Humanities desk
< April 23	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 25 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 24

Athenian Empire

What was the effect of moving the treasury of the Delian League from the Delos to Athens and How the Delian League came to be basis of the Athenian Empire? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.64.141.25 (talk) 01:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Our article Delian League offers answers to both of your questions. Marco polo 02:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Peloponnesian War

How did the city of Corinth figure in the war and Why Athens went ahead with its plan to conquer Syracuse? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.64.141.25 (talk) 01:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

These questions are answered in our article Peloponnesian War. Marco polo 02:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It might also help you if you dipped into Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War, particularly Book Six, which deals at length with the expedition of 415 and the miscalculations of the Athenian generals. Clio the Muse 07:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Double first cousins half removed?

In the ancient sanskrit story of the "Twenty-Two Goblins", [1], the final unanswered riddle is, basically, if a father and son marry an (unrelated) daughter and mother (respectively, father with dauther, and son with mother), what is the relationship of the two couples' children to one another? I thought I had stumbled on an answer (in English anyway), at the wikipedia page Double first cousin... until I realized that double first cousins require the parents to be siblings of one another rather than parent and child. So now I'm wondering, is there a term in English for this? Pfly 03:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think they're any kind of cousins, because they have no grandparents in common. Let's call the father and son F and S, the mother and daughter M and D, and assume the 2 children are a boy (B) and a girl (G) respectively. B and S are half-siblings, as are D and G. Since M is the mother of G via her 2nd husband, and the grand-mother of B via her 1st husband, that makes B the (half-)nephew of G. Alternatively, since F is the father of B via his 2nd wife and the grand-father of G via his 1st wife, this makes G the (half-)neice of B. They're each other's (half-)nephew/(half-)neice, and each other's (half-)uncle/(half-)aunt. I think the facts that M's 2nd husband is the son of her daughter's husband, and F's 2nd wife is the daughter of his son's wife, make no difference. I know of no term in English that covers this. Great question, though. JackofOz 04:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(The original question says the father and son are unrelated to the daughter and mother, meaning F and M were never married, right? I think B and S, as well as D and G, would only be half-siblings if F and M were married.) Bavi H 17:03, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Wait, I was confused who gave birth to B and G. If F and D gave birth to B, and S and M gave birth to G, then your statement about half-siblings is correct. Below, Duomillia and I went the other way: F and D gave birth to G, and S and M gave birth to B.) Bavi H 17:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this question problematic, in that presumably the answer should be given in Sanskrit? I would guess that Sanskrit, like most languages, has idiosyncracies and differences from English in the way it describes relatives. (In Hebrew, for example, there's no word for "cousin" - it's described as being (e.g.) "son of uncle". Just because there's no term in English, perhaps there's one in Sanskrit? --Dweller 12:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In English, at least, there is no such relative term as "half removed". You can be "once removed", "twice removed", etc. Corvus cornix 20:48, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't they aunt and nephew or uncle and niece, as JackofOz mentions? Let's look at some pictures!

Duomillia 03:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, Duomillia, you didn't read the original question carefully. That's what would be the case if the father married the mother and the son married the daughter. But if the father marries the daughter and the mother marries the son, you have a different situation. Duomillia 03:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, now I think I have it figured out. On the one side, they are uncle and niece. On the other, they are (simultaneously) aunt and nephew. Wow! That's complicated.

Duomillia 04:09, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Except it should be half-niece/half-uncle and half-nephew/half aunt. - Nunh-huh 18:54, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some alternative diagrams using equal signs to represent marriages and vertical lines to show offspring. The first diagram shows everything at once. The second diagram focuses on the S=M marriage, and shows that b is uncle to g (and g is neice to b). The third diagram focuses on the F=D marriage, and shows that g is aunt to b (and b is nephew to g).

Bavi H 09:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can't believe nobody has brought up I'm my own grandpa yet...seems very appropriate to the question at hand :P -- Ferkelparade π 09:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Haha, that's great, love the song! Thanks. Pfly 22:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Who was the first person...

to use the penis and the vagina as an example of an irreducibly complex system? I've heard this argument quite a bit, how each one was "made" for the other, so it is impossible for them to have evolved. Was it Behe?--Kirby♥time 10:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since the purported 'irreduciable complexity' of the P and V will undoubtably be used to bolster arguments for the existence of God... well let's just give you an answer you'll like. God first used them as an example. He just spoke through one of his vessels. The name isn't important, since it would detract from the glory of God. Praise be to Allah.

Seriously though, I don't know. But the 'irreduciable complexity' argument was used for the human eyeball back in the day, and that approach was overturned as flimsy. Not sure if the P and V are any more complex. Vranak

I can't help with your query, since I don't subscribe to Balderdash Weekly, but I would suggest reading the interesting article Evolution of the eye before again enduring such arguments on what is "impossible". Presumably if evolutionary forces could come up with such marvels as the eye of the mantis shrimp, a rudimentary "put stick in hole" setup wouldn't be much of a problem. --TotoBaggins 16:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this is a really poor case to make for irreducible complexity. Fish don't have either, and just squirt in the water for external fertilization. The hole out of which the female squirts the eggs could be called a "vagina", I suppose. From this point, having the male and female squirt as close to each other as possible would naturally increase the proportion of fertilized eggs. Other animals then used existing body parts, like an arm in the case of an octopus and a tail in the case of a turtle, to do internal fertilization. From this point on it's just a series of subtle changes to get to the process that keeps sleazy motels in business to this day. :-) StuRat 17:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the guppy, the male's anal fin is folded to form a gonopodium through which sperm is egected directly into the female, who bears live young. A penis-in-the-making? Wait and see. --Wetman 19:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, don't waste my fucking time. You're preaching to the choir. Now, I have checked the talkorigins list. and it seems that most of the IC arguments come from Behe. I haven't read his book, nor do I plan on it, so I was wondering if he was the one that came up with the sexual organs IC idea. --Kirby♥time 08:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

found this--Kirby♥time 11:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nursery Rhyme

I have what I presume to be the opening line of a nursery rhyme. I cannot find any info online or dictionaries of rhymes. It is alluded to by James Joyce in "Finnegans Wake" (257). Does anybody know the rest of the rhyme and any background details?

Old Daddy Dacon Bought a bit of bacon Put it on a chimney pot For fear it would be taken.

Debbie conway 11:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Debbie, I can find no reference to this rhyme other than in the pages of Finnegans Wake! The usage seems to be as obscure as so much else in that novel, if anything even more encyclopedic than Ulysses. All I can do is to refer you to Adaline Glasheen's Third Census on Finnegans Wake (1977), where you will find the following note on page 69: Deacon, Daddy-'Ohd Daddy Dacon/ Bought a bit of bacon/ Put it on a chimney pot/ For fear it would be taken.' See Cadenus? Lewis Carrol was a deacon. 257.14,21; 261.31; 339.3; 348.23.. Make of that what you will! The ambigious reference to Cadenus refers to Cadenus and Vanessa, Jonathan Swift's longish poem of 1713. Cadenus is an anagram of Decanus (Dean), which would seem to tie Swift to Lewis Carroll (Charles W. Dodgson), at least it does according to Glasheen. As far as the specific page references are concerned, you have already identified the first. If you check out the others you will find And what the decans is there about him... (261.31); Like old Doddy Icon when he cooked up his iggs in bicon. (339.3); ...old Djadja Uncken who was a great mark for jinking and junking...(348.23). This is what you get when you attempt to cut through the Gordian Knot of Joyce's complex and multi-layered world! We are no further forward on the origins of the rhyme itself-which may just be piece of casual doggerel-but at least you now have some of the literary context. Clio the Muse 18:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's given as a "just for fun" children's rhyme (4 lines only), heard in Newcastle, in the Opies' Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, Chapter 2. They group it with other short verses where the "key rhyme-word is a proper name". --HJMG 20:39, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1988 Shore Protection Act?

I have been researching this topic and am not coming up with any answers. I need to know the history of the 1988 Shore Protection Act in the United States. Who thought of it and how has it helped. Help! i have searched all over the web and cannot locate this information. Please someone help! Thanks 208.102.1.64 16:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try to stay calm, someone will indeed help you. Your question is a little vague though. When you say "history" do you mean: 1) "how did it become a law from just an idea in someone's head"; or 2) after it became a law, how well did it work and who enforced it; or 3) all of the above; or 4) something else. If it is 1-3, then information is readily available from the EPA and the Federal Register. Just go to Google and type in:

   "Shore Protection Act" EPA "federal register"

Make sure you include the little quotemarks. You should find more than enough to get you started. dr.ef.tymac 16:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any definite style guide information for single-line postal addresses?

I'm going crazy trying to find a source -- any offical source, like CP Style or Chicago Style or the Gregg Reference Manual, etc. -- for how to write a postal address on a single line of text.

i.e.

Joe Smith, 1234 Elm Street, Burlington, VT 18765 USA

Should there be commas after "Street?" After "City?" Should there be a single or double space between state and Zip codes? There's no shortage of style guides for multi-line addresses, but a dearth of information on how to write addresses on a single line. I know it sounds nitpicky, but it's easier to resolve disputes in graphic design if you can point at something and say "that is how to do it." --66.129.135.114 20:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All the examples of proper addressing I can find in the US Postal Servivce manual, Here, do not use commas at all, and seem to use single spaces to separate elements. Additionally, multiple line addressing is generally the standard as this is how the OCR machines read mail for sorting (according to the USPS information). gorffy 20:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My own common-sense rule is: arrange the elements (not counting zipcode) from least inclusive to most inclusive, and delimit the elements with commas. Note that this results in "Apartment 765, 1234 Elm Street" rather than "1234 Elm Street, Apartment 765" (which is how I'd write it if that were a separate line), because the apartment is a subset of the building rather than the reverse. As to multiple spaces before the zipcode (where did that rule come from?) unless you're using a monofont it's hard to tell the difference. HTML collapses any amount of whitespace to one space, so I couldn't tell that you had used a double space until I opened this editing window. —Tamfang 00:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat irrelevantly, I think it's particularly silly to write "Richards Corporation / Baxter Building / 314 Nth Avenue, Suite 121 / Anytown", as if the Baxter Building were in suite 121. When I process such an address I make it "Baxter Building, suite 121 / 314 Nth Avenue" or sometimes "121 Baxter Building / 314 Nth Avenue". But I'm a crank. —Tamfang 00:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I just took the Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition off a co-worker's desk and looked in the back where it has a short style guide for uses of punctuation. One of the uses of a comma is given as:

5. To set off the main elements in an address; a title following a person's name; and the year if the month, day, and year are given.

He lived at 21 Baker Street, Elyria, Ohio, for twenty years.

Dr. Peter Haws, Director of Admissions, replied.

The letter was dated July 14, 1867, and was mailed from Paris.

However, the examples don't include one with a ZIP code and modern state abbreviation. "Elyria, OH 44035" or "Elyria, OH 44035, USA" looks right to my eye, but that's not what you asked for. --Anonymous, April 25, 2007, 00:07 (UTC).

Turns out there was a Chicago Manual on the next person's desk. Its example is "Please send all proofs to the author at 743 Olga Drive, Ashtabula, Ohio 44044, as soon as they arrive from the typesetter." --Anon, April 29, 04:30 (UTC).

How many local authorities are there in England and Wales?

Thanks for anyone who can give me some useful information on this. Capitalistroadster 20:12, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like 410 - of various kinds. Try this pdf on Local Government Structure. --HJMG 21:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, HJMG. Capitalistroadster 09:40, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Limbo vs. Purgatory

I was wondering if the concepts of Limbo and Purgartory are the same thing? Can they be used interchangeably? Can you use either one to refer to the second book of Dante's Comedy? Thanks. --kralahome 20:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In Roman Catholic theology, which I presume Dante would have had in mind, they are not the same things at all. Limbo is a place, neither Heaven nor Hell, where the souls of those who were not baptized, but who were otherwise righteous, await the Final Judgment. Purgatory is where those souls who are fit for Heaven, but who still bear some sin, are purified before entering the divine presence. - Eron ^Talk 21:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Except that the Church just this week announced that they are abandoning the concept of Limbo. Corvus cornix 22:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Limbo's status has always been a bit questionable; doctrinally speaking, it was a "theological speculation that has never been defined as official Church dogma." Personally, I always viewed it as an attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole: how do we reconcile God's infinite mercy with the teaching that those who haven't accepted Jesus and live in Original Sin must be damned to Hell - even if they are blameless unbaptized infants? Like all such compromises, it worked best if left unscrutinized. - Eron ^Talk 23:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As for Dante, Il Limbo only occupies verses 1-63 of the Inferno's Canto IV, while Il Purgatorio is its own cantica, an entire set of 33 canti. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kralahome, you will find some useful additional information in the Catholic Encyclopedia, which has articles on Limbo [2] and Purgatory [3] They are, indeed, quite different concepts, though Limbo is a little more complex than Eron suggests, one existing before the ascent of Christ into Heaven, and one after. The first is Limbus Patrum-the Limbo of the Fathers-a place of temporary refuge for the righteous who died before the advent of Christ, and were finally admitted to Heaven after He completed his mission on earth. The second, the Limbus Infantum-the Limbo of Children-was conceived of as a permanent refuge for unbaptized children, who had died free of personal sin, but could not be admitted to Heaven because of the collective burden of original sin. Neverthless, though denied the full presence of God, these souls were believed to exist in a condition of natural happiness. St. Augustine had originally argued that all of the unbaptized, even children, were bound for Hell, though this view was rejected by the early Middle Ages. In recent years the whole question has been studied by an International Theological Commission, set up by the Vatican, which has just published a document, saying that the whole notion presents an 'unduly restricted view of salvation', and that there are grounds for 'prayerful hope' that even the unbaptized are admitted into the presence of God. It should also be emphasised that limbo, though part of the Catholic tradition, was never Church dogma. It is not even mentioned in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which merely says that unbaptized infants are entrusted to the mercy of God.

Purgatary-meaning 'to purge' or 'make clean'-is a place of temporary punishment for those who died in the grace of God, but not entirely free from fault or transgression. The doctrine was given final shape by the Council of Florence and the Council of Trent. Souls in Purgatory are not separated from the Church, and Catholic prayers for the dead forms part of an ancient tradition. Clio the Muse 23:34, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Clio for expanding on my admittedly cursory explanation of Limbo. I'd add that Purgatory played a major role in the Protestant Reformation, which was inspired at least in part by abuses in the sales of indulgences. - Eron ^Talk 23:48, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Clio the Muse 00:00, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Limbo is a dance,purgatory is watching someone who can't dance,dance.hotclaws**== 11:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weapons in the USA

Is it possible that in some states of the US, nunchaku are illegal whereas assault rifles are legal? --Taraborn 21:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At first glance, no probably not. According to the article on nunchaku, "Legality in the United States varies at state level, e.g., personal possession of nunchaku is illegal in New York, Arizona, California and Massachusetts, but in other states possession is not criminalized." A look at Gun laws in the United States (by state) shows that three of those states - New York, California and Massachusetts - also ban assault weapons. Information on Arizona is not available, so perhaps in that state it is possible. - Eron ^Talk 23:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And in fact, apparently it is. This link suggests that Arizona does not ban assault weapons. So if you want to make like Rambo while remaining safe from ninja, that's the place to be. - Eron ^Talk 23:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Safe from ninja? If nunchaku are illegal, only criminal ninja will have nunchaku! Dismas|^(talk) 12:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]