Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 November 28

= November 28 =

Humphry Davy
Do we have a reliable source for Sir Humphry Davy's attitude to gravy? DuncanHill (talk) 00:57, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you mean aside from the source of the little poem about how Davy "abominated gravy"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:57, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * For those in the dark:
 * "Sir Humphrey Davy / Abominated gravy. / He lived in the odium / Of having discovered sodium".
 * From Edmund Clerihew Bentley, Clerihews: Biography for Beginners (1905).
 * This writeup indicates that no one really knows. It might be poetic license, like when Tom Lehrer wrote a song about Lobachevsky allegedly being a plagiarist, not because he really was a plagiarist, just that his name worked in the song. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:09, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Similarly, it seems unlikely that "Edward the Confessor slept under the dresser", but it is incontrovertible that Clive ... is no longer alive". 11:13, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * And maybe William Lyon Mackenzie King didn't sit in the middle and play with string, but it's possible that he loved his mother like anything. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:46, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The whole Clerihew is here. I've always thought it a bit of a cheat to re-use the first line at the end if you cant think of a better rhyme. Alansplodge (talk) 17:11, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * "God save our noble queen ... God save the queen." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:39, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, the tune is much better than the lyrics. A worse rhyme is in the third verse which tries make "laws" and "cause" go with "voice", But it's the thought that counts, I suppose (BTW, it's "God save our gracious Queen / Long live our noble Queen").  Alansplodge (talk) 19:31, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I thought something didn't look quite right. I've sung that tune many times, except it starts with, "My country, 'tis of thee..." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:40, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Also Heil dir im Siegerkranz. Alansplodge (talk) 11:11, 30 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Lois does rhyme with voix, so maybe laws is playing a double role here? —Tamfang (talk) 07:35, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Tamfang, our God Save the Queen article relates a "doubtful" tale that the anthem had originally been written for Louis XIV but adds "The entire story might have been intended as a joke". As far as anyone can tell, it was never written in French and it seems likely to be just an eye rhyme, which was a common device at that time. Note that New Zealand's anthem, written 130 years later, tries to rhyme "star", "war" and "afar". Alansplodge (talk) 21:30, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Baseball Buggs, Often just shruggs: "Ignoring my carrots, makes you all parrots." Martinevans123 (talk) 17:26, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * That should be shruggs. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:40, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Real lawsuit for virtual theft
I've been searching and I haven't found anything... I have to write a paper for school. I want to write about legality of stealing virtual stuff, like stealing somebody's weapons in an online game. Are there examples of lawsuits like that? If I can't find reliable online resources, I have to change topics.
 * Would such theft involve money, such as for professional gamers? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:17, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Have you tried searching for "theft of virtual property"? There was at least one case, in China of all places. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:16, 28 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Of course there have been some over bitcoins and also over domain names. Those should be easy to find.  For in-game assets, maybe this counts, though it wasn't user-v.-user.  173.228.123.166 (talk) 03:48, 29 November 2018 (UTC)


 * If domain names count, then you could look up the whole sorry "sex.com" scandal (at the center of it was the sleazy company Network Solutions Inc.[ptui!] which set many bad precedents for the early Internet). AnonMoos (talk) 03:37, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Who was Colonel Drewry?
Peter Rowland's The Last Liberal Governments: Unfinished Business 1911-1914 is dedicated to the memory of Lt.-Col. G. Drewry, O.B.E., T.D., B.Sc., A.R.I.C. Who was he? DuncanHill (talk) 01:27, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * There's not an awful lot about him out there, but I found an obituary here. --Antiquary (talk) 10:40, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 13:44, 29 November 2018 (UTC)