Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 March 9

= March 9 =

Emancipation Proclamation response
Who was it who said, after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, words to the effect that the Union was demonstrating its love for slavery by freeing slaves in its enemy's territories but keeping them in its own? And what was the exact quote? --superioridad (discusión) 04:57, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find that quote, if it indeed exists, but I did stumble across this writeup about the Emancipation Proclamation, which you may find enlightening. The Proclamation was a brilliant political stroke for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it ended any possibility of the British coming to the aid of the South. In effect, the Proclamation doomed the South to defeat. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Found it on the Emancipation Proclamation page after missing it on my first read-through. It was William H. Seward, Secretary of State, who said:


 * "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."


 * --superioridad (discusión) 04:00, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Very good. Well, so there's more than one "Seward's Folly", it seems. Lincoln knew exactly what he was doing, but he was probably smarter than his cabinet, so it should be no surprise if they didn't see what he was up to. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:24, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Shakespeare and 46
I read something yesterday that said Shakespeare (born in 1564) was believed to be around the age of 46 when the King James Bible was completed (1611), and that if you look at Psalm 46 and count to the 46th word, that 46th word is 'shake', and if you count backwards to the 46th word from the end, that 46th word is 'spear'. Now, what I want to know is, where did the E go? Nah, joking aside, I am interested in this. Is there any story about how this was supposedly found out? Is there someone who looks for numerical patterns in bibles like this, and was it done before the age of computers? --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  12:24, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You may find the answer at numerology. Curiously enough, it looks like a variant on the 23 enigma. L ANTZY T ALK 12:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'd never heard of that 23 enigma before. That's interesting. Thanks. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  12:47, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It has been suggested (but probably not by JackofOz) that Shakespeare himself was responsible for the 46th Psalm in the KJV, and that he put that "shake...spear" in as a kind of signature. --Viennese Waltz 13:21, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice to see I've become a recognised authority on who Shakespeare wasn't. Feel free to use me as a self-appointed reliable source, if you like.  :)  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  19:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I suspected that, but the King James Bible makes no mention of his possible contribution. As you say, it has only been suggested. If this is actually the case, then it would make some sense - I think this is probably why I am asking the question. Otherwise, it's just a really bizarre coincidence. I'm interested in seeing if there is any background to the story. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  14:13, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * About the spelling — his name has been spelled different ways in the last 446 years. Nyttend (talk) 13:52, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That was mentioned to me yesterday by a friend, hence my quip about the 'e'. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  14:13, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * In a time when just being able to read and write was a significant accomplishment, spelling was not a major priority. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:32, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If you count random words long enough in the collected works of Shakespeare (or the Bible for that matter), you will find that they were indeed written by a bunch of typewriting monkeys.--Saddhiyama (talk) 17:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I can't locate a better discussion of it at the moment than this rather silly King James Only movement website but it has the important points, that these words were already in previous translations of the bible in English (although slightly different positions), such as the Geneva Bible and the Great Bible, and that the words were not interpolations but accurate translations of the words in the source documents. The fact that much of the language comes from previous translations means that Shakespeare is hypothesized as being in a style editor role, drafted in to give a dry academic translation a colourful turn of phrase. This is rather akin to the US government deciding they want to update the constitution so they employ the chief write of House and Glee to finish it off, once it has gone through committee, and that writer inserting an injoke that no one on the committee notices. This dates the 46 revelation to 1900 and the theory was given a more detailed story in Rudyard Kipling's Proofs of Holy Writ.  meltBanana  19:11, 9 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The article from 1900 that apparently was the first to publish the observation is here. —Kevin Myers 19:43, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

That is fascinating - it is tied in with the Francis Bacon theory..... I knew there had to be some story behind its discovery - thanks for those links! --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  01:17, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Can anyone confirm this is true? I've only got the revised KJ here - 'shake' is the 26th word from the start, 'spear' is 41 from the end. I doubt the wording has change that much. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:58, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I can confirm it's true (for what it's worth): http://i.imgur.com/3sDvj.png Marnanel (talk) 02:36, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes - it does check out: thanks Marnanel. Coincidence? Possibly. Or a subtle hint by 'whoever wrote the Shakespeare plays'? Again, possibly. Or maybe this is all a subtle joke by the real playwright, who is writing the script for what we think of as reality: "all the world's a stage..." AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:48, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This is like the belief that there are similar hidden messages in the bible. There must be an article on this. Just coincidence - think of all the other things that do not occur. 13:01, 10 March 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.28.254.54 (talk)
 * See Bible code. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  13:52, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Statistical data for names
Frank James & Jesse James were famous in 1882. What are the statistics of one naming their new born boy after "Jesse" and "Frank" in 1882? How does that compare to the years before and the years after? I suspect there is a spike in 1882 - yes?--Doug Coldwell talk 20:20, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Names given in 1880, 1881, 1882, etc would be easily tallied by reference to the 1900 Census, which contains first names and ages. There is not real reason to require the 1890 census, except perhaps to include those males who died between 1882 or whatever and 1900. Edison (talk) 19:26, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This site doesn't go back quite far enough to really show a baseline, but it seems pretty clear that Frank certainly didn't cause any more kids to go by that name after 1880 (in fact, there's a rather precipitous decline). Jesse also suffered a serious decline that didn't reverse until the 1960s. Matt Deres (talk) 21:18, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand... I am surprised that the fame of the more recent Jesse James didn't cause a spike. Blueboar (talk) 22:26, 9 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The next U.S. census would have been 1890, and the form shown with the article does call for the names of persons living in the house. However, the article notes that most of the records were lost in a 1921 fire, so they're not likely included in the baby-name database. I also wonder whether Jesse James's fame might be greater in retrospect than at the time. As for the contemporary Jesse James, it's possible to see him as a celebrity (famous for being famous) whose notoriety will eventually be on a par with, say, Kato Kaelin or Arnold Zenker. --- OtherDave (talk) 01:02, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't you usually use birth records rather than census records for compiling baby-name statistics? --Tango (talk) 13:00, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with above question, as my great grandfather's given name at birth was "George Washington" - but was changed a year later to "John Jr" as his father's name was John. The "George Washington" name apparently didn't work out. All censes records show for him as being "John Jr" - not his name at birth.--Doug Coldwell talk 14:45, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The US Social Security website has a baby name tracker that goes back to 1880. You can type in any name and how many years you want to go back and it will show you how its popularity has changed over time. (Sorry, I don't know how to put a link in here, but I just googled "social security popular baby names" and it was the first result.) The history tracker is in the bottom right corner of the website. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 17:48, 12 March 2011 (UTC)