Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 May 24

= May 24 =

Price of a bottle of Coca-Cola in ~1916

 * From talk page. Tevildo (talk) 08:16, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

I can find that the first glasses - end of 19th century - were sold for 5 Cents. How much did a bottle of Coca-Cola cost (about) around 1916? Can a reference be found? Duden Dude (talk) 07:49, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * This advertisement is labelled as from 1916, and the price is five cents. 184.147.127.106 (talk) 10:21, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Or about $1.10 in today's money. &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  11:37, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * So quite a bit more expensive, considering $1.10 will buy you a 2 liter bottle now. That's about 10 times as much.  This is one reason for obesity, that junk food is now much cheaper and more available. StuRat (talk) 01:18, 25 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, taking the coca leaves out probably didn't help much with the weight either. I suspect a bottle of the Real Thing would be fairly expensive today. Wnt (talk) 17:22, 25 May 2016 (UTC)


 * According to this economics paper, the price of a 6½ fl.oz. bottom of Coca-Cola remained at 5¢ for more than 70 years—1886 to 1959—despite the multiple economic upheavals over the period. In the 1950s when it became clear that this could not last much longer, the Coca-Cola company even tried asking for a 7½¢ US coin to be introduced so that they could raise the price and customers would still be able to pay conveniently with a single coin! Oh, and look, Wikipedia has an article on the subject too. --69.159.60.83 (talk) 19:22, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow! Alansplodge (talk) 08:19, 25 May 2016 (UTC)


 * When Coke was feeling the pain of selling its 6.5 ounce bottle for only 5 cents in the 1940's and 1950's. Pepsi provided 12 ounces for the same price. Inflation in general and especially rising sugar prices forced the end of the nickel Coke. Retailers in some cities such as New York were charging more than 5 cents by 1950. There was nothing to stop a merchant from keeping their old Coca Cola machine stocked with 6.5 ounce bottles for a nickel for a few years after there was little or no profit in it so the very last nickel Coke was likely sold to a consumer years after the official 1959 date. I know of a car dealer who kept such a machine well into the 1960's for instance. Edison (talk) 21:46, 25 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Their original market strategy of providing small quantities of soft drinks as luxury items may ultimately be more successful than their current strategy of providing it as a dirt cheap beverage, especially considering that to get there they had to switch from sugar to corn syrup, which doesn't taste as good, and go from glass bottles to plastic, which allows the pop to go flat and absorb chemicals from the plastic (including the plastic-lined cans), both of which degrade the taste further. And the large quantities consumed led to obesity, diabetes, and other health problems.  As a result, I no longer buy soft drinks, and the same is true for many others. StuRat (talk) 22:02, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * That's quite a few decades of lucrative failure they have going there. If only we could all make such a living failing. Wnt (talk) 16:46, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Benjamin Jowett's translation[s] of Plato
I have found the same passage from Timaeus translated differently but Benjamin Jowett cited as the translator:


 * This article cites “Jowett, Benjamin (1892). The dialogues of Plato. Vol. II” and says Then listen, Socrates, to a strange tale which is, however certainly true, as Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages, declared. He was a relative and a great friend of my great-grandfather, Dropidas, as he himself says in several of his poems; and Dropidas told Critias, my grandfather, who remembered and told us
 * The Project Gutenberg edition says “Translated by Benjamin Jowett” but the passage now is Listen then, Socrates, to a tale of Solon's, who, being the friend of Dropidas my great-grandfather, told it to my grandfather Critias, and he told me.
 * This source, again, says “Translated by Benjamin Jowett” but the passage, again, is different: Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend of my great-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many passages of his poems; and he told the story to Critias, my grandfather, who remembered and repeated it to us.

Did Jowett translate Plato over and over?--The Traditionalist (talk) 13:53, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * For the Project Gutenberg document, the passage you quote ("Listen then, Socrates") is from Jowett's introduction (near the beginning) - the "Then listen, Socrates ... dear friend of my great-grandfather" version occurs in the actual translated text (about half-way down the page). The "great friend" version only appears in our article and various works that quote Jowett - all the available on-line copies of Jowett's book that I can find quickly have "dear friend".  It might be worth updating our article with the "dear friend" version from Project Gutenberg. Tevildo (talk) 20:36, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Blimey! I used Ctrl+F and wrote "Dropidas", which only appears in the introduction, while the actual text, below, says "Dropides". --The Traditionalist (talk) 22:02, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Paul Stahl (soldier)
Hello. Does somebody know which biographical data is right in the aforementioned article?--Hubon (talk) 17:57, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The article was created 4 years ago, and the discrepancy was there immediately. The creator,, is still active, so you could ask him. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:06, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Scenario
Groups of people know you are good, some support[ed] you, and some went against the rules and regulations. The latter however trying their best to manipulate all that’s involved. Some trust you, some are getting manipulated. You, yourself, don’t give a damn, well not anymore; because you are sick and tired of correcting things, especially what involves you. What are the chances for the good people still getting manipulated, those who know that you’ll only be good to good people and bad to bad people…? -- Apostle (talk) 19:27, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This question is entirely outside the bounds of what we can provide references for. You're going to have to seek another source of advice.-- Jayron 32 19:57, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, we really can't help you with this issue here. You might try at a general discussion forum, perhaps /r/AskReddit, or maybe /r/Relationships, . They can address "issues with family, friends, or coworkers". SemanticMantis (talk) 21:19, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Sowi peeps -- Apostle (talk) 04:45, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Oxford University reforms 1854
While looking for an article to link to and thereby elucidate a point in another article I ran across these two articles - University Reform Act 1854 and Oxford University Act 1854. I rather suspect that they are in fact about the same act but am not sure. Can anyone help sort this out? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 22:50, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The act in question is 17 & 18 Vict C81, and its short title is "Oxford University Act". According to this site, there were five acts of parliament relating to education passed in that year, but none of the others relate to universities, and there are no acts (on the official website, at least) from any year with a short title of "University Reform Act".  I agree that a merge is appropriate. Tevildo (talk) 23:29, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm not going to be able to do much about it for a couple of weeks, so if anyone would like to take it on that would e great! DuncanHill (talk) 20:41, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Appropriate tags have been added to the articles. WP:MERGECLOSE is rather contradictory about the minimum time required before the merge is actioned (it says both "a week or more" and "30 days"), but I'm sure it won't be controversial. Tevildo (talk) 21:11, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Some kind of history merge or attribution will be needed to move info over from the wrongly-titled version. DuncanHill (talk) 22:32, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I've merged them: URA edit, OUA edit. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:45, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Leigh Hunt's speech impediment
Do we know the nature of Leigh Hunt's speech impediment? DuncanHill (talk) 23:49, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Stammering and stuttering are mentioned, for example "(...) I hesitated in my speech. I did not stammer half so badly as I used; and it is very seldom that I halt at a syllable now (...)" / "The worse my stammering, the worse the ill-treatment" (found e.g. in Benson Bobrick, Knotted Tongues: Stuttering in History and the Quest for a Cure, Simon and Schuster, 2011, ISBN 9781451628562) ---Sluzzelin talk  00:39, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 20:42, 25 May 2016 (UTC)