Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 January 17

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January 17

French food

Why has France developed a far better culinary tradition than just about every other country (except maybe Italy)? --75.15.161.185 (talk) 03:05, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Answer: Good Marketing. Seriously, France does not have a better culinary tradition, its just that people in England and the US think they do. Blueboar (talk) 03:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

And I disagree strongly with Blueboar. It's not about thinking; it is about eating. I would also include in the list of nations with a "far better culinary tradition", both China and Japan. YMMV. As to why this might be, I'd like to see if someone here comes up with hard information about the differing development of the traditions, if any. Bielle (talk) 04:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

YMMV = "your mileage may vary" = "your opinion may be different". I had to google it.  :-) Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, Ghmyrtle. I should have linked it myself. Bielle (talk) 16:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

There seem to be a dozen of reasons for speculation. One angle I find promising is the history of restaurants. See also Restaurant#Europe. I found the fourth comment, the one by ""George", in this forum thread interesting, also regarding how the documentation of standards and recipes helped make French gastronomy a great model for top restaurants worldwide (see also our article on Marie-Antoine Carême, for example). One book that sounds worth reading is The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture (Volume 135 of Harvard Historical Studies), by Rebecca L. Spang, Harvard University Press, 2000, ISBN 9780674000643. (On my computer, most of the book is in full view at google books). Two months ago, "the gastronomic meal of the French" was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.[1] So it's probably not just the anglosphere that values France's culinary tradition, Blueboar. For more possible links, see French_cuisine#History. ---Sluzzelin talk 07:02, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

France and Italy has managed to hold on to their regional culinary traditions, even through a period of industrialisation and mass-production. And on account of the climate of those countries, sub-tropical in the south and temperate in the north, the variety of local produce, and thus the variety of the local culinary traditions, are extremely multi-facetted. That at least is some of the explanation. There is also a more subjective explanation, concerning the taste. About the method of preparing the food, that is the method of bringing out the best in the raw materials used, which in the Italian and French cuisine just seems superior to many other cuisines, at least as seen from a Western palate. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:52, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

France was a political, military, and cultural leader in Europe throughout much of its history. It also was one of the first absolutists countries, maintaining a class of rich nobles who created a demand for high-quality food. Add to that the climatic advantages already mentioned, and you have a number of reasons. I also find French and Italian cooking to be both excellent, but quite different. French food is much more refined, with fairly complex techniques. Much Italian food, on the other hand is really just a few excellent ingredients treated with appropriate dignity to bring out their best. Both result in sterling results. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Having lived in Italy for a number of years, I have to say that the much-vaunted Italian cuisine is overrated. Certainly if one goes to an Italian restaurant outside Italy, the food is among the best anywhere in the world; however, most meals one finds on Italian family tables are heavy on the stomach, lacking in variety, and contain far too many unpalatable ingredients. Even pizza tastes better in America than here in Italy. IMO, the best cuisine is Mexican. The food one finds on a typical Mexican family's table matches that in a restaurant.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 11:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like you have mainly lived in northern Italy where they do indeed specialise in a butter, cheese and meat heavy style of cooking, as compared to the southern cuisine which mainly specialises in simple vegetable and/or sea food dishes. But I do admit that each regional Italian cuisine seems to be extremely conservative and adverse to change, but that is also the main reason why they still survives to this day. And when all those conservative, but unique, and compared to each other extremely varied, regional cuisines are looked upon as a whole, that is to say as a general Italian cuisine, it is inarguably more varied than most Europan cuisines (the French excluded), and, even if you may be used to a more sugary and uncomplicated cuisine back home, you will be able to find some very good dishes all over the place. Personally I would prefer a Neapolitan D.O.C. margherita, or just any Neapolitan style pizza, over an American pizza any day (the Roman pizza is not bad either).

However, this goes to show that taste is subjective, and as I stated above, part of the reason for the good reputation of the Italian and French cuisines is on account of those cuisines for some reason seems to strike a chord with many (Western) food critics and experts, it can't really be based on pure objectivity. --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:48, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Here in Spain, we consider our cuisine to be of very high quality, even obtaining international recognition, specially in the last 10 years or so. See Spanish_cuisine#Chefs . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.54.219.64 (talk) 12:16, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually I live in Sicily. I find, on the whole, Sicilian food to be rustic and coarse. Yes, many seafood dishes, but so much of their cuisine relies on olive oil, garlic and overcooked tomato sauce. I prefer Northern Italian food. Lasagna comes from the north; here in Sicily it's rendered almost inedible by its typical substitution of minced meat for ham and inclusion of peas, etc. Horse meat is comsidered a delicacy, the pizzas are OK, but not as good as their Neapolitan and American counterparts, and a typical Christmas dinner has sausages smothered in sauce, meat rolls (smothered in sauce) with an egg inside, pasta with sauce containing bits of bone. I cannot help but feel the traditional American turkey, potatoes, butter rolls is more apetising, but this is a highly subjective matter.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:44, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Demographics: some countries like the UK, USA, Netherlands, have welcomed large numbers of immigrants bringing food - e.g. Italians, Chinese (although the Irish didn't bring food with them because they were very poor, had bad farmland, and only ate potatoes). Other nations like Japan (vast culinary traditions) or Argentina (nice meat) have had comparatively little migration to Europe or North America, and Japanese cooking is far more alien to UK or US traditions. France has had migration from North and West Africa, but these populations have suffered in ghettoized suburbs.

Geography: France is in an excellent position for growing and catching food. Northern Europe tends to have poorer farmland (e.g. much of Scotland and Wales are only suitable for grazing sheep) which will affect the range of food on offer. France has abundant coastal waters, which means fish and seafood, as well as excellent farmland with a reasonable amount of rainfall. Countries in the south of Europe (parts of Spain, Greece) tend to be drier. France has also supported its small farmers far more than e.g. the UK, or the USA where the only encouragement seems to be for vast industrial farming.

History: France has been comparatively prosperous over the past 100 years, which helps expensive restaurants, and has long been popular with wealthy tourists; of large European countries, only the UK has had a democratic and capitalist system for as long. And branding: France was home of European luxury in the 17th and 18th century, and following the Revolution, a lot of French chefs fled the country and helped spread the fame internationally in the 19th C.

However, France now loves McDonalds and the French are frequently bemoaning the loss of their traditions[2], while non-French are complaining about the low standard of their food[3] so it may not last.--Colapeninsula (talk) 14:28, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Because of poverty. When British people were habitually dining off hunks of roast beef (hence the Beefeaters), french people were foraging for any food they could find, including herbs and snails. So french cooking had plenty of variety, while traditional British cooking was rather dull and monotonous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.15.8.13 (talk) 13:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Good Lord! Are we giving 18th and 19th century English propaganda as serious answers these days? The vast majority of British people did not habitually dine on hunks of roast beef, but political cartoons regularly portrayed the British (really the English) as fat from all the beef they supposedly ate, in contrast to skinny frog's-legs - eating French people. But this was never an accurate picture of reality. We do know, from older recipes and diaries, that (particularly in the country) British people ate more culinarily interesting food (including plenty of foraged herbs and fruits like blackberries picked wild) before the austerity years, but between the poor living in slums, a middle-class obsession with French cuisine, a view of packaged food as more hygenic, and all the years of austerity and rationing, this tradition was largely lost. A certain amount of foraging was revived during the rationed times, but was then strongly associated with austerity. 86.164.67.42 (talk) 15:04, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I do not think it is entirely propaganda: what British person would willingly eat frogs and snails unless they were literally starving? As far as I know farming was better developed in Britain, even centuries before Turnip Townsend and the agrarian revolution, so at least the better-off literate people who were able to write down recipes ate farm-food. The British peasantry may have lived off gruel, but they left few historical records or recipes. The French nick-name for English people is "Roast Beefs", which I think is conclusive evidence. 92.28.254.64 (talk) 01:40, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Pffft, are you just trying to wind people up? Winkles are a traditional British food! 86.164.67.42 (talk) 14:52, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll agree with that. Actually, I'd say that the Agrarian Revolution and the Industrial Revolution in Britain had a part to play. The French tradition of peasant cuisine is dependant on subsistance farming which gave the farmers wife time for cooking. In Britain the subsistance farmers were swept away by the Inclosures in the 18th and 19th Centuries. They became either farm labourers who lived largely on bread and cheese or even lard (I remember that from an A Level text book - possibly one of the Oxford History of England series) or they migrated to the towns to become industrial workers. The London Labour and the London Poor paints a picture of working families in the 1840s without the time or facilities to cook and living on pies and baked potatoes bought from street vendors or take-away shops.

The poorest british people lived off bread jam and tea in the 1930s, until WWII rationing improved their diet. The book "Voices from Dickens' London" by Michael Paterson says the same thing as the unknown poster in the paragraph above about conditions in the 1840s, and goes into a lot of interesting detail with excerpts from many first-hand accounts from those times. The People of the Abyss is a non-fiction narrative of the time the author Jack London spent exploring the poverty of the east-end of London in 1902, and it still seems be like the mid-19th. century. One slight compensation for all the slaughter and misery of WWI and WWII may have been that they increased the poor's standards of living through technological innovation, better organisation, and a greater sense that the poor deserved and could be helped. As another aside, the fact that it was commonplace for english people to starve to death during the mid-19th. century, although I forget the medical euphemism that was used at the time, does give context to the claim that England did little to alleviate the starvation during the Potato Famine: there wasnt enough food even in england, and it would have been very much more expensive than food is nowadays. 92.24.183.183 (talk) 11:55, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Quite bizarre - French food is OK, but no more. Italian food is far too oily, on the whole, and the tomatoes ruin everything (though I should say that the only country I've been able to get pizzas without tomato and not be looked at funny is Italy, so kudos there). Chinese food is OK but you wouldn't want to eat it everyday. Japanese food is frankly scary, too many tentacles and not enough cooking. Swedish food has an unfortunate predilection for rotten fish, and German food makes you look like Chancellor Kohl. Give me saffron cake, hog's pudding, and mackerel so fresh it swims into the pan. DuncanHill (talk) 15:40, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Opposite for me. French food is one of the few "ethnic" cuisines I dislike almost across the board. (For other cuisines there may be individual dishes I don't like, but with French food I have difficulty finding anything I do.) If you don't like tomatoes on your pizza, you need to go to New Haven, Connecticut and order an apizza. Many varieties of those, such as the white clam pie, have no tomatoes; at any rate, no one will consider you odd for wanting one without them. Pais (talk) 15:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I shall now stand up for the quality of French food, since this is a rather rare opportunity to do so. When they are near enough to the sea, the French like to eat fresh mackerel. As said before, their climate ranges from temperate to Mediterranean (not sub-tropical), so there is a wide variety of meats, fish, fruit and veg available. They cook these items with a view to bringing out the flavour, in numerous, imaginative combinations. Can't quite see what's not to like, really. "French" dishes offered in restaurants abroad, that's another matter. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:15, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, de gustibus and all that. When I've tried French food, both in France itself and in French restaurants (including those owned and operated by actual French people), it simply hasn't appealed to me. It seemed heavy, the sauces seemed overly wine-laden (I can't stand wine), and in Toulouse the menus were dominated by duck, one of my least-favorite meats. And the vegetarian I was traveling with had trouble finding any meatless main dishes at all - not like Italy, where finding meatless main dishes is quite easy. Pais (talk) 16:33, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

That's the thing - the sauces often overpower the taste of the meat. All very well if you are cooking with rubbishy meat, but a crying shame if the meat's good. DuncanHill (talk) 15:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

And my personal opinion was that both the meat and the sauce were rubbishy (at least when the meat was duck and the sauce had wine in it). Pais (talk) 15:44, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

That all makes sense, actually. They do often put wine in sauces (but you can ask for no sauce, or choose your sauce carefully). There are lots of ducks and geese in the South West (and foie gras too). Vegetarians are hardly catered for at all, except in some specialist restaurants, but the bread is good, the cheese is good ... Itsmejudith (talk) 16:37, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Another thought - travellers to Britain in the mid-18th Century noted the disparity between British and French food - this is well before the French Revolution. The French court, especially that of Louis XIV raised cooking to the status of a high art. At the same time, the English court was recovering from the English Civil War and the Commonwealth when even making Christmas puddings was banned by the Puritans. James II might have wanted to imitate "The Sun King" but we kicked him out in favour of the dour William of Orange who I suspect was a meat and two veg man. That put us well behind in the gourmet stakes and anyone who wanted superior food would hire a French chef rather than developing our own tradition. I'll see if I can find any sources to back up my theory. Alansplodge (talk) 19:42, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Two things come to mind. One is one time when a talk-show host asked John Cleese why the British never took the time to develop extraordinary cuisine. His answer was, "Well, we had an empire to run, you see." There's also the old adage: If your guests are Italian, serve French. If they're French, serve Italian. And if they're English, boil anything. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:39, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

HOW TO KEEP BALANCE ENGLISH BETWWEN CHINESE INCULCULTURE

NOWDAYS,CHINA PLAY MORE AND MORE ROLE IN THE INTERNATIONAL STIUTUATION ,SO THE NUMBER OF PEPOLE IS INCREASING ASK A QUESTION THAT STUDENT SHOULE LEARN CHINESE OR NOT . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocean2candy (talk • contribs) 04:09, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

If you are asking if it would be sensible (practical, useful) for an English speaker to learn Chinese, given the increasing visibility of China on the international scene, then I can only say that learning the language of a significant nation is always a good idea. However, in current terms (and I have no idea how long this will last), English remains the international language of trade, commerce and, to a lesser extent, education. Learning Chinese won't likely benefit an English speaker as much as learning English will benefit a Chinese speaker. All of this could, and perhaps will, change. Bielle (talk) 04:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Or, you could learn Chinese so you'll better understand the people and culture. If that isn't a good enough reason, think of all the money you'll save if you visit China, and don't have to pay for the services of a tour guide. Full disclosure: I started learning Chinese in 1978, and it resulted in a very nice career for me. (I'm an American). DOR (HK) (talk) 08:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

If the question is whether a student with the choice to learn a(single) language learn Chinese, I think this is at least as reasonable as almost any other choice. When I was in High School the choices were French and Spanish. For people in the US Spanish still seems a useful choice. French less so. Chinese would likely be useful. None of this addresses the issue of how much of a language one learns in High School is retained (in my case, basically none). Pfly (talk) 10:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Tang-era Nanzhao sword

The Kingdom of Nanzhao was known for its swords during the Tang Dynasty. One research paper I recently read said their most famous sword was a duoqian (鐸鞘). A "bell sheath" sword sounds like a dao of some kind because a blade that widens towards the end is reminiscent of a bell. I can't say I've ever heard of a duoqian sword, though. Does it appear in other records beyond the Man shu (蠻書, referenced by the author of the paper)? Are there any such pieces in modern museum collections? I would love to see pictures of it if there is. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 04:56, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Countries ordered by level of centralization

It is common to rank countries according to various statistics. I would like to see a list of countries ordered by centralization: (political, economic, demographic, cultural, etc) in order to assess my intuition about these things. My intuitive sense of certain countries is that some are highly centralized around a particular city (France, Argentina, Ireland, Mexico, Japan, UK, Czech Republic), while others are highly decentralized, or at least lack an undisputed center (United States, Australia, Germany, Spain, China, India, Canada). I want to see how my intuition compares to data. And in many cases I can't even hazard a guess. Is Russia more or less centralized than the United States? Is Chile more or less centralized than Argentina? What about Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan? Are some countries highly centralized in one way (culturally, for instance) but highly decentralized in other ways (economically, say)? LANTZY^TALK 05:42, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

In what way do you mean "centralized"? Greater London may be the population center of the UK, but in no way is the UK government centralized. Grsz 11 05:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

As I said, there are multiple ways in which a country may be centralized: politically, economically, culturally, demographically, etc. Notwithstanding the devolved parliaments, I doubt if there is any category in which London is not overwhelmingly preeminent over all other places in the UK. Compare that to the situation in the US, where we can pinpoint a political center (Washington D.C.), but no other clear center in any category. (What is the cultural center of the US? Hollywood? New York? DC?) It seems to me that some countries have an unambiguous center while others do not. LANTZY^TALK 08:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I did not find such a list in Category:International rankings, but if one is found or started, it can be categorized there.

—Wavelength (talk) 06:47, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

By "centralised", your first thought seems to mean "proportion of population (or economy) in the capital (or largest city)", rather than political centralisation. Is that right? Clearly there are many ways in which different aspects of centralisation could be measured. If we know what you mean, we can see whether they have been. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm interested in every measure of centralization, but above all economic centralization. That seems to me the most relevant and revealing. LANTZY^TALK 08:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

The point is that different indices are likely to give completely different results, because they are measuring completely different things. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:36, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Googling "population concentration index" finds some academic articles on the topic. Jørgen (talk) 08:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

How about the proportion of GDP generated in the capital city region as an indicator of economic concentration? If it's not in OECD stats then you will have to go to national stats databases. For the UK it's in Regional Statistics, and for France it must be in INSEE stats. It will be somewhere in EU stats - you will need to interpret the NUTS classification system. US economic stats will give GDP by state and presumably for DC as well. Will be interesting, good luck. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Iceland and Mongolia would be prime examples. Reykjavik has two thirds of Iceland's population, and Ulan Bator is ten times as big as the next largest city in Mongolia. TomorrowTime (talk) 10:47, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

How many countries can you think of that do not have the political capital in the largest business center? Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Burma, Canada, the US, China, UAE, Turkey, India, Vietnam, maybe the Netherlands or Germany? Not that many. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:37, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Did Columbus really underestimate the size of the Earth by 30 percent?

The following comment was posted to the Christopher Columbus talk page by editor Norloch:

"... if there was a surviving 15th. century document which claimed that Columbus's calculations were in error (i.e. due to some confusion between Arabic miles and Italian miles) such a document would still have to be questioned because it would conflict with other evidence from the period. For example, Columbus's own journal of his first voyage indicates that he knew the true distance between the Azores and Portugal. He wasn't using measurements that were 30 per cent in error. It therefore seems unlikely that the mistake suggested in [Wikipedia's] article was ever a factor in his 'geographical considerations."

In my opinion, it would be inappropriate to engage in discussion over the merits of this argument on the article's talk page. I have therefore copied it here to give anyone who might be interested in responding to it a chance to do so
David Wilson (talk · cont) 07:56, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it would be inappropriate to discuss at the talk page in question. But since it's here now: the argument holds no water. You can know the distance from Portugal to the Azores from one set of maps, and still mistranslate numbers about the size of the Earth from another source. At Columbus time, there was no good way to determine longitude (or a standard time), so knowing the east-west distance of two points does not tell you the circumference of the Earth. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:19, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

In those days, longitude estimates were more than a little crude, so I don't see any real contradiction. AnonMoos (talk) 09:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The fact that Columbus estimated the distance spanned by a degree of latitude—or an equatorial degree of longitude—to be about 56⅔ Italian miles, and that this is some 35% 30% 30-37% too small, is so well documented in reliable sources that it would be contrary to Wikipedia's policy on neutral point of view for any of its articles to express any doubt about it. In his Geographical Conceptions of Columbus, for instance (pp.6–11), George Emra Nunn cites several marginal notes by Columbus, in the latter's copies of cosmographical texts (mainly Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi), where he asserts that the distance spanned by an equatorial degree is 56⅔ miles. In one of these (cited on page 10 of Nunn's book) Columbus actually claims to have measured the distance himself, finding "agreement with Alfraganus, that is to say, each degree corresponds to 56⅔ miles ...". There seems to be some uncertainty among historians as to whether Columbus's mile was an "Italian" mile of 1,240m or a "Roman" mile of 1,480m—unfortunately also called an "Italian nautical mile" by some authorities—, but I haven't yet found any who credit him with having known that the Arabic mile of Alfraganus was actually about 1,830m.

None of this is at all inconsistent with Columbus's knowing the true distance between the Azores and Portugal. At the time, the only practical method for determining the longitudinal separation between any two locations was to calculate it from the known or assumed distance between the locations and the supposed value of the Earth's radius. Columbus's underestimate for the distance spanned by a degree simply meant that his supposed value for the longitudinal separation between the eastern tip of the Azores and the west coast of Portugal would have been greater by roughly one half than its true value. But at that time there was no independent means of detecting the discrepancy.

David Wilson (talk · cont) 10:27, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Others have pointed to sources, and I don't have one at hand--but from what I can recall this is basically it: Eratosthenes amazingly got the Earth's circumference about right, but later researchers, following up on his methods, got it about a third too small--and this figure became the de facto figure among those (few) who cared about such things, including Columbus. Lucky thing for him America was about where Asia shoud be, else his voyage would have died at sea. Not so lucky for the native Americans, of course. Pfly (talk) 10:35, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Gentlemen, my thanks for your thoughts on the subject. In that regard, I would quote the words of Dr. Irene K. Fisher - an eminent Geodesist - with a lengthy academic career in U.S. Government service. In Chapter 13 of her book "Geodesy ? what's that ? " - Fischer wrote of her research concerning the Ancients' work in determining the size of the Earth. On page 286 she stated the following, with reference to Columbus -

" True, Columbus had collected ancient quotes such as Aristotle's surmise that one could sail from Spain to India 'in a few days', and Esdra's wisdom that the waters took up only one seventh of the globe, and Liarinus' overestimate of the uncertain length of Asia in longitude degrees so that few longitude degrees were left for the ocean width and several other references, all needed and welcome to prove that the westward sea passage to India was so much shorter than the Eastward land route, in a plea for funding his plans for a sailing venture.

But that was not enough, he needed persuasive numbers to find and convince patrons. There was an impressive juggling of numbers in an attempt to allocate an overlong land part and a very narrow ocean width on a circle around the (unchanged) Earth. It involved dazzling conversions back and forth between degrees and miles and, in between, an easily unnoticed switch between miles and miles; that is, between the mediaeval Arabic mile (more than two kilometres) and the Roman or Italian mile (about one and a half kilometres). So here was the 25% reduction through switching miles. It had nothing to do with the dimensions of the Earth."

Now, Fischer couldn't know with absolute certainty that Columbus didn't somehow confuse Arabic miles with Italian miles. However, in her expert opinion, the balance of probability was that he switched numbers to make an even better case for himself. In my less than eminent opinion, as a practical navigator, I'm inclined to agree with Fischer. If Columbus had experience as a practical navigator it's questionable that he would have made such an elementary mistake.

(As a small footnote on Irene Fischer - in her earlier years, she did some notable research on the oblateness of the Earth. She was denied permission to publish her findings because they did not agree with the "accepted literature" on the subject. It was only when satellites came to be used for a geodetic survey of the Earth that the precision of her work was duly recognised and she was finally allowed to publish. ) Norloch (talk) 20:40, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

WW2 British Home Fleet

What was the name of all the ships that was in the British home fleet in 1939? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.167.202.153 (talk) 10:22, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

A summary of RN strength is here and a breakdown giving names of ships in each command in August 1939 is here. Alansplodge (talk) 11:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Declaring war

Why do countries declare war? Is there an obligation if you pretend to attack another country? Quest09 (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand the second part of your question. What do you mean by "pretend to attack another country"? I take it you mean bluffing.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:13, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant 'intend'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quest09 (talk • contribs) 13:14, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Japan did not declare war on the United States before it launched its aerial attack against the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I know. And the UK indeed declared war on Germany. But, what the UK did was the right thing to do, or simply a question of 'politeness'? Quest09 (talk) 13:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Not quite politeness, but honor, certainly was part of it. Some countries felt that it was the proper way to do it, when they were run by people who beleived themselves to be "gentlemen". --Lgriot (talk) 13:40, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

In both World Wars the UK's declaration of war was a chance to state clearly the purpose (as we wanted it to be perceived) of commencing hostilities - not an act of agression but a response to an attack on a country that we had promised to protect (Belgium in 1914 and Poland in 1939). There were several audiences for that message; our own people, the people and Governments of the Dominions who were not obliged to join us but did anyway, and various nuetral countries whose co-operation we would need. In 1939 there wasn't much we could actually do to help the Poles except drop some leaflets on Cologne, so the declaration of war was for moral support only at that time. Alansplodge (talk) 18:58, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Does our article on declaration of war answer your question? It seems to be one of the defining differences between conventional warfare and unconventional warfare.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:41, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Formal declarations of war don't often happen anymore (they still do sometimes, but not often), the reason being is that such events are part of an attitude towards warfare that included set piece battles and the like; i.e. when war had a certain formality to it; as the goals and aims of wars have changed, the nature of them has changed as well. --Jayron32 13:43, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

What do people mean when they write "The reason being is..."? I've seen this a number of times lately. I thought it was momentary confusion and they didn't realize what they'd said. Now I've come to suspect that they think there's something called a "reason being". In standard English one would write "Formal declarations of war don't often happen anymore, the reason being that such events are part of an attitude...", with no "is". Michael Hardy (talk) 21:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Japan had intended to deliver a document ending negotiations (but not exactly declaring war) to the US immedeately before the Pearl Harbour attack, but the Japanese embassy in Washington was unable to decode the transcript quickly enough. See Pearl Harbor Attack#Japanese declaration of war. Alansplodge (talk) 14:11, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Ending negotiations isn't a declaration of war although it should set off warning bells. Pearl Harbor was still a surprise attack. This leads me to pose another question. Was the US declaration of war against Japan the speediest declaration of war in history?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:15, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

That might be difficult to calculate since not all declarations of war are the direct result of one specific act of provocation like Pearl Harbor. Pais (talk) 14:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

The declaration of war in 1941 essentially gave extra wartime powers to the President, including the power to censor the news and to do stuff like herding the Japanese-Americans into camps. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:48, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

And German Americans, too; that doesn't get as much publicity, but it did happen. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't question that, necessarily, but I'd like to see a source for that. However, one famous German-American was the commanding general of the Allied forces in Europe. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

(WHAAOE) German American internment, section World War II. Rmhermen (talk) 15:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. There's an article about Italian-Americans as well. It appears that about 1/10th the number of Germans were interned as were Japanese, which in part tells you why the Japanese internment gets more publicity. The number of Italians was rather smaller than the number of Germans. The Japanese situation was so overtly racist that people of Chinese origin took to wearing buttons saying, "I am Chinese". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:31, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The article about internment of "German Americans" in WW1 and WW2 is a cesspool of POV. The US properly interned citizens of Germany, which was at war with the US. A country just does not let citizens of a country which has declared itself at war , "enemy aliens," to wander around and do whatever they please. The US did not lock up US citizens whose grandparents were immigrants from Germany. There were instances where family members of an enemy alien voluntarily went into internment with them. Whole communities in some midwestern states were predominantly of German ancestry, spoke German in the home, the grocery store, the church and the school, and were taught English as a second language, in 1941. The promoters of that article seek to blur the distinction. By contrast, during WW2 the US certainly did lock up US citizens whose ancestors immigrated from Japan. Edison (talk) 04:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

So should we (I being American myself) have done the same thing to Afghanis after September 11th? The idea was tossed around. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:17, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Am I wrong in thinking that a declaration of war meant that captured soldiers would be treated--at least in theory--as something better than the "unlawful combatant" we have today? Pfly (talk) 10:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Possibly so. Those folks are the unfortunate victims of the perpretrators of 9/11/01. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:37, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Or, to look at it another way, they are the victims of the government that passed the resolution authorizing use of military force. --Viennese Waltz 10:43, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

They chose to join their particular armies, and found themselves the scapegoats after we were attacked on 9/11/01. If they want to blame someone for their condition, they should blame the 9/11 attackers, as it is the attackers actions that resulted in those combatants ending up at GTMO and elsewhere. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:05, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

There was nothing inherent in 9/11 which led inevitably to purgatorial incarceration in as doubtful a place as gitmo. Certainly, an enemy combatant risks capture. But it is the US that made decisions on the location of its prisons and the legal framework under which they operate. It's just silly to suppose that gitmo was the only alternative and that hence its inmates - including the innocent ones - somehow conspired to make it happen. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:22, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

9/11 hurt a lot of innocent people. There were many possible responses. It would have been good if those responses avoided hurting so many more innocent people. HiLo48 (talk) 16:43, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

It would be even better if people could move away from the false dichotomy of "innocent people/victim" vs. "guilty people/perpetrator". It's bad when people get hurt, period, without putting any value judgments on those people. Pais (talk) 16:48, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

The US certainly did/does have options... for example, given that the gitmo detainees were not in uniform when captured, they could have been summarily shot for being Francs-tireurs (and folks like the Underwear Bomber could be tried and executed as saboteurs). Blueboar (talk) 17:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Sure. But given that many of the Gitmo prisoners were grabbed off the street or countryside without any direct connection to military action, that would have been plain murder. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Which would lower ourselves completely to the level of the enemy. The USA is a lot nicer to its prisoners, in general, than the enemy tends to be. The reason that the USA gets yelled at in these cases is for not living up to our own presumed principles. The enemy doesn't draw appropriately scaled complaints for doing much worse things, because they have no principles - they're totally living down to expectations. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:34, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Sephardic Jews in Latin America

I had a friend from Cuba who discovered some of her remote ancestors were Sephardic Jews who had converted to Catholicism. I'm wondering how many people in Latin America have distant Sephardic Jewish ancestry.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Vast numbers I would think. No source for that though. Kittybrewster ☎ 13:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Nearly everyone will have some Sephardic ancestry - it's in the nature of exponential functions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:32, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I have read that Mexico had large numbers of Sephardic Jewish colonists who fled the inquisistion in the 16th century. Some of Brazil's first colonists were Jews, as were many of New Amsterdam's Dutch settlers. I believe The Roosevelts were originally Sephardic Jewish, although Roosevelt is not a Sephardic name. Common Sephardic surnames in the New World appeared to have been Mendes, Costa, De Souza, Perez, Guzman, Gomez.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:51, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

+ Pereira. Kittybrewster ☎ 13:58, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

See History of the Jews in Spain especially the 1391 -1492 and Conversos sections. Rmhermen (talk) 17:02, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

There are said to be quite a few Latinos of Jewish descent in New Mexico: More than one-third of New Mexicans claim Hispanic origin, many are descendants of colonial settlers, and converted Sephardic Jews, Who_is_a_Jew?#New_Mexico.27s_Crypto-Jews, etc. Corvus cornix_talk 20:02, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I have heard about the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico. I believe there were a lot of conversos, Marranos, and indeed Crypto-Jews in Northern Mexico especially around Monterey. I'm curious about the Tejanos, Californios, and the Spanish colonists of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and South America.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Psychological label

What is the label for somebody who has absolutely no interest in matters not relating directly to herself? Kittybrewster ☎ 13:24, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Narcissistic? Pais (talk) 13:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes it certainly seems to be in Cluster B. Kittybrewster ☎ 13:32, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

It could also be some extreme forms of autism depending on how you define "interest". --Jayron32 13:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course, if the person exhibiting this behavior is under the age of, oh, about 6 months, it probably wouldn't be considered pathological. Pais (talk) 13:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

True. I have in mind a person in her 50s. Kittybrewster ☎ 13:57, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I would describe such a person as self-obsessed.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

A philosophical label would be "solipsism"... AnonMoos (talk) 14:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Just as a note, psychological labeling of this sort is notoriously problematic. The first big hurdle is distinguishing whether the person in question is actually disinterested in others, or whether others are disgruntled because the person in question is not as interested as they would like her to be (narcissists are usually convinced that other people are self-centered). After that you need to separate out age issues (children under 16 have a difficult time properly assessing the emotional states of others, people in their later years often assess others needs and emotions well, but have sufficient experience not to get overly-attached to things that younger people find desperately important). then you have to start looking at broader patterns of behavior (human perception has a skewed view of other humans: we tend to over-represent 'bad' acts that other do, and tend to identify people with their bad acts). In other words, if you want to call her selfish, call her selfish; leave clinical diagnoses up to those qualified to make them objectively. --Ludwigs2 18:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the wet blanket, but I would say "normal". Pfly (talk) 10:16, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

BUT! If you're talking about something that is actually anti-social or harmful, I'd go with narcissistic. 10:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Parodied by Dogbert, who once said, "You're not me, therefore you're irrelevant." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:20, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Another label could be "self-sufficient", meaning someone who doesn't "need" anyone else, or thinks they don't. Charles Schulz used that phrase to describe his cartoon character Lucy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

"What should one's life be?"

Does anyone know who the author of this piece of verse is?

What should one's life be?

Neat and orderly,

or messy and chaotic?

Quiet desperation,

even quieter compromise?

or daring thrills,

creative experiments?

Walking carefully along

looking down at gray sidewalks

to avoid crack or pebble?

or leaping from peak to peak

across gaping canyons

looking down

from dizzying heights?

No one should decide for another.

One can only live what one believes.

If you ask, we believe:

Life should not be

a methodical journey to the grave

with the goal being sure, safe arrival

in a well-preserved body,

but rather to skid in sideways,

flute of champagne in hand,

screaming "What a ride!"

Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:00, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

It resembles the Gestalt prayer by Fritz Perls.—Wavelength (talk) 16:54, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

This and this suggest the last verse is a quote (rather than a poem) by Hunter S Thompson, possibly from the book Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. This and this indicate that there have been variations by a few others (but I haven't been able to check against the actual book, and it's not in HST's Wikiquotes page). --Kateshortforbob _talk 17:03, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

This is a bit too inspirational to be directly from Thompson. It may have been inspired by him, but I suspect this is just an example of the kind of uplifting Christian prosody that you find on sympathy cards, funereal postings, or framed and hung in people's kitchens - something that's been passed around and had the kinks smoothed out of it by multiple editors improving it a little at a time, rather than something written by a single author. Cathartic textual muzak (which isn't to say I don't think it's nice. ). --Ludwigs2 18:14, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see anything too "Christian" or god-fearing about it, myself - I came across it being used at secular humanist funerals. But thanks for the Thompson lead. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:04, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Reading the Bible in English -- a book?

I seem to recall reading a review of a book, published probably within the last five or ten years, describing how the author, who had grown up speaking only Hebrew, first came to read the Bible in English as an adult. The review made the book sound like both a memoir (of growing up in a Hebrew-speaking household in the US) and a commentary on the process and end-product of translation. One example that I remember is the reflections on the name of the first man: should the translators keep the sound, and give him the English name Adam? Or should they translate the meaning, and call him something like Earth-man? The author, a modern bilingual adult, was reflecting on how much is lost in translation. I may have got some of these details wrong, but any ideas on what the book's called? BrainyBabe (talk) 15:36, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

It should also be noted that Biblical Hebrew was probably no more a single, cohesive language than one would consider Old English, Middle English and Modern English as completely cohesive. Since different books of the Hebrew bible were written down at different times, by people often seperated by wide spaces and vastly different times. There's also the problem that Biblical Hebrew had no written vowel sounds, which makes interpreting the exact intended pronounciation of a word almost impossible; the pronounciation intended in the original oral tradition may have changed drastically by the time it was first written, and it also may have drifted over time until the Hebrew scripture was eventually standardized. It's just way too indeterminate to decide what the "orginal" authors may have intended any translation to be. I know this does not directly answer your question regarding your source book, but it is important to understanding the context of your question. --Jayron32 16:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, most English bibles are translated not from Hebrew, but from Greek. Blueboar (talk) 18:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I think BraninyBabe was referring to the Old Testament. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm worried Blueboar might have been referring to the OT as well - but it hasn't been true for centuries that most English Bibles were translated from anything other than the original Hebrew (most of the OT)/Aramaic (a few passages of the OT)/Greek (all of the NT). Even the King James Bible's Old Testament is translated from the Hebrew and Aramaic, not from the Septuagint. Nevertheless, I suspect that modern translations of the Bible into lesser-studied minority and endangered languages are translated from some intermediate translation rather than from the original. For example, I strongly suspect the Navajo Bible was translated from English, not from the original languages. Pais (talk) 18:36, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Your description sort of reminds me of David Plotz's Good Book, which was the reflections of a not-especially-religious Jewish American who read the Bible. However, I don't remember his being a native Hebrew speaker, so this is probably the wrong book. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:37, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

In fact most bibles in English are not "translated from the Greek" Septuagint.--Wetman (talk) 22:03, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

(OP here) Thanks for your contributions, but none of them have helped me find it, not even Good Book (of which I had previously not heard, so extra thanks to FisherQueen). More ideas welcome. BrainyBabe (talk) 22:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe check one of the Jewish English Bible translations. Ariel. (talk) 01:16, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Kansas in the American Civil War

Our Kansas in the American Civil War article says that:

Statistics indicated that losses of Kansas regiments in killed in battle and from disease are greater per thousand than those of any other State.

I'm assuming this means that Kansas lost more people per thousand than any other state. What are the causes of this if Kansas only had a small impact on the war? Albacore (talk) 18:33, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

You correctly quoted that sentence, including the implicit error ("in killed in battle"), which I've now edited out in the article. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:31, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

The source of the statistic is exactly the fact that Kansas had such a "small impact" on the war. The smaller the sample size, the greater the opportunity for statistical abberations like the outlier effect. The fact that there just weren't many Kansian in the civil war means that the averaged per capita statistics have less reliability; it would only take a small number of deaths, one way or the other, to throw the numbers off by a large amount. Compare that to states like Virginia, which had a much larger number of soldiers; the statistics from those states are likely to be more reliable, so that you can actually extract meaning from them. Take it to an extreme example, lets invent a state, like Kerblakistan, and lets say that the tiny state of Kerblakistan only had a single soldier fight in the civil war. If he died, then we can accurately say that 100% of Kerblaki soldiers died in the American Civil War. But to then say "what external factors can you come up with for Kerblakistan to have such a high death toll"? There isn't a reason. The reason is, they had only one soldier, and he died. Had the soldier lived, you could say that Kerblakistan had a 0% death rate, and THEN you would be asking "What external factors caused Kerblakistan have such a low death rate?" Again, there was only one soldier. The deeper meaning behind statistics only exists where the sample size is sufficiently large. In the case of Kansas, the cause of the death rate being so high could just be "random chance"; an effect of the small sample size of the Kansas contingent in the Civil War. --Jayron32 20:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, Kansas in 1860 had a population less than 110,000--far smaller than most other states. This is a case of how statistics can mislead--comparing percentages of a whole tend to shroud just how large the "whole" is. Using my favor indication of population (perhaps less meaningful if you've never been), 110,000 is only slightly more than 2 Burning Mans. Pfly (talk) 10:10, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Isn't that "Burning Men"? Pais (talk) 13:31, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Or, in British terms, just under two-thirds of a Glastonbury. Warofdreams talk 12:40, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Or a more relevant comparison: Kansas' total population was only a quarter the size of New York's military contribution (which was 20 times the size of Kansas' military). Rmhermen (talk) 15:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Large Greek Island Invaded by Greeks, Displacing Landowners in Classic Times

During the "Glory that was Greece," one of the large islands was taken over by the mainland Greeks, and the inhabitants, including the landowners were enslaved, serving those who took over their homes, villas, etc., on their own land. I saw this on a History Channel documentary three years ago, but I need to know which island it is. I've searched, and my only find is the island of Cephalonia (or Kefalonia), but that's on the Western side of Greece in the Ionian Sea. From the documentary I had thought that the island is on the the Eastern side, in the Aegean Sea, not far from the mainland.

I greatly appeciate any help you can give me. I'm writing a book, and I'll get roasted if I were to get this wrong. Thanks much! Rolland — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rollandopuk (talk • contribs) 19:05, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

This is probably Melos, which refused to submit to Athens during the Peloponnesian War, and was then occupied and enslaved, etc. Thucydides has a lengthy account of it, known as the Melian dialogue. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Chalcis, the main city of the large island of Euboea, seems to have suffered similarly in the 6th century BCE. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 20:31, 17 January 2011 (UTC)