Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 August 12

= August 12 =

Where are some fine places online to solicit charity donations?
My campus ministry center has funds to raise for a kitchen that has yet to be built. So far, we've raised $93,000 out of the $160,000 needed. The campus minister would love to have me approach caring people for the kitchen donations. However, I feel more comfortable doing so online. Therefore, where are some fine digital venues in which to post for donations to charities? Thanks, --70.179.163.168 (talk) 01:16, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Twitter and Facebook are popular venues for soliciting donations online. --TammyMoet (talk) 07:52, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Do you mean a website like First Giving?--Shantavira|feed me 07:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Comparison of online charity donation services seems to cover just the UK, but you might find some links from there useful. --ColinFine (talk) 07:58, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Bacchus and the Ganges
Ovid in the Ars Amatoria, speaking of Love, says, "Thy ardent flame turns water itself to vapour. Such was Bacchus when he triumphed over the land of the Ganges."

What mythical event is Ovid referring to here? How did Bacchus "triumph over the land of the Ganges"? And what did that have to do with turning water in to vapour? -- noosph e re 02:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The land of the Ganges is India, which was well known to the Greeks and the Romans, and apparently plays into the Dionysus/Bacchus myth. See Dionysus.  -- Jayron  32  02:31, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * For the vaporization, see also the long quotation from Nonnus' Dionysiaca on this page (seventh quotation in the list). Deor (talk) 11:02, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Dangerous guiness record
1 What happen if he accidentally threw a knife at her resulting her dead or injure? Is there some kind of protection or something?Trongphu (talk) 06:06, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Accident do happen, see Impalement arts#Myths. Royor (talk) 07:36, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If it's not a trick, I don't understand how it's possible to throw so many knives and never miss. And then why doesn't the precise throwing of knives, e.g. to hit a sentry in the throat, have more visibility in military actions? Wnt (talk) 10:12, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Kittybrewster  &#9742;  10:46, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Practice makes perfect, I'm pretty sure they missed a lot before perfecting their craft. As our knife throwing article points out - Military personnel (typically special forces operators) seldom use "normal" knives for throwing, because lack of repeatability makes training and certification difficult. Royor (talk) 12:05, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, a few knife-throwers miss - but did all of them miss at some point? Wnt (talk) 10:52, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * See this. They do miss - even on television. Notice that the knives have sharp points, but the blades are obviously dull. Otherwise, this would have been far worse than a bump on the head. -- k a i n a w &trade; 13:23, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * A couple of decades ago, the Guinness Book of World Records stopped recording new dangerous records, including competitive eating records. I see they're back, though; I suppose "if it bleeds, it leads" and that danger sells.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:09, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I feel obligated to mention Les Barker's poem, Cosmo the Fairly Accurate Knife Thrower. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.110.142 (talk) 22:11, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Bans in Saudi Arabia
Why are all Christian holidays banned in Saudi Arabia? Why are women banned from driving in Saudi Arabia? Why is homosexuality banned in Saudi Arabia? Why is the Gregorian calendar banned in Saudi Arabia? --84.61.188.59 (talk) 09:01, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * See "Legal system of Saudi Arabia". Gabbe (talk) 09:07, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd say Homosexuality is banned for the same reason it was banned in Texas before Lawrence v. Texas - stupid religious fundamentalist yahoos with too much power. Is the Gregorian calender banned or simply not used? Are Christian holidays banned or simply not observed? Any sources? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:40, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I am willing to bet the OP the cost of a return flight, meal and accomodation in Saudi Arabia that I can openly carry a Gregorian calender through Saudi Arabian customs. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:49, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Why do not wiser Christians condemn the behaviour and/or ignorance of "Christian" bigots like our OP? HiLo48 (talk) 12:12, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:NPA. --Reference Desker (talk) 12:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Calling blatant religious bigotry where it exists is not a personal attack. HiLo48 (talk) 12:32, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't see anything in the OP's question that suggests he's a Christian religious bigot. He's asking questions about Saudi Arabia that make factual presuppositions. In fact, if he were a Christian religious bigot, rather than asking why homosexuality is banned in Saudi Arabia, he'd more likely be asking why it's permitted in other countries (like Germany, where the IP address is located). Pais (talk) 12:50, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * bigotry is the expression of unreasonable opinion. bigot is an abusive ad hominem term. HiLo48 you may say only one of these words and it isn't "bigot". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:59, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * suggests there are severe restrictions on celebrating any non Muslim religious festivals. Nil Einne (talk) 13:52, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The Gregorian calendar is used in Saudi Arabia for business purposes, just like everywhere else in the world. Check out the website of any Saudi newspaper, for example, they all have both the Islamic and Christian date. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:11, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * To HiLo48: Wiser Christians do call out idiocy that claims to be Christian. For example, the retards at Westboro Baptist Church get no support from the majority of Christians. The problem here is that the questioner did not ask "Why do stupid Saudis not agree with my Christian view?" However, you clearly read the question that way and made a claim that ALL Christians support the behavior that you implied in the question. -- k a i n a w &trade; 13:07, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Bigotry aside, the OP is a well known troll of the RD and encyclopaedia Nil Einne (talk) 13:34, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Why are alcohol, gambling, pork, and porn banned in Saudi Arabia? --84.61.188.59 (talk) 13:16, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Obviously because they are antithetical to the state religion. Googlemeister (talk) 13:36, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It should be noted, of course, that in many US counties, alcohol is banned or heavily regulated, and that gambling in the US is illegal except for a few locations, state lotteries, or the weird legal loophole of tribal casinos. There are plenty of non-religious reasons to regulate both alcohol and gambling. Pork, not so much. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:44, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Trichinosis. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:35, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I mean from a modern standpoint. (And trichinosis doesn't mean you have to ban all pork. It just means you have to cook the pork and regulate how it is produced. To use trichinosis as an excuse to ban pork is akin to using E coli. as an excuse to ban lettuce.) --Mr.98 (talk) 18:57, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Pig particularly the section on environmental impacts and health issues may be of interest. Of the animals (excluding fish) commonly reared for food, pigs appear to be the most commonly reared ones listed in List of the world's 100 worst invasive species (the other ones listed there are red deer, goat and rabbit). Nil Einne (talk) 17:50, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but nobody actually bans pork for that reason, which was my point. Note also there is a big distinction between banning the farming of pigs and the consumption of pork. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:57, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Feral bacons running around the countryside does sound tasty. Googlemeister (talk) 20:08, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Many of the traditional bans on alcohol and gambling in the US and elsewhere had much more to do with the perceived immorality then to do with the social harm. (In other words, most people didn't ban alcohol and gambling for those reasons either traditionally.) Even in many of the modern ones, perceived immorality often is part of the reason. And there are no native pigs in Saudi Arabia so I question the relevence of the distinction. I would note importing farmed pigs risks moving the problem to somewhere else so importing wild pigs is the only real option, but in many cases that risks harming the wild pig population. In modern times since so many countries have already totally screwed up their environments with introduced invasive animals which includes pigs of course importing feral pigs is a useful thing but that doesn't apply in traditional contexts which we appeared to be referring to at first. Note that according to our article, pigs were sometimes purposely introduced for hunting, so it wasn't just farming that was part of the problem. In other words a total ban on pig products in the past wasn't necessarily a bad thing in places without native pigs. (Although I doubt feral pigs would have ever been a problem in many Middle Eastern countries.) BTW most bans include all pigs products such as bacon and ham and gelatine from pig bones and often even pig hairs and rather then just pork. Nil Einne (talk) 12:40, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * See haraam. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:07, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The mayor of Oslo was aghast when a representative of the moslem community proposed that moslems should be banned from the city for a week. "But why do you want us to make such an unjust discrimination when all religions are welcome here?" he asked. The moslem replied "It's because for a whole week you people can watch porn, eat pork, draw Mohammed, act indecently....and we won't complain at all." Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Religious fundamentalists are the enemies of freedom everywhere. Currently, those of the Muslim persuasion are more of a problem simply because Islamic fundamentalism and theocracies are more widespread.  However, in the past, when Christian fundamentalism had more power and had control of many nations, Christian fundamentalists also denied others freedoms, as well as torturing and murdering anyone who disagreed with them, as during the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition.  If we go even farther back, to when Jewish fundamentalists had control of ancient Israel, they also committed genocide against their neighbors.  StuRat (talk) 20:51, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Some might say that Christian fundamentalists have not stopped. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:58, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, with the crusades, they were reacting to Muslim fundamentalism, and were trying to take back territory that had formerly been Christian. (You may not believe it but this is, at least, what the crusaders themselves had in mind.) Adam Bishop (talk) 21:58, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The first sentence of the article Crusades says as much. Adam, why should anyone not believe that? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The regions the Crusades targeted were not 'traditionally Christian'. They were multi-denominational (something you still see in say, Lebanon), Muslim, Jewish, and Eastern Orthodox Christian (of the Byzantine Empire). But yes, they wanted to take back what they perceived to be rightfully Christian territories (specifically Jesus' birthplace), which was nonsensical since Jesus was Jewish. It was simply the latest in a series of invasions and counter invasions, going back to the Roman Empire, the Byzantine empire, the Turkish empires, to the Umayyad conquest of Spain. Either way, it wasn't a 'reaction to Muslim fundamentalism', it was a political maneuver disguised as a religious campaign. It helps if you realize that popes of the Holy Roman Empire were basically the replacements of Roman Emperors after the fall of the [Western] Roman Empire, they controlled the German kings they called 'Holy Roman Emperors' The first crusade was started when the Byzantine Empire requested help from a Pope against the Seljuks. It was an opportunity to reunite the Eastern and Western Catholic churches (moah powah!), so they took advantage of it. --  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   00:31, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know Cuddlyable, but evidently (as StuRat demonstrated) lots of people believe the crusades were random violence against Muslims (and Jews). Also, Obsidian, the regions targeted by the crusades (the first few at least) were traditionally Christian as far as Christians of the time were concerned. Are you suggesting that Christians shouldn't have cared about the Christian Holy Land because the Christian Messiah was ethnically Jewish? That doesn't make any sense...remember we're talking about medieval Christians here, for whom Jews are sort of a weird anomaly (Judaism should have ceased to exist when Jesus fulfilled all their prophecies, or, at best, the Jews had to stick around until the End Times when they would all convert anyway). It's a good point that the crusades are part of a series of invasions of the Near East going back for millennia, and that is certainly how the Muslims interpreted the First Crusade at first (although the Turks themselves, the Seljuks in this case, had only just arrived about 20 years before, and if by "Turkish" you mean the Ottomans, they did not arrive for another couple of hundred years). However, the Popes and the Holy Roman Emperors are completely separate. The pope was supposed to crown the emperor, but at this point in the Middle Ages their relationship was almost always antagonistic; in fact Urban II, who organized the First Crusade, had a rival anti-pope who had been set up by the emperor. Frederick II, the emperor most heavily involved in the crusades, was certainly not controlled by the pope, nor was the pope controlled by him, no matter how much both would have wanted to control the other. And lastly, yes, the Byzantine emperor did request help from the Pope, and the Pope may have considered it an opportunity to reunite the churches, but nothing like that actually happened. The "Great Schism" had only occurred in 1054, so did they even think of the two churches as completely distinct yet? Probably not. The reunion of the churches was certainly a political tool in later centuries when the Byzantines wanted help against the Ottomans, but in the eleventh century that wasn't really a big issue yet. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:50, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, I thought you were saying they were traditionally Christian. My bad. So yeah, agree. They perceived it as theirs. But yes, they didn't care, as is obvious by the fact that Jerusalem hadn't been under the control of the Christian Byzantine Empire for hundreds of years. If they really cared about Jesus' birthplace being invaded by the Turks, then why didn't the crusades start in 635 AD? And Seljuks were Turks, and the people the First Crusades were mounted against. And no, Urban II's antipope was set up against the pope preceding him by an emperor set up by a pope preceding him. Yes the relationships between the Pope and the Emperors were rocky, but Emperors were always crowned by a Pope (regardless if they had to be elected to be King beforehand), while Emperors can only elect Popes, not appoint them (though they might as well have, given all the power they have at their disposal). In a sense, the emperor was the martial arm of the pope, both tools and liabilities when they become too independent. Note that even Frederick II was crowned by a Pope who saw him as a tool in controlling the previous emperor - Otto. And no, the separation of the east and west churches happened long before 1024, beginning with the split of the Roman empires basically. How do you think were there two popes (a patriarch is basically a pope, both mean 'father' and both rule their respective churches with no higher authority) who mutually exchanged excommunication letters in the great schism? The point really is, the popes during these periods were anything like the mostly benign popes we have now who keep out of anything secular. These were extremely wealthy and powerful rulers who commanded kings. The crusades therefore is unlikely to have been started for purely religious reasons. They were political, it simply used religion as a convenient reason. The fact that it didn't succeed in reuniting the byzantine church with the western roman popes (probably because the crusaders refused to return Jerusalem to the Byzantines after they conquered it), has no bearing on it. The effect on a simple proclamation of a holy war was still remarkable enough that later popes and kings used it to their advantage, even more blatantly for power and greed this time when they saw the possibilities. See First Crusade. --  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   12:19, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The crusades didn't start in the 7th century because, well, how could they have? The seventh century was obviously very different from the twelfth. And I guess it wasn't really a big concern until the eleventh century; when the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed in 1009, there was some proto-crusade rhetoric about in Europe, and when the Turks did arrive in the 1070s, it was a lot more dangerous for pilgrims to go there (because of the collapse of central Abbasid control, the fighting between the Turkish and Arab emirates and the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt, etc). I still don't agree about the closeness of the pope and the emperor. The Empire was never the martial arm of the papacy. The First Crusade hardly involved the Empire at all, it was almost entirely French. The pope never bothered to ask the Empire for help...why would he? For the religious schism, sure there were two "popes" but in that case there were actually five (if you include Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria). The First Crusade did not intend to reunite the churches. Maybe the pope (if no one else) hoped that might be a result of the cooperation, but it wasn't one of the goals. (Even when a crusade did conquer Constantinople, in 1204, that was neither a goal nor an end result.) I also can't agree with your characterization of the First Crusade as entirely political and not religious; despite your argument, the Pope did not have that kind of power, he couldn't amass an army from multiple countries to do his bidding, and that's not at all what happened anyway. Certainly the crusade, and any crusade by definition, involves the Papacy in some way, but apparently not in the way that you imagine. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:12, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You're nitpicking now, heh, only the Patriarch of Constantinople ("first among equals"?) really held the reins in the Eastern Orthodox church and thus was the counterpart of the Pope. I was wrong to characterize emperors as the 'martial arm' maybe. Still sticking to characterizing them as 'tools' though. Emperors and popes certainly did use each other a lot. And you can't definitely say it wasn't the goal when there are sources that discuss its possibility at length, not to mention the circumstantial evidence. Because, what else would be the reason then? Mere piety? Taking back 'Christian lands' can be and was probably synonymous with reuniting the Byzantine empire with Rome, since those lands were under Byzantine before the Turkish invasions anyway. Would you agree to mostly political then? If not for the first crusade, then for the succeeding ones. You can't really dispute that the focus slowly shifted from the pretext of retaking the holy land to shepherding the valuable inflow of spice and silk from eastern trade routes once they know just how valuable the region was. The same thing happened centuries later during the age of exploration, particularly with Spain's "God, Gold, and Glory" ideals. And I find it very hard to imagine that Popes of the Dark Ages actually had noble goals (however misguided). And Popes before the Catholic reformation can, and did amass armies from multiple nations, heh, weren't the crusades a particularly remarkable example of that? French crusaders were the first, simply because they were the most enthusiastic, but the first crusade definitely was not a 'mostly french' matter (they were preceded even by what can only be described as a mob of zealots). They had the power to deny heaven on a whim (several instances caused wars targeted on the excommunicated ruler), they can 'give' lands (already inhabited, thus giving tacit blessings to invade), the number of popes and antipopes vying for that kind of power, the lengths kings and emperors will go just to secure favor of a pope (if he can't then the lengths he goes through to find ways to replace him with any pope, just as long as that one won't excommunicate him), should be indication enough of how powerful the title was. --   Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   19:33, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Historical nitpick. Much of the holy land was conquered ca. 640 by Arabs, not Turks. At that time, it had been under Byzantine control for only about 10 years. Before that it was under Persian control for 15 years. At the time of the crusades, there were many effectively independent Muslim states in the area - only under Nur al-Din and Saladin did they become reasonably united (but still separate from the Turks in Asia Minor). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Oop. Just goes to show how lopsided what's being taught here really was. All we learned from their side was that they were vaguely 'Turks' and that they were Muslim, hence my earlier confusion with later Ottomans and Seljuks. In contrast our history classes were particularly detailed in the European side. Same thing with the Umayyad Arabs who were simply called Moors in our lessons. Not that school was a recent thing though, LOL. --  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   20:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, yes, I am nitpicking, because this has veered far away from the original question (assuming it was a legitimate question), and there are lots of things to nitpick (the thing about the Turks, for example). I can see your point, definitely, because a lot of what you are saying is what people normally learn about the crusades, but there's a lot more to it than that. In recent years, for example, "Mere piety" has indeed been accepted as one of the reasons people went on crusade. In as much as you can't assign a single goal to tens of thousands of people, then yes, "mere piety" was a major reason - otherwise why would they give up their land, money, family, to go thousands of miles away to a land that had no connection to them other than a religious one, where they were likely to be killed on the way? (The works of Jonathan Riley-Smith is especially important on this subject.) Other nitpicks: yes, I will dispute that "valuable inflow of spice and silk" was important, assuming that you mean this was a political goal of the crusades for the popes - firstly this is an economic matter and secondly the popes have very little, if anything, to do with trade routes like that (which were controlled by the Italian city-states). The only time I can think of that popes got involved in economics was to forbid trade with Egypt and other Muslim states. They didn't want the Venetians (or whoever) supplying the enemy with materials, not that this stopped the Venetians anyway. Also, once the Kingdom of Jerusalem/Acre and the other states on the mainland were conquered, there was very little effort to regain them. No one wanted to fight for a losing cause, even if it was for Jerusalem. Economically it was still possible to trade with Asia through Cyprus, and with favourable trade treaties from the Muslim mainland states, so no, the crusades were never about opening up trade routes (that this happened to be a result does not make it a goal). Adam Bishop (talk) 09:22, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Why are non-Muslims banned from entering Mecca? Why are non-Muslims banned from entering Medina as well? Why is the use of the name “Mecca” for gambling very offensive? --84.61.188.59 (talk) 09:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You can get the answers to these from the Mecca and Medina articles. The Reference Desk is not a place for rhetorical questions meant to provoke debates. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:23, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Why is the use of the name “Mecca” for gambling very offensive? --84.61.188.59 (talk) 15:16, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Robert Arbuthnot
Was it he who was a Colonel at the Battle of Waterloo? If not, then who was the colonel Robert who was there? I found this quotation "The Colombo Observer says four, including among them Sir Robert Arbuthnot, but the General, though he had been through nearly every battle in the Peninsular War, does not seem to have been at Waterloo". - Kittybrewster  &#9742;  06:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * According to Charles Dalton's WATERLOO ROLL CALL With Biographical Notes and Anecdotes Robert Arbuthnot was not among the officers at Waterloo. There were two Sir Robert entries:
 * Lieut-Col. Sir Robert Macara, K.C.B. 42ND (OR THE ROYAL HIGHLAND) REGIMENT OF FOOT.
 * Lieut.-Col. Sir Robert Gardiner, BRITISH HORSE ARTILLERY
 * There were no colonels named Robert without the Sir.  --Bill Reid | (talk) 14:07, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. How does the entry come to be: Corporal Timothy Greenhalgh, 2nd Bn Coldstream Guards, served in Colonel Robert Arbuthnot's company at Waterloo.? - Kittybrewster  &#9742;  07:05, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, don't know. I tried a search at the National Archive for Timothy Greenhalgh but search didn't have any hits.  I have a list of the company commanders at Waterloo but no Robert Arbuthnot although he was assigned a company on 25 July 1814.  Illness or injury may have prevented his attendance. --Bill Reid | (talk) 15:35, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Depends on where that entry comes from, of course, and at this remove it may well be in error... interestingly, his entry in Hart's Army List for 1840 says he was at Waterloo, here, and again in 1841. Note, however, that while it says this in the descriptive text, his entry in the main list only has the "Peninsular" mark against it, not the Waterloo mark. A few years later, however, his entry explicitly did not mention Waterloo in the description (1845, 1846.) So it seems to have been a misconception that circulated in reference works for a while, at least. Shimgray | talk | 21:58, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Grammar: United States debt-ceiling crisis
Which is correct, from a grammatical point of view: or Why? Is debt-ceiling a "compound modifier"? If not, what is it? I think the words debt and ceiling are being used in apposition but I'm not sure. You can have a debt crisis but a ceiling crisis doesn't make much sense.
 * United States debt-ceiling crisis
 * United States debt ceiling crisis (without the hyphen)

(There is a conflict over which of these should be used as the main subject of a Wikipedia article. The MOS says this about hyphens.)

I'm directing this posting to the reference desk, instead of the Village pump, because it appears to be a straight grammatical question. Thanks. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 12:08, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a question of orthography, not grammar. I'd say both are orthographically correct; you can include the hyphen or omit it as you prefer. It is a compound modifier, but I'd tend to omit the hyphen myself, if only because "United States" is also a compound modifier in this context, and you'd never hyphenate that. (Would you?) Pais (talk) 12:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that this article and English compounds are pretty clear that hyphenation isn't used when there is no ambiguity. Do you wonder if this is a "debt" variety of "ceiling crisis"?  Also, the comment that people have begun to merely look up the adjectives in dictionaries also seems relevant - I can't picture finding "debt-ceiling" as an established adjective/noun/whatever. Wnt (talk) 14:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * We do have a Language Desk, you know... --Mr.98 (talk) 16:14, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

"Debt" is a noun, not an adjective. If there were a crisis concerning a "high ceiling", I'd want the hyphen when the two-word phrase is used as an attributive adjective. I.e., it would be a "high-ceiling crisis", not a "high ceiling crisis", since it's not a "ceiling crisis" that is high, but rather a crisis concerning a high ceiling. Since "debt" is not an adjective, one can't say it's a "ceiling crisis" that is "debt". However, I still at least wouldn't mind seeing a hyphen there.

It seems lots of people don't use hyphens very much in the present day. Publishers of books, magazines, and newspapers still usually use them. Advertisers and package labelers usually don't, I think. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:47, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * ....I'd have posted this query to the "language" reference desk rather than the "humanities" reference desk. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:50, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:55, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I prefer the hyphenated form as unambiguous. The type of crisis is a debt ceiling crisis, not a debt ceiling crisis or a debt ceiling crisis, nor, especially, a debt ceiling crisis. μηδείς (talk) 22:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that the hyphenated form is less ambiguous. Hyphens tend to be omitted when the compound is well known, but I don't think "debt ceiling" is immediately recognised as a compound.  If it becomes better known, it might eventually be spelt (or spelled if you prefer) as a single word: "debtceiling".    D b f i r s   08:49, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Further question. We agree that the word 'debt', as used in this context, is a noun. Isn't 'ceiling' also a noun? If so, does that make any difference to the hyphen? --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 15:55, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Looking through the links and references in United States debt-ceiling crisis, it looks like both are used. I don't think either one is more grammatically correct than the other, I think this is just a style issue. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 16:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC) [copied to here from duplicate thread on language desk page by Medeis]


 * No, the fact that it is a noun itself is not important. What is relevant here is to show the closer nesting of the concepts debt and ceiling compared to crisi.  English allows forming a compound noun from two simpler nouns: fly + swatter.  Here you have three nouns forming a double compound in two steps.  The first compound is debt ceiling.  (In German that is Schuldenobergrenze = (Schulden(ober+grenze)) = "(Debt(upper+limit)).)  Since debt ceiling is in fact itself functionally a noun (a noun phrase), it can be further combined with crisis to form debt-ceiling crisis, i.e., ((debt+ceiling)+crisis).


 * The Choice of hyphenisation versus compounding into one word is just English convention. We avoid making noun phrases into compounds unless they have been around for a long time, and are common enough in speech that the second word has lost its primary stress.  Note that if someone were to say, "He bought a mosquito swatter and a fly swatter," each word in fly swatter would receive its own stress, whereas in, "He bought a spraycan and a flyswatter," the words spraycan and flyswatter would each have only initial primary stress.  Because we tend to give two separate stresses to debt and ceiling we write them as separate.  But were this word to become commonplace and start to be used as a common modifier it would eventually coalesce.  E.g., "Mow the front yard, but not the back yard" vs. "The backyard patio needs to be swept."


 * So, just as in German we get (with apostrophe to mark primary stress) 'Schuldenobergrenze 'Krise, in English we get 'debt-ceiling 'crisis.


 * μηδείς (talk) 18:54, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * To address the original question, whether the phrase is a compound modifier, that analysis would be possible, if one takes debt-ceiling to be an adjective modifying crisis. But that seems an artificial stretch.  A better analysis is again, a simple noun compound, for which see [] and the formal parallel example it mentions, science fiction writer.  (That article does not treat in any detail of the issue of spelling with hyphens or of the effect of stress on spelling.) μηδείς (talk) 20:49, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

To understand why we hyphenate double modifiers, consider the following sentences: (He actually died in New York but you get the point.) -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:21, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Frozen food pioneer Clarence Birdseye was found dead in Antarctica.
 * Frozen-food pioneer Clarence Birdseye was found dead in Antarctica.


 * lol, good one μηδείς (talk) 00:11, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

tip jar
Is it considered bad form to make change from the tip jar in US establishments? Like say you wanted to leave a tip where $1-2 would be appropriate but you only have a $10? Googlemeister (talk) 15:39, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Handling other people's money to which you're not entitled may be viewed as bad form, as if perhaps you're "helping yourself" to the till. Better to approach the register and have change made there. The employee on duty will certainly oblige if at all possible, understanding the favorable purpose of your gesture (or your stated request). That option's not available with the collection plate at church, though.-- Deborahjay (talk) 16:10, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * In cases where the tip jar is at a cash register, the expectation generally is that whatever change is made on the transaction will be used for the tip, rounding up to the next denomination, more or less. A cup of coffee costs $1.35, you pay two bucks, and 65 cents go in the jar.  A take-out order at a restaurant costs 17.88, pay with a twenty and leave $2.12 in the jar.  In cases where the change coming back is going to be a large bill -- paying $20.00 for something that costs $9.75, say -- I would ask the cashier for the change in smaller denominations, in my example, a five and five ones, without giving any particular explanation, then leave a couple of singles in the jar.  In my experience, establishments with tip jars have a knack for providing customers with currency that fits into them.   --some jerk on the Internet    (talk)  18:35, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Is that first example normal? That's pretty much a 50% tip! I know it's small fry cash wise but even so that's a ridiculous % tip-wise. ny156uk (talk) 18:47, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think so. The "high" tip you may leave offsets the large number of people who don't tip at all.  (I almost always drop the change in the jar.  People behind the counter don't make much money, and to me it just feels right; I'm in the US, don't know what the custom is elsewhere.) Antandrus  (talk) 19:04, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm reminded of the first part of this. I don't get why we are pressured to tip when the service doesn't warrant it.  They did their job, they are paid for it, and to me, only exceptional service warrants anything extra.  That said, making change from the tip jar is not okay.  It makes you seem cheap, even if you are actually being quite generous.  Ask for change instead.  They'll notice why and appreciate it, rather than assuming you are stealing. Mingmingla (talk) 19:21, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * In the US, the minimum wage for tipped waiters is $2.13. Therefore, they depend on the tips as part of their income.  Here's a website outlining the specifics in each state.  .  So in effect, they are not paid [hardly anything] by the employers for doing their job, that falls to the customers. Falconus p  t   c 04:19, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * More to the point; my brother has been a waiter his whole working life; and the wage that waiters get paid doesn't even cover the taxes on his tips. (he has the tax returns to prove it).  They literally survive almost entirely on tips.  -- Jayron  32  05:02, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * All well and good to use the change from your payment for the tip jar, but a lot of people use plastic to pay for things these days and not all receipts have the line where you can add a tip. Googlemeister (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a very good point. In that instance, I would drop a buck or two in the jar if I had them, and not if I didn't.  I wouldn't ask the cashier to make change expressly for giving the tip; if I had cash on me and planned on tipping, I would use the cash, not a card (though there could easily be a situation where I had cash, but not enough to pay for whatever I was buying, I'll grant).  Using a credit/debit card to pay for something then making it known you're carrying cash seems tacky to me somehow.  As for the percentage question, I would certainly give the whole 65 cents, but if I bought a coffee for myself and one for my friend, paid $3.00, and gotten 35 30 cents back, that's all I would put in the jar as well, to the same cashier, for the same level of service.  The whole notion of a tip jar, to my mind, is that gratuities are appreciated, but not required or even necessarily expected, and it's the gesture more than the money that matters. *derp* fixed that elementary math mistake  --some jerk on the Internet    (talk)  19:34, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of a separate but somewhat related question...there is a place for tips at the Mongolian Grill inside of a Chinese buffet in my town. The actual Mongolian Grill feature costs nothing to use beyond the price of the all you can eat buffet (which is about $10), so what is an appropriate tip for the cook at the grill? Ks0stm (T•C•G) 05:13, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I have eaten there (my mouth is watering) and was told to tip $1.50 or $2.00 which comports with the standard tip for a waitress. At three minutes a plate that's around $30-$40/hr on top of his wage. μηδείς (talk) 20:53, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

British uprising
Will the current uprising in England result in a permanent revolution such as the French revolution or Russian revolution? --Toiil99 (talk) 17:22, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * No. It wasn't an 'uprising', and it isn't 'current' (and neither the French nor Russian revolutions seem to have been 'permanent') AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The graphic at 2011 England riots suggests that most people think that the principal causes of the disturbances were criminal behaviour and gang culture. Those in turn clearly have root causes, but very few people see the disturbances as a political "uprising". Incidentally, they were not "British", they were almost exclusively English (rather than Scottish or Welsh). Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:42, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

The recent events in London are not comparable to the events of a few months ago in Tunisia. In that instance there was widespread popular feeling against the regime throughout the country. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:42, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * news media seems to classify this more as people from gangs seeing an opportunity to do some looting rather then a grassroots political unrest which are the kinds that result in revolutions. Googlemeister (talk) 18:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * There were no coherent political demands or attempts to take control of anything. It was just mindless destruction and looting for fun and profit. It has very little in common with a revolution. --Tango (talk) 18:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * THAT would be the last straw. Those yobs trying to overthrow the government. 88.14.196.229 (talk) 21:30, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify; the French Revolution's republican form of government lasted about 15 years, and none of the various French Revolutionary Constitutions lasted more than 5. Certain aspects of administrative and governmental reform did outlast it (like Code Napoleon), but Napoleon declared himself emperor (and thus restored a form of Monarchy) in 1804, and the old order itself was restored when Louis XVIII re-established the Borbon monarchy in 1815.  The Russian Revolution (assuming you mean the October Revolution) lasted quite a bit longer; the Soviet Union survived a about 70 years; but Russia today has a very different form of government.  It is basically an autocratic-presidential-oligarchical-republic with lots of crony capitalism.  The recent riots in England don't represent an organized uprising.  In the cases of the French and Russian revolution, they had organized leadership (the Jacobin Club and Robespierre in France; the Bolsheviks and Lenin in Russia) that organized and directed the uprising from the first.  The recent riots in the U.K. are mostly a spontaneous, unorganized rabble.  There are a few minor organized protests, but mostly its looting and undirected rage.  -- Jayron  32  23:08, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Re the question of "organisation" - I think there is growing evidence that the recent rioting in England was indeed "organised", in the sense that criminal gangs and their followers organised collective action among themselves in terms of agreeing collectively where to riot and loot, through using networking sites, text messaging and so forth - but that it was organised criminal action, rather than organised with any overt political intent. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:01, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Permanent revolution is a term used in Marx and Trotsky's writings, "Marx used it to describe the strategy of a revolutionary class to continue to pursue its class interests independently and without compromise, despite overtures for political alliances, and despite the political dominance of opposing sections of society. Trotsky put forward his conception of 'permanent revolution' as an explanation of how socialist revolutions could occur in societies that had not achieved advanced capitalism." [Our article's lede]. The rioters in England did not compose themselves as a revolutionary class, even though evidence indicates that rioters came from the entire spectrum of white collar, blue collar and lumpenproletariat members of the English urban working class. A revolutionary class would be a body of the working class displaying class consciousness normally in the form of being a class for itself out of Lukacs' still useful writings. In Gramscian terms they would pose a counter-hegemony. For laypeople: the English rioters would have had to have advocated or attempted to implement different systems of governance or social production—they didn't. It is possible to draw a very long bow, and argue that the riots demonstrated a class consciousness of the position of a ground down class in capitalism, but that doesn't relate to "Permanent revolution's" conception of a self-aware class advocating post capitalism. In relation to Jayron32's simplification of the French and Russian situation, he could look into Jacques Roux or the fact that the montagnards had to continuously play catch-up with the urban continuous committees. Or that February 1917 kicked off with an International Women's Day march and that the Moscow soviet was an all party revolutionary soviet. The riots in Paris, Petrograd and Moscow weren't organised by leaderships except in Stalin's execrable Short Course History of the RSDLP(b). This is more than quibbling over a misrepresentation of history—it goes to Marx's question regarding Permanent revolution: can a class organise itself autonomously, or (as in Trotsky's view) does a class require a singular party organising it? Fifelfoo (talk) 05:05, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, Fifelfoo, you seem to misunderstand that a person may answer a question with an answer, and still understand more about the subject than they write in answering that specific question. More specifically, the OP's question about the relationship between the recent British riots and the French and Russian revolutions can be answered adequately without an exhaustive explanation of the complete history of them.  I am quite aware of Roux, well before you mentioned him, and the montagnards, and indeed probably any other figure you would care to bring up.  The difference between you Fifelfoo and me is that I am not so insecure in my level of intelligence that I feel the need to prove it to the world by trying to demonstrate that other people who answer question know less about the subject than I do, especially where such demonstration serves no purpose in answering the original question.  My answer sufficiently answered the question, and I don't think I need to bring up every single figure in the history of the French Revolution to do so.  If you'd like to discuss anyone else (Danton?  Saint-Just? Tallyrand?) perhaps we can do so outside of the context of this question... -- Jayron  32  16:59, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems relevant when your simplification isn't pedagogical—you were using a simplification which asserts the centrality of revolutionary organisation and leadership to demonstrate a point about revolutionary organisation and leadership. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Say again, please, in single-syllable words. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:44, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Learn longer ones :P AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:00, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You can't support a claim that leadership is necessary to revolutions, by simplifying the history of leadership and spontaneous actions in the Russian and French revolutions, such that your simplified history of the Russian and French revolutions is "leadership is necessary." Fifelfoo (talk) 05:47, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

hiatus in presidential deaths
Was the 21-year period from January 1973 to April 1994 the only time 21 years passed without any presidents of the United States dying (other than periods of 21 years ending before December 1799)? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:35, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * We have a List of Presidents of the United States, from which it appears that no presidents died between George Washington (14 December 1799) and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (both on 4 July 1826). Otherwise the closest to a 21 year hiatus was the 18 year gap between the deaths of Franklin Roosevelt (12 April 1945) and John Kennedy (22 November 1963). --Antiquary (talk) 18:12, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

By hindsight it seems as if I should have wondered about Adams and Jefferson, although even if I'd thought about the timing of their terms and their deaths, it would have been far from a sure thing without looking at that list. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:35, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Got your eye on the Elder Bush? μηδείς (talk) 16:33, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Is it a logical problem, or just me? (w. spoiler of The Subtle Knife)
I think I may be misread this, but I'm not sure how it's possible:

"She reached out a paw to pat something in the air in front of her, ... . Then she leaped backward, back arched and ... approached the spot again, just an empty patch of grass between the hornbeams and the bushes of a garden hedge, ...

Again she leaped back, but less far ...

It looked as if someone had cut a patch out of the air, about two yards from the edge of the road ... You could see it only from the side nearest the road ..."

pg. 14-15.

I think Pullman wrote this so that it is believable that the patch of air has not been observed by others until then, but if it's only two yards from the road, and only observable from that side, then surely the cat had leaped back onto the road when it first approached. It seems curious then that this was not remarked upon by the narrator. 66.108.223.179 (talk) 18:01, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the problem. It wouldn't be noticed by a casual passer-by because the world on the other side of the window looks very similar to the world on this side. The cat wouldn't end up on the road because two yards is quite big relative to the size of a cat, so it probably didn't jump back that far. --Tango (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah. I was not as familiar with yards as I'd thought. Thanks. 66.108.223.179 (talk) 23:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Climbing an hierarchy
How can you climb the hierarchy of an institution which does not have any productive purpose? For example, why do some priester manage to become bishop? In a corporation you always can set quarterly goal, that if reached, bring you up in the hierarchy...Quest09 (talk) 21:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You might begin with our article Office politics, and go on to investigate some of the links it contains to further related concepts. In most hierarchies, advancement is achieved as much or more by the manipulation of interpersonal relationships and perceptions than by material achievements to the benefit of the organisation: indeed, concentration on the latter may deflect effort that might instead be directed to the former. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.110.142 (talk) 22:01, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Also relevent is the Peter principle, which may explain why managers are always more incompetant than their underlings, even IF the company were to promote on merit alone. -- Jayron  32  23:00, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Many institutions which are not seen to be inherently "productive" have been marketised since the 1970s. Universities have "customers", socialised hospitals have "clients", and Churches have recruitment goals and monthly sales meetings.  While these don't arise directly from a commodity sale (you can twist yourself into knots trying to assert that this is the case), such relationships can often be inflicted through audit culture, forcing institutions to produce artificial metrics of productivity, and then applying large scale firm processes on the "failing" public institutions.  Often this has been connected to direct external recruitment of senior management, while maintaining more traditional bureaucratic methods of promotion internally, or eliminating internal promotion altogether.  Fifelfoo (talk) 05:36, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * "An hierarchy" ? Does that mean you pronounce it eye-archy ? StuRat (talk) 05:40, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * In my own informal Southern English register (in which I drop initial aitches), it would be closer to "eyer-arky" (hence "an [h]ierarchy"); in more formal speech I'd probably pronounce the aitch (hence "a hierarchy"), but might drop it for "hierarchical" where the main stress is on the third syllable (hence "an [h]ierarchical"). We discussed "a/an with initial h" at length a couple of months ago, probably on the Language Desk. {The poster formerly known as 87.91.230.195} 90.201.110.213 (talk) 16:04, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Surely people don't drop the initial H in "an history" though. ;) --  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   18:00, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * They certainly do. When I'm speaking in my informal register - what, to a non-Brit, would pass for "Cockney" - I absolutely say "an ' is try." Saying "a ' is try" would actually take more effort in the form of an inserted glottal stop. In formal register, it would be "a his tory" but "an 'is tor ical," dropping the 'h' in the latter because the emphasis has shifted to the second syllable, as is the now slightly dated convention. (I would assert, by the way, that on the basis of 5 decades of observation I'm not atypical for someone of my regional and social background.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.110.33 (talk) 03:51, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Here in northern England, I always sound the "h" in hat, history, herb etc, but the (older?) standard pronunciation, especially in southern England, was to omit the "h" from some words such as history, hierarchy, hotel etc. Thus, if I hear "an 'at" I assume the speaker is an uneducated northener.  If I hear "an 'istory", I assume the speaker is an educated (old-fashioned?) southener, and if I hear "an 'erb" I assume the speaker is either French or American.  Using "an" before a sounded "h" just shows a misunderstanding of the rules, but I occasionally hear the error on the BBC!    D b f i r s   07:29, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The most aggressive little hierarchy climbing twit I ever knew had a standard set of tricks. Twit was always very jolly and friendly around some senior person with power and official status. Twit was a big yes-man, kiss-ass and flatterer, quick to laugh at jokes the BigGuy told and to give him lavish compliments. The B.S. was obvious, but the BigGuy somehow did not seem to notice it or object to it. Then Twit would volunteer to help out with any assignment which gave him some power over his peers, like making arrangements for a seminar where members of the group and distinguished outsiders gave talks. His catchphrase then became "BigGuy and I were wondering if you could" set up the chairs, run off copies, or do whatever mundane tasks might take a little time and effort. The "wondering" was all on the part of Twit, who took all credit for any work done.He was always jovial, and a "hale fellow well met." This was one of many techniques which served Twit in good stead, to make him well-thought of by superiors and despised by peers. He was also very skilled at finding someone with hard-won technical expertise, flattering him or her, and getting the person to do all sorts of difficult work for him, saving Twit the time and effort to learn the technical/mathematical/scientific ropes, but giving him the appearance of being a real expert in multiple fields. Kissing up and using people by borrowing the efforts and expertise of others should work in a non-profit as well as in business, industry, or academia. Edison (talk) 19:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, excellent short term strategies for climbing. But do be aware that this is all dependent on the BigGuy being a bit of a twit himself. Whenever you get a change of BigGuy, and true productivity is sought, characters like your Twit can be in a lot of trouble. HiLo48 (talk) 23:28, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * What tends to happen in those circumstances is that some guy who works all night to solve problems that really were of his own making or bad planning gets the attention and promotion. The one who planned properly, looked for trouble in advance and got the job done tends to be ignored. You really do need to go to the boos and make certain they know about what you've done. In fact keeping a boss informed and not having too many crises - but just a couple to show how well you deal with them - is probably best. As for the twit in the previous spiel - he got things done, nothing wrong with that. It's hard enough to get anybody to manage properly. Dmcq (talk) 09:58, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * "Getting things done" is certainly better than sabotaging others, but the effect on morale also must be considered. If others quit because the only way to advance is to "play the game", then the long-term health of the company is in jeopardy. StuRat (talk) 18:33, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Cynical though it may be, I think that most upper level people seem to be more concerned with how the company doing well this quarter, even at the cost of long term benefit. Googlemeister (talk) 18:51, 15 August 2011 (UTC)