Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2008 July 26

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July 26

Strange literary quirk of Poe (and others?)

I've noticed that in several works, specifically by Poe though others may have done similar, he uses incomplete names and even years. An example is The Purloined Letter [1] which took place in "the year 18__" and involves a "Monsieur G-" and a "Minister D-". I had originally thought that maybe the translation from handwritten to typewritten could not decipher some of Poe's handwriting, but having seen some original manuscripts, they are in fact written out like that. I've even seen (somewhere, can't recall offhand), that some story's events took place "in the year ____". Anyone have a backstory to this sort of thing? Thanks! Arakunem^Talk

Poe was a remarkable character writer. This quirk is actually part of the character style he is using. Imagine the letter as a "true" story being written by someone who wants to stay ambigious (and thus give a sense of anytime and person). Poe ranks up there with Stoker in being able to manipulate character writing. Omahapubliclibrary (talk) 01:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Someone will come along with specific examples, I am sure. The tecnique, when used in fiction, is to give the impression that real (and possibly important) people are involved, and a real events. The dates and names are just hinted at so that there is no way to confirm (or deny). When used in non-fiction, it is still a tecnique for hinting at names and dates, while avoiding possible libel. See Roman à clef for a similar tactic. ៛ Bielle (talk) 01:22, 26 July 2008 (UTC) Yikes, I shouldn't have sent you to Roman à clef without checking it out first. That's not a very good article, and not a very good explanation, though there are a lot of examples shown. ៛ Bielle (talk) 01:25, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Dostoyevsky also uses initials for place-names in Crime and Punishment, probably for the same sort of reason-- creating a little verisimilitude by hinting at the possible location of his story. 68.123.238.140 (talk) 19:34, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

This is used all the time in 19th-century writing, even into early 20th century. Arthur Conan Doyle does it in the Holmes stories too at times, as do many Russian authors of the same period (I want to say I read a short story by Lermontov that did something like this). It's to make it look "authentic"—like it's a true story that they can't actually give you the details to. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:29, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

It is indeed quite common. You'll find it in Jane Eyre, or the Secret Garden, or other works of teh same era. "We went into --shire"; "He served in the --th Foot', etc. 116.12.232.180 (talk) 23:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Who's responsible?

This is a hypothetical case and is therefore not, I repeat NOT, a request for legal advice. Suppose you see a driver about to strike a pedestrian. You heroically push the would-be victim to safety, but in the process break your [supply body part here]. Assume this happens in North America. Is the driver liable for your medical bills? Does it make a difference if the injury was due to the car hitting you or you hitting the ground? Clarityfiend (talk) 01:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The laws vary from province to province in Canada, and I suspect, from state to state in the U.S. That's only one of the reasons the Ref Desk doesn't do legal advice. Even from an expert, the answer is frequently: it depends. And that applies to hypothetical scenarios, too. In general terms, and this is not legal advice, deliberately putting yourself in the way of harm, however high-minded your motives, is not likely to result in someone else being held responsible for the consequences, financial or otherwise. Perhaps the person whose life you have saved may feel a moral responsibility, but I wouldn't count on much more than effusive thanks. ៛ Bielle (talk) 02:18, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

So if the situation were to ever arise, I should give preference to rich, generous people? Bummer. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The area of law you are talking about is known as causation. Interpretation will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, scenario to scenario. The Wikipedia article is pretty good at going over some of the different schools of thought about it. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:17, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Presuming the common-law mostly applies (which to my understanding is the case across most of the US) the main question a court would have to ask is "did the driver breach the duty of care they owed to other road users when neglecting to see you and your friend". In most jurisdictions drivers have a duty to take reasonable care to avoid colliding with other road users. So if the court found that, in the circumstances a reasonable person would've done something different (that is kept a better lookout, not sped, not been drunk etc) then the driver breached their duty of care.

Then they must ask whether that breach of duty caused the accident. So if your freind stepped out of nowhere and a driver taking proper care still would've hit them, then it cannot be held that the driver's negligence caused the accident. On the other hand if a reasonable driver could've been expected to avoid the accident then the court would hold that the driver's negligence did cause the accident.

This is of course a simplification and there are many other factors that could come into play. Also, in many jurisdictions drivers have compulsory third-party insurance which covers the costs of personal injury done by drivers to others in all circumstances (regardless of fault). ~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.108.198.12 (talk) 09:51, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean are they liable criminally (eg. could they be fined by the police?) or in civil law (eg. could you claim damages?)? They would both be completely different things, of course.

Transferred malice might be important, but I don't know if you have it in the USA and Canada. If it is relevant, then the driver couldn't defend himself by saying: "I was reckless towards the first pedestrian who was saved. When I was reckless, the other person was actually on the sidewalk, so I'm not guilty." That wouldn't matter, the point is the driver was reckless and injured, even though the injured was not the one he was reckless towards.

If it were English law, the short answer is they probably would be criminally liable. Jordan and Smith are two cases that come to mind about a victim being an "intervening factor" in causation, but I'm afraid I can't remember the ratio decidendi in each.84.13.99.85 (talk) 13:48, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Religion

The lives of saints who were being persecuted because of the faith203.177.57.170 (talk) 03:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Isn't that just about all of them ? Do all you want a list of them all ? StuRat (talk) 04:08, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Start with martyr.--Wetman (talk) 05:00, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Fox's Book of Martyrs is a great resource for people up to the Reformation era. The Voice of the Martyrs is a great place to learn about present-day martyrs around the world. Kristamaranatha (talk) 20:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

So long as we don't forget that in the run-up to his own times Foxe was only interested in Protestant martyrs, so his Book of Martyrs is a bit limited in its scope... to say the least! Xn4 (talk) 16:44, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Importance of a person

Has anything well-known or well-reviewed been written about what can make a person important in the long term, and about whether one can have a meaningful life without being important? Secular, deistic or agnostic material would be preferred over anything that presumes -- or attempts to impose -- a religion. NeonMerlin 04:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't all of this hinge on what we define as "important"? There are lots of figures who some people consider important and some people do not. There are many people who become considered important by people long after their deaths. Many people considered generally important fifty years ago are practically unknown today. Major Bong was considered important enough in 1945 for his obituary to share space with the bombing of Hiroshima; who cares about him today? I have no idea whether there is much secondary literature but it seems on the face of it like a question about how we define importance—something which is clearly contextual, and shifts drastically in a short amount of time—not about how people can become it. I can distinctly remember how I tried to convince people that the Taliban were important in 1999 or so, and practically nobody could see that they were. After 9/11, though, there was no question—though of course not for the same reasons I argued for. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 05:39, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

To me that would make you important at some level, gaining the right to say I told you so at least. Importance[2] is relative but not nearly tightly related to timing, varying from 15 minutes of fame to history (and depending on who writes it). A sense of importance to someone somewhere is part of what nourishes humans according to Eric Berne among others in that field who work with issues of esteem and self esteem. Julia Rossi (talk) 04:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Artists of some type probably have the best chance, except for the rulers of major nations. Poems dating back to ancient Greece (Iliad, the Odyssey, the works of Sappho) are still read, and in some cases taught, well over two millennia afterward. Vultur (talk) 04:01, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Quotation from literature comparing Marian shrines/aspects

I'm trying to recall where I read of characters comparing their "favorite" Virgin Mary, I think as a humorous response to the diverse characterizations of the figure in various Marian cults before the Reformation. I believe one character says something to the effect of, Our Lady of [?] is well-known, but the Mary of [?] is the kindest. Or something to that effect. Can anyone help me? Cannongrandee (talk) 05:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Gegel - Philosophy and History

When reading articles on Rudolf Steiner and on Anthroposophy and Theosophy I keep coming up with Gegel, surname only. A Google search and a Wikipedia search come up with nothing on this individual. Please tell me who he was. There is no Wikipedia article on himDr Ron Howe (talk) 05:47, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure it's not Hegel? ---Sluzzelin talk 05:57, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

There is an obscure printer, Ludwig Bernhard Friedrich Gegel (1731-1788), from the German Palatinum (Pfalz). However, I fail to see any connection to Steiner´s Anthroposophy. Hegel, on the other hand, is often seen as a theologian manqué and possibly fits into Steiner´s concepts. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:49, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

For some reason (unknown to me) Hegel is referred to as Gegel in Russian sources.87.102.86.73 (talk) 14:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

eg/ie http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Гегель%2C_Георг_Вильгельм_Фридрих see the "Г" for both George and Gegel (Hegel).87.102.86.73 (talk) 14:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

That was an older phonological adaptation convention -- Genrikh is the Russian version of German Heinrich, there were jokes about Harry Hopkins being known as "Garry Gopkins" in Moscow, etc... AnonMoos (talk) 18:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

(after ec)I can't find an article in WP that discusses this, but up to around 50 years ago Roman 'h' was customarily transliterated to 'г' in Russian. A Google search for 'гуго', for example, turns up articles about a number of people named 'Hugo', And the Soviet national anthem was Гимн Советского Союза (Gimn Sovietskogo Soyuza), where 'гимн' is a direct borrowing from 'hymn'. --ColinFine (talk) 18:07, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Hitler is still spelled in Russian as Гитлер, pronounced Gitler. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Just a clarification about 'гимн'. Colin’s answer could be read that Russian borrowed it from the English word 'hymn'. While Russian has indeed borrowed some words from English, it did not do so in this case. Vasmer’s Etymological Dictionary says this about 'гимн':

• вероятно, через польск. hymn из лат. hymnus, греч. ὕμνος
• meaning: Probably via the Polish “hymn”, from the Latin “hymnus” and Greek “ὕμνος”.

So Greek and Latin were the ultimate sources of the English word, the Polish word, the Russian word, and many others. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyright Violation

Is reproducing a Wikipedia Page on knol.google.com a copyright violation? I ask because I recently came across this. Thanks --MagneticFlux (talk) 07:16, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it. It claims to be licensed as CC-by 3.0 (not GFDL), and I can't find a list of contributors. Algebraist 07:20, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

More discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Can we use Wikipedia as a source for Knol?. Algebraist 11:46, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

lottery as a monopoly of the government?

Is lottery a monopoly of the government? I mean, is it legal (in most places) to start a lottery business on my own? --Taraborn (talk) 11:00, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Lotterys and most other forms of betting are something that (most) governments like to control, or have a hand in. See Lottery87.102.86.73 (talk) 11:34, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

In the US, almost all gambling industries are government controlled monopolies. There are some exceptions (Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos). What is interesting is that, when left to the private sector, gambling pays far better odds. For example, most state lotteries distribute half of the proceeds as prizes and retain the other half for the state. This makes the gambler's expected loss 50 cents for every dollar bet (prior to accounting for taxes). Private casinos typically pay 90 cents for every dollar bet making the gambler's expected loss 10 cents per dollar bet. Wikiant (talk) 13:18, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Many places allow lotteries for charity. In other jurisdictions anyone can sell lottery tickets, so long as they also offer lottery tickets for free. The way to make this profitable is to make each lottery ticket you sell cost less than the price of postage and require people to send away for their "free" tickets, which requires that they buy a more expensive stamp. StuRat (talk) 13:48, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Those "percentages" need to be taken with a dose of salts. The claimed expenses or overhead for running lotteries and corporate-owned gambling are not anything like those even of the worst-run "not-for-profit" institutions.--Wetman (talk) 19:14, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand. The percentages given aren't dependent on claims of expenses and overhead. They are quite simply the ratio of money paid out as winnings to money taken in as lottery sales. If any lottery lied about those figures it would be a serious criminal offense. StuRat (talk) 15:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, the government gets to do that sort of thing. The purpose of state-run lotteries in the U.S., for example, is to raise revenue that would otherwise require taxes. So, as the saying goes, lotteries (and gambling in general) are a tax on not understanding math. The difference is in the degree of non-comprehension. You have more chance of being struck by lightning this year, for example, than of winning PowerBall on the basis of a single ticket. If you don't buy PowerBall tickets, of course, lightning odds are much better than winning odds. OtherDave (talk) 23:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the simple term: "stupidity tax". StuRat (talk) 03:33, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. I'll never understand why so many people can't understand that lotteries are the most obvious swindle ever. --Taraborn (talk) 07:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Economics on-line discussion forums

I need some Internet forums about economics, the larger, the better. Google didn't help much... Do you know any? Thanks. --Taraborn (talk) 17:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

large numbers of ancient ethnic groups from around the Middle East

I was looking at a list of ancient/ medieval peoples, and all of the really old ones (3rd or 4th millenium BC) seemed to be from around the Middle East (eg. Akkadians, Amorites etc.). I asked a question some time back, about how we identify various historic peoples as a distinct group, and received the answer that we follow the designations of people like the Greeks living at the same time, whose writings we rely on as sources. So I'm wondering if the prevalence of so many very old cultures from the Middle East on the historical record has something to do with the Egyptians leaving records behind, and if so, do we use the names they gave them? thanks in advance, 203.221.127.38 (talk) 18:01, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

There are really only two (and a half) ways of finding about an ancient people.

• If there are contemporary written records (by them or others) we may be able to find out quite a lot about them, including what they are called (by the people who wrote the records we have)
• If we find physical evidence of their way of life, then archeology may be able to tell us a lot about them; but not usually what they were called. (Certain well-studied peoples have a conventional name today, but there is absolutely no reason to suppose that they or any other contemporaries used such a name. See for example Anasazi.
• The 'half' is that some people believe that we can reconstruct something about the vanished people who spoke a language that preceded some known languages, such as the Proto-Indoeuropeans. However, this view is controversial, and certainly will not tell us anything about what they were called.

Since the oldest written scripts we know about are from the middle East (Sumerian and Egyptian) it is to be expected that we would know more about the names of ancient peoples in that area than anywhere else. --ColinFine (talk) 18:19, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that answer. Can I ask further, does that mean we are using the names for various peoples that the Sumerians and Egyptians gave them? Like, did they invent the terms "Amorites" and "Akkadians" etc? 202.89.166.179 (talk) 11:50, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Just as for modern ethnonyms, some will be close to what they called themselves, and others will be foreigners' terms for them. I don't know the answer for those particular examples. See Saka for an example where both their own name and a foreign name (in this case, a Greek one) are known. Tokharian and Hittite are two probable examples of mistaken modern application of an ancient name to the wrong people. --ColinFine (talk) 23:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

What's the name of the hat worn during the American Civil War?

The one worn by most infantry on the Union side. ScienceApe (talk) 19:09, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

You mean the blue forage cap? -- kainaw™ 19:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes I think so, although when I search for Forage cap here, it redirects to another kind of hat... ScienceApe (talk) 19:27, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

That is why I googled for "blue forage cap." The term "forage cap" is highly ambiguous. It basically means "a cap worn by military units when they are outside." Since nobody wears the Civil War era cap anymore, the term is used for what is currently worn. -- kainaw™ 19:33, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Were there any other militaries that used that hat? I recall that some Japanese soldiers in the movie The Last Samurai wore it. Not sure if that's accurate though. ScienceApe (talk) 19:36, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

At this time many armies used that kind of hat. French uniform style was adopted all over the world untill the Franco-Prussian War.--Tresckow (talk) 19:53, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Here is some info on some of the styles and who manufactured them Dirty Billy's Hats Nice or in evil (talk) 04:44, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

It is the kepi. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:29, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The kepi is a different kind of hat actually. ScienceApe (talk) 00:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

the forerunner of the forage hat was the shako.--Tresckow (talk) 15:51, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Gunpowder era fighting in the jungle

Were there any jungle battles that took place during the gunpowder warfare era? ScienceApe (talk) 19:41, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, the conquistadors (and boy, that article needs help!) certainly fought in the South American jungles, and undoubtedly used their muskets there. I'm sure there are other examples. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 21:51, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you know what kind of tactics they used? Obviously line formations wouldn't work too well in the jungle. ScienceApe (talk) 22:22, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

They used biological warfare! The fourth Chinese domination of Vietnam might be another case, though I only assume there was jungle warfare because it is Vietnam, which would be quite a bejungled region at that time. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 22:57, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm mostly interested to know how combat with single shot muskets occurs in such an environment like a jungle. Most battles depicted in movies are almost always in open fields where single shot muskets have an advantage. ScienceApe (talk) 23:15, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

They probably tried to stay out of the jungle itself as much as possible. Thick vegetation is not good conditions for moving more than a small number of soldiers. I suspect that the Spanish and Chinese would have used swards or light sidearms at close range mostly in thick jungle, since the inaccurate muskets would have been rather ineffective when your opponent can creep up on you from umpteen directions. --S.dedalus (talk) 00:50, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

This is not my field, but I have been in rain forests and cannot imagine how they could have kept the gunpowder dry in such conditions. In the south with pampas and mountain terrain this would not apply. Bush wars are mostly about sneaking about and finding suitable attack-points such as clearings Dr Ron Howe (talk) 04:56, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Yea, I can't imagine either, which is why I'm curious abotu it. I guess no one is really sure? ScienceApe (talk) 16:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

You might want to look at the Seminole Wars. In general, the tactics used were ambushes and massacres. Pitched battles were rare, and firing lines even more so. --Carnildo (talk) 23:40, 28 July 2008 (UTC)