hardly in danger of extinction but it might not be still spoken in Canada without Quebec's promotion of it).

In theory this could happen in the US; US states have a similar amount of autonomy to their Spanish or Canadian counterparts. But invading Europeans were efficient at wiping out the native population, driving them off their lands which they then carved up among themselves. When the US govt. eventually recognised them it was as nations separate from the 50 states, independent with no role in state or federal government.--2A04:4A43:904F:FAD8:103A:AAF3:3656:D93 (talk) 23:53, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

In Ireland the Gaeltacht was in danger of being wiped out before the government stepped in. 2A01:4B00:B70B:B000:A714:E8E5:E04D:80E0 (talk) 15:23, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

@Alansplodge @Antiquary @Eluchil404 @Gommeh @Lambiam @Matt Deres @Shantavira @Tamfang I wanted you people to discover and research on if the Navajo language is still used today. As of 2025, Navajo is made into official language on the Navajo Nation. As of 2024, Duolingo has Navajo courses and first movie, Star Wars, dubbed the film into indigenous languages. Could the same goes with Cherokee? And further than that, how could this language grow into numbers again? I see this Wikipedia has the project dedicated into Navajo language. But I'm never sure about other social media sites, featuring and supporting this type of language. 205.155.225.249 (talk) 18:20, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

There are conservation efforts going on in America for certain tribal languages, but I'm not too familiar on the subject and am not really that interested in it so I don't know the specifics. Gommeh ➡️ Talk to me 18:41, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

What conservation efforts going on in America to make for? 205.155.225.249 (talk) 18:46, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Could this be the same with Alaska Native languages? 2600:1700:78EA:450:4537:9DB6:C80C:63DD (talk) 09:47, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

I think, it might be the same with Alaska Native languages. 2600:1700:78EA:450:75E5:23D1:5B65:DBB4 (talk) 05:08, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

May 13

Subjects of sentences beginning with "Unlike P, Q"

I support that in any sentence beginning with the prepositional phrase "Unlike P" must have a subject Q that parallels the P. Example:

Incorrect: Let's learn to play poker. Unlike some card games, there is no ranking with suits.

Correct: Let's learn to play poker. Unlike some card games, poker has no ranking with suits.

(For anyone who wants to respond to this post, please check out the recent edit I made to the Roulette article.) Is this rule proscribed by many grammarians?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:31, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

They both work, but your second example is better, i.e. clearer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:49, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

It is certainly not a rule that is followed assiduously:

• Unlike what we have seen in Russia and in the current repression of the media and Internet shutdowns in Belarus, we do not block access to the internet, and people in our country are free to express and disseminate their views both online and offline.^[20]
• Unlike the situation with respect to the trading of goods and services across national boundaries, some might argue that the parameters of the so-called "international technology market "remain vague and ill defined.^[21]
• Unlike last year, supplies of baler twine and wire are expected to be more than adequate this year.^[22]

 ​‑‑Lambiam 07:13, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Technically, you're spot on, imo. In the incorrect version, the 2nd sentence has to be read in conjunction with its 1st sentence, otherwise it's not referring to anything in particular, not even, necessarily, to a card game. In the correct version, the 2nd sentence works fine as it is. However, in common discourse, nobody would misunderstand the incorrect version. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:29, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

The first sentence exhibits one of the many forms of Ellipsis (linguistics) which is common in many languages, particularly when spoken. (Here, "in poker" has been omitted). Usually, although words omitted in ellipses might be required by strict rules of grammar, actually inserting them can often seem pedantic and would become tedious. Many uses of ellipsis are considered acceptably grammatical. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 18:06, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Being the pedant that I am, I feel an urge to point out that if we seek to make the pre-elision sentence fully grammatical, we need to insert one more word:

• Unlike in some card games, there is no ranking with suits in poker.

 ​‑‑Lambiam 19:26, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Still elided. "Unlike the case in some card games, in poker there is no ranking in suits. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 20:54, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

That is, IMO, a disimprovement.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:17, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

An exprovement? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:12, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Similarly, I often change As with to Like because with does not belong. (I imagine some writers remember being scolded for using like.) —Tamfang (talk) 20:17, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Tamfang, can you give me an example of when you avoid "as with" and an example where you use "as with"?? Georgia guy (talk) 20:18, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

An example with which, as with misleading punctuation, I took issue: Mathematics and architecture are related, since, as with other arts, architects use mathematics for several reasons. which makes me curious about architects' use of mathematics with other arts. —Tamfang (talk) 03:55, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

May 14

New words coined in 2020s

Since the technology and revolution has advanced, there are new words coined. Although I agree that old words have new meanings, there are words that are coined in recent times. But aside from COVID-19, which is an actual neologism, and this pandemic have accelerated the new words coined rapidly in 2020, are there any new words that are coined and invented in decade of 2020s, and if so, can you list them? To me, new words are necessary to keep the English language ongoing, and words are what define the real world. But including all the aspects of the topic, which are technology, culture, science, politics, religion, philosophy, military, laws, history, arts, and finally literature, can you make an explanation on why are newer words coined in 2020s, are way too difficult to detect and notice, and what happens if its trending? Where could you find the new words coined in 2020s? Thank you if you if you would answer my question, since mine is informative. 205.155.225.249 (talk) 18:58, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I googled "new words in 2024" and found quite a few references. You could do likewise for the years 2020 onward. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I searched it up too. But I wanted to see that if these type of words are attested. But, what are the words that are in first used in 2020s? 205.155.225.249 (talk) 20:03, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "attested" but hundreds of new words were added to dictionaries during that time, so it's quicker and simpler to do a web search. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:54, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

You can find many examples in this search: [23].  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:10, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

The American Dialect Society chooses a "word of the year". It maybe a new word or a word that acquired new significance or relevance. You may find the chosen and candidate words interesting.

--Error (talk) 17:14, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Respelling

Why an /aɪ̯/ sound at the beginning of world is respelled as eye, not as y? For example, why is item respelled as EYE-təm and not as Y-təm? And why is an /aɪ̯/ sound at monosyllabic words before a consonant respelled with silent e, such as tight being TYTE and not TYT? --40bus (talk) 22:05, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Y by itself is not pronounced like a long I. EYE is pronounced like a long I. and TYTE would be pronounced with a long I, while TYT would probably be pronounced with a short I. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:35, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

That long I is called like that because in Middle English it used to be /iː/, an actual long i. In the Great Vowel Shift it diphthongised via /ɛɪ̯/ to /aɪ̯/. In German it still has the initial value, in Dutch it got stuck at the intermediate. Y used to be /y/, unrounded to /i/ or (lax) /ɪ/, but thanks to frequent borrowing became a complete mess. The name of the letter became /waɪ̯/. That's why it isn't good for respelling item as Y-təm.

About that silent e: words like tide used to have two syllables: ti-de /ˈtiː.də/. The middle consonant was in the second syllable, making the first syllable open, leading to a free vowel. Without the final e, there's only one syllable and the vowel is (by default) checked. This rule is still used in Dutch. In English, the final /ə/ was dropped in speech, not in spelling, but the first vowel retained its free sound, leading to a spelling pattern where a single consonant followed by a word-final e indicates that the preceding vowel is free.

In the word tight something special happened. It used to be something like /tɪxt/ (in modern Dutch it's dicht /dɪxt/), with a checked vowel, but deletion of the /x/ in stages (from speech, not from spelling) caused the vowel to change to its free form.

Clear as mud? That's English spelling. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:25, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Bugs's explanation of eye above is basically correct. The World Book Encyclopedia, intended for young readers, uses a respelling system that is quite similar to ours, and it also uses eye for an /aɪ̯/ constituting an entire syllable; but to avoid confusion it doesn't include silent e's in respellings, so it would indeed respell tight as "TYT". I don't know why it was felt necessary for our system to go with "TYTE". Deor (talk) 22:59, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

May 15

How could a new technology shape the English language?

As we shifted from Industrial Revolution, to Technical Revolution, and to Digital Revolution, how would new words keep up if the world was rapidly changing? How fast this technology advanced? What impact on social lives do we have as a result of new technology? 2600:1700:78EA:450:4537:9DB6:C80C:63DD (talk) 09:51, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Which high school class are these questions coming from? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:29, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Out of curiosity. 2600:1700:78EA:450:2406:5A80:A2E8:410D (talk) 16:39, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

My personal take is that the opposite is occurring. Humanity (as a culture) is regressing towards nostalgia and the past, and while it might feel like things are advancing, they really aren't. No major issue facing humanity has been solved or mitigated; new technologies more than ever don't advance us forward, but are in fact based on older ideas that simply monetize their value in new ways and concentrate more power and wealth in fewer hands. We are regressing and backsliding in almost every respect. I've often said that we need new ideas to see the world differently, and with the decline in pure research, pure art, and pure education for the sake of education, we can no longer think in newer and different ways. This in part explains the yearning for past models, and the safety of conservatism for many people, a power relationship that emphasizes top down leadership from strongmen and relieves the general public from having to expend cognitive energy on introspection and criticism, allowing them to outsource their knowledge, experience, and ultimately intelligence to others. Viriditas (talk) 00:11, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

You got it, humanity is not just evolving, but linguistics and languages. There is a reason on why new words, best known as neologisms, are very necessary to keep the culture going and relevant at the same time. In my opinion, knowledge with new ideas, are a key to building a improved society and humanity, because of the value and life. 2600:1700:78EA:450:75E5:23D1:5B65:DBB4 (talk) 05:16, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Like it says at the top of this page, "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate." AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:32, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

When new things (which may be physical items, new processes, or just abstract ideas) are invented, their inventors, or sometimes users, either invent new words for them, or assign additional new meanings to existing words. Since one can't really use, talk about or often even think about a new thing without having something to call it, the creation of the new (or repurposing of old) words automatically keeps pace. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 17:04, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

ASL vs. subtitles in film and television

I am not fluent in ASL, but I think I understand the basic differences between ASL and subtitles. What I'm curious about is how easy or difficult it is to engage in with film or television based on one or the other. Let's assume for the sake of this argument, that the audience is fluent in both. Half the audience has ASL as their first language and the other half English as their first. I think we can all agree that basic subtitles don't have the emotional content and require a delicate balance between reading and watching. What I'm curious about is how this balance works with ASL. I just tried watching an episode of The Last of Us with ASL and another with subtitles, and from my POV, both of them distracted me from the presentation. How does Deaf culture deal with this? Do they have a more developed sense of attention? Viriditas (talk) 23:02, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Would that mean an interpretation function similar to this? [24] 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 09:41, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

You can see a screenshot from the show with ASL here: [25] Viriditas (talk) 22:32, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

What I meant was, technically, I'd assume the function has another term than just ASL; in Swedish it's "teckenspråkstolkning", lit. "sign language interpretation". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 02:30, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Even without sound, subtitles or signing, much of the emotional experience derives from the facial expressions, gestures, attitudes and other behavioural aspects of the acting. Obviously, the emotive colouring of the spoken text adds to that, but with good actors this is perhaps even the least important aspect.

I regularly watch subtitled films and experience no trouble following both the action and the subtitling. I can't speak for the deaf community, but it is reasonable to assume that one gets very adept at following the action while at the same time following the signing.  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:28, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Subtitled films are not a problem as long as there is no action. My question concerns the overall appreciation of the story and the attention required for ASL. It's obvious that ASL is superior to subtitles, but I have questions about its accuracy and interpretation. Subtitles don't have the emotional overaly, but they are, by and large more neutral and objective. Viriditas (talk) 22:34, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

One advantage of subtitles is that they can be understood by unAmerican deaf people, which by and large ASL cannot. DuncanHill (talk) 21:31, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I've heard that ASL is on the verge of becoming an international signed lingua franca, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:20, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm curious about learning it. Where's a good place to start? Viriditas (talk) 22:35, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Plains Sign Language was widely used as a lingua franca among the Indigenous peoples of North America until their forced assimilation. And International Sign is a highly variable pidgin sign language between signers of different SLs. -insert valid name here- (talk) 18:33, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

May 16

Is there any usage of Brainrot?

Block evasion
The following discussion has been closed by Lambiam. Please do not modify it.
Hello there, when I was browsing on the brainrot article, I had discovered that this term dates back to 1854. Thoreau was critical on what he saw decline in intellectual standards. But it was never used commonly, until the launch of the Internet. It only had its use in 2004, when the term "brain rot" was used by Twitter users to describe dating game shows. However, this is rare and unseen by me until mid-2020s. It had a use increased in 2010s and in early 2020s, trending in discord. But since 2023, this term is gotten so mainstream, that it earned a spot in the dictionary. This term refers to not only low quality or value, but to memes in some cases. In fact, this applies to younger audience, who consume content not regarded as the best quality. Can you please explain on what is the usage of this term before 2020s? Is there evidence that the word is discovered or documents in 19th and 20th centuries? Thank you again if you reply to me and answer my question. (Note: this is not a homework question or intended to debate) 2600:1700:78EA:450:75E5:23D1:5B65:DBB4 (talk) 05:33, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Go ahead and ...

When someone with an American accent is demonstrating on a video how they cook a recipe, what I've often heard is that with each step they don't just say "Now I'll add the eggs" or "Here we stir the pot till boiling" or whatever, but it's: "Now I'll go ahead and add the eggs", then "Here I'll go ahead and stir the mixture till it's smooth", then "Now I'll go ahead and let it rest for an hour", followed by "Now I'll go ahead and take it out of the oven", and "Now I'll go ahead and ...".

It seems they've gone ahead 20 times in the course of the demo. It sounds odd to my ears, as telling someone to go ahead is usually a sign that permission is being granted. But a cook can hardly be giving themself permission, can they?

Is this a nation-wide American idiosyncracy? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:07, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I just saw an Australian cooking segment on a show where the presenter (cooking some special donuts) said Try and get them them into the sugar while they're still hot.. The and seems wrong to me. Surely it should be to. HiLo48 (talk) 09:35, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

OED shows that try and has been in use since 1686, so I think we'll have to accept, reluctantly or not, that it's correct English, long and common usage being the only test for these things. --Antiquary (talk) 09:59, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms (Page 150) has the primary meaning of "go ahead" as "to begin or continue an activity without waiting". Your permissive definition comes second. Alansplodge (talk) 16:58, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I've always been dubious of objections to "try and". Quite apart from any descriptivist argument that its valid simply because it has been used for centuries and everyone knows what it means, I've often felt that "try and" has something of an implication that success is expected (or at least probable). Iapetus (talk) 10:52, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Sounds fine (if a bit redundant) to my Canadian ears. Also, "go ahead" doesn't imply asking permission to me. Saying it 20 times is a bit much, though. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:18, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I would say these expressions are associated with the American south. Another one is "take and". Another variant is "go and".[26] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:00, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

And "Try and Stop Me ". Wiktionary defines this use of and as:

(now dialectal or somewhat colloquial) Used to connect two verbs where the second is dependent on the first: ‘to’. Used especially after come, go and try. [from 14th c.]

I agree this is somewhat colloquial, but I question that this use of and is dialectal.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:50, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Is this a nation-wide American idiosyncracy? No. There are 12 varieties of English in the US. People in New York and San Francisco can barely understand each other. That's why I'm trying to learn ASL. Some things like the Bronx cheer are universal. Viriditas (talk) 23:19, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Those 12 varieties are not spelled out in American English. What's your source, Viriditas? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:59, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

I was joking. Surely my comment about learning ASL to bridge the gap between CA and NY was a hint? Viriditas (talk) 23:45, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

PBS says "Social scientists estimate the number of U.S. dialects range from a basic three - New England, Southern and Western/General America - to 24 or more". I remember as a child not knowing what a "Bronx cheer" was. I must have been 8 or 9 when I discovered it was a raspberry. DuncanHill (talk) 00:09, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Except for dialects (location), there are sociolects (class) and ethnolects (ethnicity), though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 09:27, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

"Go ahead and..." sounds southern to me (US English speaker). "Take and..." is more Bahston. 2601:644:8581:75B0:A6C3:D267:84F9:123E (talk) 23:17, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Pythagoras

Can anyone tell me the literal meaning of the name "Pythagoras" (assuming there is one)? My Google Fu has failed me. Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:29, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Everything I can find with cursory google search indicates it's a combination of Pythios (as in Apollo Pythios) and the Greek word agora which means a gathering or marketplace. Though looking at the page for Delphi (which Apollo Pythios is the patrod deity of) I see that Delphi was known in a legend as Pytho (which involved the serpent Python which in turn results in Pythia being the title of the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Most of these articles mention that these pyth- names are derived from the verb πύθω meaning "to rot", "which refers to the sickly sweet smell from the decomposing body of the monstrous Python after it was slain by Apollo." 13:20, 16 May 2025 (UTC) Amstrad00 (talk) 13:20, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

According to both Aristoxenus (as cited by Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers) and Porphyry of Tyre (The Life of Pythagoras), Pythagoras learned much from the Pythia, named as Themistokleia by Diogenes Laërtius^[27] and Aristokleia by Porphyry.^[28] Another thing is that according to some legends his mother was named Pythaïs, and that the Pythia prophesied to Pythaïs about her future eminent child.

I can't help but thinking that this is all etymology-after-the-fact.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:54, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:44, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

I do wish for a list of common name-elements in Greek! —Tamfang (talk) 20:28, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Thailand / Thai language audio translation request

Hi, if you speak Thailand language or possess a tool that automatically translates, could you please watch https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1HtrBk7t5i/ and tell me how they discovered the e-waste. Was it a 'routine' or 'random' inspection. How does it work. How often do they do it. Thank you :-) Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 21:14, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

And on what date did they do the inspection and discover the illegal e-waste? Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 21:15, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

They said it was part of their ongoing surveillance and risk profiling, but did not elaborate. They said they have periodically found violations, but this one is the largest seizure this year so far. No daye was mentioned. --Paul_012 (talk) 04:42, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

This English-language news article reports that it was "found Tuesday in a random inspection".  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:28, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

To all you Nordic guys named Sven: If your name can be Sven, then can my name be Eght? (Also, why did Reddit shadow-suspend my account over just this post there?)

Is Eght a valid name anywhere in the world much like how Sven is in the Nordics?

What if I made Eght my nickname only for when I'm around guys named Sven?

Where and in which countries is Eght a normal given name? To all of you named Sven: If you met a guy *actually* named Eght, what would your reactions be like?

S(e)ven crossposts, in order to keep up with the Seven / 7 / Sven theme:

• r/NameNerds: r/namenerds/s/gDLfQYlJpU
• r/NordicCountries: r/Nordiccountries/s/6Ut24lbU6v
• r/Norway: r/Norway/s/23FiXcvjiI
• r/Sweden: r/sweden/s/VPYE1ognh7
• r/Unket: (A technical difficulty kept me from posting there.)
• r/Finland: r/Finland/s/3LOvuBrKYo
• r/Denmark: r/Denmark/s/tDMecViB3J

---

ADDENDUM for the Wikipedia reference desk: Why did Reddit shadow-suspend my account and remove every last comment and post I've ever made on it, just for making 7 cross-posts of the same above topic?

Now that my username there cannot be used anymore, it was u/TheresJustNoMoney. I don't mind sharing my username elsewhere like here now, for that very reason. --2600:100A:B054:FB6F:DC3A:927F:EEE9:84B2 (talk) 21:20, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Note that Sven is unrelated to 7. In the languages mentioned in that article's introduction, 7 is da:Syv, no:sju, and nn:sju. Nyttend (talk) 08:18, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Although the question is borderline trolling, similar to asking an anglophone how strange it is that someone could be named Otto when it means "eight" in Italian, I feel like mentioning the 'Golden Age' comics creator Sven Elvén. Not his birth name, but it does at least appear to be older than the convenience store chain. [29], [30], [31] 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 09:02, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

And please nobody even try to check the Swedish word for "six". -- 2A04:CEC0:C019:2D34:B3C6:560:A5D5:551F (talk) 19:54, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Many lame puns have been made in the language. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:35, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

May 17

威寧彝族回族苗族自治縣

How do I interpret the name of Weining Yi, Hui, and Miao Autonomous County? Is this an autonomous county by the name of "Weining Yi, Hui, and Miao", or is it a Yi, Hui, and Miao Autonomous County by the name of "Weining", or is it the Weining Yi section of "Hui and Miao Autonomous County"? The article title sounds like the first option, the infobox sounds like the second, and the first sentence of the main text sounds like the third. Nyttend (talk) 08:15, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Must be the second of your options. Weining (威宁) is the name of the main town and county seat; "Autonomous County" (zìzhìxiàn, 自治縣) is its administrative status; and "Yi" (彝), Hui (回) and "Miao" (苗) are three ethnicities presumably living there, who are the subjects of its autonomy status. Note that in the long name you quoted in the title, the three characters for "Yi", "Hui" and "Miao" are each followed by 族 (zú), the term for "ethnicity" or "tribe". The shorter version of the county name given in the infobox is just "威宁县", Wēiníng xiàn, i.e. "Weining county" (县 and 縣 being the simplified and traditional versions of the same word). Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:27, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

I'd parse it symbolically as "Weining (Yi + Hui + Miao) Autonomous County", until 1954 officially just "Weining County" (威宁县), still a common abbreviation. The French Wikipedia uses "le xian yi, hui et miao de Weining", meaning "the Yi, Hui and Miao autonomous county of [i.e. "known as"] Weining" – rather explicitly the second option. BTW, the character 縣 in the Chinese spelling in the heading of this section is the traditional one. The official spelling in China uses the simplified character 县 also for the full name.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:10, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Thousands separator apostrophe in English

I just discovered Guns, germs and steel. A short history of everybody for the last 13'000 years. Is there any anglophone context (other than learners wrongly importing foreign conventions) in which an apostrophe is used as a thousands separator? Thousands separator mentions the use of an apostrophe but doesn't say in which regions or languages it's used. Nyttend (talk) 20:40, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

I can't find an Anglophone example, but see Decimal_separator#Examples_of_use. DuncanHill (talk) 20:50, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

The book covers that I can find (for the original and later UK paperback editions) have "13,000", with a comma as the separator. Where did you see an apostrophe in the UK subtitle?

According to the German Wikipedia, Switzerland uses either a nonbreaking space or a (straight) apostrophe for the thousands separator. The instructions given by the Federal Chancellery of Switzerland for the preparation of official texts in French explicitly forbid the use of the apostrophe,^[32] thereby implying it is used.  ​‑‑Lambiam 23:04, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

C++ uses apostrophe, maybe because other characters would have caused problems. The feature was added in C++14 and it was important to not break pre-existing code. 2601:644:8581:75B0:A6C3:D267:84F9:123E (talk) 23:13, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Unless it is clear from the context that a number is a natural number, writing e.g. 12345 as either "12.345" or "12,345" is asking for trouble also in texts in plain natural language.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:16, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

When the context is the English language in day-to-day settings, "12 345" would be confusing. I've never seen any usage other than "12,345" in English texts written for day-to-day purposes; "12.345" is restricted to non-English usage, and "12 345" is restricted to technical contexts and discussions about punctuation. Nyttend (talk) 20:11, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. However, I think we're still unclear about the apostrophe version you mentioned in the OP. Our article says the title of the work mentioned is "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (subtitled A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years in Britain)...". The redirect you used was created by a sockpuppet (one of literally hundreds) of a banned user. A cursory glance suggests they got interested in that book for a day in 2016. If that's the only place you've seen the apostrophe number separator, I think you can safely ignore it. Matt Deres (talk) 18:58, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Le Sueur

Among other things, Le Sueur is a brand of canned vegetables in the US, but it is also a not-that-rare French surname. Per Wiktionary, wikt:sueur means sweat or perspiration. Is that really the origin of this name? Asking because of the canned vegetables. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:A6C3:D267:84F9:123E (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

The canned vegetables are named for Le Sueur, Minnesota, where the canning company was located, which was named for a French explorer. I doubt that the surname came from the word for sweat, since that's feminine in gender (la sueur). I'm finding some indication that its an occupational surname from an obsolete term meaning "shoemaker". Deor (talk) 00:36, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

If, on that first disambiguation page you linked, you click under Other uses on the link Le Sueur (surname), you will find a list of Articles about people with that surname. At the bottom is a collapsed box which, when expanded, gives an array of "Surnames associated with the occupations of cobbler / shoemaker / cordwainer", including in the Romance (languages) section "Surnames ultimately from Latin "sutor": . . . Le Sueur". [Latin "sutor" means 'shoemaker', according to my Latin dictionaries.]

This suggests that the modern French word meaning "sweat" has a different origin. (Or maybe was derived from sueur because cobblers were thought to sweat a lot, or something.)

The second line under that Other uses section refers to the canned vegetable brand in question as being associated with the Green Giant brand, whose own page mentions that both originate from Le Sueur, Minnesota, named in honour of Pierre-Charles Le Sueur. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 00:27, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

For some reason, my comment was inserted above yours, even though I posted it after yours. (I've had this happen before, perhaps because I started my comment before you did but dawdled around and didn't finish it until after you posted.) The French word for sweat comes from Lat. sudor, not from sutor. Deor (talk) 01:18, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen this sort of thing happen before, too. No worries. This case is a good example of the fact that words and names (place or personal) which appear identical now may have converged from different forms in the past, which is why so much 'folk etymology' (modern or ancient) is often mistaken. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 16:32, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

The French suffix -eur forms masculine agent nouns from the stem of the present participle of verbs. For example, tuer ("to kill'), present participle tuant, gives rise to the noun tueur ("killer"). So le sueur meaning "the sweater" (sweating person) would have been a regular devolopment from the verb suer, suant, but was possibly inhibited by the formation of the feminine noun sueur from Latin sudor (which is masculine in Latin; for the reverse gender swap, we have Latin feminine arbor with the French masculine descendant arbre).  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:02, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Side note, I suspect the posting order may have to do with when you started writing your response, rather than when you posted it. GalacticShoe (talk) 04:25, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Hanks & Hodges A Dictionary of Surnames (Oxford 1988) connects it to German Sauter, "a shoemaker or cobbler (rarely a tailor)". —Tamfang (talk) 20:32, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

A word which has only survived as a family name and according to de:Sauter (Familienname) disappeared in its original meaning in the 15th century. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 08:53, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

The German name seems to be an early Latin borrowing rather than a cognate, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 09:29, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. 2601:644:8581:75B0:8F01:9261:FCD:4BB9 (talk) 18:50, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

May 20

Dog knows dog

I searched hours but didn't find any specific useful information about its origin. I will appreciate any help. Omidinist (talk) 17:42, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't know if it was original, but the earliest use I found, with "dog" in its literal sense, referring to man's best friend, is here, from 2018. The next use is from the same author, less than a year later. The first use I saw with "dog" in the sense of "all men are dogs" is in a comment posted in 2022 on this Facebook video. Then the sense is that of it takes one to know one, with an echo of dog eat dog.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:36, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you.Omidinist (talk) 21:13, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

May 22

False titles and noun adjuncts

Isn't a false title just an instance of noun adjunct? If so, why can't I find any sources which describe false titles as noun adjuncts other than this answer on Stack Exchange? ―Howard • 🌽³³ 08:44, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Looking at "false title", it strikes me that it's misleading. Saying that "convicted bomber McVeigh" is a "false title" ignores the fact that it's not capitalized, and it's not a title; it's merely descriptive. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:23, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Capitalisation is a null issue in spoken language. Denying that it's a title is the nub of the issue: it operates exactly as if it were a title, whatever the author's intention was. Hence "pseudo-title". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:24, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

"...predominantly found in journalistic writing", per the article. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:04, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Yet I hear it all the time on TV and radio news reports, whether from local or international sources. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:56, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

And Time magazine used to capitalize them, so that it would include locutions like "Editor William Shawn" or "Movie Star John Wayne". Deor (talk) 23:20, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

This trope has been highlighted in criticisms of the writing style of Dan Brown, who is inclined to introduce characters with paragraphs beginning something like "Eminent phlebotomist Fred Smith walked down the corridor . . . ." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.154.147 (talk) 13:38, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

None of these answer my question. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 13:39, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

It would be reasonable to describe a false title as a noun adjunct. Anecdotally, I only see words described as noun adjuncts when they modify common nouns, and I can't think of noun adjuncts that modify proper nouns that aren't false titles. A deep dive into this topic is complicated by the level of discourse about false titles, which has been stuck for a long time at the "are they acceptable?" level. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:10, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

These are not titles, they are merely identifiers. The notion that they somehow are titles, sounds like OR, maybe by someone who does not speak English natively. One could argue that the "false titles" article is a POV fork from "noun adjuncts". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:03, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

How could one argue that? ―Howard • 🌽³³ 18:04, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

BB, these are commonly called false titles. You're free to disagree with the experts here, but it'd be better to present it as an unorthodox opinion of yours than as an accepted fact. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:26, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Never heard of it until this question came up, and doubt it's in "common" usage. It's merely descriptive. Like terrorist bomber McVeigh as opposed to barber shop owner McVeigh or librarian McVeigh, as a hypothetical. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:58, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

In an English compound noun whose first component is a noun, such as alcohol abuse, baby boom and cable car, the main stress is on the first component. The main stress in Dandy Dave is on the second component. Therefore I think we should not classify Dandy in this combination as a noun adjunct.  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:56, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

I believe they're considered appositives and not noun adjuncts because removing "convicted bomber" from "convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh" (i.e. just "Timothy McVeigh") does not change the meaning of the phrase. Nardog (talk) 04:47, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Four languages (medium/learned) by 9th grade in countries

Hello,

which countries have four languages overall (medium and or learned) by 8th grade of school.

Kind regards Sarcelles (talk) 16:53, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Do you mean that, within the country but perhaps in different regions of it or for pupils of differing family backgrounds, four languages will have been taught (or taught in) in various combinations of two or three (in which case Switzerland and Singapore seem likely examples), or that all pupils are usually taught/taught in a total of four languages?

(For the large majority of the world who, like me, are unfamiliar with the US Age/Grade system, I gather that 9th Grade corresponds to about 14–15 years old.)

{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.154.147 (talk) 18:32, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

There are several countries with four or more official languages, but then, their distribution is mostly areal, and all languages aren't widely used in education. However, it might still be common for speakers to learn four or so languages with passable fluency, just for general communication in daily life. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:56, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

In the Netherlands, alongside the official language Dutch, English, German and French are all mandatory at school. Those are the official languages of the neighbouring countries (if you count the UK as neighbouring; there are ferry connections). Schools may offer additional languages and for some there are official exams; my school offered Latin, Greek and Russian. In the province Fryslân the regional language Frisian may be offered. I think the situation is similar in Belgium, where Dutch, French and German are all official and English is too important to ignore. I'm not sure about Switzerland, but I expect everybody learns German, French, Italian and English. PiusImpavidus (talk) 16:03, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Another reason for Nigel Powers' hatred of the Dutch: language one-upmanship three-upmanship. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:30, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

May 24

Oxford English Dictionary Third Edition

I had two questions about the OED 3rd edition:

• Is there an estimated time when it will be finished?
• According to the Wikipedia entry, it seems that this edition will never be printed. If it did appear in book form, how big would it be (either in its current state or its estimated completion?). 76.7.193.12 (talk) 02:17, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

May 14

Reasons on the shift to physical media to streaming services

At the DVD section, there is a news that DVD sales dropped 86% with respect to the peak of DVD sales around 2005, while streaming services boosted in terms of finance. Although there are still movies that are new, released on DVDs, it had been less in 2020s. Unfortunately, DVD sales had faced in loss, since Best Buy and Target stopped selling DVDs and with the closure of Redbox. Can you please tell me and explain on why did DVDs declined so much, while the streaming services, like Netflix, continued to outnumber the growth? What is up with the shift in physical media to streaming services as of 2020s, that started in 2010s, despite the luxurious look and the collective nature of souvenirs? 205.155.225.249 (talk) 18:40, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Either as souvenirs or as wanting to watch it more than once? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:13, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Both, the collection, and as wanting to watch it more than once. 205.155.225.249 (talk) 20:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe there aren't all that many people nowadays who want to own a physical copy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:49, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Personal experience: I purchased DVDs for my children. But, DVDs scratch. They stop working. For a good three years, I was buying at least one DVD per week. Then, Redbox started. I could rent a DVD instead of purcahse it. I wouldn't end up with a pile of scratched DVDs that don't work. Then, Netflix started. I didn't have to drive back and forth to Redbox. I could just have DVDs show up in the mail. Then, Netflix streaming started. I didn't have to do anything. Just select a show for the kids to watch. Then, ultraviolet started. I could purchase a movie, have it on a streaming service, and watch it whenever I like (even if no other other streaming service is carrying it) and I don't have to worry about the stupid disk getting scratched. That bridged the gap. You can buy a disk to have something to put on a shelf. You use the code in the box to register the ultraviolet movie that you can stream without physical media. But, it doesn't look like it ever became popular. Right now, I still find old scratched up DVDs hidden here and there and I have a large library of children's shows on Fandango streaming service. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 13:32, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Streaming services offer their own movies and series and third party productions they have a contract with. Such contracts can be exclusive, so that a movie can only be streamed through one particular streaming service. If you want to watch ten particular movies or series, you may need a subscription at five different streaming services, which is more expensive than just buying ten dvds. Ergo, switching to streaming allows the industry to make more money, which is why they encourage it; a switch enabled by the high availability of broad-band (fibre-optic) data connections. In addition, streaming tells the industry exactly which movies you watch and when, allowing more targeted marketing. The watch-all-you-can model also encourages people to watch more than in dvd days (instead of, say, read a book), which raises the impression that it's cheaper (it's cheaper per movie, but more expensive overall). PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:02, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

There's a mistake in your logic: you assume "the industry" to be a single and homogeneous entity, as if when you pay five times X money for 5 stream subscriptions, all that money eventually get into a single pocket. No. Each stream service is its own thing. Nobody gets all the 5X you paid: Netflix gets one X, Disney+ gets one X, Paramount+ gets one X, and so on. If several studios get their properties back from Netflix and start their own streams, it was not because of a nefarious plan to get several subscriptions instead of one, it was just to get their single subscription from you instead of Netflix's royalties. The "industry" as a whole gets damaged by the fragmentation, each one does for their own small but specific gain.

On a smaller scale, there was a case similar to the scenario you thought that is happening. Disney+, Star+ and Hulu, all properties of Disney. Three subscriptions that fall into a single pocket. But it didn't work as expected, it was ruining their global incomes, so they merged everything into Disney+. Cambalachero (talk) 13:54, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

One thing missing from earlier respondents is the relatively recent change in the nature of streaming services. For years, Netflix was really it, the only game in town. Because of that, they had pretty well everything; nobody else was really considering it, so they let the streaming rights go for next to nothing. Netflix profited hugely from this: they could offer a massive library of media for a very modest monthly fee. Over the last ten years, that's changed drastically: fragmentation across several platforms and increased costs are all way up. Every service now has exclusive content.

So there was an extended period where "moving to streaming" really meant "moving to Netflix" and it was really a no-brainer for consumers: a huge catalogue available at a nominal fee. Why pay $$$ for physical media?

But that's no longer the case. People who stream average four services, quadrupling their costs. The math is not so clear cut now, especially if you're not planning on watching hundreds of hours of media per month. Combine that with frustration over services not always offering their full library, censorship of older media, lack of bonus features, commentaries, etc. and you get the current push which is again leaning towards physical media 1, 2, 3. Matt Deres (talk) 19:23, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

From the audience side, there are several reasons people prefer streaming.

• Buying physical stuff (be it DVD, CD-ROM, VHS, or whatever) means storing all of them, and taking care they don't get damaged. Not everyone has a house big enough to store too much useless stuff around.
• Rewatch potential is limited. Some films are spectacles that you can see several times (the Lord of the Rings, Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars), but most others are a story that, good or bad, watching just once is quite enough. And even those spectacles, you can only watch them so many times before you know every little detail and it loses the initial fun.
• Collecting stuff from a film you liked is a nice motivation, yes... but there's better stuff than DVDs to collect. If I want a visual reminder that Lord of the Rings is not for me just another film but the GOAT, then I would buy wallpapers (actual wallpapers, that you can hang on the wall), T-Shirts, action figures, stickers, etc.
• You can only watch a DVD at home. You can watch streaming anywhere, as long as you have a portable device capable to open it (such as a cell phone or a tablet), an internet connection and enough time. And if you download the film or episode beforehand, you can even stream without internet.
• The films being scattered across several platforms is only a recent thing. Initially, it was all at Netflix, so yes, a subscription was indeed cheaper. That state of things shaped the public taste for streaming, and it stayed even if the current fragmentation undermines it (in any case, the market can not stand such fragmentation, soon several providers will close or merge and we'll have a more manageable number again, in fact some already did).

In fact, it can be said that people was waiting for streaming to be a thing. Before the internet, many preferred the Video rental shop rather than buying physical copies of the films. Cambalachero (talk) 15:55, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

@Cambalachero You have good points, its best if you prefer books over DVDs and other physical media. Books have more values than DVDs and physical media. Books offer imagination that DVDs do not have. Additionally, books assist anyone on learning something new and acquire skills and knowledge, while DVDs and other physical media only offer entertainment and laughter's, which may not last long. And finally, DVDs often have limited quantity and library available compared to books and other print media. This is one of the reason on why physical media is dying with Redbox closing and other supermarkets getting rid of CDs and DVDs. 2600:1700:78EA:450:75E5:23D1:5B65:DBB4 (talk) 04:00, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

An irony: Guillermo del Toro recommends film fans purchase physical media, but his Pinocchio is only available on the hugely expensive Criterion Collection label. Doug butler (talk) 13:23, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

That goes into the realm of personal opinions, we can't discuss that kind of things. The shift from physical to stream is a phenomenon that happened, and we can try to figure out the causes, but without falling into that. Basically, we can discuss why it happened, but not if it should or shouldn't have. Cambalachero (talk) 13:39, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

First men's FA Cup Final before League was over

It used to be a tradition that the FA Cup was played after the league was completed. In more recent seasons however sometimes the FA Cup final is played before the league is complete. Was the 2011 final where Manchester City beat Stoke City the first time that this happened? (80.233.75.87 (talk) 18:46, 14 May 2025 (UTC))

This had happened in several years in the 1920s and 1930s. But as far as I know, FA Cup final has never been played more than one week before top-level league finish. --40bus (talk) 21:20, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. IP changed. (80.233.71.115 (talk) 22:30, 15 May 2025 (UTC))

FIFA

Why was England or any other British association founding member of FIFA? Why didn't England participate in any of the pre-world War II World Cups (1930, 1934, 1938)? Why they as founders of football did such thing? --40bus (talk) 21:22, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Are you asking why Britain was not a founding member? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:54, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes. --40bus (talk) 05:51, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

See England national football team#Early years and its associated reference [33]. "The British refused to embrace the new era and split from Fifa over the issue of payment to amateurs." --Viennese Waltz 07:02, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

For more on what seems to be 40bus's query, see History of FIFA. Long story short: before FIFA's creation in 1904, the President of England's Football Association, followed by those of Ireland, Scotland and Wales (together the leading football playing nations of the time), had rejected the idea of a global governing body, so initially declined the opportunity of joining it. Without them, FIFA's initial attempt to organise an international tournament failed, but the English FA was persuaded to relent by the Belgian FA's chairman and joined in 1905, and an English FA administrator was elected as FIFA's President in 1906, so while not a founding member, the English FA was an early member. The other three 'Home Nations' FAs may not have joined until 1910, but verifiable dates seems elusive (G00gle initially gave me nonsensical answers). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 15:56, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

May 19

Filling in a measure of 10/16

A measure of 10/16 means that it can be filled with 2 groups of 5 sixteenth notes. We can easily use eighth notes and dotted eighth notes to represent longer notes that don't cross the middle of the measure. If we wanted 2 equal notes in a 10/16 measure, each one would be a dotted eighth note tied to an eighth note. But what if we wanted to fill in a measure of 10/16 with a single note?? What note would we use?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:14, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Using the (IMO somewhat illogical) notation for tuplets, in which ⌜3:2⌝ over a group of three quavers means that the three notes together have the same duration as two quavers, placing ⌜1:10⌝ over a singleton group of one semiquaver should mean, "play this note with the duration of ten semiquavers. (Placing instead ⌜10⌝ over a whole or half note, while not a proper generalization of more conventional tuplet indications, may actually be clearer.) Performing artists may initially be puzzled, but if your note fills a bar, I expect they'll figure it out.  ​‑‑Lambiam 15:41, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

What's illogical about the tuplet notation?? What would be more logical?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:15, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

What is illogical is that the indication usually only identifies the number of notes, as seen in

.

This is redundant information. I can count and see there are five notes for myself. What is missing from this notation is the most crucial bit of information: it fails to indicate the time in which this group has to be played. When we encounter this, it will usually be four eights, the time of a half note, but it could occasionally, say in a piece in ⁶
₈, also be three or six eights. We have to infer this from the context.  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:05, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I remember noticing this strange redundancy the first time I ever encountered such notation, over 60 years ago. My teacher didn't seem to think it was anything noteworthy but just the way things are done, so I just absorbed it. I think this is the first time since then that I've ever seen anyone else mentioning it. (If only we had AI creating music notation for us, we could be rid of the almost unbearable weight of these nonsensical conventions.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:07, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Let Your Love Flow

And then while you're mopping it up can anyone tell me if the Larry E. Williams who wrote Let Your Love Flow is the Larry Williams who wrote Dizzy Miss Lizzie? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 19:36, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

The article about that song indicates that its writer Williams was a roadie for Neil Diamond. How likely is the Dizzy Miss Lizzie writer to have been a roadie for Diamond? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:48, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Interestingly, they were both named Lawrence Eugene Williams, according to Discogs. The writer of "Let Your Love Flow" used his middle initial in credits in order to distinguish himself from his more famous namesake. Xuxl (talk) 13:27, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

May 23

Ghost (Swedish band)

Hi, I’m a new editor who’s only made about 12 edits total. Recent edits were made by myself in reference to the most recent line-up changes (as of May 2025) which was reverted very shortly after. Due to the nature of the band, it is hard to find sources relating to the status of the musicians, which makes edits like the one I made appear not credible even though we can physically see the change in line-up. A lot of the ‘evidence’ for changes in members are either observation and consensus, or sometimes social media posts from insiders (e.g. Vanessa Warwick’s confirmation that Jutty Taylor had “left the tour for personal reasons” via a comment on her own Instagram), or even less commonly the members themselves which may require interpretation (e.g. Mad Gallica announcing via social media that she will focus on her solo career, and then being evidently replaced in the most recent tour). Essentially I ask, if there is information known to be true regarding updates in the 2025 lineup (i.e. Cumulus departed from the band after the 2023 Re-Imperatour, Aurora was moved to Cumulus’ place on keys, Gabriela Gunčíková is the new backing vocalist — which we know from literally just seeing her face, and one social media post from a friend of hers —, Jutty Taylor departed from tour 9 days in) but only sources such as the aforementioned are available, how am I able to provide updated information with a lack of sources? Is it possible, should I not bother, is outdated info not misinformation? Other editors are likely going to (and already have) disregarded and revert edits that cite things like Warwick’s social media or nothing at all, so I don’t know what to do! :( Is.not.here (talk) 01:01, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, sorry about the way that reliable sources lag behind observable reality. Your edit to Gabriela Gunčíková regarding the Satanized video still stands, I see. It's possible that a similar modest edit to the Ghost article, at the point where this video is mentioned, to say that she is in it, would survive. Generally, one small edit at a time will increase the survival rate. One way around poor quality sources is to write person said that x is true, avoiding the stronger assertion of x is true (reference: person). This approach of attribution is mentioned at WP:RSOPINION, which also links to WP:ABOUTSELF, the rule that social media posts may be used as sources for facts about the person who posted. So Mad Gallica's remarks about focusing on her solo career could be included, without interpretation. It is probably too soon, and too provocative, to edit those boxes displaying the lineup.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:56, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Most interesting/intense/notorious reference desk threads?

Hi, reference desk regulars, I was looking through the reference desk archives for some of the longest, most intense, or otherwise interesting discussions. I realized that I could probably... ask the reference desk itself. So, any memorable threads you recommend? Any particularly intense efforts to track down a dubious factoid or elusive source? Any recurring disagreements? Serious examinations of silly topics, like this investigation into whether a Roman emperor invented the Whoopee Cushion, are also welcome. Thanks for all you do here. I don't visit the reference desk nearly as often as I should! Annierau (talk) 06:18, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

If you're looking for the dumbest, most pointless, discussions, try going through the talk page archive. God, what a mess; we're a lot better now. It's not RD-related, but have you seen Wikipedia:Unusual articles? Matt Deres (talk) 17:10, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Please suitly emphazi.  ​‑‑Lambiam 22:13, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

I remember all the Tim Cahill questions, the brilliant responses of the much missed User:Clio the Muse, the trolls, the constant 'What type of fallacy is this' weirdness, the injokes, the spats between X and Y and X and Z.

There have been many epic threads but they're hard to dig out - there used to be an offwiki website with some Best Ofs but it's long been deleted.

Now - if your question was 'which responses are you most proud of?' or 'which ones do you remember and chuckle' then I've got some I recall fondly. YMMV. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Nanonic (talk) 23:05, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

May 11

U.S. stadiums

Hi. Why are American stadiums, unlike European ones, all without coverage? Thanks. 37.159.35.32 (talk) 09:08, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Your premise seems to be incorrect. See Category:Covered stadiums in the United States. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:41, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

American stadiums tend to be domed when the climate justifies it (too hot or too cold) and/or when they can afford it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:53, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

The only covered stadium I can think of in the UK (I stand to be corrected here) is the Centre Court at Wimbledon. Alansplodge (talk) 18:19, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

No 1 Court there does as well. Also, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff has a retractable roof. --Antiquary (talk) 19:43, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Three rooved stadia in a nation notorious for wet weather. Alansplodge (talk) 21:18, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Even in instances where a dome could in theory be afforded and the weather would seem to justify it, a stadium might eschew a dome specifically due to the inclement weather making for more interesting television and being part of the team's and region's identity. See: New Highmark Stadium. Amstrad00 (talk) 13:40, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Similarly, Lambeau Field, though it hasn't always worked to the Packers' advantage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:23, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

A few more European covered stadia can be found in List of covered stadiums by capacity: note that of the 118 stadia worldwide that are listed, 42 are/were in the USA. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.101.226 (talk) 00:18, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

May 12

No culture section on NFTs?

Hello there, after reading this article on non-fungible token, is there a reason on why there is no culture section about this page? Even though NFTs are a new technology, please explain on why the cultural impact is not included on this article? But for this, do NFTs have a culture, since art is considered culture? And is there a philosophy about NFTs and other cryptoart? 205.155.225.249 (talk) 18:43, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

A section on the cultural aspects of Non-fungible tokens would have to have text based on published Reliable sources that discussed this specifically, at some length. Are there any such sources? Wikipedia cannot create or accept material that amounts to Original research or even synthesise material together from existing sources to reach new, previously unpublished conclusions.

If you can indeed find appropriate sources, you are welcome to create a new section on the article's talk page and leave suggested text along with details of and/or links to the sources. (As an IP user [i.e. one without a Wikipedia Account] you won't be able to create a new article section and enter text etc. in it because the article is currently Semi-protected). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.101.226 (talk) 19:18, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

It seems like a legitimate topic for a section; for reference, here are some potential sources:

• "NFTs in sport and culture: Artists, consumers and club reputations at risk from rise of crypo assets, MPs warn - Committees - UK Parliament". committees.parliament.uk. UK Parliament. 11 October 2023.
• Kemp, Joseph. "The Gray Areas of NFT Culture". waysof.umbc.edu. University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
• Lin, Zih-Ying (1 April 2025). "The effect of culture on global NFT investor attention". Pacific-Basin Finance Journal. p. 102696. doi:10.1016/j.pacfin.2025.102696.
• Cole, Jordan (17 April 2024). "The Impact of NFTs on the Digital Art World". blockapps.net.
• Behnam, Tiffany (19 October 2023). "The Impact of NFTs on the Art Industry". Pastel Network.
• Omose, Ikhalo (16 October 2023). "The Role of NFTs in Promoting Deaf Art and Culture: How Non-Fungible Tokens are Supporting the Preservation and Promotion of Sign Language". Unspoken Language Services.
• "Impact of NFTs on Art & Culture". Mishcon de Reya LLP. 8 May 2025.

► There's plenty more

--136.56.165.118 (talk) 06:55, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

I still want more details about this culture of NFTs. What its like similar to Chinese, Japanese, or Korean culture? 205.155.225.249 (talk) 18:15, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

That sounds like a seriously flawed comparison. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

How can it be flawed? 205.155.225.249 (talk) 20:13, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Trying to compare national cultures with millions of adherents and which go back thousands of years. NFT's have been around for barely 10 years, and are probably of no interest to anyone except those who have invested in them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:02, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree with you, NFTs are relatively new. 2600:1700:78EA:450:75E5:23D1:5B65:DBB4 (talk) 04:55, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

May 14

Peach-colored sunsets

This is a weird one. I am a huge fan of peach-colored sunsets. And when I say huge, I mean, my two favorite things in life are San Francisco burritos and peach-colored sunsets. But they are somewhat rare, and even stranger, difficult to capture with photographs. We had one tonight where I live, and of course, I didn't get a photo. We maybe get a peach-colored sunset once a month, perhaps more, I don't know, but it's rare. I also noticed that the light doesn't last as long as other kinds of sunsets. As I was staring at the sunset, the peach seemed to fade immediately, which was odd. Not only can I not find an answer to this, but it's almost impossible to find a good photo. Are cameras not able to capture this color for some reason? Viriditas (talk) 10:49, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I google "peach colored sunset" and several examples turned up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:32, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

"Peach" as a color can be subjective, and sunset colors tend to transition among yellow/orange/pink, with "peach" being ephemeral. 136.56.165.118 (talk) 17:50, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

P.s.: You can make your own (e.g.) --18:06, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Color perception can be extremely subtle and somewhat subjective, and is still not fully understood. Matching directly perceived colours by indirect means, whether inks printed on paper, pixels on a screen or chemicals in a camera film, is difficult and rarely completely 'accurate' (whatever that would mean).

It's particularly difficult to reproduce effects created in air by dust, water vapour and sunlight in a completely different medium. During a sunset, certain parameters like the exact angle of the sunlight through the atmosphere relative to the observer, the density, temperature and path length of the air it's passing through, and the presence, degree and nature of any water vapour and dust, will change from moment to moment. (See also Sunset#colors and Atmospheric optics.)

A similarly fleeting sunset phenomenon you might like to look for is the Green flash. As someone with a lifelong (60 years) interest in astronomy and related subjects, I've seen this exactly three times, despite always looking for it when the conditions are right. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 17:55, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Come to Hawaii, you'll see the green flash a lot. All you need is clear skies on the horizon and a bit of added elevation. None of the images up above depict the peachy sunset I'm talking about. It's more of a yellowish-greenish-pink, is the best I can describe it. Apparently, this is not classically peach, so part of the confusion is trying to find the right words. Looking elsewhere, I see it is known as minted peach or seafoam peach, but I still don't know if that's correct. Viriditas (talk) 21:44, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

What colour is a peach? HiLo48 (talk) 23:49, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Yellow, pink, red, whites, orange, gold, etc. However, the kind of peachiness I'm seeing has touches of green, and this is apparently unusual. Most of the so-called peach sunsets are pinkish, and that's not what I'm talking about at all; we get those all the time. I'm getting the sense that I might be perceiving the world differently than most people. Viriditas (talk) 00:25, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Here on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia our sunsets are often impacted by bushfire smoke and dust. The smoke can be from a serious fire nearby, or far away. (Up to several hundred kilometres) Today we have controlled burns nearby. (about 10 kms away). All these affect sunsets, in diverse ways, also depending on intensity of the smoke and wind direction. The dust can also be from a local source, or from hundreds of miles away. I could not count the range of colours we see in the sunsets. Some look peachy. HiLo48 (talk) 00:38, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

May 15

Social Media Culture

Could anyone on Wikipedia describe on what is social media about and what their culture is like in modern times? How could social media be different than other subcultures in general? Can this have an effect on global world? Alternatively, would culture of social media include holidays, food, clothing, rituals, and media? Does this influence thinking? And for this, how can social media have an impact on national and local cultures, like India, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Malaysia, China, and Mexico? Does culture have relavancy? 2600:1700:78EA:450:4537:9DB6:C80C:63DD (talk) 09:57, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Is this another of your homework questions? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:37, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

No, this is not. 2600:1700:78EA:450:2406:5A80:A2E8:410D (talk) 16:37, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure there is someone on Wikipedia who could write a book of the necessary length to cover such diverse and complex questions. 207.11.240.2 (talk) 12:50, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

I think this user was previously blocked. (Compare Special:Diff/1111211428 and Special:Diff/1290524651.)  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:17, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

@Lambiam Hello there, that isn't me. It was someone else, this IP range changes periodically. Please take a look at there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/2600:1010:B07E:C890:19BA:95A:4786:A68B

And I never made these edits, it was from a mobile IP range. 2600:1700:78EA:450:2406:5A80:A2E8:410D (talk) 16:35, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

And this is shared by several users, I might be the one who added this [34]. But these range of IP address aren't me. And I never edited using this IP range in 2016-2019. And most of these edits from IP range do not belong to me. Here: [35] 2600:1700:78EA:450:2406:5A80:A2E8:410D (talk) 16:46, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

So can you explain the fact that you added the exact same content today:

In 2021, it was announced that the library named "Ocean Sea Public Library," the largest library in Asia, would open in Hong Kong with new variety of literary works and a museum connected.

as did another editor in the 2600:1010:... range, likewise geolocating to the Bay Area, with the same egregious separation of an existing reference from the referenced statement? Transtemporal channeling?  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:20, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

The same content was added in order to see if this content goes unnoticed and undetected for a while, and to see that if this kind of edit would last more than 2 years. That is it though. Transtemporal channeling would be a coincidence. 2600:1700:78EA:450:75E5:23D1:5B65:DBB4 (talk) 03:49, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

It's refreshing to see trolling admitted to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:38, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Again, the IP range blocked, [36]

Was someone else from a different location, not me, because I stopped editing from this range after 2022. And all of these edits unrelated to libraries and Hong Kong, are not me. Since this shared range geolocated to various locations in this country, instead of the same location. 2600:1700:78EA:450:75E5:23D1:5B65:DBB4 (talk) 04:58, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

2600:1700:78EA:450:4537:9DB6:C80C:63DD (now blocked for block evasion) made edits yesterday, 15 May 2025, on these pages and sections (times in UTC):

• 09:45: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#No Navajo language classes? Why is this not visible on United States
• 09:46: History of libraries § 21st century
• 09:47: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#No Navajo language classes? Why is this not visible on United States?
• 09:48: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#No Navajo language classes? Why is this not visible on United States?
• 09:49: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#No Navajo language classes? Why is this not visible on United States?
• 09:51: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#How could a new technology shape the English language?
• 09:51: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous#Social Media Culture
• 09:57: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous#Social Media Culture

The one but last was the creation of this section. So you are claiming the edit at 09:46 was made by another editor than those at 09:45 and 09:47? It defies belief.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:29, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

May 16

How is Alaska different from rest of United States.

Block evasion, see above
The following discussion has been closed by Lambiam. Please do not modify it.
Alaska, as an article, tells me about the facts and the history of Alaska. But this state Alaska has a culture very unique, which is Alaska Native culture, which is different from Native American cultures, due to climate and linguistic differences. Aside from native cultures and climate in ecology, how is Alaska still different from lower 48, in terms of modern culture? What are the brands and companies that are only found in Alaska, and not found in lower 48? Could Alaska be separate from Canada? 2600:1700:78EA:450:75E5:23D1:5B65:DBB4 (talk) 06:05, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

May 18

n:Trainmen_and_engineers_go_on_statewide_strike_in_New_Jersey,_first_time_in_42_years

Requesting assistance with copyright. Is it acceptable to keep 2-3 sentences quote from external sources. (if not, you can edit and reword it) For a few years I have been at the site and collaborating, I have not understood what is a "safe" amount of quotes to shove on a page. Would appreciate a fresh cross-wiki perspective. Thanks. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 12:30, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

IMO, quoting several sentences verbatim from someone's public speech is less problematic than an extended quotation from a written work. Such quotations often need to several sentences to ensure the core message can be understood in its proper context, and any paraphrasing of spoken text needs to be done with extra care. Press statements and similar are even issued in the hope their content will be faithfully copied and their message thereby spread further.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:22, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

The Wikipedia rules on this are at Wikipedia:Quotations. To quote that page:

...quoting a brief excerpt from an original source can sometimes explain things better and less controversially than trying to explain them in one's own words.

Alansplodge (talk) 21:51, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

May 19

Explain on Print Encyclopedias

Why are there only few print encyclopedias being published today? And why isn’t Wikipedia making official and real print copies anytime soon? What is the purpose if they are going all digital? 107.115.29.138 (talk) 19:10, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Print media is right up-to-date the moment the contributors stop contributing and the editors stop editing. The manuscript then goes to the printers, and after printing in each language desired, the bulky, resource-intensive printed media is physically shipped hundreds and thousands of miles to warehouses. There, the bulk packages of books are broken down into smaller batches for distribution to wholesalers. After the books arrive at the wholesalers' warehouses, they they are distributed (usually by truck) to retailers. Once the books are on the retail shelves, customers -- some of whom may have pre-ordered, but most of whom will only see the edition after it is on the shelves -- purchase the book. It is then taken home (or to a library; adding additional delay) for use. This process takes months, during which time there is no updating. If one is lucky, the edition being consulted is only a year or so out-of-date. As for Wikipedia, the charm and beauty of it is that the last time the contributors stopped contributing and the editors stopped editing -- about five seconds ago -- is possibly the point at which it begins to go out-of-date. That process, however, stops when the next contributor / editor makes a change. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 22:23, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

More information about this print encyclopedia? 2600:387:F:4B16:0:0:0:9 (talk) 05:31, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Reading this thoroughly may help explain why Wikipedia isn't printed. More info on size here. And some ancient history relating to producing a version that could be printed. Btw, there was once a facility for producing books of Wikipedia articles that could be printed. That can still be done manually, with printing through specialized third parties, I believe -- but I've never had any interest in trying it. -- Avocado (talk) 12:44, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Farret's Head, Scotland

In a book on mental calculators, I read that George Parker Bidder as a young boy was asked by Queen Charlotte: "How many days would a Snail be creeping, at the rate of 8 feet per day, from the Land's End, in Cornwall, to Ferret's Head, in Scotland, the distance by admeasurement being 838 miles?" (He immediately gave the correct answer of 553,080).

I tried looking up "Ferret's Head", but I couldn't find any such named location in Scotland. I would assume it is another name for John o' Groats or perhaps Duncansby Head, and indeed the shortest route by car from Land's End to John o' Groats is 838 miles. Is anyone aware of such a location in Scotland named Ferret's Head? Dreykop (talk) 19:29, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

After some further digging on the topic, I found that some sources actually spell it as "Farret's Head", but I still can't find any such place. Dreykop (talk) 19:53, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Possibly an egregious misreading of Dunnet Head, or a mishearing / alternative spelling of Faraid Head, or a confusion with Farr Point (no article)?

[Edited to add] I favour Faraid Head myself. Depending on the source of the anecdote, it's possible that someone (perhaps unfamiliar with this remote Scottish location) misunderstood Queen Charlotte's strong German accent. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 23:04, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, Faraid Head sounds best, though seems to me a rather unremarkable location to be used in such a question. Makes one wonder what's so interesting about it that Queen Charlotte would know that the distance to it is 838 miles. Also, just curious, how did you know all these places? Dreykop (talk) 04:56, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Being an elderly Brit (who lived in Scotland for a while), I have general familiarity with the UK's geography, and I have various atlases and maps to hand. I just looked along the North Scottish coast for points and headlands with possibly relevant names. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 13:26, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Presumably, some published list of trivia that Charlotte had at her disposal contained an item like, "the longest distance between any two points on the island of Great Britain is between A and B, having been admeasured to be X miles". (Google Maps gives a walking distance of 804 miles.^[37])  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:19, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

For instance, in A new and accurate description of all the direct and principal cross roads in Great Britain (Paterson, 1771) is written From the Land's End in Cornwall to Farout Head, the neareſt way, (viz. by Briſtol, Carliſle, Edinburgh and Inverneſs,) is 838 miles. This information is repeated six years later in Owen's book of roads, which looks suspiciously like Paterson's book of roads, but in pocket format.  Card Zero  (talk) 19:03, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

I just found that there actually is something remarkable about Faraid Head: The line from Mull of Galloway, the southernmost point of Scotland, and Faraid Head runs almost perfectly north to south (with a heading of only around 0.49 degrees), which makes it the longest line due north and south one could draw on a map of Scotland, at least according to this source. Dreykop (talk) 06:00, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Looking at some older maps of Scotland from the National Library of Scotland's website (listed here), Faraid Head has also been labelled as "Farout Hd." or "Farrid Hd.", or "Fair Aird", or possibly "Mills Farritt". This makes the ID more convincing. Dreykop (talk) 18:40, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

It looks like the speed of 8 feet per day was chosen to make the calculation easier and the distance of 838 miles (with the repeating digit 8) and the number of feet per furlong (with the repeating digit 6) also helps:

${\frac {838\,\mathrm {miles} \times 8{\frac {\mathrm {furlongs} }{\mathrm {mile} }}\times 660{\frac {\mathrm {feet} }{\mathrm {furlong} }}}{8{\frac {\mathrm {feet} }{\mathrm {day} }}}}=838\times 660\,\mathrm {days} =(11110\times (8\times 6)+1100\times (3\times 6))\,\mathrm {days} =553080\,\mathrm {days}$

There are only two multiplications, then some shift operations and addition of six numbers, each of which have only two non-zero digits. Although still impressive, not as impressive as it appears on first sight. Now I wonder, was this coincidence, was the queen a hobby mathematician who knew the tricks or is the story apocryphal? 8 feet per day is slow for a snail; most can cover that distance in less than half an hour. The number 838 could also be tuned. I doubt the distance was know to single mile accuracy and is was probably calculated by summing the lengths of many segments, with some intermediate rounding. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:35, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Charlotte "assembl[ed] a significant library containing volumes on all kinds of intellectual pursuits, she collected natural history specimens and scientific instruments, and employed, funded or corresponded with both male and female scientists, often by means of intermediaries". See Hansen, Mascha (6 July 2022). "Queen Charlotte's scientific collections and natural history networks". Notes and Records. 77 (2). The Royal Society: 323–336. doi:10.1098/rsnr.2021.0070.. DuncanHill (talk) 09:48, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I do not think one would intentionally make the calculation easier when examining the abilities of a renowned calculating prodigy. I would think she'd ask harder questions to see the extent of his calculating prowess. Dreykop (talk) 18:45, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe because she needed to calculate the answer before asking the question, so that she would know if he got it right or not. Alansplodge (talk) 13:04, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

It's like the traditional "Your train leaves Euston at 08.24 and runs north at an average speed of 63 mph. Another train leaves Edinburgh at 10.01 and runs south at 73 mph. Where do they pass each other?" question. You dress up arithmetic in a "realish world" problem to see if your victim examinee can extract the relevant information. Euston, Edinburgh, Land's End, and Ferret Head are all irrelevant. DuncanHill (talk) 21:02, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

I was going to suggest this is a trick question, because Edinburgh is on the East Coast Main Line (London Terminus King's Cross), while Euston serves the West Coast Main Line to Glasgow, so the trains don't pass each other. However, while this was once true, I find on checking that there are now direct services from Euston to Edinburgh. {The poster formerly knowna s 87.81.230.195} 90.193.154.147 (talk) 13:46, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

selling car with above-water loan

Car is worth about $15K, outstanding loan is about $7K, owner is too cash-poor (and in other debt) to simply pay off the loan to get the title and sell the car. Is there a straightforward way to deal with that through the loan servicer? Find buyer and get some kind of document where the buyer pays the loan servicer and the seller? I have to think this is a standard type of transaction. I'm not the seller but just discussed it with her and am puzzled by the situation. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:8F01:9261:FCD:4BB9 (talk) 22:20, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Sell the car for the best price, then pay off the remainder of the debt. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 22:26, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

You can't sell the car without the title (official document saying you own the car), which is held by the loan servicer til the loan is paid off. This has to be a very common situation with a standard way to do the necessary juggling, something like escrow for a house sale. That's what I'm asking about. 2601:644:8581:75B0:8F01:9261:FCD:4BB9 (talk) 00:25, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Essential information for respondents: OP is based in the US (California).  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:40, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Here is a webpage on dealing with this issue: [38]. Some companies will buy a car with an outstanding loan; e.g. [39], [40]. For selling to a private party, perhaps some of the answers given here are also helpful.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:56, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. The Reddit thread that Lambiam link helps a bit. 2601:644:8581:75B0:76FA:C1BF:94F4:EDF3 (talk) 02:00, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

May 20

Shopping malls opened in recent years

If you look at the categories of years shopping malls established, why are there very few malls opened and established in United States as of 2010s and 2020s, compared to Asia, where it opened in large numbers? Why is this a case? And why do malls in USA due so quickly while the other malls outside United States are much better thriving? Please use a mindset again please. 2600:387:F:4B16:0:0:0:9 (talk) 05:35, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

What's the statistical basis for your premise? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:41, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

The number of shopping malls in United States, compared to Asia. Also the malls are commonly seen opened in Asia and Europe other than United States. See it here: as of 2020s 2600:387:F:4B16:0:0:0:9 (talk) 07:35, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

No new malls have opened in England for at least ten years, and those we have are struggling to stay afloat. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:57, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

The categories of shopping centres/malls by year only lists shopping centres that have an article and have been categorised by year, which means the the authors of the article know the opening year and took the trouble of adding the right category. That makes the list far from complete. The shopping centre I grew up with, on the outskirts of a provincial town in Western Europe, has no article. Only if you know the biases in the list, you can use it for any statistics. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:57, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

The USA pioneered shopping malls, so will have begun to approach its 'saturation level' (where enough are present and suitable sites have mostly been used) earlier than other countries. Further 'mall demand' will largely be driven only by the country's population (and prosperity) increase, but latterly this will have been countered by the steep rise in online purchases for home delivery, reducing the need for 'bricks and mortar' shopping facilities. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 13:45, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Using North Kansas City as an anecdote: Metro North Mall was a very popular shopping mall. The owner wanted to increase profits. So, the owner kept increasing rent and fees on the businesses until they were ready to leave the mall. While that took place, the owners purchased land a few miles away and began construction on an outdoor mall called Zona Rosa. In other words, Metro Norh is a mall where shoppers are indoors the whole time and Zona Rosa is a mall where shoppers go outside to go from store to store. The owners realized that the rent and fees for a store with external walls and doors all around is significantly higher than the rent and fees for a small parcel inside an indoor mall. Most of the clients in the indoor mall quickly moved to the outdoor mall, leaving the indoor mall abandoned. Now, the original indoor mall has been demolished. The point of this anecdote is that it isn't that the public prefers to walk around outside in Kansas City's blistering summer heat and brutal winter freezes when shopping. It is that the mall owner wants more money and gets more money with an outdoor mall. So, it is expected that there will be less indoor malls for new construction while outdoor malls (not included in the mall counts) are increasing. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 14:08, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe the need for shopping malls has already been fulfilled in the US, or aybe online shopping is having an effect? Alansplodge (talk) 13:07, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Did you bother to read my reply (and links) above, posted nearly 24 hours before yours? :-) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.170.37 (talk) 19:23, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

It isn't just quantity as well. Consider the Jumbo shopping centre in Vantaa, Finland. 86,100 square meters with 119 shops. Sticking to the Nordic area, consider the Nerstranda mall in Tromso, Norway. 12,000 square meters with 30 shops. Both count as malls, but they are not equal. It will get very complicated very quickly to accurately identify how much mall space and how many stores are opening and closing rather than rounding everythign up to a unit of one mall. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 18:48, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Malls are an endangered species. The numbers of their preferred prey, the brick-and-mortar shopper (Consumerus pedestriani), are declining (curse you Amazon). The mighty herds of yore are no more. According to Capital One Shopping's Mall Closure Statistics, projections indicate the US's estimated 1200 malls (2025) may be down to 900 by 2028, "the number of malls declined 16.7% per year from 2017 to 2022" and that "up to 87% of large shopping malls may close over 10 years". Clarityfiend (talk) 20:50, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

May 21

How come there is no Wikipedia article on the Auckland metropolitan area in New Zealand?

How come there is no Wikipedia article on the Auckland metropolitan area in New Zealand? 2001:569:5022:4400:FDB9:FFA9:1F62:BD0 (talk) 04:10, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Nobody has written it yet. Our 8-odd million articles cover a lot of ground, but there'll always be more stuff that needs being written about. In most of those cases, there'll be someone who says "How come this wasn't written X years ago?". Things happen when they happen, surprisingly enough. This is all done by unpaid volunteers, remember. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:34, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Auckland is about the urban area, and also includes some data for the Auckland Functional urban area, which is larger and which it calls Metro. Auckland Region is about a much larger area but only a modest additional population. Auckland CBD covers the commercial centre of the city. Auckland City covers the local body area prior to 2010. Auckland isthmus covers the same area as Auckland City excluding Hauraki Gulf islands. How does your idea of the Auckland metropolitan area differ from all of these?-Gadfium (talk) 05:47, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

May 22

Website for automatically generating Wikitext citations

I used to use the website https://citer.toolforge.org/citer.fcgi? for generating citations when writing Wikipedia articles. However, it appears that that website is now unavailable. It was a particularly good one. Does anyone know of any similar site that automatically generates Wikipedia text citations? Cerebrality (talk) 01:04, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

That URL still works for me... Rojomoke (talk) 04:46, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Its back online for me now, too. Thank you. Cerebrality (talk) 07:46, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Advanced neurosurgical techniques

As any fan of cartoons or screwball comedies can tell you, the leading cause of amnesia is a clonk on the head and the best method curing it is a second clonk. What medical pioneer developed this technique? I'm sure it was old when Mr Howell tried it on the Skipper in 1965 with a coconut. Matt Deres (talk) 01:49, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

I would guess that information is lost to time. Trepanning was done 10,000 years ago and that's a bit more advanced than a clonk on the head with a coconut. 196.50.199.218 (talk) 04:52, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Dropped, no doubt, by an overladen African swallow on its way to England. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:11, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

How do you know these things? Are you a king?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:46, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

I can't resist summarizing this TV commercial I once saw:

Setting: a tropical beach resort.

1. A beautiful woman stands up, adjusts her bikini straps, smiles brightly, and says: "I can't believe this bikini still fits me."
2. Her husband, relaxing in a chair and reading a travel magazine, absentmindedly makes the mistake of agreeing: "Yeah, I can't believe it either."
3. She's dismayed: "What did you say?!"
4. The husband squirms a bit, trying to think of how to recover.
5. Another group of people, nearby, are celebrating something. One of them opens a bottle of champagne. The cork shoots out and up into the top of a palm tree, where it knocks down a coconut— which falls directly on the bikini-wearing wife's head. The husband's jaw drops as he sees.
6. The wife blinks a few times, dazed, and then snaps out of it and remembers what she was doing. She adjusts her bikini straps, smiles brightly, and says: "I can't believe this bikini still fits me."
7. Now primed, the thankful husband replies: "You've... never looked better."
8. She says happily: "Thanks, honey!" and trots off toward the water.
9. He nods and smiles back, and relaxes contemplatively into the chair.
10. Slogan: "Anyone can get lucky."
11. Advertiser: a casino.

--142.112.140.207 (talk) 18:18, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

According to the Neurology article "The head trauma amnesia cure: The making of a medical myth", "The double trauma amnesia plot device appeared in 19th century fiction and was fully formed by the 1880s." Clarityfiend (talk) 05:08, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

The idea of percussive maintenance is surely much older than that. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:49, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

And it extends way beyond bodies. I well remember the days when otherwise sensible, intelligent adults would adopt this technique when the picture on the TV screen started rolling or going haywire. They'd bash the sides of the box, and if it didn't work the first time, they'd bash it harder. Their thinking must have been that this was exactly how the delicate, intricate internal wiring was designed to be fixed. My dad was a civil engineer, and pretty down to earth in any other context. Go figure. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:17, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Well, unlike hitting someone on the head to cure amnesia, hitting an old CRT television sometimes would actually fix a problem. CRT TVs, especially tube-based ones, had a lot of components connected via spring-loaded contacts, which would tend to shift around due to the high amount of heat generated by such components. If a component was slightly mis-seated, percussion could reseat it. I've certainly seen it work numerous times, as have others old enough to remember such devices.[41] CodeTalker (talk) 23:55, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Great reference - thank you. I can't access the actual article, but that's okay. So, it goes back to at least the 19th century. There's a whiff of sympathetic magic to it as well, so I suppose it could go back a lot further. Matt Deres (talk) 02:32, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe even earlier; the original sinner may have been Xavier Bichat. Quoting from the article:

During the time Gall was in Vienna, French anatomist and physiologist Francois Xavier Bichat (1771–1802) was working in Paris (1794–1802), where he developed his own theories on dual hemispheric functioning without apparent knowledge of Gall. [...] In 1805, Bichat published a comprehensive book Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie and sur la Mort (Physiological Researches upon Life and Death) in which he argued that the parts of the brain “resemble each other on every side” and “cannot be different in their mode of acting.” While both Bichat and Gall suggested that the 2 halves of the brain have double function, Bichat, unlike Gall, postulated that the cerebral hemispheres are symmetrical and must operate in synchrony.
      With respect to brain damage, Bichat’s symmetrical functioning reasoning led directly to the endorsement of a second trauma cure. He seriously proposed the notion that a second blow could restore the wits of someone who had had a previous concussion. Bichat justified this idea by reasoning that hemispheres that are in balance with each other functioned better, while those out of balance cause perceptual and intellectual confusion.

(The year 1805 is a mistake; this is the year of the posthumous publication of the 3rd edition. The first edition was published in An VII, that is, the year 1799 AD.)

This apparently got married with the idea, already popular in the 19th century, that memories never truly disappear, but, although being inaccessible for conscious recall, persist "somewhere" in the brain.  ​‑‑Lambiam 15:31, 23 May 2025 (UTC)