User:Ike9898/Reference Desk Greatest Hits

Four letter words
Anyone know why "dirty" words are often four letters long in the English language? A few spring to mind. Cock, Fuck, Shit, Piss, Cunt, and Dick are all four letters long. Coincidence? --Dante Alighieri 06:03, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Except cunt, all those words are three-letter in phonetic spelling. Three is the # of components a typical English syllable has: onset, nucleus, and coda. Although one can ask why there aren't two-letter or one-letter dirty words. Well, I guess "actually important" words got that slot: I, hi, you, me, die, bye. --Menchi 06:25, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Why don't you see how many dirty words there are which aren't 4 letters. You have to do a histogram of dirty words and then do a histogram of all the words in an English dictionary.  Then you will see whether or not your assumption that dirty words are often four letters long is correct or not.  I can think of many right now: ass, asshole, prick, dammit, snatch, fucker, fag, etc... Oh wow, looks like I've already outnumbered the number of 4-letter dirty words that you came out with.  Better do the analysis before you assume.  dave 01:39, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Milking Cows
Silly milk related question: If you don't milk a cow, what happens to the milk in their udder? Do cows re-absorb the milk, do they release it onto the ground, or does something else occur? On the subject of milk, is there a reason pigs milk isn't available other than cost? Thanks, Maximus Rex 19:13, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * I can not tell what the final disposition is of milk which is not milked or sucked by a calf at all. But based on staying multiple summers at my grandparents farm, I can tell you that the udders get very painful if milking them is delayed, so it genuinely is imperative that the cows get milked; no matter how sick the farmer is, the cows suffer more from not being milked in a timely fashion. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 02:24, Dec 10, 2003 (UTC)


 * Cows have no way other than a calf to get rid of the milk. Only a little milk might leak out.  The cows will have pain due to pressure and weight.  Ultimately these signals will make the cow stop producing milk, so the farmer has to do the milking for the sake of both the cows and the business. -- 205.215.216.200 22:14, 26 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Names & Gender
I cannot understand the gender from a name, since the English names don't give me this information (most Greek names give it, both first names and last names, usually, for example first name is konstantinos for male and konstantina for female, and the last name is papadopoulos for male and papadopoulou for female). In the past I had a website and I was an editor at a magazine where I was writing spoilers for some TV series, and I did the stupid mistake to refer to someone as male; When the relevant TV episode aired, I understood I did a so stupid mistake since she was actually female, and I felt a bit shame! So if I haven't associated a name (such as Bill: only male) with a gender from before, I really cannot know! The same applies to usernames. BTW if you do have some standard way of distinguishing the gender in English names, please inform me. I had similar problems with the Chinese people, too, it's very annoying and creates misunderstandings. The only "rule" I can remember now is that usually names ending in "a" are female-only. As a game, and as an interesting way of seeing how different cultures-languages work, can you get any information about the gender form the names: nikos, niki, optim, zanin, kostas, grigoris, eleni, patroklos, bei, hui, ran, weichi, iraklis, dias, hristos, dimitra, dafni, giorgos, alexis, thanos, thanasis, elena, katerina, petros, orestis, frideriki, ifigenia, eshilos, xenia, zoi, bo, xianfeng, alberich, angeliki, aggelos, spyros, hristina, marilena, vagelitsa, vassilis, mihalis? (these include internet nicknames, austrian, greek and chinese first names) copy-paste the names and put the gender you understand next to them in parentheses, if u like. it would be nice if you want to give your cultural and language background (what lang u speak, were u live/born). I will reveal the correct answers after some time and after I get relies:) reply here. feel free to write names from your culture/language and let us guess the gender. hope u find this interesting! .·. Optim 13:50, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC) .·. (?!!?)

Male - Kevin

I think the above-proposed procedure might be worthwhile if it were directed at filling in the gaps in what can be automated.

Prior to the 2000 US Census, i found, in about 10 minutes, on-line lists from www.census.gov of rank & IIRC number to nearest N (N=1000? N=100,000? I dunno!), among US residents IIRC, of
 * people with a given surname
 * males with a given given-name
 * females with a given given-name.

I was pleasantly surprised by the extent of the lists: my recollection is that i formed the impression that 99% or 99.9% of the population i was interested in had their name listed. (Or its other-gender equivalent: be careful with the rare ones!) I The resulting table is a lookup by name for probable gender and certainty. It can be sorted by proportion and broken up (you decide, subjectively, the break points) into three lists: of male, female, and unisex names.
 * added a gender column to each of the given-name tables, and
 * combined them
 * sorted them by name,
 * merged adjacent rows that had same name (i.e., one row of each gender), and
 * computed the proportion of people with a given given-name who are female.

I failed just now to find the same pages in twice the time, but i probably have the URL and in any case have the raw data and the computed proportions for (at least) the individuals i was most interested in. If no one can come up with the raw data independently, let me know & i'll help find, or if necessary, supply it.

This is not the complete answer to the question posed:
 * ethnicities are not attached,
 * gender-proportions of names not traditional to the US will be tilted (i think) toward femaleness, due to males "assimilating" faster and thus changing their names to "American-sounding" equivalents in greater proportion, and
 * the same spelling being used for "different" names in different cultures confuses the results (French "Jean" (pr. zhawn'), male, is "the same as" English "John" (pr. dzhahn), male, but most Americans named "Jean" (pr. dzheen) are in my experience female. --Jerzy 18:18, 2004 Jan 24 (UTC)


 * Your experiment (having random people try to decipher the gender of a selection of names) is an excellent idea, but you should really choose a more unfamiliar language. Anyone vaguely familiar with Hellenic mythology and/or tragedy, in other words, anyone who didn't sleep through high-school English class, knows that names ending in '-s' (except for '-is') are generally male, while those ending in '-is' and '-a' are generally female. Some names from your list (i.e. 'Vassilis' and 'Mihalis') are not unique to Greece; for instance, these two are apparently male. --Smack 05:04, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I will venture that "weichi" is probably not a person's actual name. It is the Chinese name for the game of go. -- Jmabel 06:02, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * nikos (male)
 * niki (female)


 * optim (sounds like a Russian male name???)
 * zanin (the Kankonian word for eleven . . . doesn't sound like a name)
 * kostas (sounds male)
 * grigoris (male)
 * eleni (female)
 * patroklos (male)
 * bei (female)
 * hui (male)
 * ran (male)
 * weichi (female)
 * iraklis,
 * dias (male)
 * hristos (male)
 * dimitra (female)
 * dafni (Daphne = female)
 * giorgos (male)
 * alexis (unisex)
 * thanos (male)
 * thanasis (male)
 * elena (female)
 * katerina (female)
 * petros (male)
 * orestis (male)
 * frideriki (female?)
 * ifigenia (or Iphigenia, female)
 * eshilos (male)
 * xenia (female)
 * zoi (female)
 * bo (Bo knows . . . -- male)
 * xianfeng (impossible to tell)
 * alberich (male)
 * angeliki (female)
 * aggelos (male)
 * spyros (male)
 * hristina (female)
 * marilena (female)
 * vagelitsa (female)
 * vassilis (male?)
 * mihalis (male)
 * I was born in and live in California, in an English-speaking household with several European au pairs over the years living in. And yes, names with an -a at the end are almost always female, but Joshua, Ira and Ezra are masculine (although Joshuas will usually go by Josh). Likewise -o usually denotes male but Cleo/Clio is feminine. Wiwaxia 02:08, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * Mostly agree with the above except:
 * "niki", if Greek, is probably male, but in California would probably be female
 * "weichi", as I remarked above, is probably not a person's name
 * "alexis", if Greek, is male (female cognate is "alexa")


 * Thanks for your answers! the correct answers are:


 * nikos (greek, male always)
 * niki (greek, female always)
 * optim (not a name, an internet nickname meaning Optimist)
 * zanin (not a name, a french-inspired internet nickname which means nothing)
 * kostas (greek male always)
 * grigoris (greek male always)
 * eleni (greek female always)
 * patroklos (greek male always)
 * bei (chinese female from North China)
 * hui (chinese male fron North China)
 * ran (chinese female, from North China, means nature AFAIK)
 * weichi (chinese male, from North China)
 * iraklis, greek male always
 * dias greek male always
 * hristos greek male always
 * dimitra greek female always
 * dafni (Daphne = female) greek female always
 * giorgos greek male always
 * alexis greek male always. In english it may be female too (this is too strange for greeks!)
 * thanos greek male always
 * thanasis greek male always
 * elena greek female always
 * katerina greek male always
 * petros greek male always
 * orestis greek male always
 * frideriki greek female always
 * ifigenia (or Iphigenia, female) greek female always
 * eshilos greek male always
 * xenia greek female always, means "foreign"
 * zoi greek female always, means "life"
 * bo (Bo knows . . . -- male) yes, chinese male
 * xianfeng chinese male from South China
 * alberich austrial male
 * angeliki greek female always
 * aggelos greek male always means Angel
 * spyros greek male always
 * hristina greek female always
 * marilena greek female always: maria+elena (mary&helen)
 * vagelitsa greek female always
 * vassilis greek male always
 * mihalis greek male always


 * A postscript, if you're still interested: in Hebrew, as in English, you can't usually tell a person's gender by a suffix attached to its name. Furthermore, quite a lot of names - modern for the most part - are used for both genders. To make things more complicated still, in recent years there arose a tendency to give girls names previously reserved for boys alone. Surnames are identical for both genders. As in English, there are, however, a few hints. Whenever a name ends with a 'a' or an 'it', it belongs to a female. These two suffixes are not coincidental. For reasons I have no intent of hereby specify, and under circumstances I do not intend to hereby disclose, 'a' found at the end of a word, in both Hebrew and Arabic (and, presumably, other languages of the same origin), turns to 'at'.
 * While we're discussing names and gender, I always wondered about nicknames as well, and how different names are shortened in different languages.
 * -Itai 17:40, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the info! :) Optim 03:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

belly buttons
As a person gains weight, does their belly button hole get deeper and deeper? Or does the bottom part of the hole move out too? ike9898
 * In my experience, lightweight people have very shallow belly buttons and heavy people have much deeper bellybuttons. I have never seen someone who was overweight with a very shallow bellybutton.  Therefore, it is my semi-confident answer that the hole deepens.  Take it for what you will. :-) Jwrosenzweig 17:52, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * heh. My belly button is deeper than any one elses that I know but I'm not heavy. my weight is pretty average. &mdash;Noldoaran (Talk) 00:57, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

reader as murderer
Has any whodunnit been written in which the reader (not the writer) is the murderer?

r4robinson3@netscape.net


 * If there's ever been a whodunnit about the murder of a tree, then the answer could be yes. Dysprosia 08:40, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I cannot tell a lie; it was I, and my little axe. -- Cimon avaro 09:01, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)


 * I've never heard of one, but that's brilliant. Are you going to write one? I think I'd like to read that -- if not write it myself! Garrett Albright 09:20, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes. "An Old-Fashioned Mystery" by Runa Fairleigh. Better not spoil it too much, although there's not much left to spoil once you know that. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 18:31, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)


 * I believe there is also a Agatha Christie, but I don't know the title. And if I did it would be unfair to reveal it. DJ Clayworth 18:46, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Maybe this is not the answer you are looking for, but many if not most Christian denominations consider the readers of their bible to be the perpetrators in the murder of their putative messiah. Coherence of the plot depends on a racist notion of Abrahamic supremacy. (Anon)


 * A clever answer, if it left off early enough. In fact, though, too many (POV alert) of those readers blame it on some other group, such as the authors of the first half of their Bible, thereby missing the point of the story. But then, (POV alert) the claim in the second sentence also misunderstands the principle according to which all people are guilty here. Fortunately, none of this has anything to do with any currently controversial issue. Dandrake 07:07, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

reader as murderer
Has any whodunnit been written in which the reader (not the writer) is the murderer?

r4robinson3@netscape.net


 * If there's ever been a whodunnit about the murder of a tree, then the answer could be yes. Dysprosia 08:40, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I cannot tell a lie; it was I, and my little axe. -- Cimon avaro 09:01, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)


 * I've never heard of one, but that's brilliant. Are you going to write one? I think I'd like to read that -- if not write it myself! Garrett Albright 09:20, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes. "An Old-Fashioned Mystery" by Runa Fairleigh. Better not spoil it too much, although there's not much left to spoil once you know that. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 18:31, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)


 * I believe there is also a Agatha Christie, but I don't know the title. And if I did it would be unfair to reveal it. DJ Clayworth 18:46, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Maybe this is not the answer you are looking for, but many if not most Christian denominations consider the readers of their bible to be the perpetrators in the murder of their putative messiah. Coherence of the plot depends on a racist notion of Abrahamic supremacy. (Anon)


 * A clever answer, if it left off early enough. In fact, though, too many (POV alert) of those readers blame it on some other group, such as the authors of the first half of their Bible, thereby missing the point of the story. But then, (POV alert) the claim in the second sentence also misunderstands the principle according to which all people are guilty here. Fortunately, none of this has anything to do with any currently controversial issue. Dandrake 07:07, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

Daylight savings observance
Was daylight savings observed in Minnesota in 1954? How about in Vermont in 1945?


 * It's not cheap ($195), but there's a comprehensive book about the history of time changes by locale, designed for astrologers, of all things. (Maybe you can find an older edition on eBay or in used bookstores.) It is available by computer download here: http://astrocom.com/software/pcatlas.php  -- Catherine 05:22, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * This is probably the sort of thing that's going to require local reference work in Minnesota and Vermont; I think it might be a bit too esoteric elsewhere. Your best bet might be to contact reference librarians at reasonably large libraries in both states, who can check primary sources if necessary. (With newspapers on hand, there's really only three or six issues to check for each state, if you know what day DST would have started.) &mdash; mendel &#9742; 21:10, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)


 * According to a quick scan of the tz database, I understand that daylight saving time was observed in both cases, and that in 1955 Minnesota changed from September to October. The reference cites Thomas G. Shanks, The American Atlas (5th edition), San Diego: ACS Publications, Inc. (1991) with its errata sheet. See also: History of standard time in the United States.

meaning of names
I was wondering at what point did the names in the bible receive their meanings? For example, Isaiah, which means the salvation of the Lord. Did that name always mean that or did it get its meaning after Isaiah became know for being a prophet and trying get Isreal to turn back to God? And this question is posed for other names as well that have a meaning that refers to God in someway in the bible.


 * Wikipedia entries for the names you're wondering about will often provide etymologies. For instance on Isaiah you can see that the name came from the Hebrew &#1497;&#64298;&#1506;&#1497;&#1492;&#1493; or "Yeshayahu". In that you can see &#1497;&#1492;&#1493;, from &#1497;&#1492;&#1493;&#1492;, YHWH, Yahweh, the name of God in the Tanakh, which suggests that Isaiah always meant "(something) of Yahweh", at least. Someone fluent in Hebrew, which I am not, could probably go so far as to say that it has always meant "salvation of Yahweh", which is what the etymology provided there says. The root words which make up a name are not likely to change meaning because of one individual, and Hebrew names tend to be made up of Hebrew words.


 * Of course you may have to trust the etymology provided in some cases, or cross-check it with other resources; one freely-available resource to chech against is Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), which while dated is still of some use. For example, you can see here that "Isaiah" has an etymology that agrees with the one in the Isaiah article here.


 * (This means that you would have to do the same sort of research for whatever other names you were curious about, but that's probably the best-case scenario anyway.)


 * Incidentally, note there that "Isaiah" does not refer to "the Lord" in those words, but to the specific name Yahweh; you've probably encountered an etymology based on a Bible version which systematically replaced direct mentions of His name with "the Lord" as is typical. &mdash; mendel &#9742; 01:29, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)


 * Perhaps you have things the wrong way around here. In many traditions, including for example contemporary Hebrew and the native American cultures, there are no names that are purely names, but rather every name means something. That is to say, the name already has a meaning before it is given to the person, and a meaningless name just wouldn't be considered a correct thing to do. This is contrary to our Western culture, where parents will happily invent a name just for its sound. But, we understand for example that Sitting Bull is a different sort of name from a different culture. The culture of Old Testament Israel seems to be somewhere in the middle, it has elements of both these extremes from time to time. The Book of Genesis in particular seems full of devices we can perhaps best understand as puns, to try to find a parallel in our society, but that's not exactly right. Does this help? Andrewa 09:27, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Object's weight as a function of depth down a mineshaft
Does anyone know if there is a simple formula for calculating the variation in an object's weight as it descends a mineshaft? Perhaps someone has even tried the experiment. It might be easier to assume that the Earth has uniform density. Even better would be a general formula that worked for height above the ground as well as depth below it. -- Heron 20:00, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Above ground is easy: for an object mass m at height h, it's just:
 * $$W = \frac{G m m_E}{(R_E+h)^2}$$
 * where mE and RE are the mass and the radius of the Earth. (See Gravitation for more).
 * For below ground, it depends on your assumptions. If you assume that the Earth's density is completely uniform, it's:
 * $$W = \frac{G m m_E \left( \frac{R_E-h}{R_E} \right)^3 }{(R_E-h)^2}$$
 * where h is distance below the ground. This works because you can treat the gravitation of the Earth as a point mass at the centre of the Earth, with a mass equal to the fraction of the Earth's mass which is below the object's depth.
 * For non-uniform density, you need to know the density distribution as a function of the Earth's radius. -- DrBob 20:21, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, DrBob. At first I thought your answer was too simple, but then I found this excellent article which explains why you are right. -- Heron 15:56, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)