Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 May 1

= May 1 =

Which All Hallows was Knox offered?
Our article on John Knox says "On 2 February 1553 Cranmer was ordered to appoint Knox as vicar of Allhallows Church in London placing him under the authority of the Bishop of London, Nicholas Ridley. Knox returned to London in order to deliver a sermon before the King and the Court during Lent and he again refused to take the assigned post." Do we know which All Hallows church he was offered? DuncanHill (talk) 00:47, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Various biographies of Knox in Google Books say it is All Hallows, Bread Street (which is not listed in our All Hallows page!). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:05, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I've added it to that page. A lot of All Hallowses aren't listed there either. Could be a fun project for someone! DuncanHill (talk) 01:50, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I've added a few more. Alansplodge (talk) 08:32, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Social etiquette of coffee request
People often ask, "would you like a cup of coffee?" I've observed that in movies and TV shows, I often see that the answer is "yes". However, I am not sure whether the answerer says "yes" because he/she likes coffee or because it is only polite to say yes to an offer of hospitality. What happens if the answerer really hates coffee or is just not a coffee drinker? Does the answerer then say "no" as a reply to the question or say "yes" because of politeness? In other words, is offering a cup of coffee an act of hospitality and that refusal is not polite, or is this question asking whether the answerer would like a literal cup of coffee and the answerer is free to decline the offer because s/he hates coffee? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 03:50, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Assuming you're speaking about America (since it's a place that's featured on television in America and is not serving tea), "I'm fine, thanks" or "thanks but no" usually works. If you need to be a bit more formal, replacing "thanks" with the full "thank you," or even saying "I appreciate the offer but no, thank you" would be the way to go.  If you are on good terms, following that by asking "may I have some water, though?" (assuming you are thirsty) should not cause a problem.  The question is an act of hospitality but one that the guest is under no obligation to accept.
 * In some other cultures (Lebanon came up on a cursory search), there's the possibility that saying no might be insulting the host. Some of them, you need to politely turn down the offer once or twice to show that you're not greedy but still accept it on the second or third time to not insult the host.  Ian.thomson (talk) 04:15, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Looking a bit more, I see that many Arab cultures (I suspect most of the Middle East) consider it an insult not to accept hospitality, such that one Muslim theologian said that accepting hospitality was more important] than fasting. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:37, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I'd love a cup of coffee, but rather than coffee, could I have tomato juice ? And rather than adding sugar, could you add a celery stick ?  And rather than cream, could you please add vodka ? StuRat (talk) 04:48, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Irish coffee. Hold the coffee. 04:51, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * On TV shows it's merely a conventionalism, maybe to make it look more "real" - and also to give them something to do while they're reciting the script. If you don't want coffee, you can say "No, thank you" and if you'd rather have something else, ask if they have soda or water or whatever. In the real world, they're trying to make you feel comfortable. Go with it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) 04:56, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Not really an answer; but I rarely drink coffee, but I still talk of "going to coffee with somebody" or "having somebody round for coffee", even though I will almost certainly drink tea. I think that's mainly because of the hangover of "tea" as the name of a meal in England, so "have somebody round for tea" would be ambiguous. --ColinFine (talk) 17:35, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * There are many ways around this. As a non-coffee-drinker, I avoid the situation by generally being an asshole and thus obviate the need for dealing with the question. As a bit of a side-note, asking someone to 'come up for a coffee' is sometimes used as a polite euphemism for initiating intimacy. As seen in The Big Bang Theory and more clearly in Luke Cage. Similar to requesting 'a nightcap'. Matt Deres (talk) 23:49, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Here are some sources that may help you research this topic, from different cultures around the world: Croatia, India, Gulf States, Iraq, Ireland, During a job interview, an etiquette book from the 1990s. That should give you a good start.  -- Jayron 32 13:14, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

U.S. General Aviation flight hours
There's been a pretty sharp decline in General Aviation flight hours since the recession started. Where can I find the 2015 and 2016 data? I like to see whether the trend continued or not. ECS LIVA Z (talk) 05:56, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I do not know whether or not those are figures affected by other factors as inheriting from system evolution: "The annual load factor declined from 2015 (83.8) to 2016 (83.4) because system capacity grew faster (3.9 percent increase in ASMs) than the growth in passenger travel (3.5 percent increase in RPMs)" . Regarding safety the records are encouraging at any rate . --Askedonty (talk) 15:18, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh I see my answer is not at all accurate, the data and the quote being about regular and scheduled airlines. Well the second article, at flyingmag.com, is suggesting the trend seems to be stable for 2015 regarding general aviation. From that article could be infered that even for 2015 precise data might be not available. Some data from the FAA is however available, it's here for year 2015, (none available for 2016). --Askedonty (talk) 20:31, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Hiding inside animal carcasses
I was fascinated by the recent question about the Saxon lord Childe sacrificing his horse in a vain attempt to save his own life. Han Solo had more luck rescuing Luke Skywalker with the carcass of a tauntaun. TV Tropes has a page on Carcass Sleeping Bag; unsurprisingly, it doesn't mention the folklore of Devon, but it does offer one historic example: the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Is this true? TV Tropes doesn't mention the scene in The Revenant in which Leo DiCaprio's character makes a similar choice; given that the film was loosely based on the survival of Hugh Glass, did it take the idea from The Empire Strikes Back (as suggested by this critic) or the real-life mountain man? Saving yourself with the carcass of an animal sounds like something the Spartans would have approved of, or Roman legionnaires. Are there verifiable historic examples of people who were put in the position of saying "And I thought they smelled bad...on the outside"? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 13:37, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * First, are you aware that, for much of humanity's prehistory, clothes were made of animal skins only? It must have smelled pretty bad each time, as the smell of a tannery tells us. --Lgriot (talk) 13:57, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed, in the not that distant past, it was a staple of the great retreats from Moscow (1812) and Kabul thirty years later. &mdash;  O Fortuna   semper crescis, aut decrescis  14:02, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Isn't the internet a wonderful thing? I found crawlinginsideanimalstosurvive.blogspot which tells the story of Reverend Joseph Goiffon, who was sent on a journey from Pembina, North Dakota to Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1860. On the return journey, his party was delayed at Grand Forks and he decided to press on alone, but was caught in a snowstorm. When his horse died, he cut open the carcass and crawled inside. "When Father Goiffon was found he was still alive but one leg was badly frozen". This seems to be the only true story on the blog, but it does include a video of Bear Grylls climbing inside a dead camel. Alansplodge (talk) 14:25, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Isn't the internet rubbish? This more detailed account of Fr Goiffon's adventure says that he cut bits off his dead horse to eat, but was found next to the carcass, not inside. Alansplodge (talk) 14:33, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Jonah and the whale is an even older story. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 15:57, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Being swallowed doesn't count. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:32, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for all your efforts, but after 24 hours, that's a no. Wearing animal skins is hardly akin to crawling inside a carcass, and I understand that leather tanning goes back millenia, well pre-dating my request for "verifiable historic examples". Moscow and Kabul would indeed seem likely; perhaps Harry Flashman was there and can tell us more. The lost priest is a wonderful warning to wandering refugees seeking the frozen north. Somehow I thought this info-quest would have been more straight-forward. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 13:10, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I did have a thorough search for examples from the Moscow and Kabul retreats. The nearest I came was that Napoleon is alleged to have used the frozen corpses of soldiers as chairs and a dead horse as a dining table (sorry, I've lost the reference for that), but nothing from Kabul. Alansplodge (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks Alansplodge. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 12:21, 5 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Here's what's described as a first-person account, from the Napoleonic period, of seeking shelter in the stomach of a horse, on p. 504. There's also a footnote on p. 511 referring to a similar episode. Whether these are verifiable and historical . . . you may want to judge for yourself. Herbivore (talk) 19:02, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Viking (or Scandinavian) contact with Europe prior to the 8th century ?
The first known Viking raid took place in Lindisfarne in late 700s, and from there on, there are lots of history-related articles that tell of the vikings expeditions and endeavours. But prior to the raid on Lindisfarne, there is very little information to find about them.

What I wonder is that if they didn't known about the existence of Britain until late 700s, then what were their relationships to the rest of Europe prior to this? Surely they must have had dealings with those further south? Surely there was contact, and most likely trade? Especially the Danes, bordering modern-day Germany and being close to Belgium, France and Poland, must have had plenty of dealings with the rest of Europe. Those who hailed from Norway and Sweden had to cross the Baltic or travel the long way around, through Finland... So they may have been more isolated than the Danes.

But although viking raids may not have begun until the 700s, I am sure they were able to travel across the Baltic and such to trade and whatnot long before then. Of course, some might argue that there weren't vikings prior to this, since they'd consider the viking age to be roughly 8th to late 11th century. So whatever they may have been before that, let's just call them Scandinavians.

I guess my question is simply to what degree the Scandinavians, -prior to 700s- had contact with others and what knowledge they had of lands outside their own? Or were they largely isolated? Krikkert7 (talk) 20:29, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * See History of Scandinavia for one place to start. "Vikings" are a particular aspect of Scandinavian history, so basically by definition there are no Vikings before they start launching raids across the sea (and not all Scandinavians were Vikings). The Germanic tribes in Scandinavia were certainly known as far back as the Romans but they were pretty much isolated in the early medieval period when the Roman system broke down. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:28, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Before they were called Vikings, they were called Goths. The Ostrogoths i.e eastern Goths crossed the Baltic and were forced to migrate by the Huns. The Visigoths i.e. western Goths left Scandinavia and sacked Rome in AD 410. Sleigh (talk) 22:21, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * A Scandinavian origin of the Goths is the traditional founding myth, but very much not the current state of the art. An Eastern Baltic origin of a core group is possible, but also a much later ethnogenesis in the Danube region in the 3rd century CE. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:04, 2 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Sleigh -- In some early sources, there seems to be a lot of confusion between Goths, Geats, inhabitants of Götaland, and inhabitants of Gotland; and of course the original Germanic homeland was today's southern Norway, southern Sweden, Denmark, and northern Germany. However, it seems rather unlikely that there was a close connection between the Goths as known to history (speakers of Eastern Germanic languages who were in the Southwestern Ukraine / Moldova / Northeastern Romania area by 200 A.D.) with the Scandinavian Vikings of over 500 years later (speakers of Northern Germanic languages).  Traditionally, Scandinavians who sailed west were known as Vikings, while those who went east across the Baltic were "Varangians"... AnonMoos (talk) 12:58, 2 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Some other resources on Wikipedia, although they are kind of lacking in detail: Iron Age Scandinavia, Archaeology of Northern Europe. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:52, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies. I'll have a look at all the links. 'History of Scandinavia' will certainly be of great interest to me. Krikkert7 (talk) 11:18, 2 May 2017 (UTC)