Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 September 12

= September 12 =

Is there an English term for books that are required reading in school?
Required reading redirects to syllabus. obligatory reading is a read link. I wonder how to translate the Polish term pl:lektura szkolna which is roughly defined as a reading material, usually a book or short story/poem/etc. that is government-mandated reading for all students in schools (elementary to high school). I do think that the concept is more global, not just Polish. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 05:59, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Required reading shouldn't redirect to syllabus. Muffled Pocketed  06:04, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * "Set text" is the term in UK English - see, for example, this BBC article. There doesn't appear to be a Wikipedia article on the subject at the moment. Tevildo (talk) 06:57, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * So would set text be a good article, with required reading redirecting there? Is this the term used in American schools? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:46, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In many countries required reading / set texts are prescribed by the syllabus, so I think the redirect is not unreasonable.
 * In New South Wales, Australia the syllabus for lower years would set out "suggested texts", and for higher years (where schools have less freedom to vary the curriculum) the texts are referred to as "prescribed texts". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * While the rationale for the redirect is understandable, I don't think it's actually a useful (or even harmless) redirect given the current state of the syllabus article. Say someone links required reading from some other article.  A reader who suspects that it might be a technical term of some sort clicks on the link &mdash; and is none the wiser; even searching with Ctrl-F, you don't find anything at the target page.
 * I suppose that could be fixed by adding text at the syllabus page, but that strikes me as a somewhat forced solution. My question would be, why should required reading come up blue in the first place?  It doesn't strike me as an incredibly likely search term, and it's probably overlinking wherever it's linked.  Maybe it should come up red. --Trovatore (talk) 15:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm with you here. The two words together "required reading" are NOT idiomatically defined.  They can be understood by the plain definition of each word in turn "required = hafta do it" and "reading = something printed you need to look at and absorb"  Thus "required reading = something you hafta read".  That does not require an article to explain the concept.  -- Jayron 32 16:47, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * What is not immediately obvious from the simple juxtaposition of those two words is who does the requiring, where on the face of the planet do you find this sort of stuff, and what kinds of books are required reading in various places at various levels. The Polish WP wouldn't have an article if there was nothing more to the concept than two words. Basemetal  17:41, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If a person told you you were required to read something, you'd understand exactly what they meant by the context in which they were telling you. If I were in a literature class at a university, and they told me I had a list of books that was "required reading", and I needed to search Wikipedia for what "required reading" meant, I've got some serious issues... -- Jayron 32 18:08, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I've never heard anything other than "required reading list" used here in the States. If the context is understood by both parties, then it can be shortened to "book list" at times. † Dismas †|(talk) 15:10, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if it's useful, but see this Humanities Refdesk discussion from a few months ago about required reading / set texts in secondary education. Alansplodge (talk) 17:19, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In many classes, the set of required texts is often a subset of the Western canon. -- Jayron 32 18:10, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't know if it's the same in other countries, but in Australia the syllabus has gone all post modern - for example, this prescribed English text list includes Dickens and Shakespeare but it also includes a lot that wouldn't normally be considered "canon", such as contemporary films and performance poetry, the Smithsonian's website on September 11 and even Wikipedia itself. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:34, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It is the same everywhere. Teachers may assign any reading assignment they wish which meets the requirements of the class in question.  Traditionally, in Western literature classes, this usually included works from the Western canon.  -- Jayron 32 01:32, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Core curriculum comes close.--Wikimedes (talk) 04:57, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If the phrase actually implies a specific government, e.g. the Polish government, then it would seem necessary to specify that government in the translation; hence "on the required reading list set by the Polish government," or "government-mandated reading list item" or something. It is inelegant, though I imagine you can do better in context, but there is no short phrase that would let people know this was a Polish-specific term.  Or you could leave it untranslated in italics, and parenthetically explain what it means in the first usage; this might be better.  There is not going to be any universal concept for the term that is independent of which government, because government structures and mores differ.  For example, in the U.S. there would be very strong opposition to a national mandated reading list because of large cultural differences between regions.  Any phrase you could think of would also have to distinguish between federal, state, city, and school districts as the relevant authority, and these probably don't exactly translate to Polish ideas. Wnt (talk) 13:54, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Ode a la Fortune
Hi, can anyone find an English translation of Rousseau's 'Ode a la Fortune' - I can't even find a French edition. Thanks, 210.246.24.202 (talk) 12:29, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * For the French, this was the first google hit (how long did you search for?). No luck with the English so far. --Viennese Waltz 12:49, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * According to This review, there was an English translation by John Quincy Adams. That should help you with your search.  Also, in case anyone gets confused (because I did), this is Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, the poet, not the political philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau.  -- Jayron 32 13:19, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Glad you clarified that. For a moment, I thought Jean Rousseau was a Jacques of all trades. StuRat (talk) 13:54, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Et une bada-boom á toi :D 14:08, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * At the end of this article, Adams' translation is recorded: .  Uhlan  talk  03:51, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Help, please (Westroads Mall shooting)
Hi, I'm doing research into the Westroads Mall shooting. I'd like to know the citizenships of the shooter and his stepmother. His biological parents, I know are Americans. But need clarify on the shooter because he was born in an Air Force base and his stepmother. Is there anyway to find it out?. And if so, what are the source so I can put it up as well. Thank you. --LLcentury (talk) 20:00, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * If his biological parents were Americans, he was an American, see Birthright citizenship in the United States "Under United States law, U.S. citizenship is automatically granted to any person born within and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. This includes the territories of Puerto Rico, the Marianas (Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and also applies to children born elsewhere in the world to U.S. citizens (with certain exceptions)." (bold mine). If his parents were citizens, and he was born on a U.S. military installation, he is unambiguously a U.S. citizen.  I'm afraid I cannot find any information about where his stepmother was born, or who her parents were.  If you can figure that out, you can determine her citizenship.  -- Jayron 32 01:30, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I added to the title to make it actually useful. StuRat (talk) 14:28, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

What was the last state without a popular vote for president?
I realize the franchise might've been very restricted at first but the previous method was even less democratic.

Did a state ever have anything intermediate like a nonbinding popular vote for the electoral college to consider or a vetoable/partially binding popular vote? (i.e. the public only chooses x% of the electors or the popular voters get more electors or one or more veto powers if their choice wins like a boss?)

What was the first state with a popular vote? (of whatever limited level of franchise). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:33, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Check out the article: Electoral_College_(United_States).  South Carolina was the last to switch to popular vote, in 1864.   RudolfRed (talk) 22:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * 1868, actually. They were still in rebellion in 1864. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:00, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, the last state to assign electors by appointment rather than a popular vote was Colorado in 1876. The article explains how that came to be.  The first state to use the popular vote to assign electors was a tie between Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia who have ALL always used the popular vote to assign electors, since 1789.  Also explained in that article.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 01:24, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There are at least 9 sovereign states with electoral colleges and presidents, with widely varying histories and rules (not to mention various sub-national entities). Which country are you interested in? The responses above assume the US, is this correct? Fgf10 (talk) 08:16, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In international law, "state" usually means country, so OP could also be asking about all the many countries in the world that have indirect elections for presidents (e.g. China), rather than just states in federations with electoral colleges. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:15, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * For several reasons (current news, percentage of US-American editors on en.wikipedia, the fact that the OP (who has edited since) hasn't corrected any assumption of the question being about the US) I believe Rudolf, Bugs, and Jayron's intuition was right. ---Sluzzelin talk  10:10, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I concur, principally because there are many countries whose presidents are not elected by popular vote at all. 81.151.129.234 (talk) 10:46, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The United States presidency isn't decided by a popular vote either. Hack (talk) 09:28, 14 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The states are though. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:05, 14 September 2016 (UTC)