Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2022 July 7

= July 7 =

Cleanser
under the facial cleansers section of this article below, when they have a list written, number 14 near the bottom treatment/medicated cleansers, are they the same as cleansers that are for face and remove make-up, skin care product residue, microbes, dead skin cells, oils, sweat, dirt and other types of daily pollutants from the face? or different? 121.44.89.131 (talk) 09:15, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanser 121.44.89.131 (talk) 09:15, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * There isn't a definite answer to that. The article mentions a couple of types: lipid-soluble cleansers, and aqueous cleansers (which I think are emulsions, or emulsifiers, despite "aqueous" meaning "mostly water"). There are also cleansers which are merely detergents (that is, soap) in liquid form and with the pH of skin, as the article implies. Detergents are a kind of surfactant, surfactants are emulsifiers, but emulsifiers are not necessarily detergents. Category 14 in that article is a list of substances with various purposes other than cleansing: gel for soothing itchy skin conditions, germicides for fighting acne (and incidentally causing itchy skin conditions), the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory colloidal oatmeal, bleach which will make skin paler but is carcinogenic, vitamins for people who like to put vitamins everywhere, and honey, which was used in the past to preserve corpses so I guess there's some logic to it. Charcoal is also on the list, but that's more related to cleansing since its function is to absorb stuff. There's nothing to stop a product which contains one of these things, but is sold as a "cleanser", from also being lipid-soluble or emulsifying. Given that the focus of the product is one of these medications/treatments from item 14, though, I'd expect the rest of it to be soap and water. Which still makes it one of the same kind of cleansers used for removing makeup, dead cells, oil, etc., but not necessarily as effective at it. But who knows? There are lots and lots of different products. Card Zero  (talk) 10:36, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Subconscious substitution of words by brain
How is it called when, similar to pareidolia, at first glance we read some inscription as a word more familiar or "desirable" to us, e.g. "Sprite" instead of "sprout", only to realize it's actually something else? Thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 18:09, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * For example, I first read the header as "Suspicious substitution". I have no idea why my brain worked that way. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  18:16, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Perhaps related to the Freudian slip? Alansplodge (talk) 13:11, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I have no direct answer to your question (though what you describe I have certainly experienced before), but I can point out some similar phenomena whose names I do know: consider first the mondegreen, which is the mishearing of a spoken or sung word (not necessarily a more desirable or expected interpretation, merely an incorrect one). Such mishearings can significantly alter the meaning of a heard phrase, in which case they are probably more analogous to the The sort of word misidentification you describe may perhaps occur more frequently in garden-path sentences, which mislead the reader's expectation on how to parse a sentence. If the "twist" in a garden-path sentence occurs on a word which might be easily misidentified with another, perhaps the reader would more readily slip into not only incorrectly parsing the sentence, but also incorrectly reading a word within it upon which the correct parsing relies.A Spoonerism might be considered as an example of the phenomenon you describe, except that it occurs when one is constructing sentences rather than when interpreting them. In both cases, the mistake seems to occur in translating the word between media: with your phenomenon, the mind and eyes make an error in transcription; in a Spoonerism, the mind and voicebox make an error in broadcast.Finally, take a look at the missing letter effect: it seems to indicate that people's brains put less effort in (as it were) when reading "function words" than when reading "content words", and so can more easily ignore letters within those words. This seems to be a close parallel to your phenomenon: it may be that the brain finds it easier to ignore the actual content of words which are expected (or at least subconsciously desired); the reader can then more easily elide two words together, confusing them at least for a brief moment. The process seems to be facilitated further if they are vaguely "shaped like" each other (which could perhaps be quantified with something like Hamming distance) and require more than a mere cursory glance to distinguish. Shells-shells (talk) 07:14, 13 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I was embarrassed when a friend repeatedly asked me to READ ALOUD the triangle below and giggled every time I did so. Now it's your turn.

/ \         /     \       /  PARIS \ /  IN THE   \ / THE SPRINGTIME \  Philvoids (talk) 15:24, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Aisle (or Isle) of Paris...? --←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:33, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Aisle meet you madly there where only the river is sane. Philvoids (talk) 15:39, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Tools on a logo
What are those two crossed tools or utensils on the logo of Seth & Riley's? I assume they may be relevant to beer-making, thanks. Brandmeistertalk  18:18, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps metal mash paddles. Sleigh (talk) 19:28, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Lemon reamers, because they make "hard lemonade". Card Zero  (talk) 19:32, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Codes used for people in prison
On the page Category:American people imprisoned abroad, there are numbers in parentheses after various headings, like this: "American people executed abroad‎ (2 C, 17 P)". What do C and P stand for? 50.39.162.100 (talk) 18:37, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Nothing to do with prisons. C is for categories, P is for pages. If you click on Category:American_people_executed_abroad, you'll find there's links to 2 subcategories and 17 pages. --Wrongfilter (talk) 18:48, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Websites comparable/similar to the Wikipedia Reference Desks?
Which websites are comparable/similar to the Wikipedia Reference Desks? I can think of Stack Exchange and Quora, but what else? 68.4.99.100 (talk) 19:49, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * https://reddit.com Sleigh (talk) 19:54, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Anything else? 68.4.99.100 (talk) 20:02, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Comparison of Q&A sites Card Zero  (talk) 20:05, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. 68.4.99.100 (talk) 20:40, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Useful Subreddits for this purpose are Explain Like I’m Five, No Stupid Questions, & AskReddit. Pablothepenguin (talk) 19:00, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

IVF and/or sperm/egg donor babies being given up for adoption?
Have there been any notable cases (in the news) where IVF and/or sperm/egg donor babies have been given up for adoption? Asking because these babies take more effort to create than usual (money-wise, et cetera) and thus I would think that giving them up for adoption would be considerably rarer. That, and the fact that such babies are usually wanted by their parents. 68.4.99.100 (talk) 20:01, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it looks as though none of the regular respondents here are able (or willing to try) to find an answer to your question.
 * This might be in part because details of children's conceptions and (if applicable) adoptions are generally considered to be personal and private information, and even if some health (or other) authority aggregates such information statistically, they might not choose, or not be permitted by law, to divulge it to the general public. Similarly, news outlets in most countries would likely be discouraged from publicising details of individal cases unless the participants sought or agreed it: this would probably require the child involved to have reached legal adulthood, have themself been given the relevant information, and thus be legally competent to give their agreement.
 * If I am mistaken in these (generalised) suppositions, perhaps someone will care to correct me and (hopefully) address your query. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.205.225.65 (talk) 16:14, 9 July 2022 (UTC)