Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2024 March 16

= March 16 =

Counting string
In Princess Caraboo (film), a professor tries to get the supposed "Princess Caraboo" to show the number 6 on a "counting string", which he says is "common to every known culture of the Orient". "Princess Caraboo" clearly does not know how to use the string, as she ends up indicating 2000 (?). Is this "counting string" a real thing, and if so, how is it used exactly? How would one indicate the number 6 on such a string? 32.217.240.174 (talk) 08:51, 16 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The South American quipu comes to mind, but whatever people meant by the word "Orient" then, it would not have included South America. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 10:07, 16 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Unlikely, but possible: Abacus.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:30, 16 March 2024 (UTC)


 * This article suggests that knotted strings were in use in China as a counting device more than 5,000 years ago. Mikenorton (talk) 13:19, 17 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Ah, and Wikipedia has Chinese knotting on this. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 19:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * But this (as a recording method rather than decoration) was being referred to as a past practice as early as the third century CE. Is there any evidence of it being contemporary in the 19th century? I don't recall the detail being in the book by Catherine Johnson I have read (unfortunately no longer to hand) about the character – perhaps the film's script writers invented it: our article on the actual person states the film "added fictional elements to the story". {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.213.188.170 (talk) 04:21, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The traditional problem with string is measuring it, not counting it. DuncanHill (talk) 19:14, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * “But there's a snag, you see, the hundred and twenty-two thousand miles [of string] is in three-inch lengths.” In that case it probably was counted. —Tamfang (talk) 19:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

China's leadership in crops
I've noticed that China has a staggering proportion in the world production of several agricultural crops: peach (61%), plum (56%), apple (49%), tomato (35%), potato (25%), wheat, etc. Why is that and what role, if any, does the field area allocated for those crops play? 212.180.235.46 (talk) 16:46, 16 March 2024 (UTC)


 * China also has a staggering proportion of the world's population. Peach production in China notes that "most of China's peaches are for domestic consumption". As for plums, China produces the most, but was still the largest importer of plums and sloes in 2022. They also ate the most apples in 2021, accounting for "39.5 % of apple consumption in the world". Clarityfiend (talk) 07:52, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * What on earth do they use sloes for? Alansplodge (talk) 13:56, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Probably nothing really. This seems to be just because those two are counted together in market reports for whatever reason. Nil Einne (talk) 15:16, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, Szechuan sloe gin is apparently a thing, and this reports that China is also the World's biggest sloe (as opposed to other types of plum) producer, so they must use them for something. One can presumably use sloes for pretty well anything that other types of plum are used for. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.241.39.117 (talk) 05:15, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Well that source claims "" Except according to List of countries by plum production, China also produces about 7 million plums and sloes. So either China produces almost entirely sloes or the source is simply wrong. I'm going by the later since after talking a lot about "sloe plum" production, it ends with: "" And the other figures also look a lot like the figures for other countries suggesting almost no one produces other plums. And the header where all this happens is "Sloe and Plum Production in the World". If I had to guess it used some sort of algorithmic generation probably strongly predating a lot of the recent generative AI stuff. Perhaps it's even one of those sites which has translated back and forth. As for use sloes in place of other plums, well there are a lot of different kinds of plums and I know very little of sloes. But Prunus spinosa makes me doubt sloes are consumed that much as a simple raw fruit unlike many kinds of other plums, probably even in China. Although yes I should have gone with "not much" rather than "nothing really". Nil Einne (talk) 11:52, 19 March 2024 (UTC)