Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 August 9

= August 9 =

Pipe smoking ... a candle?
In this image (a fragment of a screenshot of M (1931 film)) we see a German gentleman, using a smoking pipe. The other men at the same social gathering are smoking too, but they are using fairly ordinary tobacco pipes or cigars. But this man, rather than having conventional tobacco packed into the bowl of his pipe, appears to have a candle-like pellet (at least 2 inches long) protruding from the bowl of his (apparently conventional) pipe. It might not be evident from the still picture, but moving we see that the "candle" itself is smouldering (it doesn't appear to be a hollow pipe extension). The man draws from it as one would do an ordinary tobacco pipe. Perhaps a little comically, he looks like a Räuchermann toy (who really do "smoke" scented pellets). I'm guessing that the "candle" is some form of compressed tobacco (perhaps with spices or aromatics for flavour). What is the name of this kind of candle thing, and what (other, presumably, than tobacco) might it typically contain? 87.113.196.43 (talk) 10:00, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It might simply be a cigar stuck in the pipe. Google Image "cigar in pipe" and you'll see several examples. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:48, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Ceci n'est pas une pipe.--47.146.63.87 (talk) 19:48, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Historical person with name in mixed alphabets
Has there ever been a person bearing a name (be it a stage name) with letters from at least two different alphabets (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic etc.; not counting the same alphabet incorporating letters from different roots as e.g. Icelandic Árni Þór Sigurðsson )? --KnightMove (talk) 12:11, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This mentions something similar may happen with some Japanese names, for any given definition of "name" and "alphabet". -- Jayron 32 12:40, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It's fairly common for Malaysian Chinese to have a Chinese name including their surname and an English name and these may be given by their parents and on official documents etc. While the Chinese name is generally romanised including on official documents, the name in Chinese characters is arguably the original form of the name. However the original form of the English name is also likely to be considered the latin alphabet form and in fact I think is frequently not transliterated even when used in Chinese publications in Malaysia e.g. . Of course Chinese characters aren't what is generally considered an alphabet. You get similar things with Singaporean names. Nil Einne (talk) 14:52, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * For the initial question, I think KnightMove outlined the paradox himself. There are many examples of alphabets borrowing letters from other alphabets, but a name including letters from different alphabets is not considered as consisting of 2 or more scripts. You also have other examples, such as the use of "J" in Yugoslav Cyrillic alphabets. Modern stage names is of course a whole other issue, I suppose there would be some examples. --Soman (talk) 09:13, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Would you count Jennifer 8. Lee which combines Latin alphabetic letters with an Arabic numeral? 98.210.48.122 (talk) 16:54, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

There was also a musician known at one time as "image:Prince_logo.svg". 98.210.48.122 (talk) 17:10, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * And if he'd gone by "image:Prince_logo.svg Nelson", then it would be what the original poster asked for (provided that "image:Prince_logo.svg" was accepted as being from "an alphabet"). But he didn't. --76.69.47.228 (talk) 00:17, 12 August 2018 (UTC)