Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 October 27

= October 27 =

Young boys in shorts
In Europe and America during the 19th and early 20th centuries, why did young boys wore short trousers until they were teenagers? 31.48.57.250 (talk) 20:26, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I wore shorts at my prep school in the 1970s even in sub-zero temperatures during the winter until was I about 10 years old. This was to develop the correct moral fibre in English youth and ensure a steady supply of chaps who wouldn't moan on polar and Himalayan trips, although the custom had by then largely outgrown its usefulness. Ericoides (talk) 22:53, 27 October 2017 (UTC)


 * It's unlikely you will get one conclusive answer to this question; clothing fashion results from cultural trends which do not always arise out of a pragmatic, conscious decisions to move the entire culture in one direction. Nor for that matter were short trousers ubiquitous across Europe and America during the period you note.   However, it is worth noting that, for centuries and throughout much of the western world, boys would be kept in dresses, same as girls, until about the age of seven, when they were given breeches: see our article Breeching_(boys).  As that article notes, this trend continued until roughly the period you are inquiring about, and was done for largely pragmatic reasons, and the trend towards dressing children in a more gendered fashion from earlier in life is a relatively new practice for the regions in question.  It's conceivable that the short trousers served a similar function; that is, the fastenings on early modern trousers were easier for the wearer to negotiate,  but the short-trousers even more so.  Though I tend to believe the trend here can be more easily explained by style, and that efforts to resolve a more deliberate and pragmatic cause are likely to remain speculative, rather than empirical; history only rarely records an established factual basis for a shift in clothing/fashion trends, though it does happen.  S n o w  let's rap 23:12, 27 October 2017 (UTC)


 * one reason was simple practicality... as a boy grows, long trousers quickly become noticeably too small (outgrown)... while shorts last a bit longer before it becomes noticeable that they are getting outgrown. Note that in this same era, slightly older boys wore knickerbockers (clothing)... for the same reason. Blueboar (talk) 23:30, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Another reason was economy: boys tend to be hard on their knees, which for long trousers would result in frequently required mending or replacement, whereas bare knees graze, scab and heal readily (as I can attest from my own boyhood in the sixties). It was also thought to be healthier to allow the legs exposure to sun and air. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.208.54 (talk) 20:18, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

According to our all too brief article on shorts, knee pants (an early type of short pants) became fashionable for young American boys in the 1890s, worn in combination with short stockings. Only the older boys (teenagers) were given long pants to wear. Followed by a fashion for Knickerbockers in the early 20th century.

"Until after World War I, in many English-speaking countries, boys customarily wore short pants in summer and knickerbockers ("knickers" or "knee pants") in winter. (In British English knickers means underwear worn by women.) At the onset of puberty, they graduated to long trousers. In that era, the transition to "long pants" was a major rite of passage. See, for example, the classic song "Blues in the Night" by Johnny Mercer: "My mammy done told me, when I was in knee-pants, my mammy done told me, son...". "Dimadick (talk) 23:34, 27 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I call it the Little Lord Fauntleroy look. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:17, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes "knickerbockers" = breeches in British English. Alansplodge (talk) 11:20, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Knickerbockers (clothing), which are still popular for sports such as football, baseball and golf. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:00, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

A short video. Blooteuth (talk) 20:16, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Don’t bother with the video... it’s not on topic and not helpful. Blueboar (talk) 20:28, 28 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Rather than add to the explanations above, I will note that short trousers are still commonly part of a junior school uniform for boys in England at least. Here is a link to the official uniform supplier for the school next door to where I live which shows they are available in sizes up to age 13 years. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:28, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Not sure how reliable but Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site - Short Pants Suits says: "Boys wearing short pants suits with knee socks and bare knees began to appear in England after the First World War and became increasingly widespread during the early 1920s. Before the War knee length pants were common, but generally worn with long stockings. After the War the shorts became shorter and were more commonly worn with knee length socks, leaving the knees bare. The fashioned was greatly influenced by Lord Baden Powell's growing Boy Scout uniform. The fashion spread to the United States, especially for boys from affluent families". Scouting started in 1907, the Scout uniform was initially influenced by British uniforms of the Second Boer War (see The Scout Association). Alansplodge (talk) 19:02, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Witness retaliation
In US federal courts, is witness retaliation (no article) considered the same thing as witness tampering, or are they different, and if different, do we have an article that covers the subject? I'm just wondering about redirecting retaliation to tampering.

I ran across this circuit court opinion by accident (a false positive in a Google search), which on page 1 notes that the appellant was convicted of witness retaliation. The details provided on the only full paragraph of page 4 demonstrate that the appellant had attacked the witness "after knowing that she had completed her testimony in the trial", but the opinion goes on to say that the statute prohibiting tampering is applicable to this action. I'm not clear if they're considered to be fundamentally the same thing, or if the statute is simply broad enough that it covers two separate types of offenses. I'm not able to follow the relevant citations, e.g. U.S.S.G. § 2J1.2(c)., since I'm not familiar with some of the abbreviations and generally don't know much about citing anything beyond a chapter in the US Code. Nyttend (talk) 21:54, 27 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi Nyttend. There is a specific federal statute which provides for a separate offense of witness retaliation: 18 U.S.C. § 1513. It is distinct from charges of witness tampering, although it is worth noting that there are multiple federal statutes which might apply to either offense, depending on the circumstances.  In the appellate case you located, the legal issue raised is not whether the defendant had been properly convicted under the elements of the statute utilized to charge the offense, but whether they had been properly sentenced, consistent with the actus reus (specific criminal act) being considered; the statute you noted is a section of the United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines.   S n o w  let's rap 23:30, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, also, to get at the pragmatic question motivating this inquiry, I'd be hesitant to redirect witness retaliation to witness tampering, as they are different (if clearly similar) activities, punishable under separate criteria. On the other hand, I doubt we have a more suitable target article if a link is to be made.  I do think they are different animals though and that maybe the best thing to do is to leave no redirect until such time as we either have a witness retaliation article, or a small  witness retaliation section has been added into witness tampering.  Notably, witness intimidation already directs there.  S n o w  let's rap 00:14, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the helpful information, and I'll follow your advice regarding the redirect. Nyttend (talk) 12:03, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * You're most welcome. :)  S n o w  let's rap 23:09, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The vibe I'm getting from this case (and I have zero refs, so correct me), is that the case in question is "witness retaliation", rather than "witness tampering", for the reason that the accused assaulted the witness "after knowing that she had completed her testimony in the trial" (emphasis mine). Clearly, the accused has not affected the witnesses' testimony, as the case was over at that point. Hence, it was merely "retaliation" for testifying against them. The case in which the witness has testified has not been affected.
 * "Witness tampering" on the other hand, is (to my understanding) an attempt to interfere with the witnesses' testimony, which obviously cannot be done once the case (and the witnesses' role therein) is over. Unlike "mere" retaliation, it's an attempt to obstruct justice, by scaring or bribing the witness, in order to affect their testimony. Can anyone either confirm or refute this?, as our resident lawyer, do you have a view on this? 2001:8003:533A:DA00:3532:C694:4C12:CDF2 (talk) 18:36, 28 October 2017 (UTC)


 * That is more or less accurate (see discussion above). Nyttend's question was more nuanced, however--recognizing the pragmatic distinction, but wondering if both activities are charged under the same or different statutes, under federal law.  The answer to that question is also above.  S n o w  let's rap 23:09, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Ondes Martenot pitches
On the Ondes Martenot, the operator can either play a pitch by pressing keys on the keyboard, or by sliding the ring controller around. (I've never seen an authentic one in person, otherwise I would know the answer to this question.) The idea is that the pitch played with the ring will slide continuously and match the pitches on the keyboard. But pitches on the keyboard are not evenly spaced. Usually from the center of one white key to the next, the pitch changes by a whole tone. But sometimes (E to F and B to C) the pitch changes only by a half tone. Does the ring controller have a nonlinear distance scale to compensate for this? I.e. does the ring actually "know" that sometimes the width of a white key doesn't always give a whole tone? Or does the ring only match up with the keys octave-by-octave, and deviate slightly within each octave? Staecker (talk) 22:51, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The ring controller is electronically, and for pitch, mostly linear. It doesn't attempt to track the keyboard. It is also frequently out of tune altogether.
 * Analogue electronic instruments (apart from the Hammond) are infamously unstable and sensitivity to temperature, humidity, air pressure and life on the road. The prog rock era was probably the nadir for this, when the sheer amount of kit trailed around by even the smaller bands meant that the whole lot was never all in tune at one time. However the pre-war instruments were even worse. WWII, and the development of reliable military electronics, improved the stability of individual components such as valves and capacitors, and these design changes (and the bulk of mil surplus) meant that 1950s and 1960s electronic music became stable enough to start using polyphony and keyboards without an unworkable amount of detuning. The HP200A oscillator design of 1936 used novel techniques like the lightbulb in the gain feedback loop to increase stability. In the 1960s, solid-state designs avoided valves, microphonics and self-heating effects, but brought in enough new problems of their own to keep roadies busy.
 * In the 1970s, digital electronics and stable quartz-derived frequency clocks finally started to make instruments that weren't perpetually going out of tune. Microprocessors allowed complexity, self-checking and real synchronisation between multiple devices. But you talk to The Youth of Today with their Autotunes, in-bedroom digital editing paths and their Corbynstep Grime music and they don't know what you're on about...
 * The Ondes Martenot wasn't just a keyboard instrument, it was also an electronic cello. Martenot himself was a cellist and he saw the development of electric organs in the 1920s as dull and expressionless instruments (remote electromechanical controls of that period often were). He wanted something that had both a keyboard (musicians wanted keyboards) and also a more expressive cello-like control. Cellos are of course fretless, so pitch relies on the muscle memory, and also the hearing, of the player. The Ondes Martenot was no different. As with any of these early electronic instruments, including the Theremin of course, the player's sense of pitch was a crucial part of the tuning feedback when playing. You can't play either if you can't hear it accurately. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:55, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Staecker (talk) 14:41, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * With a digital processor-controlled instrument, it's also possible to map one pitch onto another. It would be quite easy to new-build a digital Ondes Martenot and regularise the ring controller so that it exactly matched the adjacent keyboard key pitch. AIUI, there are more new digital Ondes around today than there ever were for originals, or even for late-build analogues. Even though a "real" Ondes Martenot is not an easy machine to build, as there's still some assumption that it will have physical parts for the diffuseurs. It's not an Onde unless it has a palme with a lyre on it. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:59, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes I'm asking because I just made one with an arduino. The simplest and most natural way to do it is make the ring scale linear, which I realized wouldn't ever match up exactly with a keyboard. Mine just has the ring so it doesn't matter. Staecker (talk) 17:37, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The ring controller on the Ondes Martenot uses a resistance wire where contact with the player's ring completes a potentiometer circuit. Without a very impractical non-uniform wire or digital processes (ADC, look-up table in ROM, DAC) that were unavailable to the inventor Maurice Martenot in 1928, it is not possible for positions on the wire to match the keyboard keys exactly. This would not have been in Martenot's interest to do because he aimed for the playing characteristic of one string of a cello which is a non-fretted instrument. Note that the Ondes Martinot was built in many versions. Here is a video about one that uses a ribbon to control manually a Variable capacitor (I assume) in an oscillator instead of the contact ring. Blooteuth (talk) 19:38, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It's basically ridiculous to try and discuss the design of an Ondes Martenot in ASCII and without pulling one apart. The one thing they are not is 'elegant'.
 * Alan Blumlein was probably the most elegant electronics designer of this period. He could design stereophonic multiplexing with two tin cans and a piece of string. His designs were extremely minimal, yet subtle. So all the spare components that Blumlein didn't use?  I think Martenot stuck them in somewhere, "in case they came in handy".
 * Also Ondes Martenot change in design and features a lot over time. So I am nothing like an Ondes Martenot expert, and I think the main reaction of most Ondes Martenot experts is permanent puzzlement when they open up a new instrument and find it's quite different to all they've seen before.
 * I don't believe any of Martenot's instruments had a resistive ribbon. For one thing it's hard to make a resistively controlled valve oscillator. Also resistive instruments suck, because the resistive control track wears out or wears noisy. Martenot did famously use "the bag" as the resistive control of the 'touche', which was a resistive device based on the carbon microphone used in a telephone handset.
 * The ribbon control though, on all the Martenot-built Ondes Martenot I've heard of (not an exhaustive set) was a variable capacitor. At the rear of the case were a row of capacitors, one per octave, connected to metal channels. The ribbon passed through this. The ribbon was metallised on one half, so that as it passed through the channels it increased the area of an effective series capacitor between the ribbon and channel. It also tended to jump non-linearly when engaging the channel for the next octave. Tuning involved adjusting the octave capacitors individually, then bending the channels to get smooth transitions.
 * Martenot, were you having a laugh or what?
 * Actually it's understandable. It's just hard to make a variable capacitor with that much range of adjustment, especially then.
 * The keyboard was equally bizarre. This was a variable inductance, made from a row of series-connected inductors, one for each octave. They were connected by keyboard switches. Notes within the octave were made by a set of fixed inductors.  The early keyboard also has hollow grooves in the tops of the keys (the flush black keys too), which allow the player to push the keyboard slightly from side to side, adjusting yet another inductor to give pitch bend.
 * Both of these are then fairly simple LC tuned AF oscillators. I think he might have later used an RF heterodyne technique, as Theremin did.
 * So, for pitch, "mostly linear". Andy Dingley (talk) 00:12, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The player contacts a resistance wire here at 1:13. Blooteuth (talk) 16:18, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
 * That's just a string. There is a loop of string within the Ondes, which runs over a rectangular frame of pulleys. Between the two front pulleys is a ring, which the player wears on a finger. Between the rear two pulleys is the control device, the variable capacitor.  There is no "touch" to any resistive component, as used in the Trautonium, Persephone, Stylophone or Korg Monotron. Also the string is spring-tensioned, so has some sideways slack. The player can move their ribbon hand vertically or back and forth without changing pitch. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:51, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Edgar Guest info needed
I am looking for whomever would hold the copyright on Edgar Guest's poetry. My father would like to include the poem, "A Child of Mine" in a book he is writing. -
 * According to a website I found, this poem was originally published in Guest's book Living the years, OCLC 26955714, and this book does not appear in the Stanford copyright renewal database. If Stanford is correct, everything first published in this book is in the public domain, since the failure to file for copyright renewal in 1977 ended Guest's copyright on the book.  However, this assumes two things: (1) Was this poem originally published in this book?  Your father must ensure that the random website is correct in saying that it wasn't published elsewhere before depending on the copyright status of this book, since if published elsewhere, its status depends on that of the original publication.  (2) Did this book indeed not get renewed?  Stanford can make errors, so to avoid legal liability for copyright infringement, your father needs to check the official US Copyright Office Records.  He can pay the Office to search its own records ($200 per hour), or he can check the Copyright Office's published volumes of renewals; images of these books (so he doesn't need to trust that the transcriptions are accurate) are available at  (for renewals submitted January-June 1977) and  (for renewals submitted July-December 1977).  Nyttend (talk) 23:45, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Any idea of when was this poem originally published? Some of Edgar Guest's works are in the public domain in the United States. All copyrights prior to 1923 have expired. The rest of Guest's works will enter the public domain 95 years following their date of publication. See: https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain Dimadick (talk) 23:56, 27 October 2017 (UTC)


 * OP, you mean "looking for whoever would hold". Easy way to remember this: if the answer to the "who/m"? question can be "he", use who; if the "who/m"? question can be "him", use whom. The answer to "who/m"? question "who/m holds the copyright?" could be "he holds the copyright", but not *"him holds the copyright". Even easier: always use "who".--Shirt58 (talk) 01:08, 29 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Elaborating on Shirt58’s point: In the sentence “I am looking for who(m)ever would hold the copyright“, the object of the preposition “for” is not “who(m)ever”, but rather is the entire dependent clause “whoever would hold the copright”. Since it is a clause, it is not marked for grammatical case. Within the dependent clause, the subject is “whoever”, in the nominative (=subjective) case. Loraof (talk) 17:44, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
 * There really is no justification for the previous two responses nit-picking over the grammar used in this question. This is both irrelevant and extremely patronising to the questioner and go against RefDesk guidelines as well as common courtesy. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:04, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
 * This ain't the language desk. You could box up the irrelevant stuff. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:07, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Irrelevant stuff boxed up. Nyttend (talk) 03:16, 1 November 2017 (UTC)