Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 June 17

= June 17 =

Odin
is Odin a celestial deity (uranian god)? if no, what type of god is he?--93.61.55.121 (talk) 10:12, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Define "celestial deity". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:59, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know the exact definition.--93.61.55.121 (talk) 15:09, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Where did you see the term? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:12, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * the english for divinità uranica (italian) https://www.google.it/search?ei=-nwmW_fGF4vUwAKPs6-wBQ&q=divinit%C3%A0+uranica&oq=divinit%C3%A0+uranica&gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39k1.7771.28900.0.29283.8.6.2.0.0.0.115.584.5j1.6.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.8.598...0j0i22i30k1.0._0S9V22yWzk --93.61.55.121 (talk) 15:25, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * In English, Uranian does not mean what you think it does (clicking the link will prove educative). It can also refer specifically to the planet Uranus, but it can't be applied to celestial objects as a whole.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:24, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Our chthonic article suggests that the relevant dichotomy may be expressed in English as Olympian versus chthonic. It does seem a bit odd to describe Nordic gods as "Olympian", though, whereas Uranus was apparently the personification of the sky. --Trovatore (talk) 21:27, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * To come to the OP's defence, the OED defines one of the meanings of Uranian as "Relating to or befitting heaven; celestial, heavenly". --Antiquary (talk) 09:07, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * After poking around a little bit in our articles, it strikes me that Odin may make occasional journeys into the underworld, but can hardly be described as an underworld god, nor does he seem much like a nature god. On the other hand our Odin article says In later folklore, Odin appears as a leader of the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession of the dead through the winter sky.
 * So I guess I'd say he's more like a sky god than a chthonic god, if those are the only two categories available, but neither really seems to fit all that well. --Trovatore (talk) 21:41, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * If Odin didn't stick around in the underground, maybe it was because he couldn't pronounce 'chthonic'. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:19, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not familiar with the "uranian" term used above, but if it's meant to refer to gods tied to death and the underworld, Odin likely qualifies: leader of the valkyries, he spent time dead, and our article does refer to him as a psychopomp (love that word). Matt Deres (talk) 00:36, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * No, I get the impression that the OP is using Uranian to refer to gods tied to the sky (Uranus being the personification of the sky). --Trovatore (talk) 03:55, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * In the sense that he is the Norse equivalent of Zeus, Jupiter, etc. (etymologically at least), Tyr is the Norse celestial deity. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:55, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * then what type of deity is odin if he is not celestial deity?--93.61.55.121 (talk) 08:16, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * There is some information in our article about it - no one is really quite sure, apparently. He doesn't really fit into any categories from other Indo-European religions, so he might just be a unique Norse invention. When Scandinavians and Romans encountered each other, Odin was equated with Mercury (hence Wednesday/mercredi/etc). Adam Bishop (talk) 16:19, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It can be tough pinning down what a fictional character really is. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:07, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Rather than looking for 'deity types', I recommend hunting for associations. Although some simplistic introductory texts will lead one to believe otherwise, the reality is that deities, including those venerated among the Greeks and Romans, develop from (and produce) complex histories that the simple [DEITY] of [FUNCTION] construction does not adequately communicate. Some associations remain through time, but others may occur under, for example, complex circumstances or may be absorbed from other circles. The Odin deity complex makes for a fine example. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 17:13, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

What type of picture is this?


The caption at All Saints' Church, Godshill says "Painting of Godshill Church, circa 1910", but it doesn't look like a painting to me. It looks more like a hand-tinted b&w photo, but I'm not sure. Anyone who knows technically what this is, please go ahead and change the caption. Thanks. Mypix (talk) 20:15, 17 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Wikimedia Commons credits it to Pictures in Colour of the Isle of Wight by Jarrod and Sons, at Project Gutenberg. The second paragraph of the book's foreword describes its illustrations: "being reproductions from actual photographs they may be relied upon as being true to Nature".  In other words, the image was not made by tinting the photo (which presumably was B&W), but by copying it (and therefore adding color). --76.69.118.94 (talk) 22:02, 17 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I read "reproductions from actual photographs" as meaning "reproductions of actual photographs" (possibly with some tinkering). I don't understand it as meaning that a painting was made from scratch by copying a photograph, if that's what you're suggesting. Mypix (talk) 10:45, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Mass-production of colorized photos, via a lithography process, was pretty common in that era. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:15, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * A lithographic reproduction from a photo is not a painting. Even a lithographic reproduction from a painting is not a painting. If the source calls them "pictures" we should call them "pictures" too, the arbitrary change to "painting" smells to me of misguided original research. 194.174.76.21 (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2018 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin
 * Precisely. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:32, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * "Even a lithographic reproduction from a painting is not a painting." I feel that is getting into the Ceci n'est pas une pipe argument. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 17:12, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, we need a new caption: "Ceci n'est pas Godshill Church" 194.174.76.21 (talk) 13:32, 19 June 2018 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin
 * Maybe more to the point, this would seem to suggest nothing on wikipedia should be described as a painting. For example the image to the right is not a painting or an oil on canvas Van Gogh - Starry Night - Google Art Project.jpg. It's a digital photograph of a painting/oil on canvas. Nil Einne (talk) 00:20, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's a pixilated computer-screen image of an electronically transmitted digital file encoding a digital photograph of a painting/oil on canvas (or something like that). Scott Adams specifically and graphically (hah!) addressed this issue at length in his Understanding Comics. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.125.75.224 (talk) 09:30, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This is getting a bit academic: we do write captions knowing that the reader can follow one or two levels of metaphor, such that the caption to a photo of a dog can state "This is a dog", the picture of a painting can have "This is a painting" and the painting by Magritte "Painting representing a pipe". My remark was about whether the picture of a lithography reproducing a painting can be called a painting, and I mean: no, you can call it a lithogrphy, not a painting. 194.174.76.21 (talk) 10:29, 20 June 2018 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin
 * But if you acknowledge that a reproduction can represent the object, then you have to acknowledge that it's not so simple. Is a lithography reproduction of a photo (or painting) sufficiently accurate that it can be fairly considered the original item? I'm not saying it is, but you can't simply dismiss it as not being the case because it's a reproduction which is what your initial comment seem to do. If you do that, then you will also have to do the same for the digital photo of the painting. (Note that this isn't a completely abstract point. Sometimes, the only copy we may have of a photo may be of a scan from some book or magazine or whatever. Now the photo in the book or magazine or whatever may not necessarily have been made via lithography, but the question remains, do we always have to go into detail in the simple caption in an article? I strongly suspect you'll find the answer is no. We often simply describe them as photos, especially if the quality is sufficiently high e.g. with descreening etc. The image details should of course generally provide all known info on how the file was produced. Again I'm not saying this necessarily applies to lithographic reproductions, simply that it's not as simple as your original comment suggested.)  As for 87's point, you could go to that level, but IMO that's excessively getting into semantics at a level which is confusing given this discussion. It's reasonable to say that the file is the digital photo since we have no clear definition of what a digital photo is. Notably, I can image situations where my might want to specify it's a digital photo of the painting, but I think it's very rare you're going to want to specify it's a file especially when simply viewing it on a page. The computer screen image thing is more reasonable, however the pixilated thing seems unnecessary. Most forms of digital photography uses pixels, it's extremely rare to have digital photography without pixels.  Maybe more to the point, I could print out this page. It will now be a printout of a digital photo. It will not be on a computer screen. I mean obviously some people could have viewed it on a computer screen but it's theoretically possible someone viewing it never saw it on a computer screen. In other words, there's no requirement that the digital photo is viewed on a computer screen even if we expand the term widely to include TVs, smart phones etc, we have no way to know for certain how it is viewed. (And what happens when the AIs take over?) By comparison, it IMO always seems fair to call it a digital photo. I would add that we can see here how the file gets very abstracted from what we are viewing.  (Likewise the transmission. Even more so if for example I downloaded this page to a USB disk, as while technically the USB disk is still a form of electronic transmission, and electronic transmission is also going on in the computer the USB disk is plugged in to even if it's in a room completely cut off from the outside world and electronic transmission also happens to the printer, I'm not sure whether this is what most people are going to think of when you refer to electronic transmission.)  Nil Einne (talk) 14:57, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * BTW I chose that specific painting for personal reasons but I was also conscious at the time it did bring something else in to play. Vincent van Gogh was known for his use of Impasto. While I'm not totally sure how much this applies to that particular Starry Night painting, the surface textural element of such paintings is one thing that isn't that well captured in simple 2D photos. While it may not be a required element of a painting or an oil on canvas (although all are likely to have some level of surface texture), it is clearly a particular element of certain paintings. You could easily change the issue from 'painting' to a specific painting like Still Life: Vase with Pink Roses. Nil Einne (talk) 17:11, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

All right, the caption has been changed. 194.174.76.21 (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2018 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin


 * We do write captions of pictures of unidentified Imams (probably Ali) preaching in mosques saying they are Muhammad prohibiting intercalation (see "Synthesis in articles" above) although he did that on Mount Ararat while seated on his camel.  At that level of metaphor readers will think that the Farewell Pilgrimage was attended by five people gathered around the minbar.   Would it be advisable to change the caption? 86.152.81.70 (talk) 11:07, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I have a question about transgender people in Botswana
On wikipedia's LGBT rights in Botswana page it says transgender rights were legalized last year. I would like to know where people in Botswana can go to a gender clinic and get their surgery done? I'm just curious as a lgbt activist. Sphinxmystery (talk) 23:04, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * According to, gender re-assignment surgery is not available in Botswana. As I understand it, the courts have accepted that a person who has undergone gender re-assignment surgery can have their "official" gender changed. That doesn't automatically mean that such surgery is, in fact, available in Botswana itself. Eliyohub (talk) 16:06, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Gender reassignment surgery is however available in South Africa. 24.76.103.169 (talk) 06:23, 19 June 2018 (UTC)