Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 April 14

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April 14

Why are Irish folk songs so sad

First of all, I hope that I don't offend people from Ireland. I'm from the Philippines so I'm not that keen about European history and culture. Anyways, I'm listening to Celtic Woman. I found that some of their songs are sad such as Siúil A Rúin, She Moved Through the Fair, Danny Boy and Carrickfergus (song). They are mostly about longing for their love and even death. Why is so?--121.54.2.188 (talk) 01:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

See History of Ireland. Part of it is the Irish character due to thousands of years of shitty living, brought to you by various English and British kings, Oliver Cromwell, and the Potato Famine. For most of its history, Ireland was not always the nicest place to live. --Jayron32 02:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Is it really most of its history? It was beyond the Roman Empire, and it was one of the major centres of Christian culture in the early middle ages. Maybe it all started going downhill when the Vikings invaded about 1000 years ago (and 1000 years is a long time to create a musical culture of depressing songs, of course). Adam Bishop (talk) 04:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, there is the music for an Irish jig. Those will only make you cry if you stand too close to the dancers and get kicked in the crotch. StuRat (talk) 04:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

To come in from a different angle, Ireland doesn't have a monopoly on sad folk song's, most of the Flamenco songs of Spain are intensely sad based around lost love and unrequited love. Richard Avery (talk) 08:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Lousy weather, living in Ireland ;)

HTH, HAND etc

ALR (talk) 08:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Infact a huuuuuge proportion of folk-songs (infact music in general) are about emotionally charged things, which often means sadness and horror. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if the sadness derives from the dreary weather. I always cry when I hear Irish songs such as Danny Boy, Dublin in the Rare Ould Times, and Carrickfergus; then again many Neapolitan songs are sad and that city is definitely sunny. In fact O Sole Mio was written by a homesick man from Naples.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

There are more modern songs than these that are sad, for example Christmas 1915.--92.251.220.72 (talk) 17:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the delivery of songs of the sort referred to are sad, though I have to admit only a smattering familiarity with this subject. But I happen to find the articulation of the English language by the Irish to be uplifting. It is very different from American English in this regard, at least in my perception. The words spoken might be sad, but the delivery I find ennobling and therefore uplifting. Bus stop (talk) 18:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

This is just selection bias. The Irish have a whole range of traditional music, of all types, it's just that the more plaintive songs were en vogue for a while (late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) and got exported to Britain and the US. Spend some time in an Irish pub (even one in the US, that attracts real Irish people) that has live music; you'll hear maybe one or two sad ballads and a ton of stuff you can hop to. --Ludwigs2 18:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Except in certain old men's pubs essentially none of the music will be identifiable as Irish.--92.251.220.72 (talk) 18:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

"Paddy McGinty's Goat"[1] is very sad[[2]] ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Global business network

Is there any international non-governmental business network (global chamber of commerce) representing big businesses other than International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)? Are the political positions of ICC similar to the positions of the United States Chamber of Commerce? --WTLop (talk) 02:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

In some places, there is the Better Business Bureau, which certifies that its members follow certain standards of business ethics. Consumers can identify its members by listings in BBB directories and by signs which they are authorized to display. An improved corporate image is an incentive for a business to follow those standards, although some people have additional motivations. (http://www.mlbible.com/proverbs/11-1.htm; http://www.mlbible.com/proverbs/20-10.htm) -- Wavelength (talk) 14:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

See the disambiguation page International Association for examples in specific fields. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Can't remember what book this is...

I remember reading a book a long time ago (or maybe just hearing the summary) that I can't remember either the title or the author of. As I recall, the main character was a young woman. She fell off a ladder (or some other height) and was caught by a man who conveniently happened by (he might have startled her?), only for her father to come out and find her in his arms. Her father, being ridiculously strict about rules of propriety, forced the two of them to get married, and the book is about the aftermath. I believe it was "Christian historical romantic fiction" or something, but I can't remember the book's title or anything about it other than this (probably slightly screwed-up) summary.

If anyone knows what book this is (or is better at Googling it than I am!), your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! 24.247.163.175 (talk) 03:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Series vs. Trilogy (et al.)?

Many of my favorite authors have written several connected books about the same characters, and I like to get them and read them in order. I've been working on a database of all the books I own, and I include a special note for those books which a part of a sequence, indicating to which sequence they belong as well as their ordinal position within it. This has started me thinking . . . at what point does a sequence of books become a "series"? When you run of number-words (duology, trilogy, tetralogy, etc.)? Or are such words as "trilogy" and "tetralogy" reserved for works that necessarily form a story in their own right, whether or not the individual parts are readable standing alone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.119.240 (talk) 05:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Personally (and this isn't official at all, just my personal opinion), I consider anything larger than two books (a prequel/sequel) to be a "series". In my opinion, a trilogy is just a special kind of series that only has three books. This isn't very helpful to someone trying to catalogue books by the type of series... but I'd say to just give up and call it a "series" when you can't think of more words. You could also look at what the author calls it--if they call it "chronicles" or "series" themselves, it would probably be best to organize it under that title. 24.247.163.175 (talk) 11:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Very sensible. I suppose I could also follow my own example in the above paragraph and refer to any continued storyline as a "sequence." This would mean I wouldn't have to change how books were listed in my classification system just because an author released another book (turning a trilogy into a tetralogy, say) and I wouldn't have to worry whether the works could stand alone or could be understood only as part of a whole. It works for prequel/sequel books as well as extended series, too. 71.104.119.240 (talk) 08:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Roman corn

In a handout my mother gives her students when she teaches them about ancient Rome, there is mention of the Romans eating cakes made of corn. They couldn't possibly have eaten what we know as corn today, since corn is indigenous to the Western hemisphere. I've been told that the word "corn" was used by pre-Colombian Europeans to refer to some other kind of food, and that what we now know as corn was first dubbed "Indian corn" by European settlers in the Americas. If this is so, what was it that the Romans make their cakes from? 71.104.119.240 (talk) 05:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Corn is any sort of grain, in this case just plain old wheat. Maize is of course from the western hemisphere. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

If "corn" originally meant, and technically still does mean, any kind of grain, how did the word come to be used most often to refer specifially to maize? (And - no, I don't really expect an answer to this one - but if the Romans ate wheat cakes, why, WHY, why would a handout written for middle-school kids use the word "corn," however technically accurate? No wonder the poor kids can't tell sheep from llamas. [3]) 71.104.119.240 (talk) 06:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• I don't know why, but as our maize article says, "Outside the British Isles, another common term for maize is "corn". This was originally the English term for any cereal crop. In North America, its meaning has been restricted since the 19th century to maize, as it was shortened from "Indian corn." The term Indian corn now refers specifically to multi-colored "field corn" (flint corn) cultivars." Maybe the American natives didn't grow wheat. I guess your mother teaches in North America, if you think this will be confusing? (If so, I agree, why not just say wheat?) Adam Bishop (talk) 06:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• A guess: That handout was originally prepared from a BrE book (or an AmE book by an academic who cared about the distinction ;-), and whoever did the preparation either was sloppy or uninformed, or did not care. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Ugh . . . anyone who cares that much about the distinction (and it's not WRONG to call wheat "wheat," after all) shouldn't be writing for seventh graders. (I don't think the handout was from a BrE book - for one thing, it's unlikely there's a BrE book that's perfectly configured to teach California's seventh-grade social studies standards, and for another, I haven't seen any Britishisms crop up in student work, which they certainly would have by now, since these kids seem to think "paraphrase" means "copy the text directly except for a couple of words changed here and there.") Anyway, I think I can consider this pretty much wrapped up. And I suppose with the state of education in the United States today, we've got bigger problems than whether the kids imagine that Caesar liked to chow down on corn-on-the-cob once in a while. 71.104.119.240 (talk) 08:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that what Stephan Schulz meant was not that "the handout was from a BrE book", but that whoever wrote the text of the handout probably read that detail in a British book and didn't know enough to "translate" the usage of corn for American students (probably not knowing that "maize" was not, in fact, what was meant). Having worked a bit in the textbook industry, I can say that such mixups (along with downright errors) are quite common in material written for students. Deor (talk) 11:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I also think that is likely. The same problem occurs with potatoes, how many people know potatoes are native to South America? Adam Bishop (talk) 14:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Time to fire up the old Oxford English Dictionary... "corn" is"a general term the word includes all the cereals, wheat, rye, barley, oats, maize, rice, etc., and, with qualification (as black corn, pulse corn), is extended to leguminous plants, as pease, beans, etc., cultivated for food. Locally, the word, when not otherwise qualified, is often understood to denote that kind of cereal which is the leading crop of the district; hence in the greater part of England ‘corn’ is = wheat, in North Britain and Ireland = oats; in the U.S. the word, as short for Indian corn, is restricted to maize." Anyway, I tend to agree that if this is for US consumption, it is misleading. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems that the Romans made bread out of just about anything[4]. Alansplodge (talk) 23:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all so much! I know all too well the errors that slip into textbooks - I've read about them and I've been known to catch them on occasion. (My high school geography text had gold discovered in California in 1849. If that had been the case, the swarms of miners that headed west to seek their fortune would have gone down in history as "fiftiers" - and then, of course, textbooks would erroneously say that gold was discovered in 1850 . . . ugh.) Textbooks for the lower grades are often particularly slapdash, since the people who know enough to get a contract to write a textbook often believe they have better things to do with their time than simplify their knowledge to a child's level. Since "Romans ate corn" isn't the obvious kind of error that's likely to jump out at you right away, I can see how it slipped through. I mightn't have caught it myself if I hadn't seen it in student work first (I was already in active error-hunting mode, not passive learn-from-a-text mode). If Steven Schulz's theory is correct, it would seem the writer of the materials was as careless a copier as a lot of the students. Ah, I do love irony. 71.104.119.240 (talk) 08:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Strange, I've lived in England all my life and never heard anyone refer to anything except the big yellow grains as corn, I had assumed maize was the american term for it since it never seems to be used this side of the atlantic. Guess foreign people know my own language better than me. 148.197.114.158 (talk) 09:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns

Since the term Tomb Guard implies that the soldier actually has to "guard" the tomb, are there any regulations that specify when and how a tomb guard can break-stride and take the necessary steps to protect the tomb? For instance, if someone were to hop the gallery barrier and land on the platform where the tomb is, what is supposed to happen? Does the Tomb Guard actually do anything? I know his gun is unloaded, but I'm sure there's something he must do. Has anything like this ever happened in the past? Jared (t)  09:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. "Today, most of the challenges faced by the Sentinels are tourists who want to get a better picture or uncontrolled children (which generally is very frightening for the parent when the Soldier challenges the child)." So I guess they "challenge" the person, but it doesn't specify what that means. Ariel. (talk) 10:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

In this photo, the guard not only has a rifle but also it seems to be sporting an unsheathed bayonet; so I'm assuming the guard has multiple options for "challenging" interlopers. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Have you seen this video? Gabbe (talk) 10:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Knowlege

We possess more knowlege today than mankind has ever before, electricity, nuclear power, automobiles, science, technology etc. Is there any sort of project on the go anywhere in the world to ensure that this knowlege is preserved for centuries to come. To clarify, if there was a nuclear war tomorrow, and 99% of humans were gone, all our knowlege would have disapeared. But like the pyramids, some things can last for hundreds of years. Wikipedia is great but will not last hundreds of years after a nuclear war, the project I am thinking of would be for instance to write all the wiki articles onto stone tablets and store them in a pyramid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.58.82 (talk) 10:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Does this count?--droptone (talk) 11:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Where would we find the editors willing to do undertake this massive project?!!!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It would be a nice gesture, I suppose, but, really, if there was a nuclear war tomorrow and most of the earth's population (humans, animals, and plants) disappeared and we ended up in a post-apocalyptic Stone Age, most of the knowledge we have now would be next to useless for the survivors, who would really be more interested in trying to survive. Maybe a survival guide might be a better idea. Then there is also the problem of storage. It would need to be in a place safe from the apocalypse for it to be still there afterwards, meaning, probably deep underground or in space, or in some other highly inaccessible place to also keep it safe from looters and vandals before the apocalypse - thus defeating its very purpose. This would also probably mean that someone somewhere would need a key for it (or there'd be a couple of keys), which also need to be safely stored and under the control of people who will definitely need to survive in order for the knowledge to be passed on (or used by the 'keepers' to control the uneducated masses after the apocalypse). Sounds like a 'novel' idea, if you pardon the pun. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It probably would not do people in a post-apocalyptic world a whole lot of good if the whole of human knowledge was stored in space as people would have to rebuild a heck of a lot of infrastructure to build a rocket (assuming they still remember how), to go get the knowledge. Probably better to leave the knowledge vault or vaults on earth somewhere. Googlemeister (talk) 13:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes, I was trying to show how impractical the whole thing could be. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Or we collect it on the Internet, say, in a collaborative work, so that everyone can take a copy on his USB-Stick/Blueray/Harddrive, and some copies would survive by chance, just as e.g. 600 or so copies of the Iliad did survive the dark ages. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Physical copies of the Iliad don't need computers or electricity to read, though, unlike hard-disks. In order to get to the knowledge, as Googlemeister says above, there would be a lot of rebuilding to do, and if only 1% of the earth's population remain (trying to survive in a post-nuclear ecological disaster area with very limited food resources, large areas of the planet being uninhabitable, climate change, etc.) it would take a very long time. Let's say it took them a few thousand years to come out of their Stone Age to reach a level of infrastructure/civilization/knowledge comparable to our own (at least at a level where they can use computer disks, assuming they can make computers that use the exact same physical connections that would be needed for USB-Sticks, etc.) - language would have undergone huge changes by then and the probability of them being able to read anything of what we had written thousands of years before them (even in all of our languages) would be extremely low, unless they had access to 'ancient texts' (as everything would be to them) and they'd either had a continued line of teaching these 'ancient languages' or were able to decipher them in some way. Then, it can be said, if they had reached a level of knowledge comparable to our own just in order to be able to read what we knew, there would be hardly much they could learn and makes the whole project almost pointless, besides perhaps being an archaeological record of who we were, what we did, and what we knew, essentially, about our world. If it was going to happen - and be quickly helpful to our survivors, it would have to be stone tablets or something, buried deep and away from harm, and everyone would have to know where they were and be able to get to them - deciding on this place would probably be the most difficult thing, though, as we have no way of predicting where the biggest concentration of survivors will be, what changes in climate (or even earthquakes) may do to the geography, and any manner of things. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

All of you are presuming that after a full-scale nuclear war the Earth would still be habitable. There is also the alarming but possible scenario of the Earth being knocked off its axis!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That presumption was a necessary part of the question, without which it would be nonsensical - 'how can we preserve all of our knowledge for a future planet with no life on it?' --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but no, there is not. The amount of energy we can release is minuscule compared to the mass of the Earth. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Have there been any studies on how long USB drives can be neglected without data corruption? Googlemeister (talk) 15:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The Scientology organization is preserving the words of L. Ron Hubbard in durable materials in vaults at various locations (see Trementina Base). In the famous science fiction novel The Mote in God's Eye, the "Motie" civilization is given to recurrent semi-predictable collapses, and "museums" are built with the deliberate intention of preserving knowledge through the dark age periods... AnonMoos (talk) 14:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC)Well, there is the theory/hypothesis/whatever - call it what you will - that below one of the pyramids in Giza there is a 'secret' chamber which houses knowledge from a previous period in our history (Edgar Cayce mentioned it, as well as plenty of other psychics, and certain people have tried to find it, having no success for varying reasons). Whether it is true or not, no-one knows, but I suspect that if it were true, in order for it to serve its supposed intended purpose of supplying knowledge and wisdom to survivors of whatever it is that is supposed to have caused that civilisation to collapse, A) there would be a lot more references to its existence and location; and B) it would be a lot more accessible. Unless it was a secret. In which case, what would have been the point? (DISCLAIMER - I do not in any way whatsoever subscribe to this theory, it just 'exists' :) ) --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Ahem. 600 copies of the Iliad survived the "Dark Ages" because the "Dark Ages" people made copies of it, not by sitting around in a pyramid/Greek temple/Ancient Greek hard-drive.

The idea of creating a "knowledge repository" is a beautiful one, but one should take into account that the preservation of knowledge (or any kind of archeological/textual evidence) is subject to flukes of fate. What if the repository just burned down, like the famed Library at Alexandria ? If this happened, perhaps the creation of the repository would in fact hamper the preservation of knowledge - since, before the fire, people would tend to think "oh, no need to make a copy of this text, it's already in that Great Big Repository !".

You can never know what the fate of a text will be... For instance, it's believed that the works of the Roman historian Tacitus, very valued today by historians, had during the Late Roman Empire fallen out of favor and would have probably disappeared if not for the extensive copying ordered by emperor Marcus Claudius Tacitus, who claimed to be a descendant of the historian. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that many "voluntary preservation of knowledge" operations have been made, and have disappeared, so that we cannot today access that knowledge.

However, evidence has an uncanny ability to survive in one form or another - often in forms not intended by the one who "created" that evidence - so I'd not worry too much about a nuclear disaster wiping out everything or whatever. As a last case study, look at Pompei. At the time, the volcanic eruption of 79 AD was a disaster, wiping out a whole town ! Today, it's one of the best things that ever happened for scholars studying Ancient Rome : an unparalleled glimpse at Roman daily life... --Alþykkr (talk) 14:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The Rosetta Project might be of interest. It engraves linguistic information onto nickel disks that should survive for millennia. You could do something similar with wikipedia. Even millennia is a cosmic eyeblink though. The book The Earth After Us indicates that after some millions of years, almost no trace will be left on the planet of anything ever done by humans. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 16:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think this question is concerning a nuclear war in which some people survive, and the knowledge is for their benefit. This is largely the plot of A Canticle for Leibowitz. I have a hard time envisioning something knocking us back to the stone age that doesn't wipe us out all together: the fact that writing exists ensures that we'll remember a lot of what we knew. Surely some people will remember how to smelt iron and make gunpowder. It would be an interesting world: the history would not develop as it did, because people would retain extensive knowledge of how things work (even without a massive encyclopedia), but lack the industrial or political structure to put a lot of it into practice. Buddy431 (talk) 20:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

This is a spoiler, but I must mention that the --other-- canonical treatment of this topic is probably The Mote in God's Eye. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Not a spoiler at all, CT, because AnonMoos mentioned it in a bit more detail above. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

1) I don't think killing off 99% of us would necessarily be enough to wipe out our current technology. That would leave some 70 million people, more than enough to run an advanced society, especially if they all pooled their resources. However, if the people who survived were all in the jungles of Borneo and the Amazon, then we would lose a lot of technology.

2) Is the goal to provide technology immediately to the survivors or only later, once they mature as a society ? A series of satellites in stable orbits would be good, for example, if we want to wait until they regain the ability to travel in space before "revealing our secrets".

3) We might want to be selective about what info we record. If the apocalypse was due to nuclear war, for example, then we might want to skip instructions for building more nukes. We might even want to skip all the advanced physics lessons, allowing them more time to mature before they rediscover all that. StuRat (talk) 22:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the survivors are more likely to be scattered in small groups across the planet. Sure, enough of them together would probably be able to pool their resources, but this would be a world of very limited resources, as most has been either destroyed or made unusable by radioactivity. Climate change would also be a factor in this. I think in a situation like this, people would be less likely to share with people they don't know very well, and especially so after a war. Survival of one's own group is more likely to be such a priority that it wouldn't matter if it was at the expense of other groups. As for your second and third points, StuRat, it is entirely possible that they may shun technology altogether, as it was the knowledge of this that was the prime cause of them being in their situation and being kicked from their Garden of Eden, as they may come to think of our world as, but at least a knowledge of how it all happened may help them to avoid repeating our mistake. We can't predict any of this, of course. In any case, as a humanitarian gesture it's a wonderful thought, but it would cost too much and wouldn't benefit anyone alive now (so no incentive) or anybody for thousands of years to come. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

There's a similar question being pondered on another ref desk, more specifically about how to preserve wikipedia in the event of a nuclear holocaust. The above discussion might be a tad more serious, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Bathing after eating

Does anyone know why people in certain countries such as Italy and Cuba believe that one has to wait exactly three hours before entering the water following a meal? I live in Italy and the Italians claim bathing can interfere with the digestion process and even the doctors back up this belief. Most Americans and Northern Europeans, however, consider it to be an Old Wives Tale. I'm an American and I was always told as a child not to swim for one hour after eating, but never three hours, and that was swimming not bathing. Do any other editors know why this is so in these countries?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

In the UK it was and probably still is believed. Funnily enough I saw it discussed yesterday on an old episode of QI and as you say, it's just an old wives tale. 86.179.90.197 (talk) 14:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

This article says: "There isn’t a clear origin to this particular wives tale, but it has been persistent for years, going back to the 1950’s and beyond. The idea here is that a child—or anyone, for that matter—that goes swimming after eating risks their very life, thanks to the inevitable stomach cramps that come along with the activity. Yet the very lack of those stomach cramps among those who disobey the “rule” about waiting to go swimming after they eat calls foul on the concept...While the belief is prevalent in many countries and in many cultures, there has never been a drowning reported that could be linked to stomach cramps brought on by entering the water too soon after eating...It certainly is possible to have muscle cramps through strenuous exercise, and it is not recommended to over exert oneself directly after eating a big meal, but regular splashing about isn’t likely to bring on the cramps...In some countries, such as Cuba, the waiting time can be as much as three hours for those that ascribe to this particular belief..." Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It was fairly widely believed in the US in the past, but I never heard "3 hours" (more like one hour). AnonMoos (talk) 14:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Here in Italy people keep their kids out of the water for exactly 3 hours after their mid-day meal. Even if it's five minutes to go, the poor kids have to wait the full three hours! When people see my kids and I going stright into the water they put it down to luck that I haven't been killed yet. LOL. What the Italians doctors claim is that the shock of cool water on the body temperature can block the blood flow to the stomach that's needed to digest the food. The water is actually quite warm, but they still maintain this fallacy. They also think that drinking ice-cold beverages will kill you and that if a child is perspiring he or she needs to be covered to prevent a fever!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I can testify that it's a common belief in France, too. I really wonder when and how that tale appeared, and how it spread so wide... --Alþykkr (talk) 14:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I guess in a way it would have made sense to most people (even though it's wrong) not to swim after a meal. I'm not sure I'd like to swim the channel immediately after eating a five course meal . Gotta go tuck myself in now and starve this cold of mine. 86.179.90.197 (talk) 15:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

There is probably no reason why a child or adult can't enter the water after eating simply to bathe or to wade or float around in a leisurely way. However, as a former serious swimmer, I can testify that energetic swimming within 2-3 hours of a meal sometimes does result in cramps. My cramps were never so severe that I couldn't get to the side of the pool when they hit, but it is remotely conceivable that cramps could cripple a person, which could result in drowning in deep water. In any case, such cramps are likely to disrupt a swimming workout. Again, though, I don't think this would apply to a leisurely dip in water that is no deeper than a person's neck. Marco polo (talk) 15:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

But why would you get more cramps soon after eating ? --Alþykkr (talk) 16:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The theory is that the body cuts blood flow to the extremities after eating in order to concentrate resources on the digestion process going on in your middle bits, just as it does in cold weather to maintain your core temperature and protect your vital organs at the expense of your fingers and toes. The extremities are thus more vulnerable to cramping until your stomach has done its thing and the blood flow to the limbs returns to normal. Flailing your blood-starved limbs around in chilly water will inevitably provoke the muscles to cramp, and you will inevitably drown. My granny believed this explanation as an article of faith, but she also had to be physically restrained from rubbing butter into burns. I have no idea whether there is any science behind it. Karenjc 17:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

According to Snopes, perhaps not, as the idea was challenged in a medical journal in 1961 and evidently not subsequently supported. Ah, all those swimming opportunities I missed back in the '70s. But my parents were fairly progressive, so we usually only had to wait 30 minutes. —Kevin Myers 20:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I can testify that it was also a widespread belief in Australia when I was growing up. Kids were told: "Don't go swimming straight after eating, or you'll get stomach cramps and sink to the bottom. Wait at least one hour". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but that was swimming, and one hour. I was told that as well by my mother to avoid possible cramps. What I'm curious about is the three hours wait Italians (and others) insist upon before dipping into the water. The kids aren't allowed to get their stomachs wet, just their feet until the full three hours have passed!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 19:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, your header says said (it's since been changed) "Swimming after eating", so .... The "swimming" in my post was a generic reference to entering the water and frolicking and gambolling in the glee of acquatic disportment, not necessarily using one's arms and legs as a means of maritime locomotion. Just entering the water at all was a no-no, for at least an hour. Never heard of the 3-hour thing till now. But it's curious that this was such a widespread misbelief. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

To old wives' credit - from what Marco Polo has said, it seems that it is not a misbelief, but a correct belief (about swimming with arms and legs), which has been incorrectly extended to bathing and frolicking. It's natural that such a generalization should occur in many places: after all, bathing in the old days would very often be in rivers and such, any entering into the water is likely to lead to swimming, and it's better to err on the safe side.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 20:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Alice Bailey

Sorry for the repost but no one has answered my question please help

Is there a religion based on the writings of Alice Bailey specifically A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. I realise she is a Theosophist, but is this a religion, and alot of Theosophy is, well, tripe. But I am very intrigued by her writings, is this a religious movements? Any enlightenment on the subject would be appreciated. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.58.82 (talk) 12:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The article you linked describes several movements linked with her thought. The grouping with a clear link is the Arcane School, which forms part of the Lucis Trust. Whether you describe that as a religious movement would, I suppose, depend on your definition; they state that they don't support any particular creed. Warofdreams talk 14:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Enlightenment is not the natural province of the Reference desk, but you might look at Theosophy for yourself.--Wetman (talk) 23:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

short stories dealing with books/literature/reading

Hi, I'm looking for (short) short stories (or at least one) that somehow deal with literature, books or reading. Well, I know Fahrenheit 451 but I'm looking for something much shorter. Google couldn't help me. Can someone here? Thanks in advance. --87.123.219.165 (talk) 15:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

These links might be helpful.

• http://www.eastoftheweb.com/cgi-bin/read_db.pl?search_field=&order_by=author_last%2Ctitle&page=1&search_for=reading&x=0&y=0
• http://www.readbookonline.net/search/search.htm?cx=partner-pub-9997146367302884%3Ag8p7pfqnytc&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=reading&sa=Search ----------- *http://www.storybites.com/ -- Wavelength (talk) 15:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges instantly comes to mind. --Saddhiyama (talk) 08:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The Fun They Had is a much-anthologised one. --Hence Piano (talk) 09:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

dandelions as weeds

Why are dandelions considered weeds? They are not altogether unsightly, they are edible with some good medicinal qualities. Is there a cultural reason why they are not cultivated (similar to the alleged English fear of tomatoes in the 16th and 17th centuries?) Googlemeister (talk) 16:02, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I can buy dandelion greens in my supermarket so they are not altogether uncultivated. Rmhermen (talk) 16:23, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The article Weed describes weeds as plants that grow in unwanted places. I would hazard a guess that dandelions are considered weeds because you can see them practically anywhere - even growing through cracks in the pavement. We don't see many other plants do that, at least ones that are not considered weeds. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:23, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I can think of some reasons:

1) They spread uncontrollably.

2) The leaves are "weed-like", meaning they have spikes. (Yes, roses have thorns and aren't considered weeds, but the flower is better looking on them.)

3) The fluff-ball of seeds is annoying when they blow all over and get on clothes and such. Yes, other plants, like cat tails, do this, too. Some may also consider those to be weeds. StuRat (talk) 16:24, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

(Edit Conflicts) I think the main reason is that, because of their numerous wind-borne seeds, their spread is very hard to control. If cultivated as a flower, they would tend to spread both to areas of one's own garden they were not wanted, and also to one's neighbors' gardens, making one rather unpopular. In addition, they do not grow very densely together, making a bed of dandelions look untidy (though selective breeding might overcome this), and readily colonise lawns which most people prefer to be a monoculture (though I myself like to see a sprinkling of daisies and other smaller flowers on a lawn for contrast). Given their several culinary and medicinal uses, there must presumably be some commercial cultivation by methods which overcome such problems by perhaps unaesthetic means. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, if left alone, they will take over a lawn, which is fine if you want a lawn consisting of dandelions and if the city's zoning laws permit it. Otherwise, they're a royal freakin' pain. It's true that weeds are unwanted plants. For example, a maize plant growing in a soybean field is technically a weed, although the more typical term is "rogue corn" or "volunteer corn". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

"...if the city's zoning laws permit it..." Really??!!!?? So much for those Americans who think that the UK is a hotbed of "big government" and the tyranny of socialism! Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not the city's zoning laws that matter. Its the Restrictive covenant with the homeowner's association that does. City's don't usually legislate these sorts of things, but HOAs frequently require you to maintain a certain quality of yard, in order to protect home values in the neighborhood they cover. Bugs misspoke here, it isn't the municipality that cares, its your neighbors that do. --Jayron32 21:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Cities can also penalize you if your yard is not "kept up", and being overgrown with weeds is one way. That's not "big government" that's "small government". The Federal and State governments couldn't care less. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Ever see the root structure of a dandelion? They're as thick as your thumb and go on for feet. Some trees don't have roots like a dandelion. HalfShadow 16:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

They are liable to be around after humans have vanished from the earth. At home we never tried to poison them or anything, we just dug up the visible ones about once a week. And once they go to seed, you're screwed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

To respons to the OP's idea that they aren't unsightly... The flower is not unsightly, but the flower isn't the problem. The plant puts out a yellow flower that lasts about 2 days before going to seed; but for the rest of its life it is has these low, wide, ground-hugging leaves that crowd out the grass in your lawn, and a giant root system that makes it impossible to remove them. So, your choice is basically an occasional yellow flower and zero grass... Not my idea of a desirable plant. --Jayron32 21:02, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I can't believe you all are talking about a small photosynthesis factory as though you had a personal grudge against it. Bus stop (talk) 21:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

They are always useful if you want to know if you like butter. 86.179.90.197 (talk) 21:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That's buttercup, surely? Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Dandelions were used too where I came from. Maybe it's the poor mans buttercup. 86.179.90.197 (talk) 21:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The best way to get rid of them ? Convince all the little girls in the neighborhood that they are the prettiest flower of all. They will then pick them whenever they see them. Well worth having a bunch of girls around with dandelions in their hair. StuRat (talk) 21:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

ahem...well worth having a bunch of little girls going around with dandelions in their hair? Did I interpret that correctly?--92.251.220.72 (talk) 22:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what your talking about, but I meant that dandelions are actually annoying, and having them drop all over the place from the hair of said girls is therefore annoying, but worth it, if it means they aren't in the lawn any more. StuRat (talk) 17:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

And to take care of the other problem, convince the kids to pick the leaves and make food out of them. I'm sure when they're all grown up, those kids would look back at those times as their salad days. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

In France, where they really do eat the leaves as salad, they are known as pis-en-lit[5] after a rather undesirable side-affect. Alansplodge (talk) 23:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

But only when eaten by French psychiatrists or psychologists.  :) -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 06:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Pissabed is an old English name for them, but as we stopped eating weeds long before the French did, few people now know the name. DuncanHill (talk) 12:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Right, now we just smoke them. In any case, a name like that is not necessarily enticing for a food product. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, when I was a kid in the North of England, we used to call them wee-the-beds, but it never once occurred to us that people actually ate them. Must be just a southern thing :). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Dandelions have several uses. Please see Russian Dandelion Domesticated for Natural Rubber. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:25, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Dandelions are called weeds simply because they grow where they have not been planted by whoever owns the land they are on. Similarly wildflowers grow where they are not planted, the difference being wildflowers are appreciated when they appear unexpectedly, weeds are not. It is up to you to decide which of these your dandelions are. 148.197.114.158 (talk) 09:00, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

And I would guess partly they are not usually cultivated simply because there is no reason to, they are already growing everywhere. 148.197.114.158 (talk) 09:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Morita Therapy Programs

As a student of Japanese therapy for close to 10 years, I am considering studying to become a Morita Therapist. I am therefore opening this discussion, to learn more about the Morita Therapy programs available in the United States and abroad.

If you are a Morita Therapist, or have undergone a Japanese Therapy training program, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Thank you and kind regards, Kate  [ Unsigned comment added by Kathleensimonelli (talk • contribs) 16:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)]

For the time being, until you can get a more specific answer, I can point you to our Morita therapy article. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

KägeTorä suggests the right use of the Reference Desk, which is not an opinion forum.--Wetman (talk) 23:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

What is it?

In the proposition "It's raining.", what does "it" refer to? Speculative responses welcome. 86.45.150.20 (talk) 16:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

We beat this Q to death a month ago, on the Language Desk: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2010_March_7#Nuclear_dummy.3F. StuRat (talk) 16:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

In this case, I would say "it" refers to the weather. Astronaut (talk) 19:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Really? How about "It's dark in here"? Deor (talk) 20:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Then "it" would be "the level of luminosity"...or "this room". Vimescarrot (talk) 20:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

In all of these cases, "It" is the non-specific third person. English actually lacks a distinct pronoun for such a case, but other languages do not. Consider French, which has 5 third person pronouns: Il and Elle (masculine and feminine singular), Ils and Elles (masculine and feminine plural) and On (non-specific). You use the first 4 when the antecedant is known and distinct, and the last one when it isn't. In English, we use the word "It" for all 5 cases, but the antecedantless "it" is what we have here. --Jayron32 20:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Constructions that can't easily be teased apart grammatically are idioms. Historically, idioms come first; grammarians come scrambling along afterwards and try to justify usage.--Wetman (talk) 23:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Il pleut?--BandUser (talk) 00:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

86.45.150.20 -- You're like the duck in Alice in Wonderland:

'I proceed. "Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—"'

'Found what?' said the Duck.

'Found it', the Mouse replied rather crossly: 'of course you know what "it" means.'

'I know what "it" means well enough, when I find a thing', said the Duck: 'it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?'

-- AnonMoos (talk) 05:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Since the OP requested speculative answers, here goes. Considered philosophically, the "it" can be thought to refer to the subject matter of metaphysics, whatever it may be. Some have argued that the preoccupation of Western philosophy with substrates, ontology, things-unto-themselves etc. etc., is pretty much the result of people trying to figure out what "it" is. In Finnish, for instance, "it's raining" is simply "sataa", with no subject, explicit or implicit. The same goes for all so called "state clauses" in Finnish, statements about the prevailing state of affairs such as "it is summer", or "it is dark in here". The question of what "it" is thus does not even arise in Finnish (but does of course preoccupy Finnish philosophers as well, since they get most of their material from Indo-Europeans). Actually, I should check how that particular passage in Alice's adventures, which again proves that the book is relevant to everything, has been translated into Finnish.--Rallette (talk) 06:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't refer to anything (as Lewis Carroll points out) -- it's a dummy pronoun, a consequence of the fact that English demands a noun or pronoun as the subject of every sentence. In pro-drop languages like Spanish, this demand is absent, and people can just say "is raining." -- Radagast3 (talk) 12:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

GK History Geography question

I am looking for the name of a famous historical woman who has many names. Her family members protected her from invaders by killing them all.She was from a location (mountainous rock) at the entrance of a bay

I would appreciate any help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.78.214 (talk) 17:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

If we help you, will you split the prize with us? --TammyMoet (talk) 19:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Got it. But I'm sending in the answer myself.--Wetman (talk) 23:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Advantages of big countries over numerous small countries?

Why would one big country, in say, South Africa or Europe be better than the countries there maintining their sovereignety? What advantages and disadvantages does one large unified country have over numberous small ones?--92.251.220.72 (talk) 22:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that it entirely depends on the relationship between the nations. If they cooperate, have free trade, and don't make war with each other, many small countries could collectively be like the EU or even the various states in the US. On the other hand, if they constantly make war on each other, it could be a disaster. StuRat (talk) 22:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

To put it simpler, what are the advatages and disadvantages of the USA compared to the EU.--92.251.220.72 (talk) 22:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC) That's a completely different question. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Two completely different beasts, historically. Even if it wanted to, Europe couldn't be a USA because of history and inertia thereof. While certain states feel as though they were sovereign, they aren't, whereas most of the EU at one point or another is, or at least was. I think many of the advantages and disadvantage will arise from that fact.72.2.54.36 (talk) 23:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Many of the US states were sovereign, at one time. The original 13 colonies once had an even weaker link than the EU, under the Articles of Confederation. Both Texas and California were independent republics, briefly. Hawaii was an independent monarchy. StuRat (talk) 23:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

One of the best advantages in the US over the EU is a common native language, English. The EU is perhaps more comparable to India, which like Europe has many local languages as well as the national language of Hindi, and a lot of usage of English also. English seems destined to become the world's universal language eventually, but I'm not sure all the members of the EU would be that keen on the idea. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

A good article to read would be federalism, which is a broad term that encompasses both what the USA's states and the EU's member nations have done. The article has many subtopic links that will be of interest; the US-specific one calls out a lot of the problems that caused the US states to form a stronger federal government. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Slightly related: the theory of Optimum currency areas (though the Wikipedia article's focus maybe doesn't make it very relevant to the question asked here). Jørgen (talk) 07:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Europe is not a country.

However, at the basic level the advantages of size are predominantly economies of scale, although that has to be traded against complexity and the cost of managing a greater area and population.

The advantages can be replicated through free trade, free movement of population resource, and harmonised economic models without the need to federate.

ALR (talk) 08:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think economy of scale really applies here, as when businesses gain from being able to buy items cheaper from suppliers when they buy in bulk. There most of the advantage would be in going from buying one item to thousands, with smaller reductions in price for going to millions of items. Under capitalism, governments don't buy much compared to what businesses in the nation buy, but even the items they do buy (like uniforms for soldiers) tend to be in large enough quantities that there's not much diff between the price per unit from nation to nation. StuRat (talk) 17:26, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

All the economic dead-weight of the public sector can be slimmed down by reduced duplication, hence increasing the opportunity for funding to remain in circulation and adding value. Governments spend an inordinate amount of money, lots of it in services and lots of transaction cost. By consolidating the service provision there is an opportunity to reduce headcount.

The main point with respect to the business environment is captured in my final paragraph, business transactions across borders cost in both cash and time. Removing those costs is good for business although state equity is affected. The implication is that the cash again remains in circulation rather than being sucked into the inefficiencies of the state system.

ALR (talk) 18:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that most nations are already beyond the scale where further increases in size will improve efficiency of the government. Indeed, a diseconomy of scale is more likely, due mainly to self-competition and duplication of effort. For example, how many competing intelligence agencies does the US have ? I take your point about an effort being required whenever money, people, or goods are shipped across borders, though. A common tax system may be needed to eliminate that problem. But, if the EU had that, it would essentially be a single nation. StuRat (talk) 20:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Seventeen, plus seven internal departments that style themselves as Int... The US is not a good example, the federating arrangements entrench a number of inefficiencies.

It's more than tax; regulation, compliance, performance standards, production standards, environmentals, working conditions etc.

ALR (talk) 21:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, then, how many MI-x orgs are there in the UK ? As for "regulation, compliance, performance standards, production standards, environmentals, working conditions, etc.", isn't the EU working to standardize those now ? StuRat (talk) 05:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

There are four Int orgs in th UK; BSS, SIS, DI and GCHQ plus the directing authority in Cabinet Office.

The EU has made fairly significant moves towards trade optimisation, but there are still a lot of obstacles. The issue of not being Sovereign means that member countries don't all implement in the same way, so inefficiencies persist.

ALR (talk) 06:25, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be much of an advantage to being a "big" country. There are plenty of examples of teeny countries that have achieved great wealth, such as Singapore, Luxembourg and Israel. On the other hand, there are big countries that suffer from all kinds of problems, including DR Congo, India and Brazil. It makes you wonder why countries will go to war to get more land when it's the little countries that often wind up doing the best. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Easy, because even a relatively poor, relatively big country could knock off a small rich country if it wanted. For example, Thailand or Indonesia could take Singapore if they really wanted to (assuming Singapore could not call for help). Googlemeister (talk) 15:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Not really an answer to the OP, but some things to consider: the unification of Germany (in 1871, not 1990) created a very strong country out of a number of weak ones. Some have good reason to believe that unification was the proximate cause of two world wars and a cold war as well. On the other hand, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into many smaller countries probably caused just as many problems. There are many other examples of this dichotomy in the history of Europe Julius Caesar v. Caesar Borgia. Zoonoses (talk) 00:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)