Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 September 19

= September 19 =

Last burial in Westminster Abbey
According to our articles Westminster Abbey, Burials and memorials in Westminster Abbey, and Cremation Society of Great Britain, the last burial (as opposed to interment of ashes) at Westminster Abbey was in 1936. However, this statement is flagged dubious-discuss and is unreferenced. Various other on-line sources of equal (viz, low) reliability state that the last burial was that of The Unknown Warrior in 1920. None of the Dukes of Northumberland, who have a private crypt in the Abbey, died in the right timeframe. Can we find a definitive reference for this - in particular, the identity of the deceased? Tevildo (talk) 13:52, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The official cathedral website says "The ashes of Rudyard Kipling, poet and writer, were buried in Poets' Corner at noon on 23 January 1936" - that's the only reference to a 1936 interment I can find on the website. Could this be the source of the confusion? 184.147.131.85 (talk) 15:50, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * P.S. Here's the page for the 1920 burial (actual burial) of the unknown soldier. Again no mention of last. 184.147.131.85 (talk) 15:52, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Ah. This page allows a search by time period. Kipling was certainly not the last to have ashes buried; for example, architect J.Peter Foster's ashes were buried on 5 December 2010. And the unknown warrior wasn't the last burial either; canon Sebastian Charles was buried in 1992. 184.147.131.85 (talk) 16:09, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the links! Appropriate changes have been made to the articles. Tevildo (talk) 19:14, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That Sebastian Charles link above points to the wrong webpage. The correct one is here. --Viennese Waltz 08:24, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

UK envelope and paper size circa 1920
I was watching some Downton Abbey and noticed that the envelopes, as well as the paper enclosed, were much smaller than the current ones. If I'm not mistaken, the "standard" envelope being used today in the UK is the DL size, being able to hold twice-folded A4 sheets. What would have been the "standard" envelope size and letter paper size during the 1920s? 731Butai (talk) 15:43, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The old Imperial paper sizes were quarto (smaller) and foolscap (larger). They went out of use in the 70s. Here is a page giving a full explanation. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:10, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! 731Butai (talk) 04:34, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

What was the worth of a Czechoslovak koruna in 1993?
Was it 1 Czechoslovak koruna = 1 Czech koruna = 1 Slovak koruna? or what was the exchange to this 2 currencies? --Hijodetenerife (talk) 19:59, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Our article at Czechoslovak koruna states it was 1:1:1. However this didn't last long, see this. Nanonic (talk) 21:36, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

is the social rot since the 60's real?
there's an annoying crowd of SJWs on youtube and other places, who say stuff like "we've come forward as a species", that the distant past (which to them is anything before Civil Rights) was slavery-sexism-H**r-no exceptions (example) and that life has become better, life has become happier. Invariably they produce Pinker's book. However, many other people, and not just right wing Christians, think there has been a marked social rot. Who is right? How could this be scientifically settled in principle? Asmrulz (talk) 21:15, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * SJW = Social justice warrior? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:22, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * yes Asmrulz (talk)
 * Define "social rot". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:02, 20 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Historiography, quality of life, and Human Development Index (particularly its "See Also" section) might be useful starting points. Tevildo (talk) 21:31, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It can't be "scientifically settled in principle". People discuss these things, as you correctly point out. I just want to note that this project frowns upon the righting of great wrongs. Bus stop (talk) 21:36, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * it frowns not enough. As to me, I hardly ever edit anything in the article space except typos. Asmrulz (talk) 21:47, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * (e/c) Yes, we're much more concerned with waging wearisome wars over comma placements and sundry other matters of monumental moment. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:52, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Social rot and the change-in-living-standards are two different things. So one can't ask Who is right? Every generation becomes aware of what 'they' view as social rot. It is a part of a continuing cycle of society. --Aspro (talk) 21:55, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The ubiquity of cellphones could be argued to be part of alleged "social rot". The thing is, every generation things they were better off during the time of their youth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) 23:13, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * So come on, let's get real. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

There was a great book I read which made a very good defense of leftism and one of the points was that America's having wage rot. Capitalism still benefited the middle class until about 1970 and after that middle-class inflation-adjusted family income flat-lined and that family has to do much more work to even get that (much fewer women worked in 1970). So 100% of economic growth has gone to the upper two or three quintiles (Europe is much better). Maybe someone remembers its name. There has been some social rot. Reality shows. Snooki and the Kardashians. Others are going away (in the US, birth, abortion and miscarriage rates of the 15-17 year old demographic have all about halved since 1990, non-viral STDs have dropped since the 60's the percent of people addicted to nicotine is declining or flat in developed countries, mass famines probably won't happen like they thought it would, the pain of slow and expensive integrated circuits is near its end). On the bad ledger, I've heard that in Walter Cronkite's day (1980s) the nightly national news was real news. Now it's like.. Diane Sawyers. I can't even watch that shit. There's almost no actual news in every program. I'm not exaggerating, it's mostly things like a 5 minute piece on one family who got laid off. And that stupid thing she does at the end of every story, she just repeats something that anyone who had at least 50% attention on the TV had already thought, not exaggerating. "Climate change, lots of disagreement." is a typical useless statement. No matter what the story was (like something that killed thousands?), she reads it correctly (unemotionally), then says the useless statement with the tone of the sweetest but overly cheery mother talking to her kids (so it seems like she's not going to read the next story for 2 seconds afterward like anyone doing that), then she loses all "emotion" milliseconds after ending and reads the next story unemotionally again with almost no pause between stories. I'm not sure if something this unscientific can ever be determined scientifically but I'd say on balance even America is improving slowly. Much slower than it could. We need a social democratic government. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:15, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Is there any way to provide references to answer this users questions? Or is this a "Bitch about modern culture" thread.  Because if we can do the former, please do so.  If it is the latter, there's a place that is appropriate for that. It's called "Everywhere else on the internet except here.  -- Jayron 32 01:27, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Prevalence_of_tobacco_consumption (dead link)
 * 
 * Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:44, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Where's the bitching? It's a factual question (to the extent that anything in humanities is factual.) SMW is being helpful Asmrulz (talk) 08:46, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Jayron32 was responding to OP, not SMW. SMW got the indentation level wrong. 731Butai (talk) 14:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * To settle "who is right" scientifically, in principle you would first have to have some consensus about what "social rot" and "coming forward" is and how you measure it. That's not likely to happen anytime soon, so I can't see how the question can be anything but an invitation to debate. Sjö (talk) 09:06, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If social "always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary" and rot "is the process by which organic substances are broken down into a much simpler form of matter" then "social rot" would refer to a type of interaction between individuals which is "sluggish". By the way it should be noted that "[t]he frequency of pneumostome closing and opening is typically less than 0.5 closures per minute in fully hydrated slugs and snails. The rate of closures per minute increases the more dehydrated the slug is." Bus stop (talk) 15:42, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

social rot is a manmade perceptional construct. one group's social rot is another's social justice — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A03:2880:3010:BFFA:FACE:B00C:0:1 (talk) 18:24, 23 September 2015 (UTC)