Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 September 5

= September 5 =

Why was Duff Norwich?
Why did Duff Cooper choose the title Viscount Norwich? DuncanHill (talk) 01:45, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * All I can find is the joke he made. Is it possible he chose the title because of the joke? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:55, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * "A little Norwich is a dangerous thing". According to Diana Cooper: The Biography of Lady Diana Cooper by Philip Ziegler, it was entirely based on that joke. Discarded suggestions included Unicorn, Sansterre, St Fermin and Erewhon. Alansplodge (talk) 13:52, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * So it's that joke. And there was me wondering if he'd based his title on this. --Antiquary (talk) 14:41, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I thought of that too. I dimly remember a comedy sketch (maybe Peter Cook and Dudley Moore), about a well spoken gent dictating a telegram which he wanted to be signed NORWICH, the gag being that he was actually the Bishop of Norwich. Alansplodge (talk) 18:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I also vaguely remeber a sketch - in which he was actually the Bishop of Korwich (to make a point about the correct spelling of Knickers). Wymspen (talk) 11:15, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you mean Knorwich? -- SGBailey (talk) 06:34, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Not quite, it was their former BtF collaborator Alan Bennett, and his character only speculates what the Bishop of Norwich means when he uses that signature. I wonder whether the existence of the acronym explains, at least in part, Viscountess Norwich's refusal to use that title. --Antiquary (talk) 20:17, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks Antiquary, it was even more "dimly" than I thought :-) Alansplodge (talk) 11:46, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * BTW, the whole monologue can be read in The Very Best of The Secret Policeman's Ball. Alansplodge (talk) 15:02, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * That was code used in letters home from service people of the day to their loved ones.  There were many more which I have forgotten.   Someone asked me if I knew what these codes meant, and that one I guessed aright. 86.133.58.87 (talk) 18:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * See World War II postal acronyms for more. --Antiquary (talk) 20:17, 5 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I think the gent would have signed himself Norvic .  See also this gem from :
 * I heard a (probably apocryphal) story about a bishop and his wife signing into a hotel. The bishop wrote (picking arbitrary names for the telling) "John Barchester and Mrs Joan Smith". The clerk saw what had been written, and said: "I'm sorry sir, we are not that sort of hotel".
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.58.87 (talk) 19:07, 5 September 2018‎
 * If he was John Barchester his wife would be Mrs John Smith. Mrs Joan Smith would be the widow of Mr Smith. DuncanHill (talk) 20:23, 5 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I've read of an allegedly true version of that story, in which the husband was a Scottish judge of a type that has the title Lord Somewhere, but (at the time) his wife was not Lady Somewhere. (British Titles by Valentine Heywood or Haywood, 1951. One of these months I really do intend to catalog my boxes of books, so that on occasions like this I'll know which box to look in.) —Tamfang (talk) 06:34, 10 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Peter Nott, who was Bishop of Norwich from 1985 to 1999, died on 20 August.  His book Bishop Peter's Pilgrimage: History and Sketchbook (1996) marked the 900th anniversary of the completion of Norwich Cathedral.   It always amuses me that the name of the main road which runs past it is "Tombland".   In 1999 he officiated at the marriage, in St George's Chapel, Windsor, of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones. 86.133.58.126 (talk) 19:47, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

According to this source, is Mirza Ghulam Ahmad specifically referred to as a mujaddid?
Does the following citation: "Rippin, Andrew. Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. p. 282." specifically refer to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a "mujaddid"?
 * Here's that page:
 * No mention of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad or mujaddid on that page; but he is listed in the index for two pages not available in the Google preview. 107.15.157.44 (talk) 03:10, 5 September 2018 (UTC) ... P.s: you can add after the citation:.
 * No mention of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad or mujaddid on that page; but he is listed in the index for two pages not available in the Google preview. 107.15.157.44 (talk) 03:10, 5 September 2018 (UTC) ... P.s: you can add after the citation:.

Gold, frankincense and myrrh
If Yeshua received these gifts, why was he in poverty? What happened to these valuable gifts? 76.71.156.186 (talk) 03:28, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * There are some theories in Biblical Magi. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:04, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, as the Spartans might say: If. Iapetus (talk) 08:40, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Note that the Bible doesn’t say how much of each item the magi gave. Blueboar (talk) 10:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Poverty is not eliminated by a one-time infusion of cash. -- Jayron 32 12:04, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It depends how much and how stupid the receiver is doesn't it? The personality that plays state lotteries a lot and is willing to have their name broadcast so hundreds can beg them for money just happen to be the kind that often takes the lump sum and goes broke no matter how many millions they have. Even the largest gold bar (12.4 kilos) is only 23 years of the US poverty line for a family of 3 (more if you get interest) so the OPs assumption that the amounts usually depicted in Magi art was enough to take 3 out of poverty for 35 years seems possibly false. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:38, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not clear that he lived in poverty anyway. He came from what we would qualify today a middle class household, as his father was a skilled tradesman. Obviously, the Flight into Egypt would have been disruptive to the family's finances, but that was a short episode. --Xuxl (talk) 12:54, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, they were headed to Bethlehem in order to be taxed. It's hard to be taxed successfully if you don't already have some assets. They didn't stay in the stable because they couldn't afford to stay at the inn, it's just that there was "no room at the inn", so they improvised. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:28, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The Greek apographesthai is translated in the KJV as "to be taxed" but is more literally "to be written down", which in modern translations is usually given as "to be registered" or "to be enrolled" (context). While to most likely purpose of such an exercise would have been for the purpose of taxation, that it was done for "all the world" (oikoumenēn) implies that wealth would not necessarily have been taken into account. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:13, 6 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Is there a serious, non in-universe reference for "they were headed to Bethlehem in order to be taxed"? I'd always read that that was a adjunct to make the global narrative fit better with prior prophecies but with no historical evidence. 2A01:E34:EF5E:4640:C93B:24F4:374D:22CC (talk) 10:51, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * You may find Census of Quirinius useful. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * That seems to be very much an-in universe reference and from the article itself "There are major difficulties in accepting Luke's account: the census in fact took place in 6 CE, ten years after Herod's death in 4 BCE; there was no single census of the entire empire under Augustus; no Roman census required people to travel from their own homes to those of distant ancestors; and the census of Judea would not have affected Joseph and his family, living in Galilee." 2A01:E34:EF5E:4640:C93B:24F4:374D:22CC (talk) 11:15, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Sounds like you've got it all figured out. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:18, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

If Jesus/Yeshua followed Asceticism as a lifestyle, he may have simply renounced his material possessions by choice.: "Natural asceticism involves a lifestyle which reduces material aspects of life to the utmost simplicity and to a minimum. This may include minimal, simple clothing, sleeping on a floor or in caves, and eating a simple minimal amount of food. Natural asceticism, state Wimbush and Valantasis, does not include maiming the body or harsher austerities that make the body suffer." Dimadick (talk) 14:10, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

The Lynching of Black Maguire
In The Way Ahead, one of the characters recites the dramatic monologue The Lynching of Black Maguire. Was this written for the film or was it an existing piece? DuncanHill (talk) 14:25, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Google can only find it in the film script, so it looks as though it was made up. Only the first two lines are recited: "It was hot that summer in Kicking Horse / And the earth was parched and dry". Google can't find that either. I imagine that most actual music hall monologues would still have been in copyright in the 1940s. Alansplodge (talk) 17:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Those lines are reminiscent of the work of Robert W. Service, though I suppose that aspect of his style was not entirely unique. --Trovatore (talk) 17:55, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * (ec)Thanks, there are a few bits more in the film and in the script you linked, "And the town was full of the frontier force... Though nobody seemed to know why", "Men looked with their eyes, nor was there a sound, For looks were as hard as knives", and the ending "As the sun went down, all there could see, Against the glowing ball of fire, hanging from the highest tree, The body of Black Maguire". I suspect it was written for the film but it sounds a ripping yarn. DuncanHill (talk) 17:57, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Out of interest, there really is a place called Kicking Horse Pass on the Alberta/British Columbia border.  Alansplodge (talk) 18:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Where in Somerset was the Isleworth Mona Lisa found?
Our article on the Isleworth Mona Lisa says it "had been hanging for over a century in a manor house in Somerset", and our article on Hugh Blaker says he found it "in the home of a Somerset nobleman in whose family it had been for nearly 100 years". I would be interested to know which house and which family, thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 14:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This says it was Montacute House. -- Jayron 32 15:24, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Magical Realism
Who are some of the major authors of magical realism? Goldfinch155 (talk) 18:41, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * FFS. Magic realism --Viennese Waltz 18:43, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This link Magic realism will save a little scrolling. Gabriel García Márquez is a particular favorite of mine. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 19:56, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Category:Magic realism writers would also have some good places to start. -- Jayron 32 20:21, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Selling something easily
I've heard the term for this concept, but I can't remember it. Imagine that you have a commodity: what do we call its capability to be converted rapidly into currency? For example, "It's easy to ____ a small number of casino chips; just go to the casino and redeem them for cash", or "Given the city's recent history, it's quite difficult to _____ a house in much of Detroit; the property will likely remain on the market for a long time." I thought maybe "liquidate", i.e. one converts property into liquid assets, but Market liquidity is talking about the effect of a sale on prices, rather than whether it's possible to sell it in the first place. Capitalization Covering The Concept Of Writing With 52 Glyphs, Not 26, I checked Capitalization (disambiguation), but again it didn't seem to cover conversion of assets into cash. If the term I'm imagining exists, it covers everything from casino chips to small change (the bank is generally happy to convert small change into paper money) to real property to bitcoin, whether "selling" or "exchanging" or "redeeming". Context — I'd like to say that it's difficult to _____ a certain kind of asset, so someone who's rich on paper may not be as rich as he thinks he is. Nyttend (talk) 23:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * In your first example, I would say "cash in", where "cash" is used as a verbe. But for the second one it would be "sell", though it could also be "cash in on". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:25, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Sounds as asset liquidity, which does not exist as an article, but maybe should. In a balance sheet, assets are ordered from high to low asset liquidity, so, it's not something binary. Gold is more liquid than stock, which is more liquid than vehicles, which are more liquid than real estate. Based on how long the asset will need to be liquidated (that is, be converted into cash, the more liquid asset), you can say it's a liquid asset or an illiquid asset. Doroletho (talk) 01:08, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the standard adjective is "liquidity". A "liquid asset" can be sold readily. Additionally, things like casino chips are often referred to as "cash equivalents", as they can be readily converted to cash at a known value. So your sentence would be, it's difficult to liquidate a certain kind of asset. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:54, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps "monetize"? (apologies to the zed folk)--Wehwalt (talk) 12:11, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Market liquidity seems to cover the concept? -- Jayron 32 15:12, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * A good approximation would be.. 'supply llama'. "It's easy to ____ a small number of X". Supply llama refers to "loot" in online gaming, with "loot" meaning disposable resource. More conventional would be a shortcut like "to convert" but I think it's bad practice to easily consider liquidation, and that's why you do not find a proper term except like "cash in". --Askedonty (talk) 20:43, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * One possibility is also "to realize", per 2a in https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/realize but this meaning is not generally well known and in most contexts will not be understood. 194.174.73.80 (talk) 17:21, 10 September 2018 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin
 * "Realising the value of an asset" is standard commercial terminology. The phrase "X realised Y pounds/dollars at auction is also widely understood. 86.133.58.126 (talk) 19:45, 10 September 2018 (UTC)