Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 February 24

= February 24 =

Anne Hathaway
Why is she Anne Hathaway, and not Anne Shakespeare? Was it just not the custom in England at the time, i.e. did women typically keep their maiden names instead of changing them upon marriage? Nyttend (talk) 04:16, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * According to Wikipedia policies, the article title is because that's how she's most commonly referred to nowadays (regardless of how she was most commonly referred to at the time)... AnonMoos (talk) 11:58, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * As to why "Anne Hathaway" instead of "Anne Shakespeare" is the most common name used today: I can only speculate, but it may be because, as the lead section of the article says, "her personality and relationship to Shakespeare have been the subject of much speculation by historians and creative writers". They married when she was 26 years old and he was only 18, which was a large age difference at the time, as well as the then-very rare scenario of a man marrying an older woman. Various scholars suggest that it was basically a shotgun wedding primarily because he got her pregnant. The issue is compounded by Shakespeare's so-called "lost years", where there is a period of absolutely no historical record of him for several years until he suddenly shows up as part of the London theatrical scene. And during those years while he was in London, the couple was basically separated, with her still living in Stratford. Finally, it's how she is mentioned in Shakespeare's will, where he famously bequests his "second-best bed with the furniture" to her. With all these questions surrounding her and their marriage, I think scholars find it more convenient to use "Anne Hathaway" basically as a signal that these unconfirmed facts do exist. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:43, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Missing article in Wikipedia
I think an article on Massacres against Turks (and/or) Muslims during the final years of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans is a seriously missing article in WP. Almost all articles considering "massacres" or bad treatment of other ethnicities in the Empire deal with massacres realised by Turks (or moslems in general). Please simply write "Ottoman Empire massacre" in the search button and see the result. This situation does not comply with WP's impartiality and objectivity. In the Turkish WP there is a quite good article on this issue. (I am not sure if I could add the link correctly so I repeat it as an external link. This article has many English sources as you may see in its Reference section. (This fact makes me even more surprised about the lack of it here.) If such an article may be initiated by an experienced user, I will try to do my best to contribute to it. Best regards and many thanks. --212.174.190.23 (talk) 10:11, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Please add your request here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Social_sciences/History . Google translate was not enough for me even to make a safe guess even at the title for the article. I was not even sure why the word "muslim" was in the title, since the article mentioned Armenians. I was not sure whether it was just a list of massacres in Turkey, and whether these were mentioned separately in other articles in wikipedia. I recommend also that you start a wikipedia account. If you do start a wikipedia account and you decide to translate it for yourself, and still get no help here, then contact me, and I shall try to help out. DanielDemaret (talk) 11:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * If the article is just a list, and each event has an article in other parts of wikipedia, you might try to make a short article that mainly points to all the other articles. DanielDemaret (talk) 11:49, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I followed your advice. (You deserve the Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar that I saw on your page. :-) I kind of changed the name of the proposed article to be able to make a time-frame with an existing article, Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. To be able to respond to your kindness, I am always at your disposal for simple translations from Turkish. Regards. --212.174.190.23 (talk) 12:50, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That is very kind of you :) I added a link to the wikipedia article in turkish to your addition to your title in the hope that it might help them there a little. DanielDemaret (talk) 13:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I have just started, as you requested, the article: Massacres_against_Turks_in_the_Balkans_during_the_Dissolution_of_the_Ottoman_Empire This stub has been created because of your request and with the assumption that you will be build on if started, as you wrote that you would. I am starting the article assuming that this will happen. If not, it will just have to be deleted. I can not understand enough og the turkish original article to build on it, but I will help in formatting future references, and answering questions. Just put your questions in the talk page of the article. DanielDemaret (talk) 01:55, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much again. --212.174.190.23 (talk) 08:00, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Can one call oneself "Right Reverend Father" whilst defrocked and excommunicated?
Can anyone have the title "The Right Reverend Father" being defrocked and excommunicated? ( I dare not give any examples. The previous time I put the question, I gave an example. Someone deleted the question, since they themselves objected to some of the views of that person on sexuality in the linked reference I gave, and assumed incorrectly that I also objected to his views, and was criticizing that persons views. The given cause was BLP violation. ) DanielDemaret (talk) 10:20, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * What often happens is these people start their own "church" where they are free to call themselves what they like. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:47, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, the rules of the church that did the defrocking would no doubt prohibit such actions by its members, but if the defrocked person is happy to ignore those rules, I doubt if any country would prevent a person doing it. HiLo48 (talk) 10:50, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The only caveat would be if it was used in a way considered fraudulently, for example if he was paid to carry out a funeral service on the basis that those paying believed that he was still a priest of his ex church. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:59, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * (ec)I'm quite sure that some countries might enforce such rules. The US is, for once in a positive sense, an outlier in the degree of church-state separation. I can very well imagine (though I know of no positive example) that states with an established church (like England, or, for that matter, the Vatican) or a very strong historical bond between church and state (like Italy or Spain) will act more strictly in the interest of the church. And if one uses the titles to give the wrong impression of having a position in a particular church, one is well into fraud territory. I suspect if you claim to be a Roman Catholic priest collecting money on behalf of poor children in Ethiopia, but you are really an acolyte of the Flying Spagetti Monster, you will be prosecuted even in the US, and even if you really collect money for poor children in Ethiopia. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The Church of England is established in England by law, and nearly half of the population make some use of its services at some point in their lives (this includes many who belong to other churches; only 2% attend the CofE regularly), but it has only an advisory role in general law making and could not prohibit any use of titles. The title "Right Reverend Father" would be rare in the CofE.  It might be occasionally used in the Roman Catholic Church, but would more likely be used by an Eastern Orthodox Church with Russian rather than Greek practice.    D b f i r s   12:44, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * (ec) Here was a famous case in France of a person pretending to be a Catholic priest (articles are in French) and . Short story: he was arrested and sentenced for fraud, and spent 8 years in jail. He's been living off selling his story through conferences and television appearances since. --Xuxl (talk) 12:46, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Right Reverend tells me it would be used with "Father" in very limited cases indeed. Mostly, it would apply to a bishop.  Any religious person who introduces himself with any honorifics at all other than Father, Bishop etc, would be a little suspect anyway.  It would be like meeting the Pope on one of his evening strolls around Rome, and he said "Hello, I am His Holiness the Pope. Pleased to meet you".  These forms are generally used when addressing such a person, but rarely by the person themself.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:59, 24 February 2014 (UTC)  If only because it actually wouldn't be His Holiness or Your Holiness but My/Our Holiness.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  06:21, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

is it okay to eat cheese with white hairy mold in it internally
way hairier than the picture. it's mold. however, it is "bresse bleu" cheese, bought last day of expiration and on 50% off - I'm thinking possibly due to poor storage? It looks like this: http://www.ambafrance-bd.org/IMG/jpg/Bleu_de_Bresse_250_grammes.jpg but with MUCH hairier mold - in splotches on the inside. Do I just eat those parts? --91.120.14.30 (talk) 14:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * No guarantees, but the cheese in the image looks perfectly fine to me. In general, the white mold is Penicillium camemberti (or a similar species). It's part of what makes the cheese so good, and is usually consumed. I life close to the French border, and I swear that cheese that has expired in Germany is shipped over the Rhine to France and sold as "not quite ripe" with another 4 weeks on the "best before" date.  --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:19, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Cheese doesn't go off, it just becomes a different type of cheese MChesterMC (talk) 09:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Here are the USDA's food safety guidelines on mold and cheese (scroll down a bit to see the chart) . SemanticMantis (talk) 15:55, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * We learn something every day: I've always supposed that one of the cheeses sought by Mr Mousebender was Brest Bleu. —Tamfang (talk) 23:36, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * To be clear, since nobody has pulled it out yet, the important line in 's link is: "Discard soft cheeses such as Brie and Camembert if they contain molds that are not a part of the manufacturing process." The question is whether that hairy mold is part of the manufacturing process. I don't think we should be so quick to say "it's cheese who cares." If it doesn't look like the same kind of mold, I'd err on the side of caution. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  19:48, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

71 sects of judaism, 72 sects of christianity and 73 sects of islam
Prophet Muhammad PBUH said that christianity will be divided into 71 sects, judaism will be divided into 72 sects and islam will be divided into 73 sects. Who are these sects in christianity, judaism and islam? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.151.61 (talk) 15:55, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Its just fictional. There are many more sects of christianity, I don't know about the others. -- Q Chris (talk) 16:34, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The hadith apparently says there are already (in Muhammad's day) all these sects in Judaism and Christianity, and there will be, in the future, 73 sects of Islam. Since the definition of a "sect" is fluid, and our knowledge of the various factions in existence at the time is sketchy, the statement is unprovable and unfalsifiable. Also, he offers no information about when in the then-future the 73 sects of Islam will emerge. Paul B (talk) 16:46, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That sounds more like a metaphor than an actual count. Even now, aren't there pretty much just two main sects of Islam? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Not really. That's a MASSIVE oversimplification.  Just as broadly you can divide Christianity into three main "groups of sects" being Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant, you can very broadly divide Islam into the two main camps of Sunni Islam and Shia Islam.  However, just as those big groupings in Christianity both a) encompass a lot of smaller sects within them b) fail to completely capture every sect and c) even among sets that fit into the three, some straddle the line between multiple sects.  For example, Syriac Christianity split off from the line that gave us Orthodox and Catholic traditions; they are outside of the tripartite division noted above.  Also, it becomes problematic fitting Anglicanism into the three divisions, because they really straddle the line between Catholicism and Protestantism.  There are also post-Protestant Christian churches such as Mormonism that also don't fit neatly into the schema.  Likewise, among Muslims, you will find that there are many different "Sects" within both Sunni and Shia traditions, some that lie outside of both of those, and some that defy categorization well.  Islam is no less complex that Christianity is.  Any religion approaching in excess of a billion adherents (as both Christianity and Islam do) are likely to have a WIDE diversity of theological traditions within them.  -- Jayron  32  17:19, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * And, by an amazing coincidence, each sect thinks it's the right one. :) The OP's question was about the numbers 71, 72, 73. Is there a metaphor in Arabic that makes those numbers symbolically significant as opposed to being taken literally? Like for example the famous "70 virgins" or whatever. It sounds like "70" might just stand for "many", so those other numbers could mean like "many plus 1 or more". That kind of thing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:14, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, See the religion section of 70 (number). It has long had significance in Judaism, and derived faiths. I guess the meaning is that Judaism has split into 70 + 1 (with the 1 standing for the "authentic" version). Christianity is itself a split from Judaism, so we get a new set of "70 + 1" + 1; and then Islam splits from that again (but also restores the "purity" of revelation), but is also destined to break into factions with one "true" version, which the Hadith says will be the only one to escape hellfire. Sadly, he doesn't say which it is, but of course, as with Christianity, we all know it's the one you're in. Paul B (talk) 18:50, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * And if you can't be in the sect you love, honey, love the sect you're in. —Tamfang (talk) 23:33, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, it sounds like this has to do with numerology. The number of names in Gen 10 was counted as 70 in the Hebrew Bible, but 72 in the Greek Bible (it has the additional names Elisha and Cainan added to the genealogy) and throughout the Mediaeval period, Jews taught that there were 70 languages after Babel, while Christians taught 72 (despite having adopted the Hebrew Bible over the Greek in the 4th century). I didn't know about this hadith, but it is interesting. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 17:16, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * By one count, there are 41,000 denominations of Christianity today (see list of Christian denominations). Of course, by adjusting your definition of a denomination, you could probably reduce that number to 72.  That doesn't mean Muhammad was correct; it just means his prediction is meaningless and unfalsifiable.  --140.180.249.224 (talk) 18:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Given Paul's explanation above, it's not necessarily literally 70. In the context of the point Muhammad was trying to make, he was "correct", or maybe I should say "not incorrect". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

For Judaism, while the idea of 70-odd "sects" at any time in history seems fanciful, if you interpret the hadith as Mohammad saying that there's a plurality of opinions about how to be a Jew, it's as true now as it was in his days. The famous adage is "one Jew, two opinions". The longer variant of the joke is about the Jewish man washed up on a desert island. When he's rescued years later, he proudly shows the captain of the ship all the things he's built on the island, including two synagogues. Why two synagogues? "That's the one I pray in, and that's the one I wouldn't step foot in". --149.254.56.7 (talk) 17:00, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem with that interpretation is that there have always been more than 351⁄2 Jews... הסרפד  (call me Hasirpad) 19:21, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You seem to have missed 149's first sentence. It's right there, before the second sentence. --Dweller (talk) 15:58, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Eponymous law regarding failure of business following building an expensive corporate headquarters
I seem to recall an eponymous "law", somewhat along the lines of "Parkinson's Law", suggesting that when a leading business spent a massive amount of money building a shiny new HQ then their corporate star was due for a steep decline. A sort of "pride comes before a fall" thing, but specifically related to fancy HQs. Any idea whose "law" it is? ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 17:28, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Looks like it is actually Parkinson again - same,guy, different law. Here's a reference to the "law", and this seems to be the quote that inspired it. -  Ka renjc (talk) 18:34, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Parkinson did not express it in such terms; his thesis was that perfection means death - thus, once the perfect, optimal, layout of a factory or office has been achieved, the organisation is unknowingly already dead on its feet because it is no longer growing. Chaos in proceedures is indicative of vitality and growth.


 * This law is frequently abbreviated to the concept that before each organisation dies, it erects a mausoleum to itself, although that is not what Parkinson actually wrote. When I did my MBA, many moons ago, that was how the law was expressed and, once that was finished, I went to work at Lloyd's of London, whose grandiose and absurd building, put up at 10 times its initial estimate, was subsequently sold off at a fraction of that price and exemplified this variant of the law.


 * Parkinson's Laws are well worth reading; they used to be available in a short Penguin paperback. The other one that sticks in the mind was how the number of admirals in the Royal Navy was inversely proportional to the number of ships. 86.181.15.48 (talk) 08:04, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I do vaguely remember reading at least some of this book in my teens - I think my grandfather may have had it. I have been inspired to track down a copy for myself on the back of this question, even if only for Parkinson's point about the length of time spent on an item on the agenda being inversely proportional to the sum of money at issue.  There is at least one organisation I'm involved with where I want that framed and mounted on the wall, writ large,  before the next meeting.  -  Ka renjc (talk) 14:03, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * In that case, you should look at this letter from the Duke of Wellington. At the Cavalry Club (which I used to be a member of, until they hiked the subscriptions), they used to have a portrait of the great man, with a framed copy of this letter next to it.


 * There are other various tricks to hold short meetings: (1) hold them with people standing, not sitting; and, (2) prepare an agenda and drive it forward, ruthlessly crushing any divergence. Mintzberg tells us that the chap who writes up the minutes is the most important person in any meeting because he produces the written record. This, I suppose, is why, if you go to any meeting with lawyers, they all start taking their own minutes. 86.181.15.48 (talk) 17:50, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Karenjc -- "the length of time spent on an item on the agenda being inversely proportional to the sum of money at issue" is also known as the Color of the bikeshed problem... AnonMoos (talk) 00:35, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * See also WP:BIKESHED. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:10, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That page had evaded me until now. Thank you.  I take the point about ANI  :-) -  Ka renjc (talk) 22:41, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm tempted to see if it's quoted by Stewart Brand in How Buildings Learn. —Tamfang (talk) 23:30, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Martha Washington College
I am confused about something. Wikipedia's article on Edith Wilson says she attended “Martha Washington College (a precursor of Emory and Henry College)” but the article Emory and Henry College says nothing at all about Martha Washington College. Meanwhile, the article Martha Washington Inn mentions that the building used to be Martha Washington College, but says nothing about Emory and Henry College. Mathew5000 (talk) 22:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * "Precursor" is probably a bit misleading, as E&HC predated it. Martha Washington explains that it was effectively merged into E&HC in 1918, and absorbed completely in 1931. The cite is to a now-defunct page on the E&HC site. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:39, 24 February 2014 (UTC)