Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 February 2

= February 2 =

Mercury
Why was the name of mercury changed from hydrargyrum? Why not keep hydrargyrum? † dismas †|(talk) 03:00, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * it would seem that "mercury" preceded "hydrargyrum". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:51, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Mercury (element) states "Mercury.. is commonly known as quicksilver and was formerly named hydrargyrum". An answer at Quora states "Even after the name changed from Hydrargyrum to Mercury the chemical symbol still remained Hg." These quotations suggest that "mercury" was preceded by "hydrargyrum" which is the Latinized form of the Greek word "liquid silver" for mercury. Mercury was a Roman, not a Greek god. DroneB (talk) 16:49, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, but neither the Wikipedia article lead nor the Quora answer give sources. Other sources, like Britannica, just say that the chemical symbol comes from Latin (or Latinized Greek). As far as I can tell, "hydrargyrum" was never a widely used name for the element in English. Surachit (talk) 17:19, 2 February 2020 (UTC)


 * The form mercurie is attested in Middle English in the Canterbury Tales, in "The prologe of the Chanons Yemannes Tale": "Of quik-silver, y-clept Mercurie crude?". According to a quotation in Wiktionary, the 1696 edition of The New World of English Words has "Hydrargyre, a Name which the Chymists give to Mercury". So at least in English the latter is almost certainly the older name. --Lambiam 20:20, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, late 14th century, as per the EO entry I cited earlier. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:14, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * OED, the source for wikt:hydrargyrum has a 1563 "...Vnguentes receyuing into there composition Hydrargyron." Was it borrowed from Latin, New Latin, or French? Who would want to be an etymologist?&mdash;eric 16:59, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Based on the quote quoted above I asked Google to search for 'T Gale treatment gonneshot'. In the first page of results there was a link to Garrison and Morton's Medical Bibliography page 186 in Google Books with the following reference:
 * "GALE (Thomas). 1507–1587. An excellent treatise of wounds made with gonneshot. London, R. Hall, (1563). Gale, a contemporary of Paré, was surgeon in Henry VIII's army at Montreuil. His book supported the views of Paré regarding the treatment of gunshot wounds, denying the poisonous effect of bullets; Gale, however, applied messy and complicated unguents to wounds, doing more harm than good. Forms part 3 of his Certaine workes of chirurgerie (No. 2371)."


 * I understand Thomas Gale used mercury as a component of his medicines for gunshot wounds. But we can't be sure without reading ‘An excellent treatise of wounds made with gonneshot’ or a reliable quotation from it... --CiaPan (talk) 17:42, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * In Certaine vvorkes of chirurgerie 1563.&mdash;eric 18:34, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Only half-jokingly I have to think that pronouncability must have played a part. Hydrargyrum... seriously? That second 'r' is a heartbreaker. Dollars to donuts it was the same guy that named phthisis. Matt Deres (talk) 21:21, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Become an unrhoticist. Life is much simpler. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:42, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Kind of a cousin to pronouncing the current month "Febuary". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:15, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Eating ramen
How is one supposed to eat ramen? I had some today. I picked up the biggest pieces of meat, vegetables and noodles with chopsticks first, but when that became too difficult, I scooped the broth and fillings up with the spoon provided like it was soup, and when there was only a little bit of broth left, I drank it straight from the bowl. Is this the right way? Or how should it be done? J I P &#124; Talk 21:42, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * This is unlikely to have an encyclopedic answer. The reference desk is not a chat forum.  Please let us not do this kind of stuff here.  /thread.  85.76.75.138 (talk) 21:58, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * A YouTube search for "how to eat ramen" produces several videos addressing this, but I haven't watched them yet. Bus stop (talk) 01:05, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Sir, your "/thread" looks really silly now in light of the rather informative discussion that has taken place thereafter.--WaltCip (talk) 18:42, 5 February 2020 (UTC)


 * If you successfully consumed it, then you did it a right way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:42, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * In Japan, people eat the noodles by getting some strands into their mouths (using chopsticks) and then slurping them up – which may be rather noisily. They bring their heads down over the bowl and use their chopsticks to keep the dangling strands from swinging and splattering the soup all around. --Lambiam 09:25, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Being unconcerned with authenticity, when preparing noodles at home I first break them into short lengths so that they can be easily eaten with a spoon. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.205.58.107 (talk) 12:09, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * One of my trips to Japan allowed me to go to Yokohama with fellow professors and have ramen. They gave me some rules. Stop talking. Nobody talks when ramen arrives. That is very rude. Slurp the noodles. The crinkles are there to trap the broth so when you eat all the noodles, the broth should be pretty much gone. You don't have to eat everything. Many of them ate the noodles and left everything else in the bowl. Others devoured the entire meal. Enjoy it. The purpose of the bowl full of random things is to make every noodle slurp taste different. 135.84.167.41 (talk) 14:48, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Why stop talking? Temerarius (talk) 21:12, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * According to the people I was with, it tells the chef that his soup isn't any good, so you need to talk instead of eat. They said that the area had a joking phrase used to tell someone they were a very rude person. You tell them, "you talk while eating ramen." It is a different culture. They are also very much against taking something out of your mouth. So, chewing gum isn't popular because you spit it out when done. The common replacement is hi-chew, a gum that you chew and it eventually disolves in your mouth. My assumption is that kids would eventually start chewing gum and gross out the adults, but I haven't been back in a long while. 135.84.167.41 (talk) 13:25, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * In contrast to America, where slurping is considered rude. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:25, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * My Japanese teacher took us out for ramen last week, and she suggested dipping the spoon in the broth, then lifting noodles and meat/veg into the spoon with chopsticks, so then you get a mouthful of everything. But in general I don't think there's any way you're "meant" to eat ramen - it's a simple, popular, unsophisticated dish (and a relatively recent Chinese import to Japan). You might as well ask how you're meant to eat pizza. Smurrayinchester 21:24, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Politicians have been castigated for eating pizza "the wrong way". See also this instructional video. --Lambiam 10:17, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Eating pizza with a knife and fork is now somehow wrong? I have always eaten pizza with a knife and fork. J I P  &#124; Talk 11:53, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Eating deep-dish pizza with bare hands could be extraordinarily messy. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:25, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Deep-dish pizza, while delicious, is not really pizza. It's pizza in the same sense that cheesecake is cake.  Which is not really.  -- Jayron 32
 * Chicago-style pizza is not pizza? To this Midwesterner, them be fightin' words. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:26, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Like I said, it is delicious, but it is no more pizza than cheesecake is a cake. -- Jayron 32 17:52, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The article says it is pizza. As for cheesecake... why is it not cake? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:30, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Because cheesecake is a pie: it has a crust with a distinct vertical side and a filling and as such is otherwise indistinguishable from other foods called pie, and entirely unlike any other food commonly called cake. Likewise Chicago-style deep dish pizza is a savory pie and not a pizza, which is a topped flatbread and not a filled pastry shell, which is what Chicago deep dish pizza is instead.-- Jayron 32 06:02, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Pizza often means "pie", and the term "pie" is often used within stores that make pizzas. Also, for the flatbread mini-pizzas once sold at Wrigley Field, the vendors would holler, "Pizza pie!" ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:09, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Since when do all cheesecakes have a distinct vertical side? I also question if it's accurate to say they always have a crust. (Is a base of graham crackers or nuts truly a crust? I'm not so sure.) Are you under the mistaken impression cheese cakes must be baked? Nil Einne (talk) 03:09, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Canadian bacon. Also, no timestamp? No true bacon and could get messy, respectively. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:55, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, there's a thing that happens where, sometimes, people accidentally type the wrong thing. It appears you were unaware that that can happen.  -- Jayron 32 13:04, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * No, I get it. Last year, I told Bugs to check out a Steve Jones ditty instead of a Steve Harris jam. Quite the pickle, but more skunky onion than cool cucumber. The next month, I was blocked indefinitely for signing it without a timestamp. Apparently, the faux pas was only in doing it over a thousand times on purpose, so I think you're still skating on very thick ice here. Keep up the near-flawless accuracy and if you're ever in Alberta, don't fear the prairie oysters! They're not nearly as slurpy as they sound. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:31, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * We fold our pizza in half and eat it like a sandwich. That's the obvious way to eat it, right? 135.84.167.41 (talk) 13:31, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * If you think a deep-dish pizza is difficult to eat by hand as-is, try folding it in half! ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:15, 4 February 2020 (UTC)