Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 December 28

= December 28 =

three major airlines vs. three minor airlines
Shouldn't there be another article in the Big Three section? The article should refer to American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. If anyone does an article about three minor airlines, will the airlines be called the "Little Three"? I'm referring to JetBlue Airways, Sun Country Airlines and Southwest Airlines.2603:7000:8100:F444:CD7E:775:1481:3DD0 (talk) 08:13, 28 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I sense a logical fallacy here. Just because the biggest three examples of something are notable, it doesn't follow that the smallest three are too. Alansplodge (talk) 13:14, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * There are also plenty of other airlines. --←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:18, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Those aren't the 3 smallest US airlines, they're still pretty big. We had 3 MORE Big 3 airlines in 2001-2008 (Continental, Northwest and US Air), and 1991-2001 had 7 and before had even more. U.S. airlines are notorious for not lasting more than a few decades no matter how big and each recession is like a scythe to dodge — only 5 of the numerous pre-1979 legacy carriers remain and 2 are Alaskan and Hawaiian. RIP Northeast, Northwest, North Central, South Central, Central, Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern, Continental, US Air, National, Republic, Capital, Pan American, Trans World and many others (one of the Southeast Airlineses also started 1979). The unofficial US national airline Pan Am had such bad luck that this happened: Its airport shuttle had good weather, did everything by the book, no history of landing gear-area issues, landed flawlessly a whole 141 seconds before the accident and was only 7/33rds full when one of the landing gear broke without warning (metal fatigue). The helicopter thus toppled and its 5-blade rotor(s) smashed into the helipad @ almost max rpm. Now the pad was the roof of Pan Am world headquarters, which was 0.2463 kilometers above Grand Central Station and it was rush hour (you can see where this is going). Bent blade pieces up to 19 feet long killed 4 customers, severely injured another, scattered body pieces, flipped through the air for up to 4 city blocks, killed a lady in the street and severely injured someone else. A 10.5-foot piece boomeranged back to the massive building and ended up inside while glass and stone ended up outside, 111 main rotor counterweights damaged cars and you wouldn't believe how big a draining puddle of blood can look on a 1 acre roof. And that is how the 1950s-77 helicopter convenience/routiness race/bubble collapsed. They were $6 when the cab was $8! Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 07:53, 1 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Do sources that discuss the airline industry use the term “big three”? If not, applying the term ourselves would violate our WP:No original research policy. Blueboar (talk) 13:53, 28 December 2021 (UTC)


 * They seem to: Centre for Aviation, (blog), Bloomberg, Forbes, WSJ. However, we do not yet have a Big 3 (US airlines) article to put in that dab page, so it's kind of moot. Such an article could cover stuff common to all three companies, I guess. Matt Deres (talk) 15:56, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Southwest Airlines is hardly a "little" airline. According to Largest airlines in the world, every year from 2011 through 2019, it was either the 2nd or 3rd largest airline in the world by number of passengers carried. See also List of largest airlines in North America. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:14, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Big Three once listed many groups of three without a common article. Disambiguation pages are supposed to link a single article about the ambiguous term per MOS:DABONE, so a lot of entries were removed, including the US airlines. A non-disambiguation list article like "List of entities called the Big Three" would have other rules, but such a list may be outside Wikipedia's scope as an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:44, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:IAR applies there, I think. The idea is to quickly guide the reader to "the correct article", which is a big assumption. Card Zero  (talk) 14:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)


 * hmm… Just musing out loud here (have not looked for sources)… but could the term “Big Three” have referred to other airlines in the past? For example: it wouldn’t surprise me to find that American, PanAm, and TWA were called “the Big Three” back in the 50s and 60s. If anyone is thinking of crafting a new article on the term in an aviation context, you might want to look for historical usages. Blueboar (talk) 15:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Definitions of a term can go on Wiktionary. Providing sources using the term is desirable. The disambiguation page has a link to the Wiktionary article. (I think links to other projects ought to be more visible, but that's another thing.) --47.155.96.47 (talk) 22:13, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Question about Christianity... and Boney M
I heard Mary's Boy Child – Oh My Lord on the radio and wondered about the lyrics. "Man will live for evermore because of Christmas Day". Is that Christian doctrine? Before Jesus' birth, it was possible we would have become extinct, but as a result of it, it's impossible? Thanks in advance. --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 11:03, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It may refer to the Christian promise of everlasting life, as expressed in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." This does not refer to the species but to individuals. --Lambiam 12:00, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * See also John 11:25: "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die".
 * The Wikipedia article is Salvation in Christianity. Alansplodge (talk) 12:19, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The question of whether non-Christians (including those who lived before Christ) can achieve salvation has vexed theologians for centuries and there are widely differing views; see Christian Approaches to the Salvation of Non-Christians. Alansplodge (talk) 13:00, 28 December 2021 (UTC)


 * There's no "may" about it - that's exactly what the song is referring to. --←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)


 * The question of whether The Bible is a reliable source has also vexed theologians for centuries :-) Alansplodge (talk) 15:10, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * NB: that joke would have made sense if someone hadn't deleted the post above it. Alansplodge (talk) 23:32, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The post above it was by a banned user. --←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:05, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * And, lo, it was written: Don't bash Lambiam - (s)he's just being cautious as (s)he hasn't cited a source. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:25, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, that's helpful. --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 13:21, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * "For Jimbo so loved the internet, that he gave his only begotten Encyclopaedia, that whosoever believeth in it should not perish, but have everlasting life (as part of a collaborative written project)." Martinevans123 (talk) 13:28, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Post Office roll-of-honour plaque, Birmingham, England
The old Head Post Office in Victoria Square, Birmingham, England (now Victoria Square House and no longer a Post Office property) had a WWI/II roll-of-honour plaque, visible from the public side of the counter. Where is it now? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:42, 28 December 2021 (UTC)


 * BIRMINGHAM HEAD POST OFFICE STAFF ROLL OF HONOUR says:
 * Information submitted to War Memorials Trust suggests that the original memorial is now held at Kidderminster Postal Museum. However, the location/existence of this museum has not been found and further information would be welcomed. Alansplodge (talk) 22:09, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you. "Found in a skip", for goodness' sake! Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:20, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * "Found in a skip" brought really silly images to my mind until I was able to determine that it was being used to mean "dumpster". Amazing how we truly are "two countries divided by a common language". --Khajidha (talk) 13:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems odd that there isn't a postal museum in Kidderminster, if I were a postal museum it's one of the two provincial towns I would want to be in. The other is of course Bath, which does have one. DuncanHill (talk) 01:03, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * There is a Kidderminster Railway Museum which has so far escaped the notice of Wikipedia, but seems a more likely bet than the Museum of Carpet in the town. Alansplodge (talk) 15:08, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If I were a carpet museum I'd choose Axminster or Wilton, not Kidderminster. DuncanHill (talk) 15:37, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Apparently there are still five carpet factories in the town, where floor coverings were first made by Huguenot refugees in the 17th century. The longest carpet in the world was made there for Hong Kong Airport. Alansplodge (talk) 15:56, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The Marlowe portrait was (perhaps) found in skip. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:14, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I've asked the railway museum and the carpet museum if they can shed any light on this; on social media. I also asked the National Postal Museum (not in Kidderminster) and they've never heard of it. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:56, 1 January 2022 (UTC)