Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 July 11

= July 11 =

Pollyanna of the Orange Blossoms
In Chapter 13 of Harriet Lummis Smith's 1924 novel Pollyanna of The Orange Blossoms (https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20220545), the character Jimmy Pendleton tells Pollyanna to do the following:

"Hunt up one of the boys with the three balls, and see what he’ll let me have on my watch."

Who could the phrase "the boys with the three balls" possibly refer to? There are no more mentions of "the three balls" anywhere in the novel, and I've gone through Three-ball (disambiguation) and I don't see any likely contenders. Searching on Google returns results relating to polyorchidism, which is highly unlikely to be the intended meaning given the nature of this novel. The context of this sentence in the novel suggests that "the boys with the three balls" are people who are likely to be willing to purchase Jimmy's watch. Could this phrase be an obscure reference to a pawn broker's shop? I would be glad for any insights on what could be meant by this phrase in this novel. 2607:FEA8:FF01:4E1D:A018:8493:D6B8:185A (talk) 14:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Yup, 'three balls' has to be a reference to the traditional pawnbrokers sign. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:37, 11 July 2023 (UTC)




 * Details at Pawnbroker. I have amended the Three-ball (disambiguation) page should anybody else search in future. Alansplodge (talk) 16:25, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I have reverted your addition to the dab page. Pawnbrokers are not known as three-balls. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:10, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Well they were in the novel cited above. The OP looked at the DAB page for an explanation and didn't find it, so I don't think it's an unreasonable link. Alansplodge (talk) 17:55, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Some more references for you Mr Clarityfiend:
 * Benjamin did a great business at his sly three-balls-shop by advancing women half-crowns on their marriage certificates... (New Zealand, 1911)
 * ...for soon afterward, one piece after the other had to wander back to the "Pop House" (as the children call the mysterious Three-Balls shop) (UK/USA, 1918)
 * Our heroes manage to steal a good size gun from a local "three balls" shop and take up the trail of Nimrod. (UK, 1916)
 * And he must wrap his 'ulster up, / And seek the three balls shop, / A bitter change comes o'er the cup, / When champagne turns to pop! (Australia, 1879)
 * So please revert your reversion if you would be so kind. Alansplodge (talk) 18:17, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Uh, no. Three-balls as a adjective doesn't qualify for an entry on the dab page. It would have to stand alone. Is a pawnshop ever referred to as a "three ball"? No. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:23, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Alansplodge sees dab pages as being meant to help readers navigate, Clarityfiend sees them as existing to conform to a policy. DuncanHill (talk) 21:25, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your responses, Andy and Alan! 2607:FEA8:FF01:4E1D:3586:B577:A08D:E074 (talk) 20:01, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Finding freedom
Our article Omid Scobie says he was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford but transferred to the Cherwell School for his sixth form studies. I studied at the City of Oxford High School and was offered a sixth form place at Magdalen but turned it down - I went into the sixth form with my classmates. Magdalen is one of the best schools in the country - it comes at or near the top of the examination results tables. I would imagine that attendance there greatly smooths the path to acceptance for Oxford University.

My junior school was Summertown School in Middle Way - it had a senior section which offered a secondary modern education. It closed down when the new Cherwell School was built. Both these schools are state schools, although the posh Summerfields preparatory school is close by. Summerfields School and the nearby Dragon School were, I believe, feeders for Magdalen College School, which was fee-paying until the 1944 Education Act under which it acquired direct grant status and therefore had to offer 25% of its places to state school pupils on scholarships. With the introduction of comprehensive education and the end of the direct grant system Magdalen reverted to being a public (i.e. fee paying) school. So why on earth did Scobie leave Magdalen and finish his education at the Cherwell School? 86.157.216.138 (talk) 16:57, 11 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Link is Omid Scobie. Alansplodge (talk) 17:08, 11 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Presumably when a child leaves a school, either the child wants to leave or the school wants them to leave. Or of course both. Biographies of living persons policy will apply here and it is possible that the details are not publicly available. TSventon (talk) 17:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)


 * One possibility – his parents wanted him to finish his secondary education in a less elite, more egalitarian environment.
 * Another – Cherwell (which has roughly twice the enrollment of Magdalen) happened to run a course in a particular subject he was interested in, which Magdalen did not offer at that particular date.
 * A third and, in my opinion, the most likely – he/his parents wanted his sixth-form years to be in a co-educational environment: Magdalen was then single-sex, while Cherwell was (I am almost certain, it being a State Comprehensive) co-ed.
 * As an ex-pupil of an Independent school (Direct Grant in my time) similar to Magdalen, which turned co-ed only in the year after I left, this seems to me very reasonable. Single-sex education, particularly for someone without contemporary female relatives or friends in the home/holiday environment, can be detrimental to the formation of rounded social skills. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.140.169 (talk) 20:50, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe his parents could no longer afford the fees? We're unlikely to ever know the answer, and it's not all that important anyway. Why speculate? Chuntuk (talk) 09:27, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * There are clues.  I don't think the Cherwell School offered unusual courses at that time.   Omid himself has only said that Cherwell School was 'lovely - I'm still in touch with many friends from there' .   Although the senior section of Summertown School was single sex (I don't know where the girls went to) Cherwell School never was.   Our playing fields were located in Marston Ferry Lane (that is, after the tarmac gave out at the end of Marston Ferry Road - the only way to avoid getting covered in mud was to cycle or get a lift from one of the masters).   The Cherwell School is in Marston Ferry Road and we passed it in our chocolate uniforms on the way.   Watching me walking past one afternoon a pupil turned to her companion and commented "That's a fourth year."   On the timetable Wednesday and Saturday afternoons were marked "Games".   I was expecting a full six-day week but in fact all pupils were free to go home at the end of Wednesday and Saturday morning classes (although five periods were crammed into Wednesday so school didn't finish till the afternoon). 86.157.216.138 (talk) 10:05, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

How does this evidence support this conclusion?
On page 45 of Complete Ancient Greek by Gavin Betts and Alan Henry, it says, “The only Greek god who had a name with cognates in other Indo-European languages and so could, in a sense, claim to be genuinely Greek, was Zeus, whom Homer calls ruler of gods and men. The many other divinities worshipped, or at least acknowledged, by the Greeks seem to have been adopted from other cultures.” How exactly does the evidence the authors cite (that Zeus’s name has cognates in other Indo-European languages and all the others don’t) support the conclusion they mention (that Zeus is original to the Ancient Greek belief system and all the other gods are foreign importations)? Primal Groudon (talk) 18:48, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The EO entry might or might not help. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:18, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * We have a relevant article, Proto-Indo-European mythology. A couple of snippets:
 * "The Proto-Indo-European pantheon includes a number of securely reconstructed deities, since they are both cognates – linguistic siblings from a common origin – and associated with similar attributes and body of myths[.]"
 * "Despite the popularity of Greek mythology in western culture, Greek mythology is generally seen as having little importance in comparative mythology due to the heavy influence of Pre-Greek and Near Eastern cultures, which overwhelms what little Indo-European material can be extracted from it."
 * The idea the "genuinely Greek" gods are the ones that came down from the common Indo-European religion and were brought in along with the Proto-Greek language when the Greeks migrated to the area we now call Greece. The others were presumably either Pre-Greek or borrowed from somewhere else. --Amble (talk) 21:29, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The irregular declension of Ζεύς in Ancient Greek (pronounced in the Attic dialect), with genitive Διός (pronounced ) is strong evidence that the Greeks brought their sky god with them to Greece. The same holds for the Latins' Iuppiter with genitive Iovis, a name that is clearly the same as that of the Rigvedic Sky Father Dyauspitar.  --Lambiam 09:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

We have articles Proto-Indo-European mythology and List of Proto-Indo-European deities... AnonMoos (talk) 05:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)