Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 December 13

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December 13

Christians having sex out of wedlock

Is it a bigger sin,when a priest is having sex out of wedlock than when a normal Christian is doing it? OsmanRF34 (talk) 02:09, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You need to clarify your question. Priests take a vow of celibacy, and are not permitted to marry. The concept of them doing anything "out of wedlock" has no meaning. If we can put that to one side, there's still the vow of celibacy they'd be breaking. Not to mention possible other sins, e.g. if the partner is married (adultery), and/or an adult male (homosexual acts), or a minor (pedophilia). As for "bigger sin", I'm only aware of the distinction between mortal sins and venial sins. Is that what you mean? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Catholic priests take a vote of celibacy. But vote of celibacy is not a vote of chastity. So a priest would not necessarily breaking any vow. And not all Christians are Catholic. The point is that both the priest and the other Christian would be having sex when they are not supposed to. OsmanRF34 (talk) 02:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

They take three vows: poverty, chastity and obedience. Chastity encompasses completely abstaining from sexual activity = celibacy. Whether the other person is a Christian or not is irrelevant.-- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:42, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually I think "celibacy" in this context means "not being married". "Chastity" means "no sexual activity outside of marriage". There's a logical conclusion when you put them together, but I don't think they vow that conclusion as a separate and independent entity. --Trovatore (talk) 02:51, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Just to nitpick, many Christian churches do not have a vow of celibacy for their priests, and in those that do, the rules can be complicated (for example, some Eastern Catholic churches allow priests, but not bishops, to marry, while the Roman Catholic church sometimes relaxes its rules when it wants to encourage priests to convert from other denominations). I'm sure you can also find churches that don't consider sex outside wedlock to be a sin. 130.88.99.231 (talk) 14:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It depends entirely on which Christian denomination you are speaking of when you're trying to decide "which is the bigger sin". For example, many Protestant and Evangelical denomination do not "rank order" sins by severity. According to those traditions, all sin of any sort prevents a person from being in the presence of God, so all sins are equal. --Jayron32 02:17, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

No rank order for many Christians? So, lying would be equally bad as murdering? Or even worse, if the murder repents but the lier don't? OsmanRF34 (talk) 02:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Yup. The murderer who later accepts Christ and becomes faithful will be in heaven; the non-murder who never becomes a Christian goes to hell, even if he's only done a few mildly bad things like an occasional white lie or something like that. There's only one heaven, and only those who are faithful believers in Jesus get in. "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them" John 3:36. That is, acts don't get you into or out of heaven, faith does. In many Protestant traditions, this is one of the Five solae, namely Sola fide, or "by faith alone", which means that people can't earn their way into heaven through their actions; God grants passage to heaven through faith alone. Probably relevant is Matthew 20 which makes it clear that God does not play favorites among the faithful. The murderer who accepts Christ on his deathbed gets into heaven and the unrepentant non-murderer does not ever. --Jayron32 02:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

My church minister used to define sin as "separation from God". Using that definition, everything else falls into place. The Christian view is that you're either with God or not. It's worth pointing out that "lying" is not quite the issue - it's "harming someone else". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

That's the perspective I was talking about. Not all Christians hold to it (i.e. Catholics, who are a LOT of Christians), but a large number do. --Jayron32 03:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I was raised Protestant, but I get your meaning. Jesus was asked what the "greatest commandment" is, and instead of falling into their semantic trap, He said the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. By implication, the greatest sin is to reject God, and the second is to harm your neighbor (for example, He said that calling someone a fool was equivalent to murder, in the eyes of God). That's my take, anyway. Am I right? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:21, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a theologian, so I can't answer that. I'd say I agree with your interpretation, but that's an answer to a different question. --Jayron32 03:55, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Nor am I, but I think it speaks to the OP's question. He's asking which is the greater sin, and I claim the answer is that they both represent "separation from God" in some way, so it's not possible to assign one as being "worse" than the other. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:19, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Nor am I, but I'm aware of what I was taught in the religion in which I was raised, and it is VASTLY different from the black-white heaven-hell thing that Jayron said above. It's far more nuanced than that version (which, curiously, you presented after you already said it depends on which denomination you're talking about). In the version I was taught, Hell is for those who die in the state of mortal sin, hence its name. There's Purgatory for those who die in the state of venial sin; those who go there do eventually get to Heaven. I'm not saying this is the way it necessarily is; I'm agreeing that it all depends on which denomination you follow, and that there is no one correct answer to these types of questions. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:37, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I expect you're aware that Purgatory is a non-Biblical concept, an invention of the Roman Catholic Church. But, yes, that's the theory. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

But then, so is heaven (at least the concurrent heaven Granny is looking down from). The original Christian position is bodily resurrection at the end of times (which are any day now, really, tomorrow, or maybe next Friday). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:11, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you're at least partially approaching this from a Roman Catholic POV in which case, I feel it's worth pointing there does seem to be some consideration that certain sins are worse than others beyond the seperation between mortal and venial sins. For example as our article mentions, a few, but far from all mortal sins result in automatic excommunication. Perhaps more significantly, the penance a confessor may recommend (as I think I mentioned before with references such as this one [1], there's no requirement for a penantant to carry out the precise penances that are recommended) will depend somewhat on the severity of the sin. E.g. see [2] [3] [4] ([5] has some random forums discussions) which appear to be written from a Catholic POV I think by Catholics including some stuff from canon law. While I don't know if most Roman Catholic theologians and clergy will be entirely happy with talking about 'worse' or 'greater' sins, it's difficult to claim these represent anything other then a Roman Catholic belief that certain sins are probably worse than others. (The bit on automatic excommunication may in some cases be seen for other reasons, e.g. in the case of clergy it may be needed to preserve order to prevent the faithful being mislead but it would seem severity of the sin comes in to it, in fact our article implies as much.) Note however this doesn't mean there's some sort of simply way to rank sins, in particular if you're talking about different people I think even many of those Catholics who would be willing to say certain sins are worse than others would be reluctant to compare sins commited by different people and say which one is worse. The concept of tariff penances is long dead. Nil Einne (talk) 15:21, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I should also mention none of the above is meant to suggest commiting any certain mortal since without repentance is likely to lead to less of a final punishment, simply that there is some recognition certain since are graver then others. (Although as our article on Mortal sin mentions nowadays the Catholic church often likes to emphasise how only god can judge.) This article from some random chuch I came across [6] appears to share a somewhat similar view. In fact even with most other Christian denominations, I'm not convinced there isn't some implicit recognition that certain since are worse than others, perhaps because of their effects on other people, even if the final implications may be the same. For example (something I thought of partially because of [7] and other things), in the Roman Catholic church and any other denominations with similar views on masturbation and mainstream adult pornography, I find it difficult to believe in this age, if multiple different professional counsellors (including perhaps ones with the same religion) recommend a paedophile masturbate and view adult pornography to help them in their treatment, many would suggest they shouldn't do it because they'll still be commiting (mortal/) sins. There may be some debate whether these will truly be sins in such a case, but probably not much disagreement that if it is likely these actions will reduce the chance you're going to harm a child, they may be a necessary evil even if they are sins (although I expect most would suggest great care should be taken to avoid them more then necessary or get stuck in a pattern of sinning). Now that I mention this, I also remember the other example mentioned in our Catholic Church and AIDS or here [8] of how the pope suggested using a condom may be better then not using one in certain cases. Nil Einne (talk) 16:18, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Nil Einne, the two long paragraphs are already perilously close to, or for many people way past the point of, TLDR. When you add insult to injury by typing the word "sins" as "since" (3 times), it makes the text very hard to parse. You always demand a lot of your readers. This is the season of being kind to people. How about it?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

• MY understanding of the Catholic position (no pun intended) is that [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper it is easier to seek forgiveness than permission. μηδείς (talk) 23:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Poetry collection - Pork and Beans

Hello all. A few years back, a professor lent me a collection of poetry he thought I'd like. I'm pretty sure it was an American poet, and I'm assuming he was writing in the 60s or 70s. I remember the title was something Pork and Beans...any ideas on what this might be? I've tried googling with no results. 129.3.151.74 (talk) 04:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I find a poem titled "A letter to the denouncers" by Edwin Rolfe which mentions pork and beans. There is a book of Rolfe's poems, including the abovementioned, which was published in 1993 by U. of Illinois press. The poem also appeared in the Fall 1993 issue of TriQuarterly. A brief excerpt of the poem: "Dear sir: the summum bonum is Solvency, which sufficiently defined most simply means Spuds in sufficient quantities, an untapped phone, and daily pork and beans...." --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 14:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

What is the difference between Repentance and Remorse?

What is the difference between Repentance and Remorse? Does Repentance always have a religious part to it? Venustar84 (talk) 04:59, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Repentance is etymologically re-thinking — it's becoming convinced that you shouldn't have done what you did. Remorse is suffering over what you did. You might repent without having much remorse ("I shouldn't have done that, OK, now I won't anymore. What's for dinner?"). Or you might feel remorse without repenting ("I sure feel bad about that, but I can't really see what else I could have done, and in the same circumstances I'd do it again."). That's my understanding anyway; someone else might have a different one. --Trovatore (talk) 05:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Remorse is feeling bad for what you did. Repentance is making it right again. That is, to repent is more than merely to feel bad for the wrong things you did; it means to change your life so you don't do them again. --Jayron32 05:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Can anybody provide a few representative excerpts on literary realism?

For some reason, googling "literary realism excerpts" returns very few relevant results as they all discuss literary realism in an abstract manner without any pertinent quotes that shows the "feel" and "atmosphere" of literary realism. I am trying to distinguish realism from "journalistic literature" of modern republican China (1911-1949). In particular I am trying to argue that Western realist literature doesn't aim to promote social change through transplantation/immersion of the reader so much as Chinese journalistic fiction/literature from 1920-1940 does. Can anybody provide a few immersive quotes (maybe a paragraph long) of a Western realist work? 137.54.1.116 (talk) 07:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Realism is very broad concept in literature, basically in contrast to traditions such as Romanticism, the idea being that where Romanticism presented an idealized version of the world in literature, Realism attempts to present the world as it actually is. The best thing I can point to is to contrast contemporaries in English literature: looking at say, the Victorian period, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot and Charles Dickens were realists: they provided unfiltered views of life, often of the underclasses. Realism was begun in contrast to the Romanticists of the previous generation: William Wordsworth and Mary Shelley and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were Romantics. If you want passages exemplifying realist literature, you could do no worse than Hardy or Gustave Flaubert or Stephen Crane. It should be noted, however, that many realist writers in the Western tradition were also social critics. They were realists as writers because they were interested in bringing about social change. But, if you want some good realist passages from the Western tradition, dig up some Hardy. He's as good as anyone else. --Jayron32 07:31, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I am aware of realism v. romanticism i art. I have some basic grasp of the idea. However, in particular I am trying to distinguish Western realism with the works of Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Xiao Hong and Ding Ling, as well as the New Yorker's "Youngthing", "journalistic fiction" about a kid in Somalia who is part of Al-Shabab. I'm trying to write a 20-page paper drawing upon modern Chinese literature so I am using Western literature (which influenced modern Chinese literature in a profound way) as a foil. 137.54.1.116 (talk) 08:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

In Don Quixote, you get a nice contrast between the romanticism of his fantasy world and the realism he would be forced to face, otherwise. StuRat (talk) 08:21, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe to frame the question in a way that doesn't require knowledge of modern Chinese literature (though it would be nice if there was someone here who did), how much are realist works and "journalistic fiction" works alike? Journalistic fiction is a subclass but representative subclass of a type of work I am seeking to define, but I want to separate it from realist literature. My criteria for "journalistic literature" is the following:

• Rejects polemic: "facts should speak for themselves" (the conflict between aesthetic and polemic was a huge issue for left-wing writers in China in the 1920s and 1930s who dominated the literary scene at the time)
• Promote social change not through the broadcast of ideals, but through awareness, transplantation and immersion to promote involvement
• Has a transformative aesthetic beyond a mere description of the facts, by seeking to immerse -- a sort of "lyrical realism" if you will
• The work could be interpreted as a "representative case study" of a certain issue, even though the individuals portrayed are fictional
• Is an alternative to actual news when seeking to gain understanding of a complex topic, just like the New Yorker's "Youngthing" informs the reader a lot about the complex dynamic of recruitment for Al-Shabab in Somalia
• Rejects simplistic explanations or solutions, it always tries to modify the reader's model of the world towards greater complexity

How is Western realist literature different from these criteria? 137.54.1.116 (talk) 08:24, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Is Western realist literature defined as just depicting something realistically (much like the realist painters) or even pessimistically? In that case it would be very distinct from what I am trying to define as Chinese journalistic fiction/literature. 137.54.1.116 (talk) 08:26, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

(ec) So are you looking for excerpts from the C19 European writers that show them at their most journalistic or excerpts that show them in a different light? Among the most striking journalistic passages, the ones that Lu Xun et al might have noticed, are: the initial description of Coketown in Hard Times, the description of Manchester in Mary Barton, the description of the heath in Return of the Native, the descriptions of mining in Germinal, the account of the election in Felix Holt the Radical. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:32, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

For a counter-example to your thesis, The Grapes of Wrath was a western realist novel which did seek to promote social change. Here's a quote promoting social change (it's from the movie, but likely was in the book, as well): "Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too." StuRat (talk) 08:39, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Is that the narrator speaking? It's not really the sort of subtle "induce involvement, and thereby change, by immersion/transplantation" that I was thinking about... 137.54.1.116 (talk) 09:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

No, that's Tom Joad. This is one of the more direct passages in the book, others are more subtle. Another example of this type of thing is Huckleberry Finn, which has an anti-slavery theme: 'When I waked up just at daybreak he was sitting there with his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I didn't take notice nor let on. I knowed what it was about. He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so. He was often moaning and mourning that way nights, when he judged I was asleep, and saying, "Po' little 'Lizabeth! po' little Johnny! it's mighty hard; I spec' I ain't ever gwyne to see you no mo', no mo'!" He was a mighty good nigger, Jim was.' StuRat (talk) 09:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The works of Émile Zola in general (and those of the cycle of Les Rougon-Macquart in particular) could be a gold mine for you in the exploration of this topic (though not necessarily supportive of your assumption). The naturalist movement to which Zola belonged (and indeed spearheaded) certainly sought to understand the human social condition (including unhealthy and self-destructive traits) through the exploration of environmental and hereditary factors using strict realism. Here's a selection of his works, via Project Gutenberg; unfortunately, I don't see an English translation there for Germinal, which is chalk-full of the type of excerpts you're looking for, but it surely must be available as a free resource in some archive or another. Snow (talk) 09:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

OT quibble, but as we're discussing literature and I'm an ex-copy editor . . . the idiom is "chock-full" (as in Chock full o'Nuts), not "chalk-full". I suppose the latter qualifies as an eggcorn. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 84.21.143.150 (talk) 14:24, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I wonder where "chock-full" came from, since chocks are the doorstop-like thingies used to stop wheels from rolling. Is a vehicle with a chock on every wheel said to be chock-full ? StuRat (talk) 18:51, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Here's one theory:[9] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:39, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A variation on "cheek-full" ? That definition sounds a bit squirrelly, perhaps even nuts. StuRat (talk) 17:55, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Today on a plane I started reading Dawn French's new novel Oh Dear Silvia, and right there in her opening paragraph is the sentence She's always making sure you know she's chock-full o'life. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 10:51, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Domestic Partnership in Maine

I thought I would update this article, but - after searching around through Wikipedia and Google and even the Maine statute book (which has not been updated since Maine Question 1, 2012 passed it seems), and even websites like EqualityMaine, I can't find a single reference to what happens to domestic partnerships now that same-sex marriage in Maine is a reality. Any Bay Staters or others have a clue? In some other states, when SSM became law, DPs were no longer offered, or were automatically converted into marriages. Textorus (talk) 10:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

While I can't say for sure, I would note unless I'm missing something (bearing in mind IANAL), there's nothing in the legislation which established domestic partnerships which said domestic partnerships were only valid as long as marriage didn't exist for same sex couples [10]. Nor does anything in the Maine domestic partnership registry information at the Maince CDC suggest the right only exists as long as marriages for same sex couples don't exist [11]. As per our article and [12], it sounds like same sex marriage in Maine was established via a ballot with the question "Do you want to allow the State of Maine to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples?" (the date given in the second source appears to be wrong or no longer correct [13]). The actual legislation which was being voted on [14] appears to be [15] and also does not mention anything about domestic partnerships. (I have to say it was amazingly hard to find the legislation. I did screw up as there is an external link in our article, and actually searching for the title easily finds the actual legislation. But I still would have expected more links and discussion of the actual legislation rather then simply the ballot question.)

BTW it's perhaps helpful to consider that per our article, the legislation and information on the Maine CDC, domestic partnerships are open to both same sex and opposite sex couples in Maine, and in fact per our article 24% or 17/70 of them as of 2006 were probably opposite sex couples. So I can't see any particular reason why or information to suggest the recent ballot initiative will have any direct effect on the ability to form domestic partnerships or the status of current domestic partnerships. However per the legislation and the Maine CDC [16], domestic partnerships are automatically terminate by marriage of either party so any same sex couples in a domestic partnership will lose their partnership if any one of them marries. This could be to each other, which wasn't possible before the new legislation takes effect. (As an interesting point, with a normal one sided termination you are required to inform the other spouse of the termination and it takes 60 days to take effect. But from what I can tell, there is no specific requirement for notification of the other partner when marriage causes termination and I'm pretty sure it takes effect from the moment the marriage is formalised.) Of course the Maine legislature could enact a law which will have an effect but per your comments, it doesn't sound like they have.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

No, it doesn't sound like they have, which seems a great oversight if true. But other states have made specific provisions: for example, Connecticut turned all civil unions into marriages; Washington state will still allow DPs but only for people over 62. I just wonder if Maine officials have any plans along those lines. Textorus (talk) 13:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Well there's no specific reason to remove the right if people still want it. In NZ, while civil unions were mostly intended to provide a form of legal recognition for couples in a same sex relationship, this wasn't the only intention, the legislation was specificlly crafted to include opposite sex couples who for whatever reason, perhaps the traditional implications of marriage, and this was an occasional talking point. I don't think this was just some attempt to placate people on either side, it was well known that the prime minister at the time wasn't entirely happy when she got married (the general quotation as mentioned is she cried at her wedding, and not the happy sort although our article says she said it was because of a headache) and according to [17], she specifically said she preferred a civil union to a marriage (although I don't think she ever took advantage of the possibility to convert her marriage to a civil union). And in fact she also acknowledged it was discriminatory to exclude same sex couples from marriage (see Same-sex marriage in New Zealand). At the current time, civil unions don't provide entirely equal rights, as couples in a civil union can't adopt as a couple (although in one instance an opposite sex couple in a long term defacto relationship were allowed to adopt as a couple [18] [19] [20]) but there are attempts both to extend marriage rights to same sex couples and to extend adoption rights to couples in a civil union but in neither case is it suggested to remove the ability to form civil unions. A small number of opposite sex couples have take advantage of the ability to form civil unions, I believe I've given statistics on the RD before.

Similarly in South Africa, civil partnerships were originally going to be for same sex couples only (without the ability to marry) but when it was decided this wouldn't comply with an early court ruling, the right for both was extend to both same sex and opposite couples and there is no difference other then name, see Same-sex marriage in South Africa.

In other words, it's easy to see places wanting to allow both, whether with differences in rights or simply difference in name (and probably formalisation procedure). It may be the domestic partnership right in Maine is so limited it's unlikely to be of particular interest now. And of course issue in the US given the federal nature and fairly high degree of seperation between state and federal legislation, there's no guarantee any rights you have will be recognised by other states and you have limited ability to effect how the federal government treats such partnerships so such partnerships are more problematic (people may have the same problem overseas coming from countries like New Zealand but it's generally less of an issue since travelling or moving overseas is generally seen as a bigger deal). But in itself, I don't see any reason why legalising same sex marriage should automatically imply removing a right both same sex and opposite couples used to enjoy.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I hear you, but - it's a great oversight to leave the question unanswered, isn't it? Both for the benefit of people who are already in Maine DP's and wonder what the hell happens to us now - as well as for folks who might be thinking about hooking up and are wondering what all their options are now. Seems a failure of good PR and governmental accountability that somebody in authority up there hasn't written even one sentence that I can find saying, "Here's what the deal is, people." Or even simply "We're going to talk about that in the next session of the Legislature." Ya know? Textorus (talk) 15:04, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

If the new law does not specifically do away with CUs, then they are still available to those who want them. I can see very few reasons to take those instead of marriage, but it's an option. I doubt it was an oversight as much as politicians not wanting to close the door on folks who wished to remain in CUs instead of switching to a marriage certificate. It'd be a good question for a town hall meeting, or to submit to a local news station as a possible story. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

mixing letters shapes in same person's writing

are there many people who would write the same letter in a different way upon several occurences in the same handwritten note? I don't mean crossing a t or leaving it off, sometimes writing a capital version inside a word and other times using the lowercase version - I mean, really, like there are a few ways to write a lowercase a, and I would think that people are pretty well set in their ways as to which one they write.

do some people really have several incompatible techniques and kind of sometimes use some sometimes different ones? --91.120.48.242 (talk) 11:20, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I write the letter x differently depending on whether it is appearing in a word or an equation, does that count? If so, it's very common. In any joined up writing, there will be a tendancy to slightly alter letters depending on what other letters they are joined to - some people will do that more than others. And then some people are just inconsistent. --Tango (talk) 12:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The last example "And then some people are just inconsistent" is what this question is really about :) So, in the middle of a word, starting and ending at the same points and joined with the same letters, do some people sometimes write one style of, e.g. q or z and then a completely different style? made with different strokes in different orders, etc? Thanks. 91.120.48.242 (talk) 12:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I concur with Tango - in my case, I sometimes write the letter s as s, and in other cases more as a simple downwards loop. Not inconsistency, so much as depending on what letters (if any) it connects with. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:18, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

One quirk of my own writing I have noticed is that I have the same middle initial as starts my last name, and I write them both differently. I write them consistently differently, so my middle initial is the same every time, and my last name is the same every time, but they are each different. I suspect it is because I am anticipating writing the rest of my last name, which influences how I write that letter as opposed to when I use my middle initial alone. --Jayron32 13:59, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I have two ways of writing a lower case 'd' - with a straight ascender, or making the whole letter a single elegant curve. I tend to use the latter at the end of a word, but the choice depends on my mood, how quickly I'm writing, what I'm writing on, and pure whim, so it can easily happen that I use both in the same word. --ColinFine (talk) 14:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

OP here, Colin's example is the kind that I'm looking for, especially along with the description. Are there more like this? (as specific as Colin was about it, if possible). Thanks. --91.120.48.242 (talk) 15:56, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I randomly vary between writing capital A, capital G, capital J, and lower case z in either cursive or printing style. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

On this general topic, several alphabets in history have formally included different forms of the same letter depending where in the word they occurred. Two familiar examples are the forms of 'sigma' in Classical Greek and 's' in 18th Century English. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 84.21.143.150 (talk) 14:30, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Handwriting exemplar implies that for court identification of a handwriting sample as belonging to a particular individual, it is not enough to obtain a sample of each letter but of letter combinations as well. You might also find the article Regional handwriting variation of interest. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 14:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Nok civilization

Hello,

was the Nok civilization a state?

They were able to create terracotta sculptures which reached length of over 1 meter, as well they constructed simple stone buildings and were able to use simple iron and stone tools. Aspecting the sculptures, they point to a kind of jewellery.

Greetings HeliosX (talk) 12:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean by a state? --ColinFine (talk) 14:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm assuming he means a Sovereign state, which is a good article to read. It is worth noting that not every (relatively) homogeneous culture or civilization is organized into a single state. For example, the Ancient Greek civilization was only briefly (under Alexander) part of a single sovereign state, and yet it was a cohesive civilization; it just wasn't under a single sovereign state. Lots of recognized civilizations didn't operate as a single state: Phoenicia was never a single state, neither was the La Tène culture. The article Nok culture does not give any indication that it represented a single state; nor does it give any indication that it was organized on the state level. Many cultures did not have states, like the aforementioned La Tène culture, or the Germanic peoples during much of the period of the Roman Empire; such cultures had tribal organization rather than state organization. It doesn't look like much was known about the geopolitical organization of the Nok, but there doesn't appear to be any indication that it was organized as a state or as states per se. --Jayron32 14:33, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

That's a very good explanation! Scholars like these and these add that because the Nok sculptures are so valued artistically, most digging has been for sale to collectors, rather than genuine archaeology to discover what can be found about the culture. What little has been done along these lines has found large settlements with stone structures, plus evidence of farming and iron-working, but so far no more details that can be spun into a picture of social or political organization. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 15:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

A sovereign state is a kind of state, but not the only kind. Our article State sets out the minimum conditions for a state: a central government with effective control of a territory. Some people would add, a monopoly on the use of violence, but that would exclude feudal states, which most historians do see as states. I think that the original question is really a question whether the Nok culture had a central government: that is, a group of specialists, such as a monarch and his advisors and henchmen, who exercised central political control over a territory. As Jayron correctly points out, not every culture includes state structures, and a number of historic civilizations consisted of multiple small states. In fact, we just don't know whether the Nok culture had one state, more than one state, or no states. Many fairly sophisticated historical West African cultures did not have state structures. For example, the traditional political structure of the Igbo people involved democratic village organizations, but also overlapping political structures that spanned villages, such as tribes and secret societies such as Ekpe. It is possible that the Nok culture had complex structures such as these or some kind of state structure(s), but there isn't enough archaeological evidence to know. Marco polo (talk) 16:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

But wouldn't stone walls point to military danger --> military --> government?

A question unrelated to this, how many tablets or papyri containing the Punic language have been discovered and how many have :::::been understood?

Greetings HeliosX (talk) 19:18, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The walls described in the source I linked above are building walls, not city walls. There are many reasons to build in stone unrelated to war – for example, mice can’t get into a stone granary.

Re Punic, according to The Phoenician Databank, “according to generally accepted estimates, the corpus of Phoenician-Punic inscriptions comprises about 10,000 inscriptions from all the countries of the Mediterranean region.” It also says “as yet there is not even a simple, complete and reliable list.” Part of the issue is not just the wide geographical range of the findings, but the fact that they cover a thousand years and the language changed a lot in that time to almost be a different language, “Neo-Punic” (see both Punic language and Phoenician language). The introduction to and chapter one of this paper explains some of the issues involved. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 23:08, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Sovereign state follow up question

I started reading the article sovereign state linked in the replies here above, and something didn't make sense: "The existence or disappearance of a state is a question of fact.[4]". I don't undertsand what that means. A "question of fact" is a specific concept for historians? Does it have a formal definition? Or did the author(s) of that article meant simply "it is a question for you to decide whether it is a fact or not" ? It is probably a language question but since we are talking about this here, I thought I'd ask here. Many thanks. --Lgriot (talk) 08:03, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

It is awkwardly worded, but skimming the source for that statement (which is not a light read) seems to be implying the following: that defining a "Sovereign state" is not a simply binary proposition, it isn't like defining, say, a dog: there's either a dog in my living room or there isn't. He's either alive or dead. Sovereign states have a lot of "edge cases" and it gets hard to work out sometimes whether a particular entity represents a sovereign state. The most basic definition of a sovereign state is probably as follows:

• A defined territory
• A defined population
• A government
• True independence from other states (which does not mean that it doesn't have voluntary relationships with other states, but that it has the true power to voluntarily initiate and terminate all such relationships)

Figuring out what makes one state a distinct state both temporally and spatially is tricky. That is, figuring out whether some polity is a distinct sovereign state can be difficult both in terms of defining differences from historical antecedents (Is the Russian Federation a distinct state from the USSR or does it represent a historical continuation thereof? If it is a continuation, does that make Lithuania or Tajikistan a co-equal continuation of the USSR? If it is a distinct state, does its birth as a new state parallel that of Lithuania and Tajikistan? If so, how so? If not, how not? etc.) and in terms of defining a state "on the ground", i.e. the numerous "unrecognized" states like Palestine and Abkhazia and Taiwan which seem to meet all the requirements of a sovereign state, except that for political reasons many other states don't formally accept them as such (for example, many countries in the world deal with Taiwan as though it were a sovereign state in its own right, but won't name them as such, because of what such a formal recognition would mean to relationships with the powerful PRC). Even look at a state like Syria. The U.S. and other states have started to indicate that they are going to recognize the leadership of the rebellion there as the "legitimate government" of Syria. What does that mean for what Syria is in terms of the definition of a sovereign state? Once you've established a facile definition of sovereignty as above, you're suddenly faced with a thousand different edge cases which seem to violate the basic definition. That is, at least, what I think the above sentence is trying to say. --Jayron32 14:20, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought I had missed out on a major historian concept. --Lgriot (talk) 09:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

US National Historic Register and address restrictions

I've noticed that some of the National Historic Register locations are listed as "address restricted". A quick search didn't shed any light on what this was. What leads to a historical location being "restricted" in this sense, and what is the purpose of listing it on the register if its location cannot be known? Against the current (talk) 16:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

On the instructions for registering places, it says "To protect fragile properties, particularly those subject to looting and vandalism, the National Park Service will withhold information about the location and character of the property from the general public. The Federal Register will indicate "Address Restricted" and give the nearest city or town as the property's location..." 184.147.123.169 (talk) 17:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

And apparently some of the people who live in houses listed on the NRHP are able to have their addresses not listed (for reasons of privacy, I assume). See, for instance, this recent thread at the Help Desk. (Our article does, however, give the exact latitude and longitude of his house, so that anyone who wants to know where it is can see its location via one of the online mapping services; so I'm unclear how removing the street address is supposed to discourage unwelcome visitors.) Deor (talk) 20:22, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

From a bureaucratic point of view, there are two reasons for addresses to be restricted: because the owner wants it, or because the SHPO wants it. Most AR sites are archaeological, being restricted for the reasons that 184.147.123.169 notes, but occasionally people are happy to have their properties set for AR even though they're no more sensitive than other historic buildings. Very rarely there are sillinesses, such as the Second and Market Streets Historic District in Louisville, Kentucky: guess where it's located! While the National Park Service won't provide locations for AR sites to the general public, AR properties are still protected from federally-funded activities, so NPS will provide locations to you if you're officially charged with looking for historic sites in the path of a federally-funded project. For example, they provided the location of an owner-restricted pair of bridges to people who were preparing a report for the construction of Interstate 69 in southern Indiana. Nyttend (talk) 02:00, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there any city who is called Arrocha in Brazil?

Is there any city who's called Arrocha in Brazil109.253.198.234 (talk) 17:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Our article arrocha is about a dance style from Brazil, but we do not seem to have any mention of a city of that name; so probably no. --ColinFine (talk) 18:28, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd say no. Wikipedia covers many cities, some are even smaller than 1,000 inhabitants. And there is no mention of it here. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:09, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Malls' security in the U.S.

Yet another mass shooting has taken place in our country, now in Oregon, 22 year old Jacob Tyler Roberts shoots and kills two before killing himself. My question is, what can malls do to prevent such events and why is it that common in malls? Thank you. Keeeith (talk) 17:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's exactly common, but a case of Mean world syndrome. Mass shootings can only occur in places where a lot of people congregate (otherwise it becomes a string of isolated shooting), and malls are generally filled between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Mall security cannot prevent maniacs from getting a hold of guns through straw purchases, nor can they enforce waiting periods to enable evaluations of potential gun buyers. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Malls are a place where there are lots of people. I don't think focussing on malls will reduce the level of shootings; it's not like the malls are the cause of the shootings, or particularly responsible for the level of damage caused. You might want to look at restricting access to firearms, or building a society of mutual care and support where fewer people feel motivated to slaughter their fellow-citizens. AlexTiefling (talk) 18:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Is it legal to bring a gun into a mall in the States, because in the Bluewater shopping centre in the UK it isn't even legal to wear a hooded top. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The laws vary by state. Of particular importance seems to be whether the gun is concealed or in plain sight. However, I'd expect that the mall can choose to eject anyone packing a gun, if they are aware of it. StuRat (talk) 18:45, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

That won't kill the problem. A shooter like this won't to be stopped by a simple prohibition of "no guns allowed in this mall." Either you enforce TSA level security rules or anyone willing to run on a shooting rampage is going to do it. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Then they just go to some place where there is no such security: like a school or a bowling alley or a church or a bank or a brothel.

Please let us not pretend to solve the problem here on these pages. This is a reference desk. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Then the question should probably be closed, since the OP explicitly ask how to solve the problem. I also have some doubts that mass shootings are more often on malls. Obviously they happen, as pointed above, where people congregate, but that could be a school, university, subway, whatever. OsmanRF34 (talk) 20:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

In response to Itsmejudith, malls in the United States are all or virtually all private property, so the owners can ban guns if they like, though as others have said, enforcing such a ban is tricky. In regions where lots of (generally law-abiding) people carry guns and are vigilant of their right to do so (I'm thinking places like Arizona and Texas), malls might be reluctant to ban guns for fear of losing business. Marco polo (talk) 21:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I would be curious about whether countries with nationalized health care that includes free mental health treatment have lower occurrences of random massacres of this kind. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:39, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it's likely, but the co-existence of strong (or at least stronger) gun control in those countries is such a large confounding factor for such a small sample size, it would be very hard to show causation. AlexTiefling (talk) 01:28, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the info about private malls. In response to the question about free mental health care, there is a difficulty in using the cross-country data on massacres, because they don't happen often in any country. The figure of deaths from spree killing is very high in Norway now, but generally Norway is a safe country with a low crime rate. It would be easier to compare the availability of mental health care to the suicide rate. Even then, in the UK mental health care is free, but there are long waiting lists for expensive treatments like counselling and CBT. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Is this a scam site? Where is the scam, how does it make money?

what's up with this - http://horaton.com/. I got two pieces of spam delivered to my inbox from this address (I don't know why Google would deliver them instead of marking them spam), but there is nothing on that site that makes money. Why would they do this? They would lose any bets on this. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 21:32, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Why would they do this? See crackpot and eschatology. Plenty of people make end-of-the-world claims, mostly based on religion. All of them have been wrong, and so long as they continue to be based on superstition or religion instead of evidence, all of them will continue to be wrong. --140.180.249.194 (talk) 21:41, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm unclear. I meant, why does this site have enough resouces to spam me, well enough to get into my inbox past gmail's filter? This is a serious commitment - where is this money coming from? The site has no affiliation or any reason to send anything like that out. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 21:57, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

It cost a few cents to send out millions of these spam emails, so it's basically costing them nothing. They only need one guy out of a million to fall for this in order to make money. Google might be good but they're not omnipotent; in this case Google failed to properly identify the piece of spam.Dncsky (talk) 22:34, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

But they're not selling anything, apart from a kooky idea. No money changes hands. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:42, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Bored people with excess cash do lots of strange things with their money. It only takes one kooky millionaire to keep this website spamming away. --Jayron32 23:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't take a millionaire at all. Precisely because the spam isn't selling anything, and therefore isn't similar to conventional spam, Google's spam filters have a hard time detecting it. If I wanted to, I could write a spamming bot and get it running for precisely 0 dollars. It won't be very capable or be able to send out millions of emails, but a large fraction of the emails will get through because they're not similar to other spam. --140.180.249.194 (talk) 23:53, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Jayron, supposing I had plenty of spare cash (yeah, right) and a penchant for falling for kooky ideas (a little less outlandish), and I wanted to financially support the owners of that website. I see precisely zero contact information there. How would I go about contacting them to offer them money? And then, why wouldn't they assume I was a Nigerian and refuse to give me their bank details or anything else? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:48, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

You could try contacting them either via their domain registry details or via whoever is hosting the server. As for your other point, handing over your banking details to a scammer is not necessarily a great idea, but also shouldn't be that dangerous in most countries provided you only hand over the details needed to send you money. (What scammers generally want is for you to provide them money, not for your banking details which are likely to be pretty useless to them. If they do ask for your banking details, it's generally either to convince you they are serious or to later use to black mail you, or both.) However it wouldn't surprise me if these people have no interest in taking your money, it's possible they may think you're part of some evil government conspiracy or whatever. Unlike Dncsky, I don't think Jayron32 was suggesting they're getting money from some random person they didn't know. Rather that such websites could easily be set up and supported by someone who was interested in such things. Nil Einne (talk) 11:46, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

In fact a check with the domain registry suggests they didn't even try to hide. Nil Einne (talk) 11:52, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

You're baffling me with science, Nil Einne. What are "domain registry details", and what do they tell us, and how would one go about finding theirs out?

The money situation is the reverse of what you're saying (unless I've misunderstood you). I'm hypothetically trying to give them money, not extract money from them. Put yourself in their shoes. Someone they've never heard of finds out how to contact them despite a lack of any obvious contact details, and says they want to send them some money. What's their reaction gonna be? Total trust, or deep suspicion? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 12:02, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood me. What I'm saying is whether or not they trust you, there's actually no real genuine harm for them listening to you or even providing suffucient information such that you can pay them money, if they know what they're doing. When there is no physical contact (and therefore risk of violence), the only likely harm is in wasted time unless you fear the person you're responding to has some sort of extraordinary powers. In other words, if they were actually seeking donations or financial support, there's minimal risk to them actually responding to people who claim to be offering money who they suspect are genuine. The issue of you being a scammer is largely a red herring. (In general, it's easy to spot an attempted advance fee fraud kind of scam anyway. In fact some have even suggested they intentionally write in a way that makes it obvious they are scammers to weed out anyone but the most gullible.) Of course this may not be the case here, since there's no suggestion the people behind the website are interested in getting money.

As for my other point, I was vague partially because I will not provide links or information about the case here for BLP and privacy reasons. But it's easy to do a WHOIS of most domain names. In most cases some sort of contact details are required to be stored and shown including a real name, phone number and email address. In some cases, people take advantage of masking services where they register a domain name under the name of a company who keeps such details private but even in those cases theoretically the contact details should still be valid and attempts at contact should make it to the relevent parties (perhaps after filtering). My own research shows one person behind the domain name apparently made no attempt to hide their identity anyway. Our article suggests some web whois providers but a simple search for whois should provide plenty more.

Another avenue is to work out who is running the server the website is hosted on. They must have some info on who's paying (or asked if it's free) them to host the content and could likely forward on attempts at contact if they believe it would be of interest or relevence.

The end result of both of these is you should be able to contact a person who has some involvement in the website if you have a relevant query. This may not include donating money, if anyone is interested in financial support they will probably provide a method of contact themselves. If you rich, you could always pay someone to help you if you have no idea of any of this.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:45, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll get on it straight away. I'm just itching to give away a few spare million to a worthy cause.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC)