Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2023 September 4

= September 4 =

Is a conlang usefull as a cypher?
Is a conlang usefull as a cypher or able to work as one?177.207.102.151 (talk) 00:21, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
 * That depends on context, I suppose. Although not a constructed language, Navajo was used in WW2 for example. See Navajo code talkers.  In today's world of electronic wizardry, it's unlikely that you'd fool a modern intelligence entity for long, however. -- 136.54.106.120 (talk) 03:51, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
 * My family have occasionally used Esperanto to avoid being understood by others – an ironic inversion of its creator's purpose. —Tamfang (talk) 20:09, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
 * If some of the undeciphered writing systems are conscripts or conlangs, they are successful for writing. It is doubted if they are gibberish, though. Cants have had a long use as cryptolects. Some have become very well understood, though, --Error (talk) 20:18, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Trivia about the 1960 presidential election
Hello. It is often said that the 1960 presidential elections between Kennedy and Nixon were decided in Illinois and Texas, both of which were won narrowly by the Democratic senator. If they had been won by Nixon it would have been the latter who won the election, and many people claim that fraud was committed in these two states; there was never any clear evidence but I am not interested in delving into that. I am interested in another aspect; with Illinois and Texas Nixon would have won the presidency with 270 Electoral College votes, and since the "quorum" was 269 votes, it would have been a very narrow victory and probably the members of the Electoral College until the actual vote in December I presume, would have felt a bit pressured. I'll throw it out there, since one Oklahoma voter was unfaithful to Nixon anyway, in the event of Nixon's victory, would the 24 Texas voters and 27 Illinois voters have remained loyal by confirming Nixon's victory? Thank you. Andreoto (talk) 13:36, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
 * There are too many hypotheticals in this question (If Nixon had won... Would the electors (not voters) have remained loyal...) for this to be answerable in a meaningful way – any answer would be pure and futile speculation. --Wrongfilter (talk) 15:37, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Note also that the slates of electors in each State are selected for each presidential/vice presidential ticket by the corresponding party, who will attempt to select trusted party members. I think this was also the procedure in 1960. There have been faithless electors through the centuries, but it has remained a somewhat rare phenomenon. --Lambiam 16:09, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
 * see unpledged elector. fiveby(zero) 19:41, 4 September 2023 (UTC)