Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2008 August 6

= August 6 =

Art for the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour Album
Who did the artwork for the Beatles album Magical Mystery Tour ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.125.140.131 (talk) 00:24, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * John Van Hamersveld ---Sluzzelin  talk  08:24, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

silver trophies
SILVER TROPHIES ARE KEPT IN THE OFFICERS MESS. CAN U HELP ME IN TRACING THE ORIGIN OF KEEPING SILVER IN THE MESSES? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bsgusain (talk • contribs) 05:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * First of all, there is no need to SHOUT!! Secondly, this question was asked just the other day and the response was basically that the mess hall is the best place for everyone in the company/platoon/etc to see the trophy.  Dismas |(talk) 09:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The silverware would obviously improve the visual appeal of the officers' mess. More importantly, the mess silver would be a visual education in the history and traditions of the regiment - as each piece would commemorate a battle, or a former officer, and pieces could be pointed out to new officers, who would be encouraged to learn the history of how the piece came to be in the mess. This helps develop camaraderie and a sense of shared history among the officers. I understand that in some regiments, on certain days the Sergeants would be invited to the officers' mess, and they would likewise be instructed in the regiment's history, with the use of the mess silver as a visual aid. DuncanHill (talk) 11:04, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Officers would also mark important moments in their career or life (promotion, marriage etc) with gifts to their brother officers, often in the form of items for the mess - again, this helps cement the bonds between officers, encouraging their loyalty to one another and to the regiment as a whole

31st April
In Harold Nicolson's Diaries and Letters (3 Vols, Collins, 1968), Vol II, p. 224 and 225, he twice uses the date April 31st, 1942. The first time in a letter to Vita Sackville-West the second time, in an entry to his diary on that - non existing? - date. I've started a discussion on this strange matter on nl-wiki (here) but no one seems to know the answer to this question.. Why did Nicolson use a non existing date? And why did his son Nigel, who edited the volumes, leave it in print? Is there anyone out here who knows the answer? Thanks! RJB-nl (talk) 09:51, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * According to History Today, there was an April 31st, 1942 . DuncanHill (talk) 10:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has a redirect for April 31 just in case. A google search for "april 31" shows this is a common mistake - though most hits are false positives. -- Q Chris (talk) 11:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It might be a mistake, but if it is, it's a strange mistake.. Besides'- if there was a 31 April 1942 - I want to know why.. RJB-nl (talk) 11:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Would you buy this essay? April 31, 1942 THE SURRENDER OF BATAAN!. This person died on April 31 1942. There is a book showing 31 April 1942. Am I going mad or did someone slip an extra day in when everyone was distracted by WWII? -- Q Chris (talk) 11:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There was also a restructuring of part of the Indian railway network on 31st April 1942 . DuncanHill (talk) 11:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * And according to one site Between 16 March and 31 April 1942, Yorktown was the only American carrier standing between the advancing Japanese and Australia. -- Q Chris (talk) 11:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's bizar! But still we don't know why... RJB-nl (talk) 12:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Another devious trick by the noted APRIL L. troll? S/he has gained control over the space-time continuum!  We are doooomed...  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:18, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "On 31 April 1942 the ships in a Japanese assault force shelled the island.." page 27 of. The Russian Lozovskii wrote to Shcherbakov on April 31, 1942. (p382). Someone was "admittedly an employee of defendants from April 31, 1942 to October 24, 1942" according to Federal Court documents . It was a day much like any other day... in the Twilight Zone. Edison (talk) 14:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe because of the war they decided to avoid all that time and effort wasted on 1s6 April and so started with 2nd April? Besides 1st April might be rather risky when you receive a phone call that the Japanese/Germans invaded somewhere so you send out your bombers only to find out you've just bombed your own guys thanks to that prankster recruit you've been iching to send on a suicide mission Nil Einne (talk) 20:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I doubt this is unique to 1942. Googling "June 31", "September 31", and "November 31", for example, turn up quite a few errors as well. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:06, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I wrote an emale to professor Holford-Strevens, co-author of Oxford Companion to the Year: an exploration of calendar customs and time-reckoning and this is his reply:
 * Dear Mr *,


 * There certainly was no such day, even in the Soviet Union; what the correct date should be may :well vary from case tro case. But might not Nicholson have meant that his letter was to be :confidential, much as one may say 'This conversation has not taken place'?


 * Yours sincerely


 * Leofranc Holford-Strevens

I'm afraid this still does not solve the issue.. 77.60.189.89 (talk) 17:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * So the OUP are part of the conspiracy as well? DuncanHill (talk) 17:37, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Didn't Patrick Dennis receive a letter dated June 31st from his Auntie Mame. I can imagine making the same error myself: "yesterday was the thirtieth...".--Wetman (talk) 18:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Now I'm really confused, I thought yesterday was the fifth. DuncanHill (talk) 18:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Clearly April 31 is another name for May 1, just as April 0 is another name for March 31. It's unambiguous, so why not? -- BenRG (talk) 20:56, 5454 September 1993 (UTC)


 * A bit off topic: Designing a database for medical patients some years back I was stunned to discover that - in specific circumstances - local health insurances apply birth dates with the months numbered 13, 14 and so on.  A patient whose date of birth was unknown (generally refugees who had fled their war torn countries without any documents), could easily be born on the 06/13/19xx (in Imperial dd/mm/yyyy format).  Not surprisingly, this caused a whole stack of awkward hassles.  I am still curious to find out what the proper names of these virtrual months would have been.  Not that December for the 12th month seems particularly logical...  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:39, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "In Latin, decem means "ten". December was also the tenth month in the Roman calendar until a monthless winter period was divided between January and February.". From December --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:51, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Right! That explains why Harold Nicolson introduced April 31st! :-}
 * If you wasted spent more time at WP:UA, you would know that the 13th month is Undecimber. -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:44, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Jack to the rescue with the answer. All these people are my friends and neighbours in Wonderland, where dates such as 30 February and 12 Never occur whenever we want them to, so why not 31 April.  In Wonderland there is no recorded instance of any mistake or error on any subject whatsoever having ever occurred.  The words "mistake" and "error" appear in dictionaries, because we are widely read and the words sometimes appear in books from under-developed cultures such as the USA, the UK and a funny little country called Australia, but almost nobody here knows what they mean when we encounter them because the concept of non-perfection is just so extraordinary and counter-intuitive to us.  We have an active inbound tourism program, and visas are available without question to all applicants for a mere W$1 billion.  :)  --  JackofOz (talk) 22:11, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Is that Wonderland dollars or Wikipedia dollars? Algebraist 23:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Did you say "Wikipedia"?  What's that?  --  JackofOz (talk) 12:31, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a neutral country lacking a point of view, located at the other end of your wardrobe. Unlike here, in the Northern Hemisphere, where a stroll through my wardrobe can take me to the equator and eventually to your shores, particulary on The 35th of May (written almost two decades before The Chronicles of Narnia, by the way). ---Sluzzelin talk  04:56, 8 August 2008 (UTC)