Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 May 21

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May 21

Does Amnesty International ever expel ordinary members?

Or refuse to allow people to become members? I believe torturers and war criminals shouldn't be members. Thank you. 136.36.123.146 (talk) 00:20, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Some would claim that Amnesty has so many flaws and hypocrisies that it doesn't have much right to judge others -- see Criticism of Amnesty International to start with... AnonMoos (talk) 01:04, 21 May 2023 (UTC) 01:02, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Most of those criticisms seem to be people and governments accused of human rights abuses trying to excuse said abuses on the grounds of "it was necessary" or "other people are worse" or "stop imposing your culture on us by saying torture is bad", etc. Iapetus (talk) 11:58, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Really? Does that describe the reaction to the stupid August 2022 Ukraine report, which caused a number of local or national Amnesty groups to bitterly resent the actions of Amnesty's London HQ? Does that describe the fact that since at least 2015, Amnesty has refused to acknowledge or act in any way against any form of bias or discrimination against Jews? Does that describe the "toxic culture of workplace bullying" within Amnesty which led to two suicides in 2018? Does that describe the mysterious missing money in 2019? And the 2020-2021 controversies about racism in Amnesty's "international secretariat" are kind of downplayed in our article by being given only a brief mention at the end of the lead section of the article, when they should probably have a separate subsection in the body of the article. And so on... AnonMoos (talk) 12:35, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• A Google search failed to find any examples, but it seems unlikely to me that "torturers and war criminals" would have joined in the first place. Alansplodge (talk) 11:48, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Hanover

I know many in Britain were glad about the end to the personal union between the UK and Hanover. However, did Queen Victoria or the British government express any views on the annexation of Hanover by Prussia in 1866 and the deposition of Victoria’s cousin George V? 2601:1C0:8301:34A0:48A7:46A8:D8D0:CC07 (talk) 21:13, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

See "The Guelph 'Conspiracy': Hanover as Would-Be Intermediary in the European System, 1866-1870" by Jasper Heinzen in The International History Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jun., 2007), https://www.jstor.org/stable/40110785,

British governments had been careful to distinguish between British and Hanoverian interests. The two countries drifted apart after Ernest Augustus became king of Hanover and Victoria queen of Britain in 1837. Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, Victoria's cousin, expressed disapproval of the annexation, and many British aristocrats were similarly anti-Prussian and pro-Guelph. The British govt. (the Third Derby-Disraeli ministry) had no desire to interfere in Germany's affairs, since at the time Britain had a relatively small navy and army. Many officials welecomed the unification under Prussia, since it would check the expansionist tendencies of Napoleon III and Alexander II of Russia; and Victoria, Princess Royal had married the Crown Prince of Prussia in 1858. (pp. 262-3)

Although Queen Victoria was dispproving of the depositions of fellow monarchs - George V was her 1st cousin - she consoled herself with the thought that a united Germany had been "my beloved Albert's great wish". (p. 263) The Duke of Cambridge had grown up in Hanover and was 2nd in line to inherit the throne after Georg V's's only son Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover. He was forcefully against the annexation and the ejection of the Guelph dynasty.

The Derby ministry, although opposed to intervention, was asked by Victoria to intercede, and successfully secured Georg V's personal fortune. However, Georg V's supporters residence created a hotbed [maybe just a warm bed?] of intrigue in London. Several hundred Hanoverians fled to England to escape Prussian military service, and a sort of 'Hanoverian underground' was established, with pro-Guelph articles appearing in various newspapers. Georg V (who was blind since 1833) was given exile in Austria by Franz Joseph I, and didn't arrive in England in 1876. Although many aristocrats welcomed him, Victoria was careful not to encourage the Prussia-phobes at court: "her ministers, whether Liberal or Conservative, had more interest in preserving peace than chiding Prussia for its political conduct in 1866." (p. 267) Now you know. MinorProphet (talk) 08:22, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

On the other hand, once the Prince of Wales married Alexandra of Denmark in 1863 and her father acceded to the throne of Denmark, conflict escalated over Schleswig Holstein. The Queen and her supporters took the Prussian side in the dispute, and were troubled by Bertie and Alexandra's favouring the Danish side. --ColinFine (talk) 10:48, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

See Schleswig–Holstein question, which in the first question sums up the absolute weirdness that it presented to British politics "The British statesman Lord Palmerston is reported to have said: "Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business – the Prince Consort, who is dead – a German professor, who has gone mad – and I, who have forgotten all about it." In reality it was part of the long process of figuring out Germany as a nation, which really began during the Thirty Years War several centuries earlier, and wasn't resolved until, really, the end of the cold war. German politics was very messy and remained so for centuries. --Jayron32 15:55, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I seem to recall Bismarck getting up to some kind of shady jiggery-pokery with the Guelph fortune. DuncanHill (talk) 16:04, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Why do Americans and British people sound different?

Why do British and American accents sound so different? Even rhotic British accents such as West Country, Scottish, and Irish accents don't sound American and also non-rhotic American accents such as the Boston and New England accents don't sound British. 95.144.204.68 (talk) 21:25, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Two hundred years and an ocean of separation. Accents evolve over time and distance. Even within the UK (and the US) the local accents have changed a lot over the last 200 years. Blueboar (talk) 22:08, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Some would claim that the difference between standard US English and standard British English is actually not that great, given that the effective separation date -- in terms of the establishment of populations of English-speakers in North America who substantially influenced the speech habits of the children of later generations of immigrants -- is basically the late 17th century. Brazilian Portuguese and Portugal Portuguese have a greater divergence than American and British English, while Dutch and Afrikaans are considered separate languages... AnonMoos (talk) 22:59, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

The question seems to assume that all British people sound the same. Apart from Scots, Welsh and Irish variants of English, there's still a wide variety of dialects within England alone, some almost mutually unintelligible. But they're all British people who speak (some form of) English. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:40, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

No, actually, it doesn't assume that. --142.112.220.184 (talk) 04:23, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Because they are different. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:43, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I suggest you read Accent (sociolinguistics) for some explanation. Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:17, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

According to "English Accents and Dialects," there are three major factors in play, along with countless other issues. First and foremost is word usage. The definitions of words will change over time. "Pants" in the United States refers to outerwear for the legs. In British English, it refers to undergaments. There are hundreds of examples of words that have different meaning depending on which country the speaker is from. Second is spelling. In the United States, words are simplified. This is a result of the dictionary, which has different spellings in the United States compared to England and Australia. For example, "aluminium" in a British dictionary is spelled as "aluminum" in an American dictionary. So, speakers will naturally pronounce those words differently. Finally, there is cadence. All native English speakers have a similar cadence that non-English speakers hear. But, that cadence is not identical from one country to the next. It isn't even the same within a single country. When the cadence is altered, it becomes more difficult to understand the language. As an example, Indian speakers have a very different cadence which makes all statements sound like a question to native English speakers. Even if words are pronounced accurately, the cadence throws off the ability to determine the structure of the sentence. From there, you get into accents which are very different from community to community within any English speaking country (and exist in all other languages as well). But, without picking the correct words, pronouncing them as properly spelled, and following the correct cadence, trying to change your accent isn't effective. Now, I think that this book is intended to help people fake a foreign accent rather than explain why accents exist. But, I feel it is a good reference. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 11:34, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

97.82.165.112 -- There are a number of spelling differences between the US and the UK which do not indicate a pronunciation difference, such as "honour" vs. "honor" or "centre" vs. "center" etc. (There may be differences between the pronunciations of such words in various dialects, but these are not indicated in any way by the alternative spellings.) "Aluminium" vs. "aluminum" is not at all the same, since there the different pronunciation has nothing to do with r-dropping or lexical sets, but with a different basic word-form in UK English vs. US English... AnonMoos (talk) 12:57, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

See also English language in England which identifies three main groups of English accents and within those, eleven distinct regional accents. The origin of this diversity is sometimes explained by the fact that England originally consisted of different petty kingdoms, whose ruling classes came from different parts of northern Europe. Add to that the various accents of the other three Home Nations, some of them influenced by Celtic languages. Additionally, accents can be influenced by recent migrants, Multicultural London English is an example. Alansplodge (talk) 13:12, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Not only recent immigrants; Geordie is very close to a being Scandinavian language (indeed some sources regard it as a different language to English) due to some not-so-recent immigrants (starting 8 June 793) in their longships. SBE has a higher number of French derived words compared to more distant dialects due to another set of immigrants who arrived on and after 28 September 1066. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:44, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes but the United States was a British colony back in the 17th and 18th centuries and a lot of British immigrants brought along their accents, raised their children to speak that way and so on. But for some reason Americans sound nothing like a British person, but Australians, New Zealanders, and South Africans on the other hand managed to retain their British accents. How is that.95.144.204.68 (talk) 14:45, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are completely and utterly misinformed. Maybe you have a tin ear. MinorProphet (talk) 16:11, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

The IP geolocates to a British location, which surprises me. I expected that comment from an American IP. All regional accents are different. For example, there used to be a television show, 800 Words, about an Australian family that relocated to New Zealand. They stood out as Australians because they had an Australian accent. But, if you ask someone outside of Australia and New Zealand to tell the difference, it would likely be difficult. Being native to an accent does make it clear what the differences are. It then becomes rather annoying when someone fakes an accent badly, such as Daniel Craig's miserable attempt at a Southern American accent in Knives Out. It is clear that he got his tutoring from the Charleston accent, but misses it more often than not. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 17:55, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I recently located an Australian to her native town of Alice Springs in one guess after less than a minute of conversation (her accent wasn't coastal); some visiting Americans to Boston (although one was very particular to emphasise her "South Boston origins"; a Welshman to his specific valley (he lived a few miles from Aberfan); a Canadian to the east of New Brunswick; and a very long time ago a Kiwi to South Island because of her inimitable uprising twang. I reckon I can place anyone from the UK to within 50 or even 30 miles if they speak in the local dialect. I was fooled most recently by a young lady who came from Sheffield and had just come back from 8 years in Florida. In the whole of France there are only about eight regional accents, in the UK there are 80. But I am a collector of such things. MinorProphet (talk) 19:10, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, the idea that Australians and New Zealanders have a “British” accent is laughable. They both have very distinct “Aussie” or “NZed”accents. Furthermore, locals can often tell what region of each country someone comes from based on their accent (Someone from Sydney has noticeably different accent from someone from Perth or Melbourne… a North Islander has a different accent from a South Islander, etc). Sure, the distinctions may not be noticeable to an outsider, but they are very noticeable to locals. Blueboar (talk) 20:41, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Professor Henry Higgins, I presume. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 20:45, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

"You can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue. I can place any man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two streets." — Prof. Henry Higgins (as The Note Taker), Act One of Pygmalion [1] by George Bernard Shaw, repeated in Act One of Alan Jay Lerner's libretto for the musical My Fair Lady [2]

My father once told me that a colleague of his who studied and taught linguistics claimed that he could place any American's county (of which there are over 3,000) simply by hearing him or her pronounce the word "water". —— Shakescene (talk) 23:54, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

97.82.165.112, I never meant to say Australians and New Zealanders had British accents, I meant Australians and New Zealanders have their own accents but they sound more like their ancestors rather than Americans. I can tell the difference between all British, New Zealand, and Australian accents.95.144.204.68 (talk) 21:03, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Our Australian English article says that its "most significant influences were the dialects of Southeast England. By the 1820s, the native-born colonists' speech was recognisably distinct from speakers in Britain and Ireland." The connection between Britain and Australia is only 200 years old against 400 years for North America. Alansplodge (talk) 21:34, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

95: What do you mean by "sound more like their ancestors"? This is very far from something I know much about but AFAIK many Americans do sound slightly like their ancestors who came from Britain arguably more so than many people who stayed in Britain although it's fairly complicated and we can only go by what has been written since there are no recordings of those eras. See e.g. [3] for some discussion of this. To be clear, you should not conflate modern accents with historic ones. (In other words assuming people 400 hundred years ago living in some specific area of the world talked like people living in those exact same areas now, even without significant immigration or a switch in the language spoken is a mistake. Even assuming modern people living there sound the most like historic people who lived there compared to people all over the world is a mistake since it's not always going to be true.) An even more extreme example of this might be William Wallace. Mel Gibson's Scottish accent in Braveheart is often criticised [4] [5]. It might be reasonable to criticise it as a clear but failed attempt to emulate a modern Scottish accent. But if we're talking about it from a historic accuracy PoV, while it's true Braveheart got a lot wrong, the accent thing was an intentional and I think many would suggest reasonable decision to make a film modern audiences could understand [6] [7]. Noting also any attempt to emulate an accent of the era would be far, far worse since we know way too little about what people sounded like then although I think from what we do know, arguably a modern Scottish accent isn't the best starting point for William Wallace. (In other words, it's undoutedly correct that Mel Gibson did a terrible impression of what William Wallace sounded like, but it's not because he failed at his attempt at a modern Scottish accent.) Nil Einne (talk) 11:46, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

What William Wallace sounded like is not easy to ascertain. The Wallace family were Bretons who participated in the Norman conquest, and were assigned lands in Wales because Breton and Welsh were then just about mutually intelligible. They subsequently acquired lands in SW Scotland where much of the population probably also still spoke a Brythonic close to if not actually "Welsh."

What William spoke out of Norman French, Anglo-Norman, his forbears' Breton, the local Welsh and/or Brythonic, and Scots, and with what accents, is difficult to pronounce on. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.210.77 (talk) 16:33, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Another thing to remember is that the British settlers in America wound up all mixed together. It's not like New Hampshire was settled only by people from "old" Hampshire. The accents that the settlers bought merged and morphed to become the current American accents.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:04, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

True… Although… the non-rhotic accent of Boston and coastal New England (“pahk yah cah in Hava’d yahd”) derive from the fact that many of that region’s early settlers tended to come from East Anglia… while the hard-rhotic accent of Virginia and the Carolinas derive from the fact that most of the early settlers in those colonies tended to come from Plymouth, Devon and Somerset (think “Pirate accent”). Blueboar (talk) 22:56, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Much more of England spoke with the "Pirate accent" at the time. Non-rhotic accents in England, even among prestige classes, were not well as well known at the time, and did not become prominent until the 18th century. See Rhoticity in English. In the early 17th century when these areas were settled, far more of England was Rhotic. --Jayron32 13:46, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I never meant to say that Australians sound more like their ancestors than Americans, I meant to say that Australians sound more British than Americans, although the British and Australian accents are very different. 95.144.204.68 (talk) 16:05, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Meh… I don’t think Aussies and NZers sound any more “British” than Americans or Canadians do. Distinct accents. Blueboar (talk) 16:19, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

To many Americans, Australian English often sounds like it has a strong influence from working-class London speech of former times... AnonMoos (talk) 20:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Aussie English reminds me of Cockney to some degree, although it's more intelligible. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:46, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

As an American, Australian and New Zealand accents sound happy. British accents sound conceited and sad. But, I don't know all the British accents. I mainly only know the accents from Monty Python and Doctor Who. Then, there is that accent Ozzy has. I thought he was just brain damaged until I saw an interview with his school teacher and she sounded exactly like him. However, I can understand almost all those English accents. What I cannot understand at all is Indian English. They say something like "Customer Support. How may I help you?" I hear "Coozy reports? Haki dak-do?" Then, I hang up and go to online chat. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 12:02, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

I've noticed that a lot of the trouble I have understanding Indian English accents is based on stress patterns. Indians just don't follow the same stress patterns in speech. It's also a big part of the problem I have pronouncing Indian names.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:57, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure how an accent can convey conceit; perhaps this is an implicit stereotype of yours. Alansplodge (talk) 18:11, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

It is a standard British sterotype to use a French accent to convey conceit. I just saw it used by Stephen Fry on QI and by Jason Hughes in Midsomer Murders, two DVD sets recently added to our collection. I remember it used by Eric Idle in the Meaning of Life to portray a conceited waiter. So, it isn't new. I assume it is a standard use of an accent to convey conceit. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 12:22, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Hence the wholesale commandeering of French names for dishes, cooking methods, and even staff members in high-falutin' restaurants in some places in the English-speaking world. A bit passé in these egalitarian times, though. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:57, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, in those cited cases, the words are disdainful not the accent. A French accent is also considered romantic or seductive to Anglophones [8] [9] Alansplodge (talk) 22:19, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Baseball_Bugs --- I deliberately avoided the word "Cockney" in my comment above, since it has many distracting associations. AnonMoos (talk) 18:55, 24 May 2023 (UTC)