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July 19

stopping youtube autodubbing on browser on phone

Hi friends, like the title says. I watch lots of videos on my browser on the phone and a lot are in French, Japanese and Urdu...but lately youube overwrites the original audio with a horrible ai voice in robot weird english. google only shows me solutions for desktop computers or using an app I don't have. Can you help please? Thank you70.67.193.176 (talk) 03:41, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Does the browser allow extensions? YouTube No Translation promises to keep the original audio. This is the Firefox add-on but it says there's a Chrome version. Some years ago when I was choosing a mobile browser it was difficult to find one that supported extensions and I ended up with the obscure "Kiwi browser", not mentioned on Wikipedia even in the list of web browsers, but perhaps the situation has improved since then. (Ah, I see this add-on is for Firefox desktop, so this probably isn't the solution.)

It seems there is a gear icon for options which will restore the original soundtrack, but the option resets with every video. ... But again, not available on mobile for some (?) reason.

Another addon/extension which may possibly work on mobile Firefox/Chrome-based browsers: Youtube Anti-translate. It says "titles", but on the GitHub page, about recent versions it says "This long awaited update enables YouTube's translations to be removed from: automatically dubbed audio tracks of videos".  Card Zero  (talk) 04:55, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Note that Kiwi is not obscure; it just hasn't received enough coverage to have its own Wikipedia article and be eligible for the list. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:52, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

The only solution for mobile I know is to change the YouTube app's language, which is a cop-out for we who speak multiple languages.

On the subject of desktop extensions, I found https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/youtube-original-audio-se/npmonogomlgglpkeanlndphjgickimpl?pli=1 for Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera...). Aaron Liu (talk) 12:56, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Many thanks for the answer. Yes it can do extension! I tried YouTube No Translation but it says I need a different kind of phone. Nevertheless I really appreciate your efforts and will ask my family if the antitranslate one will be safe.70.67.193.176 (talk) 22:43, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

July 20

Problem generating endgame tablebase

I'm trying to make an endgame tablebase for a variant of chess, using retrograde analysis. I want to see if certain combinations of pieces can force checkmate and the maximum number of moves required (assuming optimal play). Assume that White is trying to checkmate Black.

My program starts with a checkmate position and do a breadth-first search. I get the positions that go to the checkmate position in one white move, then the positions that go to those positions in one black move, etc.

The program seems to be basically working correctly. When I play the resulting moves forward, the last few moves (about five moves for White) seem to be forcing checkmate. However, there are problems for longer sequences - they are not forcing moves. In fact, Black has opportunities to capture a white piece, which would result in a draw.

I can't figure out how to make the process work correctly. Does anyone have suggestions? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:23, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Let the term "node" refer to the combination of a position plus the player who is to move. If White is to move we'll call it a W-node, otherwise a B-node. The checkmate position is a B-node: White was the last to move, and now it is Black's turn, except they can't because they have been checkmated. The rules of the game connect the nodes in a directed graph that is bipartite: arcs from a W-node lead to a B-node, and arcs from a B-node lead to a W-node.

    The breadth-first search treats the graph as if it is a tree and can be viewed as if building a tree of nodes, known to be won for White and lost for Black (assuming optimal White play). We must make sure only nodes are added from which White can force checkmate. To do this correctly, we must keep in mind that the graph is not actually a tree.

    When exploring ingoing arcs to a B-node in the table, we do not have to be careful. Say the arc goes from W-node x to B-node y. Since y is lost for Black, White can force a win from x. But we must be careful when exploring an arc from a B-node x to a W-node y in the table (unless x is already in the table). Black, in the position of node x, will lose if playing the move corresponding to the arc. But there may be other moves Black can choose to play from this position. The B-node x can only be added to the table as won for White if all arcs from x lead to W-nodes in the table.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:12, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, I have to think about that. Since I wrote that message, I realized that I had made an error. I was adding only one checkmate position to the queue for the breadth-first search instead of all of them. I had in mind doing the checkmate positions in parallel, but that isn't really valid because a checkmate position could arise and the program wouldn't know that it is checkmate. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:37, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

I think you have identified my problem (adding a B-node only if all arcs are good). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:53, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

@Lambiam: I'm not quite sure how to implement the last part. (The rest is what I was already doing.) You need to add only positions for which all arcs lead to a position that is known to lead to a checkmate, but early in the breadth-first search, the status of most positions is unknown. I'm thinking maybe an iterative procedure to get the evaluations of some of the positions and then repeat the process with the knowledge of those positions, but I don't think that is how it is done. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:02, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

If the status of any of these W-nodes is unknown, they have not been considered yet. At some future time in the process, once the last of these W-nodes has been considered, the B-node will be considered again and can receive a status. There may be cycles, in which Black can prevent a forced checkmate by endless repetition of moves. Then it is OK if the statuses of the nodes in the cycle, or network of cycles, remain unknown.  ​‑‑Lambiam 04:57, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

Maybe it isn't the right thing to do, but I'm using a breadth-first search starting with checkmate positions and working backwards, so initially almost all nodes don't have a known value, because they haven't been visited yet. There are no cycles because I know which nodes/positions have been visited in the breadth-first search and don't go back to them. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:31, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

We must make a distinction between merely "considering" a B-node and "visiting" a B-node. When, during the backwards breadth-first search, a B-node is considered (because it leads to a winning W-node), and this B-node leads to W-nodes that have not yet been visited, this B-node should also not be treated as having been visited, so it can be reconsidered later on. As an illustration, take the following graph:

            /----> W3 ----> B2 ----\
          B4                        W1 ----> B0
            \----------->-----------/

B0 is checkmate. Working back, we see that W1 is winning. There are two B-nodes leading to W1, B2 and B4. Both should be considered. B2 leads only to a W-node known to be winning, so its status is now known and it can be marked as visited by including it in the table. B4, on the other hand, also leads to unvisited node W3. Therefore, the status of B4 must remain unvisited for now. Working on, W3 is visited and seen to be winning, and now B4 is considered again and seen to lead only to winning W-nodes.

Last night it finally sunk in what you were saying. Only make the black move if all of the edges from it lead to a position for white. Otherwise, ignore it (and then it is certain that Black's moves are forced). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:02, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

July 21

Why does a TikTok video still play in Wayback Machine?

I found an old TikTok URL archived by the Wayback Machine. When I open the snapshot, the video with sound still plays. I thought the Wayback Machine only saved static HTML/CSS and maybe thumbnails, not the actual MP4 files streamed from TikTok’s CDN. HarryOrange (talk) 03:52, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

@HarryOrange, the WBM tries to archive dynamic elements. They are annoyingly bad about it, but this is the ideal outcome. JayCubby 17:25, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Image interpolation

Is there a way to detect whether an image has been interpolated? I can guess based on unnatural softness or blocky artifacts, but there are so many methods with different tells I can't always know whether slight interpolation is present.

I have found one paper, this, but it doesn't publish a program.

Perhaps I just need to produce the DFT spectrum and I then can look for artifacts manually? I don't really understand FFT computation (which probably doesn't help)

Also, I don't know if the scaling methods have fundamentally changed since when this paper was written (2004). Would that change things? JayCubby 17:20, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

The paper you linked to does not give program code, but it describes an algorithm. There are several other scaling methods than bilinear or bicubic interpolation; see the article Image scaling. Some work better than others on specific types of images. I do not expect that the method described in the paper will reliably detect the use of neural networks for scaling.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:34, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

That much I gathered. AI upscaling is fairly easy to detect by eye. I'll see if I can figure out how to graph the DFT output. If that fails, I might test a bunch of scaling methods to review in a manner similar to Comparison gallery of image scaling algorithms Thanks for the reply. JayCubby 16:57, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Wifi Map

Do someone know Wifi Map?

Here the official page: https://www.wifimap.io/

Is it eligible for new page on Wikipedia? 109.54.173.92 (talk) 20:11, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

We have a broader topic page Wardriving. For wifimap there does appear to be references available to write an article from iTWire and TechTadar. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:29, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

July 26

Arduino/RPi human presence detection sensors (not movement based)

If I want to detect the presence (or lack thereof) of a stationary human at a distance of about 2 meter, would a LD2450 be good enough or do I need a AMG8833? Polygnotus (talk) 02:58, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

So the AMG8833 is an array of 64 thermal sensors, but the LD2450 is a tiny radar, and it detects movement. However, the movement can be as slight as a heartbeat, or "body micro movements" as mentioned on this Hacker News thread. Somebody near the top of the thread has the LD2410B (note different number) and has trouble detecting a person sitting still at 3 meters away, but elaborates they should detect heartbeat (and do), but not from more than 2-3m away. Further down in the middle of the thread, user "stavros" (the same user) reports trouble detecting a person sitting still at 4-5 meters away, and then there is a burst of confidence from user "mianos" with a Github project about building presence detectors with these LD2450 things. Sounds like yes, the LD2450 is good enough at 2 meters.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:25, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

With a sensor sensitive enough to detect a heartbeat, I can't help thinking about false positives. PiusImpavidus (talk) 15:15, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

@PiusImpavidus The sensor will be aimed at a location that is, if there is no human present, completely free of moving or heat generating things. Polygnotus (talk) 01:33, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

@Card Zero Hm, it looks like the LD2410B is better than the LD2450 for this usecase, thanks! Polygnotus (talk) 01:31, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

July 31

Semitic roots and LLM tokenisation

I recently was sent an abstract about failures of LLMs to correctly answer questions about the Quran in Arabic. That got me pondering. As I understand the tokenizers used in LLMs, they identify relatively frequent character sequences as tokens. That is a good match for languages that work (mostly) with a word stem and various pre- and postfixes for grammatical markers. But is this a good match for languages like Hebrew or Arabic that use multilateral roots and modify words by injecting extra characters in between the consonant roots? Moved from language desk, where it found no takers. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:43, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

July 20

Planetary core gases

Can gases and plasmas exist in planetary cores? What about in Earth's core? What if the planet had more uranium in it than Earth and it sank to the core in a higher concentration than Earth's core?Rich (talk) 22:16, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Not in Earth's core no. I mean there will be some gasses dissolved in the metal that makes up the core, but it's a solid core. I think all planets in our solar system, in fact all bodies orbiting the sun, the same is true. They have a solid core of some sort. We can tell by the mass of the ones we can't see inside that they are more than just gas. Gravity ensures that the heaviest elements sink to the core and rocks, metals are heavier than gasses.

It could be different in other planetary systems around other stars. One reason is the heavier elements needed for solid cores are created in supernovae, by supernova nucleosynthesis. Our solar system had heavier elements for planets due to a supernova that exploded somewhere nearby, billions of years ago. This required our solar system to be both in the right place and formed late enough to benefit from other stars and their systems having gone supernova. Not all planetary systems will be so lucky, so might not have the elements for solid rocky cores in their planets. --2A04:4A43:904F:F005:105F:8478:7597:2C9F (talk) 00:39, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Which substances have the strongest negative buoyancy and sink fastest or furthest is determined by their densities, assumed to be larger than that of the immersing fluid. Density is not a meaningful concept for elements per se. The density of a substance also depends on temperature and pressure, and this dependence is different for different substances, making this dynamically complicated.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:25, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Without the elements for solid rocky cores, you're somewhat unlikely to form any planets. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:00, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

A high concentration of uranium-235 inducing fission can naturally occur already without the stuff sinking to the core; see Natural nuclear fission reactor. For an explosion to occur, the fission reaction has to occur within a containment; otherwise, the pressure will push the fissile substance apart, resulting in a naturally controlled slow process.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:37, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Now I am minded to wonder: if you could collect enough fissile substance and place it in freefall, how much would you need such that its internal gravity would balance its internal pressure, forming a 'fission star'? I suspect that a gaseous body would be so large that fusion would also occur and even take over.

Perhaps there is a range of mass where the body could be merely, but stably, liquid. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 10:05, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Without an atmosphere, it would quickly evaporate.  ​‑‑Lambiam 17:34, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

July 22

Weather questions

1. Why so few weather stations are located at downtowns of cities and so many are located at airports?
2. Is there any place in the US that measures sunshine hours as of 2025? The hours of US are interesting because:
   1. The sunniest place in the world, Yuma is in the US.
   2. The places in northern US with continental climates have higher winter sunshine hours than places in Europe because they are further south.

No US weatherbox that I have found has sunshine data from a period more recent than 1961-1990.

3. How common is it in Europe to use 0°C isotherm to separate group C and D climates in Köppen climate classification?
4. Are there any countries that measure dew points in weather stations?
5. Is there any European country that measures snowfall? --40bus (talk) 07:06, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

1: Accurate weather data is important for aviation safety, so weather stations at airports are normally mandatory. Downtown locations suffer from an urban heat island. The temperature they measure, and also the wind, isn't representative for a larger area. Now you might argue that for the people in the city it's nice to know what the weather in the city is like, but in a larger city of about a million people the urban heat effect downtown may be 8°C and in the suburbs only 2°C, so downtown isn't even representative for the city. If downtown has a waterfront, a tiny change in wind direction may cause a huge change in temperature. Finally, data from weather stations are fed into numerical weather forecasts. Those run at a spacial resolution of some tens of kilometres (with faster computers, this is improving), which is too coarse to resolve urban heat islands. A weather station at a location not representative for an area of 1000 km² will mess up the weather forecast. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:38, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

4: Temperature and humidity are both measured at most weather stations all over the world. How humidity is measured exactly varies; see hygrometer for details. The resulting data can be converted to absolute humidity, relative humidity and dew point. Often both relative humidity and dew point are reported, but given one of them and the temperature, all can be calculated. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:49, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

5: Norway records snow depth on a daily basis at many weather stations, see here. Mikenorton (talk) 15:45, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

July 23

22.7 liters per mole

There is a law or rule that a mole of gas has volume 22.7 liters at STP. Does this law have a name? I think it follows from the ideal gas law and plugging in the relevant physical constants, but that probably isn't how I'd describe it if I were trying to explain a calculation to someone. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:91F7:D2D1:408F:D563 (talk) 06:41, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

This is Avogadro's law at standard temperature and pressure. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 08:58, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps more precisely the ideal gas law. Given the value of the gas constant, this figure of 22.7 L / mol at STP is an easily calculated consequence and also easily sourced fact, but does IMO not deserve to be called a law or rule, just like the well-known but nameless fact that 1 litre of water weighs 1 kg at STP is not called a law or rule – although it is a good rule of thumb.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:27, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

It was 22.4 litres/mole when I was at school, and I was unaware that the mole had suffered from inflation. Thank you for drawing this to my attention. catslash (talk) 15:38, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

The mole hasn't suffered from inflation; temperature has. Climate change, you see. Actually, 22.414 litres/mole is at 101325 pascal and 273.15 kelvin, 22.700 litres/mole at the same pressure, 276.63 kelvin.

BTW, the concept is known as molar volume. For an ideal gas, it's the gas constant times temperature divided by pressure. The gas constant in turn is the Bolzmann constant times the Avogadro constant, but observationally the gas constant was first. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:02, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

In 1982, the absolute pressure of STP was changed from exactly 1 atm (101.325 kPa) to exactly 1 bar (100 kPa). This explains the change from 22.414 to 22.7. Using the physical constant values of the 2019 revision of the SI, the current value at STP (273.15 K) is 22.71095464... L / mol.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:56, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes, we'd grasped that; we were being sarcastic. It's astounding that IUPAC are such imbeciles as to redefine a commonly used term like STP. It's as bad as the IEEE redefining gain. Data that references these terms is now ambiguous, its meaning depending on the date of publication, or the inclination of the author to adopt the new definitions. And nobody even bothered to tell me about about STP, nor most of the Web to judge from typing volume of mole of gas at stp into Google. catslash (talk) 01:12, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

They didn't tell me about it, either. Nor did they ask for my permission, which would not have been given.

Other "standards" that became "new and improved" to interject questions when using old references:

Avogadro's Number is now 6.022e23 -- not 6.023e23

Atomic weight is now 12.0 for carbon-12 -- not 16.0 for oxygen-16

Boiling point of water is now slightly less than 212°F 2601:14D:4181:3320:DD29:3BA7:1F7C:EC49 (talk) 12:29, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

July 24

Lightning not in the atmosphere

Could a lightning occur entirely within the earth or ocean?Rich (talk) 01:05, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Not according to the description in Lightning. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:13, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Isn't Earth's atmosphere part of "the Earth"? That aside, to get lightning, first you need some process that generates a charge separation between different regions of something. And this process has to be able to get the field strength of the resulting electric field, to exceed the dielectric strength of the medium—upon which, dielectric breakdown happens and the medium begins conducting current. What sorts of processes are going to cause that in rock or in ocean water? Ocean water isn't a dielectric at all; it's electrically conductive. --Slowking Man (talk) 02:19, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't know that much. Concerning the ocean or a even a lake, i was wondering if the water would acquire a charge relative the earth beneath it, maybe from an ordinary lightning stroke from the atmosphere. As a side note, maybe some form of lightning inside caves or empty magma chambers? But another thing I was wondering if inside the crust or mantle or even core, charge separation could build up, probably much more slowly than in the atmosphere, and somehow get triggered by a cosmic ray or gamma ray from uranium decays. And I don't see that the charge carriers would need to have water droplets in a generalalized lightning.Rich (talk) 03:55, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Some related topics:

1. Fulgurites.

2. Electricity at hydrothermal vents.

3. Piezoelectricity/Flexoelectricity/Triboelectricity maybe in connection to earthquake lights if they're real. Also Seismo-electromagnetics: Current research suggests it's dissolved gases that come out of solution when de-pressurized and then ionize to generate the electrical signatures.

4. Telluric currents, which sound like more forteana but are used in Magnetotellurics for serious geology. Geomagnetically induced current (a better article).

I also vaguely remember an old ref desk question about getting electric current for free by ... well it involved sticking poles in the ground, or a cable. But none of this is very much like lightning (as Bugs already told us).  Card Zero  (talk) 07:05, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Well for "electric current in the ground" there's this: single-wire earth return. (Also perhaps of interest: [1]) Of course, it's only "free" to you if you're sponging off someone else's SWER system. Depending on soil chemistry, you can do the electric potato thing with suitable rods, but that's only "free" until you deplete it. --Slowking Man (talk) 23:31, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

There's an anecdote – whether it's true, I don't know, but it sounds somewhat plausible – of a lightning strike underground in a gold mine in the US, 19th or early 20th century. Supposedly, lightning struck the ground and the electric current passed through a gold vein. The gold vein was interrupted by the mine and lightning jumped from the ceiling to the floor of the tunnel. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:25, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Reminds me of The First Sirian Bank -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 20:09, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

The thing is that water in a lake or ocean is itself an electrical conductor. If lightning hits it (which happens a lot, over the 70% of the planet's surface that is water), the current just flows through the water "down" the voltage gradient. There is no visible "bolt" figure in the water: the "bolt" you see in the air is formed by some of the air getting ionized, once the air's breakdown voltage is exceeded, into a plasma. The electric current flows through this conductive "channel" of plasma and superheats it to glowing; thunder is caused by the explosive expansion of the plasma and surrounding air as it's suddenly heated.

Soil is variably conductive (for one it tends to have some water dissolved in it): not extremely well, but enough to use it as a generally-assumed-as-infinite "sink" to use as the zero-voltage reference point for electrical ground. Take a look at that SWER stuff I mentioned above, to see how demonstrable amounts of current can even be conducted long-distance through it! Getting deeper down, I'd have to defer to a geophysicist for details, but I suspect interaction with Earth's magnetic field makes it so a large-scale charge separation can't really form and be sustained. For one the convection currents in the mantle and core get "linked in" with the planet's magnetic field; that's how it's generated, and there's continual chaotic effects back-and-forth between the field and the mantle/core. --Slowking Man (talk) 23:31, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

July 26

GcMAF

Can I post the following new information on the GcMAF page based on Wikipedia posting rules? This corrects a glaring omission on this page? It's been so long since I posted that I have forgotten all the rules and need help. I don't want to start a edit war which is common on this page since there are individuals who want the content on this page to remain negative although the science has moved on and is becoming positive. I just want to correct the record on GcMAF. I have outlined a potential post below. Any recommended wording change or reduced content that just says GcMAF successfully completed a Phase 1 Study would be OK. There is content on the web that says that GcMAF has not been studies for safety and this proves there is false narrative that needs correcting. Thanks for your analysis.

COMPLETED FDA REGISTERED PHASE 1 CLINICAL TRIAL IN ISRAEL

In May 2017 the Sheba Hospital in Israel successfully completed a cancer-related GcMAF (under the name EF-022) FDA registered Phase 1 Clinical Trial. Results for Part 1 of this trial were presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, held November 5-9, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts.

In the Part 1, Phase 1 Clinical Trial GcMAF was found to have an acceptable safety profile and resulted in cancer related disease stabilization in 42% of trial patients. Pharmacodynamics markers suggest a reduction of Tregs and increase of the M1/M2 ratio.

https://mct.aacrjournals.org/content/14/12_Supplement_2/B30

https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT02052492 PageMaster (talk) 01:12, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

The reference desk is not equipped to answer this question. Try the talk page of the article, Talk:GcMAF, but perhaps read the section Talk:GcMAF § Efranat edits first, since this seems to be about the same clinical trial.  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:06, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

PS. I see you posted over seven years ago on that talk page, in that very section, so why did you come here now?  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:10, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

cytoplasmic streaming

In today's picture of the day (first video in cytoplasmic streaming) is the video at real time or is it sped up or down? (I didn't know where to ask this, so here seemed the best place.) -- SGBailey (talk) 05:10, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

There is an implicit rule in science that when media of an observation is altered in any non-obvious way, the alteration is described together with any presentation of the media. This would include altering the time rate of a video. No alteration is mentioned at commons:File:Cytoplasmic streaming.webm.  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:24, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

I guess the article could probably benefit from some information about the range of speeds for cytoplasmic streaming. The length of onion epidermal cells seems to be in the 0.2 to 0.4mm range, or thereabouts, so the video being at real time doesn't seem unreasonable. Streaming in slime molds can be much faster than that. I didn't realize until quite recently that cytoplasmic streaming is used in modeling e.g. "Revealing the Dark Threads of the Cosmic Web". Sean.hoyland (talk) 06:41, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

July 27

Fade when turning lights off

I've noticed that when I turn room lights (LEDs) off, there is a fade to blackness. Are the LED lights fading or is it something to do with my eyes, such as persistence of vision? ―Panamitsu (talk) 08:02, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

What color is the fading light? The white light section of the LED lamp article says they typically use phosphor, commonly yellow. This would glow briefly.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:12, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

When I look at the bulb there is a whitish-yellowish fade yes, but what I was referring to was the light in the whole room fading to darkness. A weird thing is that I cannot replicate the fade. If I turn the switch off and on there is no fade at all. But there is one sometimes, which makes me think that a) it only happens when the light has been on for a long time or b) it's some eye precondition. ―Panamitsu (talk) 11:03, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

If in doubt, ask your doctor. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:59, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

If you look at a bright light source for a length of time, after discontinuing you will perceive an afterimage due to your photoreceptor cells getting "overexcited". This is a basis for some entertaining optical illusion effects: give the lilac chaser a try! --Slowking Man (talk) 19:39, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Wow the lilac chaser is so cool! ―Panamitsu (talk) 22:33, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Could it be leftover charge in smoothing capacitors powering the LEDs? cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 23:14, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

And in white LED lights there are fluorescent substances that continue to glow at fading levels for about a second as Card_Zero said above. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:27, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

It could be interesting to make a video of the situation and see if it matches what your eyes are seeing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:14, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Good idea although I had a try and my phone's autoexposure is too slow, giving a fade even when I don't see one. The phone records a fade also when I turn the lights on. ―Panamitsu (talk) 08:05, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

See if the camera app has a manual mode with exposure control. cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 10:55, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

July 28

ISO 21482 Symbols

The ISO 21482 article talks about other symbols that were considered. Do we know where those symbols were? I can't seem to find them via Google. 93.107.224.16 (talk) 06:41, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

July 29

Bench seats

when was the last American sedan to have bench/sofa style seats. Aren't all front seats two separate seats. DMc75771 (talk) 01:28, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

There's some information at Bench seat#Decline, which says that in 2013 "it was reported that only one American automobile, the Chevrolet Impala, was sold with a bench seat, and the option was terminated in the next model year". Deor (talk) 02:01, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

There's a 2024 source which says that they are back! See this URL I have no idea how reliable that is. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:56, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

New Scientist

Dear all. Has anybody a subscription to the New Scientist? And could send me this paper? That would be most useful. Thanks. --Lewisiscrazy (talk) 10:16, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Would you like a Non-paywalled version of the same story from Eos (magazine)? Or perhaps the actual paper in Nature?  Card Zero  (talk) 11:29, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Hi. No, the paper I want to read is a 2025 follow up. I want to see how the story develops. --Lewisiscrazy (talk) 12:35, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Is doi:10.1101/2025.03.10.642362 the study that New Scientist is reporting? DMacks (talk) 12:42, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

It is. Thanks. --Lewisiscrazy (talk) 12:51, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Found it : https://archive.ph/zqoNw --Lewisiscrazy (talk) 06:52, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Appearance of Oort cloud

I suppose that if the Oort cloud indeed exists, it probably doesn't look like this picture. Even though there is a vast number of objects in the Oort cloud, they are spaced so far apart in regard to their size that the cloud is mostly empty space and the objects are hardly visible when viewed at this distance. Rather than being almost impenetrable, like this picture suggest, it should be pretty easy to travel through the Oort cloud without even encountering quite many objects. Am I correct in this reasoning? JIP | Talk 20:45, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:47, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Pretty much all "solid" matter is as you describe, "mostly empty space". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:45, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

This is often said, and yet when I tried to travel through some solid matter recently, I broke my arm.  Card Zero  (talk) 05:16, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

That's weird, since arms are mostly empty space too. Intersecting empty spaces must be like the square root of a black hole. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:12, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

* On the other hand, even the most vacuous mind has a density which can not be penetrated by the most scute cerebral energy. I would not be surprised if neutrinos got stuck and just went into hibernation after passing the tin foil. Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:40, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

"Scute"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:09, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

^{FWIW, 's' is next to 'a' on the keyboard. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.253.201 (talk) 13:55, 31 July 2025 (UTC)}

July 30

Mosquitoes and other flies in northern North America

could the extremely dense prevalence of mosquitoes and black flies in North America be due to the human-caused extinction of a vital predator of flying bugs? Either by Europeans in the last few hundred years or even thousands of years earlier by First Peoples?Rich (talk) 08:34, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Doesn't have to be black-and-white like that. Bats and dragonflies and fish that feed on larvae have taken major hits to their populations. Also, not too long ago the area was covered by a kilometer of ice. Abductive (reasoning) 19:12, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

US and ICD

Does US still use the ICD (meaning ICD-10-CM), or it has declared that ICD is wholly obsolete in US medicine? tgeorgescu (talk) 13:28, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

According to ICD-10-CM, then yes. Their relevant link to officialdom is this one updated in June 2024. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:34, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

I used the prompt "Does the U.S. still use ICD-10-CM" in the new Google search that has just been released in the UK and it gave an unequivocal "Yes", for what that's worth! The full answer was "Yes, the United States continues to use ICD-10-CM for diagnosis coding and ICD-10-PCS for procedure coding. These are the mandated standards for electronic health transactions in the U.S. The transition to these systems was finalized in 2015, replacing the older ICD-9-CM." Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:38, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

That is not a reference, it's a string of plausible noises output by a smooth-talking large language model.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:42, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

No-one said it was a reference. My first reply gave the relevant reference. I thought that the fact the LLM mentioned ICD-10-PCS was interesting, since my prompt made no suggestion I might be interested in that. Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:03, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

infinite universe

I've heard two things: 1) the presence of a singularity at the Big Bang or at the center of a black hole is considered unsatisfying from a theoretical perspective. They want better theories that keep the densities finite. 2) the universe (I mean the entire universe, not just the observable part) might be infinite in size.

But, is the infinite size not also a singularity of sorts? Especially if the infinite universe was supposed to have originated from the same big bang? The density of the universe is supposed to stay about the same throughout the infinite space, right? So that makes the mass infinite too. Do they have an explanation for where it came from? 2601:644:8581:75B0:979C:5F82:9ADC:661A (talk) 20:08, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

There are theories in which the universe did not come into existence because it has always existed; there has not been a "first moment". These theories include the so-called cyclic models and the eternal inflation model. It is debatable whether these are scientific theories, because (at least in their current versions) they are not falsifiable. They have no explanatory value as to how come there is something rather than nothing. None of the scientific theories in which the universe came into existence at some absolute time 0, together with time itself, offers an explanation for this cosmogony.

In this cosmological context, a "singularity" is a state in which the laws of physics as we understand them break down. Since many theoretical physicists are not happy with their theories breaking down, they spend a good deal of time trying to theorize the problems away, with limited success. An infinite universe is not a theoretical problem and does not entail the existence of a singularity in this sense.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:44, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Yet all of science's attempts to understand the creation of the universe fail in some way. The very existence of something that either (a) has always existed, or (b) started from literally nothing, is the greatest singularity possible, under the definition you provide. That would be true of a grain of sand just as much as a thing as monstrously large as the universe. To those scientists who say they understand the universe, I quote André Gide at them: "Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it." -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:24, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

It occurs to me that "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth" is about as falsifiable as the other hypotheses about the Big Bang, etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:37, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Well, kind of. We did once take a picture of the one and not the other. But yes, your two options are equally questionable in terms of answering where "it" came from. Matt Deres (talk) 13:17, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

August 1

Tsunamis on the "wrong" side of a landmass

I've just read about the Port of Honolulu ordering watercraft to weigh anchor ahead of an anticipated tsunami from the recent Russian earthquake (example story), even though the earthquake was north of Hawaii and the port is on the southern side of Oahu. I also remember the Effect of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake on India including damage on the country's west coast, even though the earthquake was east of the country.

In general, how can this happen? All I can think of is curving or bouncing off one landform, but it doesn't make sense to me how they could curve, and I'd expect them to spend their energy in the process of crashing into a coastline. Nyttend (talk) 20:26, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

In this animated simulation of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, you can see the front of the tsunami encitcle Sri Lanka. Fluid dynamics is rather different from the dynamics of shot launched from a gun.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:53, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Waves – tsunamis, sound waves, radio waves etc. – can curve. The physics term is diffraction. If the wavelength is long compared to the size of the obstacle, the waves can easily hit the back side of it. Like how you can hear cars pass when you stand against the back of a noise barrier. PiusImpavidus (talk) 23:41, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

July 26

Divisibility of units

Are there any SI units that divide evenly by 3 (and any of its multiples)? The only such metric units that come to mind are second, whose superunits are 60 times the previous unit (and thus divide evenly by 3), but second itself and its subunits do not, as well as degree of angle, but it is not an SI unit, the corresponding SI unit being radian, which does not divide evenly by 3. And of units that do not divide evenly, are thirds of these units ever used? --40bus (talk) 21:34, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

According to our article, minutes are non-SI units, so even the example you gave isn't valid. A minute is said to be "accepted for use" though, and if you look at the corresponding table it says minutes, hours and days as time units, and degrees and arcminutes as angle units, have subdivisions divisible by 3. That's 24 in the case of a day, and 60 for everything else. Astronomers also use light-hours, light-minutes, and light-seconds on occasion, but I gather these aren't strictly SI units. A parsec is based on an arcsecond, but it doesn't scale; 60 parsecs do not make an parmin, and if anything it would be the other way around. (Astronomy seems to be the outlier here since it still uses a plethora of non-metric units while the rest of the scientific community has (mostly) converted to SI units.) Really, the whole point of SI units is to use precise decimals instead of less precise fractions, and to reduce the number of units so there is less need for awkward conversion factors. --RDBury (talk) 23:03, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

If the list of (prefixless) SI units in International System of Units is complete, the answer is no. The only even non-negative divisors of (prefixed) SI-units are the numbers that can be written in the form $2^{m}5^{n}.$  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:59, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Are thirds of metric units ever used? More numbers are divisible by 3 than 5, and every SI unit is divisible by 5. How common is to write fractions with metric units? --40bus (talk) 22:34, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Of course.:

• Therefore, there was a loss of one third of a liter of electrolyte-free water in each liter of urine.^[2]
• Now, in vessel A there is one third of a liter of water and in vessel D there are two and thirds of a liter of wine ready for mixing.^[3]
• You administer a third of a liter of normal saline and obtain a right-sided 12-lead ECG.^[4]

For a use of fractions, just look here. Editors of scientific journals will ask authors to use decimal notation that complies with the rules in section 5.4 of The International System of Units.

BTW, this is not a maths question. In future, please post any similar questions either in the language section (if it is about actual use observed in the wild) or the science section (if it is about clarifying the rules).

 ​‑‑Lambiam 03:38, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I think that's a bit of a nitpick; in my view this query can be thought of as mathematical as much as it can linguistic or scientific, particularly as the querant is not a native English speaker, and different cultures can view concepts differently. And surely most regular respondents on the Ref desks look at all of them (as I do)?

If it bothers you that much, why don't you transfer it to one of those other desks? Which would you pick? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.253.201 (talk) 12:47, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

July 27

What’s the difference between commutative local fields and number fields ?

Everything is in the question… As far I understand number fields are Global Fields and thus a local field can’t be at the same time a local field isn’t it ? In addition to this, what are the differences ? 2A01:E0A:ACF:90B0:0:0:A03F:E788 (talk) 16:07, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

A local field is locally compact and complete with respect to a valuation. In characteristic zero, the real and complex numbers are the only archimedean local fields, with the non-archimedean local fields are finite extensions of the p-adic fields. A number field is a finite algebraic extension of the rationals. (In prime characteristic, the global fields are the function fields, and the local fields are completions of function fields with respect to a valuation.) Local fields are always uncountable, and global fields countable. Tito Omburo (talk) 16:21, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

In my case I was thinking about the case of lifting elliptic curve to local field since it preserve the discrete logarithm. This was in this way I was thinking to local fields. 2A01:E0A:ACF:90B0:0:0:A03F:E788 (talk) 12:28, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

For a lift to a local field which is unramified, there are basically two approaches. One approach, where you have the polynomial modulus f defining the finite field, you can just use that polynomial to define the quotient field $\mathbb {Q} _{q}=\mathbb {Q} _{p}[x]/(f(x)).$. In sage, you can do this with the class Qq(q, modulus=f) class (or for the valuation ring Zq(q, modulus=f).) If, on the other hand, multiplication in the field $\mathbb {F} _{q}$ is given as a black box, you can use the ring of Witt vectors to define the valuation ring $\mathbb {Z} _{q}$. I don't think sage implements the ring of Witt vectors, but it does implement the required symmetric functions. In the unramified case, there is usually a canonical way to lift an elliptic curve, but when the curve is supersingular, there is no canonical lift. Finally, I'm not sure about the case of lifts of elliptic curves in the case of ramified extensions. Tito Omburo (talk) 13:41, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

July 19

Weather on 17 July 1918

The last Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, was murdered in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918 in the middle of summer.

Are there any surviving records on what was the weather like in Yekaterinburg on that day? Was it a warm, sunny summer day? JIP | Talk 02:04, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

• Sorry, no such luck. There is a website which pretends to give data starting at 1930 from the airport of Jekaterinburg / Sverdlovsk, Koltsovo International Airport. Not only does this not cover 1918 (when the airport did not exist), the early data are mostly an empty list / diagram. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:20, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
• PS: Also note that the Romanovs were executed in the basement at 2:00 AM. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:26, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

A clue is that the bodies were doused in petrol and burned in nearby woodland shortly afterwards, which suggests that it wasn't pouring with rain. The average temperature for Yekaterinburg in July is 24°C (75°F) with 9 rainy days. [5] Alansplodge (talk) 18:11, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

July 20

References to a past wetter/greener Sahara in Herodotus and Strabo

doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.532 claims that e.g Herodotus's Historia (Melpomene, 168–199) and Strabon's Geographica (book 1, chapter 3) have references to a past wetter/greener Sahara. Thenewthemesucks said that these are completely spurious reference to a fictional herodotus quote does anyone know what these references are, and if they exist? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:56, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

You can read Herodotus here: [6]. There are references to fertile areas that I interpret as being oases; other than that, I see nothing of the sort. In 173 we read the sad story of the Psylli, whose water tanks dried up. When they trekked south in search of water they were buried in the sandy desert by a strong wind. And 181 tells us that going south from the sea coast, beyond the country haunted by wild beasts, there is a ridge of sand that stretches from Thebes in Egypt to the Pillars of Heracles.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:58, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

There's also a part about Lake Tritonis. And a part about the Fountain of the Sun, which is cold at noon and boils at midnight.  Card Zero  (talk) 04:41, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Only the Psylli thing reads like a reference to a previous wetter Sahara to me ... but I am not sure that we are in the business to second-guess a source (not Herodotus or Strabo, either; the article that is referencing them) in this way. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:23, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

I see, that's ref "Bader2017" in your diff. I always advocate smoothing things over with the "according to" phrasing. According to an article in Oxford Research Encyclopedias, the ancient geographers Herodotus and Strabo both discussed ... and lose the part about at first questioned which implies this perception of what they meant is now a settled matter. Evidently it's still questioned.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:48, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Rewritten like that, then. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:17, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Paul Bunyan is said to have visited the Great Sahara Forest in his youth.DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 03:52, 22 July 2025 (UTC) Since they removed the item again, opened a discussion here Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:36, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

July 21

Starless US Flag?

Is there any use pro-US, anti-US, or other of a flag with the stars all removed, so just a Blue field?Naraht (talk) 18:39, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Are you asking about actual flags, or depictions in art (say where the flag is too small to paint stars, or a cartoon where the animation style is simplistic)? Blueboar (talk) 19:44, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

If you google "u s flags without stars" you'll see a few potential examples. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:10, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

I found it drawn like that as an icon, used as part of the Tango Desktop Project. This icon is used when selecting a desktop locale. (Drawing stars is hard maybe? I see the stripes are also reduced to nine states.)  Card Zero  (talk) 04:27, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

So few examples in google, that this discussion came up second on the phrase "u s flags without stars".Naraht (talk) 19:55, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

July 22

Where is Chittagong in Ptolemy's map?

Esteemed Wikipedians, I am currently preparing to write the article “吉大港港” (Port of Chittagong) on Chinese Wikipedia. In the English article Port of Chittagong, it is stated:

“ In the 2nd century, Chittagong harbor appeared on Ptolemy's map, drawn by the Greco-Roman cartographer Claudius Ptolemy. The map mentions the harbor as one of the finest in the Eastern world. ”

The article cites Asia and Oceania: International Dictionary of Historic Places, which claims:

“ In the Second Century A.D., the Greek geographer Ptolemy noted that Chittagong was among the most impressive ports in the East. ”

Other articles like "History of Chittagong" also claims the similar thing. Article "Names of Chittagong" uses the Ptolemaic map but fails to furthr clarify. However, despite careful review, I have been unable to find any corresponding reference in either Ptolemy’s map see commons:File:Ptolemy Asia detail.jpg or in Ancient India as Described by Ptolemy, another book I think quite related to the matter, available through this Internet Archive link. I am now quite perplexed and would like to seek the guidance of knowledgeable individuals on this matter. —— 王桁霽 (talk) 17:11, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

I haven't located any further sources that would definitively confirm it, but it seems based on some Ptolemy-based maps^[7][8][9] that Chittagong may be the area named Pentapolis. The book you've linked also seems to make this identification based on Pentapolis being "five cities" and Chaturgrâma supposedly being "four cities", but I don't know how much this makes sense linguistically. GalacticShoe (talk) 18:27, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

On Pentapolis' connexion with Chittagong

Thank you very much. The clue of "Pentapolis" you offered is indeed crucial. Following this lead, I found a 1903 source — A Glossary of Anglo-Indian Colloquial Words and Phrases and of Kindred Terms — which records the following in its entry Chittagong: "The name [Chittagong] seems to be really a form of the Sanskrit Chaturgrāma (= Tetrapolis), [or according to others of Saptagrāma, 'seven villages'], and it is curious that near this position Ptolemy has a Pentapolis, very probably the same place." In contrast, the Wikipedia article "Names of Chittagong" offers an explanation in which the first part (Chitta) is derived from "lamp," yet provides no reference for this interpretation. Given that, whether made by scholars or not, all such speculations are far removed from Ptolemy’s own time, I consider the former account, when combined with what was offered in Ancient India as Described by Ptolemy, to be the more credible. —— 王桁霽 (talk) 22:26, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

For reference, I believe the Sanskrit for Chaturgrāma would be something like चतुर्ग्राम, from चतुर् (catúr, "four") and ग्राम (grā́ma, "village"). Someone more versed in Sanskrit could offer more insight. GalacticShoe (talk) 06:36, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

In the 1872 Monier-Williams dictionary catúrgrāma (चतुर्ग्राम) is glossed as: ‘containing 4 villages,’ N. of a country.^[10][11]  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:56, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

A quick Google Books search turns up a couple of sources that mention the possible Chaturgrāma–Pentapolis connection.^[12][13] They also bring up a hypothesis by Francis Wilford that it comes from Pattanphulli, supposedly meaning "flourishing seat".^[14] Note that our own article on Wilford suggests that his claims should be taken with a grain of salt; I am still trying to see if there's a linguistic basis for the name. GalacticShoe (talk) 17:39, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

The Monier-Williams dictionary Lambiam has provided above does have phulli (फुल्लि) meaning "expanding, blossoming",^[15] but I can't find a corresponding pattan meaning "seat". GalacticShoe (talk) 17:42, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

There is paṭṭana (पट्टन), meaning "a city".^[16][17]  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:07, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

@GalacticShoe and Lambian:, Allow me to once again express my gratitude for the efforts of both of you. I look forward to any discoveries that may emerge and be reflected in Wikipedia. —— 王桁霽 (talk) 18:20, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

LDS handbook and transgender members

Moved to Talk:Gender minorities and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints § LDS handbook and transgender members

 – Aaron Liu (talk) 02:15, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

July 23

Dohne, South Africa

"The Aborigines' Friend and the Colonial Intelligencer" (1855) incudes a letter sent from "Dohne Port, Amatola Mountain", in British Kaffraria (now South Africa), and mentioning "the Dohne [military] Post". We have an article, Döhne, about a South African agricultural research station, in the same area, but that does not seem to be the same thing (although the entomology is no doubt shared), and is not coastal.

Amatola Mountain, it seems, is now known as Amathole Mountains.

Where was Dohne Port? And the post? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:09, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

This German text writes 𝔇𝔬𝔥𝔫𝔢 ⸗ 𝔓𝔬𝔯𝔱 without umlaut, and also tells us that its name is now (in 1857) "Stutterheimsstadt", presumably the same as Stutterheim, which indeed is close to the Amathole range.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:17, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

And the latter tells us: "It was later renamed Dohne after the first missionary in the area, Jacob Ludwig Döhne, but in 1857 it was reverted to its previous name, with the name Döhne referring only to a small station nearby." Confusingly, it si not a port.

I have made Dohne into a dab page. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:19, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

"Port" is a transcription error for "Post". reading on in the letter the author says "I should visit the Dohne Post" and later "I arrived here this day", "here" being of course the place whence he wrote. DuncanHill (talk) 20:50, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

That makes sense. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:53, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. See the link to the German text I posted above, which uses 𝔇𝔬𝔥𝔫𝔢 ⸗ 𝔓𝔬𝔯𝔱 five times. Another source wrting 𝔇𝔬𝔥𝔫𝔢 ⸗ 𝔓𝔬𝔯𝔱: [18]. The whole thing started with a military fort named Dohne Post. Then people settled in huts around the fort, and called the settlement "Stutterheim".^[19] According to our article Stutterheim, the town was later (when?) renamed "Dohne" but reverted to its previous name in 1857. I can't tell from what I've seen whether the fort was considered part of the town, but the fort, named "Dohne Post", and the town, are not the same entity. The record suggests that contemporary people used the name "Dohne Port" for the town.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:29, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

With particular reference to the OP's remark that the place is not coastal: if the German source was repeating a name used by the "German settlers from the 1850s" (per Stutterheim), I suggest that Port is more likely to have signified something (metaphorically?) suggestive of a door or gateway (taken from Latin rather than ur-German) than the English meaning, which in German is Hafen (harbour, port, refuge, haven). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 11:24, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Latin porta ("gate") became German Pforte. Latin portus ("harbor", "haven") became German Port ("haven"), now archaic. The phrase nach dem nahen Dohne-Port reveals that the term has masculine or neuter gender, unlike porta and her gendered descendants in Romance and Germanic languages.

Also, German Post does not mean the same as English post, except in the sense of "mail", a post on social media, or as a term in basketball. For the military sense of a place where troops are stationed, German uses Posten.

Perhaps the Germans referred to the fort as Dohne-Fort, and some settlers started using Dohne-Port as a playful modification to refer to the village, which may have felt as a haven to the settlers.  ​‑‑Lambiam 15:28, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

July 25

A saint who made long lists of his sins?

I'm editing a transcript of an informal discussion (which means spellings of proper names may be guesses) and the speaker says at one point "Some of the people canonized as saints by the Catholic church were definitely mentally subnormal,... some of them even imbeciles. In some cases they died young and were canonized, especially if they came from influential families, and yet they’re among the saints of the Catholic Church. There was one, for instance, I forget his full name, I think he was a St Peter Gonzagos, or something like that. He belonged to a very noble, not to say royal family – I’ll have to check this in the encyclopedia – I think those of Spain and Italy.... From the age of about seven he kept long lists of his sins. He used to spend the whole day writing out these lists of sins and he put them in a big wooden box and they were discovered after his premature death. And largely on the strength of that he was canonized because he had such an acute sense of sinfulness, so he must have been a saint! But he seemed to have been practically a young moron. He died at the age of 16 or 17... And there were thousands and thousands of sheets of paper covered with lists of his sins." My Google fu has failed me. This was spoken about fifty years ago so it wouldn't have been Acutis or anyone like that. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:08, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

No definite answer, but the alleged name you transcribed as "Gonzagos" might point to Aloysius Gonzaga, who was of Italian high nobility, died young (aged 23), and got canonized. Our article on him doesn't say anything about writing lists of sins though. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:47, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

Very likely the narrator conflated various stories and legends. Giovanni Pelingotto, not a saint but beatified, died aged 64, reportedly produced weekly lists of his sins,^[20] which by his death must have had a combined total of tens of thousands of entries. Keeping such lists was a commonly done thing among pious men.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:58, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree. Thanks both for your input. Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:40, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Edible city

I am trying to look up whether there exists an english expression for de:Essbare Stadt, somehow related to urban gardening/farming. Any ideas? --Matthiasb (talk) 20:14, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

Is Community gardening a sufficiently similar concept? Perhaps Community-supported agriculture or Commoning?-Gadfium (talk) 23:31, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

Toni Morrison and Umberto Eco

Resolved

Toni Morrison gave a speech at Howard University known as "The First Solution" on March 3, 1995. An excerpt from that speech is better known as "Racism and Fascism". It was shown on C-SPAN at the time, but I also think it may have been re-broadcast in April, but I don't know for sure. Within that speech, Morrison depicted a series of ten steps leading to fascism. Some aspects of that speech are a response to the claims made in The Bell Curve, as well as other attempts to marginalize black people in a way that is identical to the goals of fascism. Shortly thereafter, Umberto Eco gave a speech at Columbia University about his direct experience with fascism, breaking it down into 14 steps on April 25, 1995 (later published as Ur-Fascism).

I am aware of the convergent discovery hypothesis. Morrison and Eco were one year apart in age and were both writers. Morrison notably spoke about Eco in her famous Jefferson Lecture on March 25, 1996, almost a year after her speech at Howard. But, I'm not sure about Eco or if he has ever mentioned Morrison.

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that Eco happened to watch the C-SPAN speech, which then motivated him to write his famous speech at Columbia in April? Or is it the other way around? Did Morrison previously read something Eco wrote about fascism? Was Ur-Fascism previously published in another form in Italy before March 1995? Or, per the convergent discovery hypothesis, was this part of the emerging zeitgeist? Personally, I'm leaning against the C-SPAN hypothesis for one reason: the original audio is extremely difficult to hear or understand. Then again, this might just be an artifact of the current upload. It might be possible that the original audio as it was broadcast was clear. Viriditas (talk) 22:00, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

Update: it turns out that the zeitgeist idea might be the best explanation. I just discovered this: Eatwell, Roger (Jul-Sep 1994). "Why are fascism and racism reviving in Western Europe?" Political Quarterly. 65 (3). Viriditas (talk) 23:04, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

While you wait for an answer, Unibo has acquired Eco's library, though I'm not aware whether a public catalog has yet been made of his personal papers [21]. As (or, more likely, if ...) the papers are processed, part of your question might be answered about the genesis of Ur-Fascism. As far as I can see, Morrison's papers do not have an earlier version of her First Solution speech, only (presumably, though the catalog doesn't say so) the typescript she read from. Urve (talk) 01:07, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Morrison's speech states that the move to a "final solution" is not a jump but takes a first step, and then another, ..., and proceeds to dissect the full move into 10 steps. Eco's 14 items are different. They do not describe "steps" toward fascism, but are meant to identify key elements that commonly appear in fascist movements, not in any particular temporal order. The two are complementary approaches to a phenomenon; neither can have served as direct inspiration for the other.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:00, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

I've read most of what Eco wrote in his lifetime, and I don't recall his ever mentioning Toni Morrison; he did not tend to speak much about contemporary writers in any case. He wrote about his personal experience under fascism throughout his life, however, for example in the novels Foucault's Pendulum and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, or in the essay collection Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism, in addition to Ur-Fascism, the collection that includes the essay "14 General Properties of Fascism". So it was a question that interested him for a long time, and I doubt that Morrison's lecture had any influence on that. Xuxl (talk) 13:46, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. I think that pretty much covers it. I agree with what Lambiam wrote, and I appreciate them adding a link to the companion piece "Peril" (2008) over at the main article, as I neglected to add or discuss that material and will get to it soon. I marked this resolved as I don't see anything else left to discuss. Viriditas (talk) 22:36, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

July 26

Chirtaloo

Describing methods used to extract rent payments by British colonialists in India, The Aborigines' Friend and the Colonial Intelligencer (1855, p.28 30) says "their hands were pressed in an instrument of torture called a chirtaloo".

The only Google hits for that word are for the same article, in various publications.

Can we identify the device? Is it perhaps a mistranslation of a Hindi, Tamil, or other Indian language word? Can we find a depiction? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:50, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

This is part of a string of complaints made in a petition by inhabitants of Guntur, in Andhra Pradesh, where the language is Telugu. I see that words ending in -lu are often plurals, and ceyyalu is "hands". But you wouldn't call an instrument of torture simply "the hands". So here ends my guessing.

One more guess: wikt:చేతులు (cētulu). This is the same word.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:52, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

"Chirtaloo" seems to be a Telugu borrowing of "chirt". "Chirt" is Scottish, a noun or verb meaning "an act of pressing or squashing that expresses liquid" [22]. Google translates తలు pronounced "taloo" to mean "heads" [23] (although "heads" translates to "talalu"). So it could have meant "heads press". The quote about it being used on their hands is on page 30. Modocc (talk) 04:42, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

My money is on cētulu, meaning "hands", which I think is pronounced more or less like /t͡ʃeːtulu/, close enough to the presumable RP pronunciation /t͡ʃɜːtəlu/ of chirtaloo (compare the RP pronunciations of chirp and skirt), especially considering that /eː/ does not occur in RP, its closest alternative (see Received Pronunciation § Vowels) being /ɜː/.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:11, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

"Cētulu" is pronounced here. It does not match. Besides why would they call it "hands"? Iron presses were used as crushing torture devices such as the Scottish examples in Thumbscrew (torture) and "chirt" fits if one gets pressed hard enough. Modocc (talk) 08:29, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Page number fixed (and link updated), thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:47, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

It was the native revenue officers whose use of torture was being complained about, and the evil British overlords who were trying to suppress it. DuncanHill (talk) 12:06, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

July 27

Odd reference to The Times

Over at Nina Power, we have a ref to an article in The Times. However, the only url and indeed mention of this article, apart from WP, seems to be [24]. GALE is a database in the WP:LIBRARY.

Any thought on why this particular article, "Twitter no place for debate, judge tells intellectuals." is so obscure? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:25, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps because the legal case in question was a "storm in a teacup" (as we say). I wonder if anyone has verified that the article did indeed appear in The Times as detailed (though I presume the reprint in the source actually linked is merely more accessible)? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.253.201 (talk) 14:02, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Gale (publisher) says "this was in The Times", and I consider that publisher generally reliable for that fact. But [25] or anywhere else I've seen has no trace of it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:33, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

The judgment reported on can be read here. Google search fails to find the article in the domain thetimes.com, and it is not listed in the list of articles by David Brown. Curiously, the judge in the case, who is well known, is Justice Collins Rice, not "Rice Collins". It is hard to believe that a seasoned correspondent like David Brown or the editorial staff at The Times would not have caught this.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:35, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

I read part of the judgement, quite interesting. Tried to find earlier IA versions of the Brown list to see if the article was listed at some point, but failed. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:11, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

NewsBank has the article and says it appeared on page 19 of The Times on November 10, 2023. John M Baker (talk) 05:25, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Then it seems possible The Times discreetly removed it at some point for unstated reason. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:10, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

July 28

French cheese with plums

Back in the 1990s I was in Paris, and was taken to a fromagerie and given a piece of sweet cheese, that included plums, to eat as a desert - much like one would eat a slice of fruit cake. In texture it was close to what we in England call bread pudding, or perhaps a dense cheesecake. I seem to recall that it was from northern France - maybe Brittany or Normandy.

Occasional searching over the years has not found it - can other Wikimedians do better? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:01, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Far Breton? ---Sluzzelin talk 18:48, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

That looks very likely, thank you. So not actually a cheese. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:15, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Location in Washington, D.C.

Can anyone definitively identify the building in the foreground at left here? - Jmabel | Talk 19:44, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

US Capitol staff entrance (using Google Image search with the woman cropped out). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:18, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

July 29

Which Thomas Hughes, which, if any, Robert Peel and daughter

A barrister by the name of Thomas Hughes gave a speech "A Lecture on the Slop-System" in 1877. Was this Tom Brown's Thomas Hughes who was certainly a lawyer, Thomas Raffles Hughes who was a barrister, or some other Thomas Hughes altogether?

In How contagion and infection are spread, through the sweating system in the tailoring trade by Peter Shorrocks (1877) p. 7, quoting Dr. Thorne Thorne(?!), 17 March, 1877, in the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, "It will be remembered that the death of Sir Robert Peel's daughter was traced to the tailors who made her riding-habit in the same room with a fever patient, and Dr. Richardson stated in his recent speech that he had seen a riding-habit thrown over the bed to cover a person suffering from the same contagious disease."

I can't quickly find a record of this, although the claim is repeated (in 1906 or so typhus is mentioned). Nor does a death date prior to 1877 fit All the best: Rich Farmbrough 15:55, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

An AI query credits the 1852 lecture to Thomas Hughes. Modocc (talk) 16:44, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

And he was a member of Lincoln's Inn in agreement with the published work. [26]. Modocc (talk) 17:05, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Also, obviously, the other Thomas Hughes was not yet born at that time the lecture was given. Nor have I done a thorough search for any other possible barrister-at-law that might have given it. Modocc (talk) 17:23, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

BTW, I've prompted the same AI query several times and it changed the work's date. From 1855 (initially) to 1877 (published 1878 by Central Co-operative Board in Manchester ). Modocc (talk) 18:04, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

AI finally answered: Yes, Thomas Hughes (1822–1896), the author of "Tom Brown's School Days", wrote a lecture titled "A Lecture on the Slop System" in 1852. The lecture, subtitled "especially as it bears upon the females engaged in it", was delivered at the Literary and Mechanics' Institution at Reading on February 3rd, 1852, and later published by W. & H. Pollard in Exeter. Modocc (talk) 18:15, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Unless this can be verified independenttly, there is insufficient ground to trust the answer.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:21, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. Especially since Google's AI is also using Wikipedia and our contributions here (which can be a bit off the mark and/or misunderstood) to help refine its answers. It was helpful in finding a copy of the original lecture, assuming it's the same one. Modocc (talk) 19:31, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

World English Historical Dictionary has the Thomas Hughes of Tom Brown writing A Lecture on the Slop System (1852), with a quotation from J. M. Ludlow about him and it. Our article on Ludlow is utterly inadequate. DuncanHill (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Dr Thorne Thorne is Sir Richard Thorne Thorne, Crown nominee on the General Medical Council. DuncanHill (talk) 21:24, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Sir Robert Peel's daughter - I've found several accounts over the years, some say fever, some smallpox, some typhus, some scarlet fever. Some say she died, and some say she was afflicted. The earliest version I have found is from the Greenock Advertiser, Tuesday 11 March 1851, page 1. The report is called "Public Meetings - The Sweating System". The meeting, in Queen Street Hall, Edinburgh, was chaired by Professor Gregory, and addressed by Mr J. W. Parker from London. He read extracts from inquiries made by committees of which he was a member. "He declared that he himself had seen a riding habit which had been given out from one of the first houses in the West End to a sweater, and which he made in a small room where there was a person lying ill with typhus fever; that, on inquiry, he found the riding habit was for the late Sir Robert Peel's daughter, and shortly afterwards he saw, in the papers, accounts of her ladyship being seized with that distemper". Professor Aytoun moved the vote of thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 00:11, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

I cannot yet identify Mr J. W. Parker, but John William Parker and his son, also John William Parker (1820–1860), were involved with Hughes, Ludlow, and Charles Kingsley, so they seem likely candidates, probably the son. DuncanHill (talk) 00:22, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Several reports of Viscountess Villiers (Julia Peel, wife of Lord Villiers, and eldest child of Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, the famous one) being seriously ill in November 1845. Some reports say scarlet fever, though many reports are not specific. There was ulceration of the throat. Sir Robert, PM at the time, was recalled early from Windsor Castle because of it. She survived and lived till 1893. DuncanHill (talk) 01:12, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! You guys are incredible. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:26, 30 July 2025 (UTC).

Theological origins of the Hajj

Theologically, where does the mandatory nature of the Hajj originate? Is it believed to be commanded in the Qur'an, or do Muslims believe that God commanded it through an extra-quranical prophecy of Muhammad, or do they believe that he had the authority to lay down commands of this sort by himself? History of the Hajj says Hajj was made compulsory in 09th Hijri, i.e. AD 638, but I'm unsure if that's when the Qur'an was first interpreted to require it, or if that's the date of the recognition of a relevant hadith, or something else. Nyttend (talk) 22:19, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Here is a compilation of Qur'an verses on the Hajj or Umrah. The obligation stems from verse 97 of Al-Imran:

And [due] to Allah from the people is a pilgrimage to the House – for whoever is able to find thereto a way.

Tradition has it that the verse was revealed at the event of the Mubahala, which is believed to have taken place "on the ninth year of Hijrah (632 CE)".^[27]  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:45, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

July 30

Location of Narwarowka

Morning Folks!! I'm looking for help locating the village of Narwarowka is. This is for the Robert Barth article. Barth was captured by Soviet forces near this village. It is a village apparently located 60km to the S by SE of Warsaw but Google maps fails to find either Narwarowka or Narvarovka, which is how Google translates the cited German source so "Anfang März 1942 lief er bei Narwarowka zur Roten Armee über. ln der Sowjet union erhielt er eine Ausbildung als Fallschirmspringer für illegale Einsätze in Deutschland" Another source states that he was captured in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region. Both these sources Both these are authorative with well established resistance academics. One is from the main German organisation. I'm wondering if they are the same place, close to each other and they they are confused, e.g. The first one may be appelation and translated wrongly. I posted a question up at the help desk about 3 weeks ago and it was no help. I was advised to open this request. The help request is at [28] at Location of Narwarowka. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 06:59, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

I have the Weigelt book, so give the exact German if needed, if its any help. scope_creep^Talk 07:00, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

We have two articles on people with this name, Robert Barth and Robert A. Barth, neither of which is this communist resistance fighter.

Weigelt has "bei Kramatorskaja im Gebiet Donezk". This seems to have been translated from a Russian source by someone whose command of Russian was limited, since "Kramatorskaja" is an adjective modifying a feminine noun. Perhaps the Russian source referred to the Краматорская агломерация (Kramatorsk agglomeration) mentioned on the Russian Wikipedia. Your first source does not specify a region, and in 1942 all of Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany with no Red Army units present, so presumably the "Narwarowka" referred to is a village in the Kramatorsk agglomeration. The Ukrainian name would be Нарварівка (Narvarivka). While I can't find such a place, there are umpteen places named Варварівка (Varvarivka), two of which are in Donetsk Oblast: Varvarivka 1, Varvarivka 2. From Varvarivka 1 it is about 60 km to the city of Kramatorsk, while from Varvarivka 2 it is about 30 km.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:39, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

I can't help find the place but with the information supplied so far it can't be 60km S by SE of Warsaw - this would place it somewhere west of Lublin and in March 1942 I don't think the Red Army would have been anywhere near there - this was well within the German puppet General-Government which the Red Army didn't invade until 1944 - see map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:General_Government_for_the_occupied_Polish_territories_(1941).png Daveosaurus (talk) 10:22, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Morning Folks!! @Lambiam:, @Daveosaurus: Yes. You seem to have run into the same kind of problems I did, although I didn't find the Kramatorsk agglomeration article on the ru wikipedia, nor the other two villages, although I did have a go a translating it and doing a search which didn't work. I think the only thing that can be done is leave it out as it seems to be highly subjective, although apparently the editor on the most authoritive source, Weigelt did visit the Russian archives following the Glasnost period, before they were closed again. It may be Varvarivka 1 but not sure. I suspect it must be some kind of translation error, although both seem to think they are right. Even Kesaris 1979 has left the location out and he is usually quite accurate on these matters. That is unfortunate. I hate to miss stuff out. scope_creep^Talk 07:09, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

References

Richard Posner's opinion on United States presidential immunity

Where can I find out what Richard Posner thinks about Trump v. United States? I've been surfing the web and looking through wikipedia without result. I had heard that John Roberts has a lot of respect for Posner's opinionsand Roberts wrote the very controversial decision.Rich (talk) 16:51, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

This 2023 article in Law & Liberty states that Posner was diagnosed with Alzheimer's "a few months after hanging up his robe" (in 2017) and has "long since been moved to a nursing facility".

https://lawliberty.org/features/the-mystery-of-richard-posner

I'm not sure, bearing in mind the dates, that he would have expressed a view on Trump v. United States. Dalliance (talk) 18:52, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Is Leon Roman a forgotten escapee from the Treblinka extermination camp?

Leon is currently recorded on the Treblinka database as someone who was murdered there in 1943.

https://base.memoryoftreblinka.org/people_db/p37178/

This is NOT the case. He died in Australia age 91 in 2008.

https://www.geni.com/people/Leon-Roman/6000000007856394421

In his Arolsen file he states he was in Treblinka:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PFNlTyW_BXJ5oHQUH0G1d7dG8m8KN9nZ/view?usp=drivesdk

But I can’t find any other record of his escape from this place.

His wife thought he had perished in Treblinka according to her testimony.

I am seeking any other evidence he WAS in Treblinka and escaped. Johndurkan (talk) 19:03, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, the birth dates are different, August 26, 1914 vs August 28, 1916, though the parents' names and birthplace are the same. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:40, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Both Leon and his brother were imprisoned in Pawiak

https://archiwum.muzeum-niepodleglosci.pl/pawiak/kartoteka-online/

Where was Leon before that? Johndurkan (talk) 08:18, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

August 1

Kosher ruminants

I asked both ChatGPT and Gemini, but they both got confused by the question, so now I'm asking humans. Is the set of kosher mammals exactly the same as the biological clade of Ruminantia? Is there any animal that's in one group but not the other? Both chatbots got sidetracked by camels, which belong to neither group and are therefore irrelevant to the question. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:52, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

See List of artiodactyls (Ruminantia is a suborder) and Unclean_animal#Mammals. Modocc (talk) 14:14, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, but neither of those answer my question directly. Both Kosher animals § Land animals and Unclean animal § Mammals just list examples of animals that meet the requirements without saying whether that list is coterminous with the biological clade. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:42, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

All of the families of the suborder Ruminantia are shown in the List of artiodactyls article's classification section. Given that and the requirement that land-dwelling animals be artiodactyles and ruminants they should all be listed there. Modocc (talk) 14:55, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

• Tricky! Mostly for giraffes.

What is your definition of kosher? Who are you taking this from, and what is their defining aspect and authority for this?

There are several aspects to being kosher. Some are obvious, others much less so. Is there a tradition (mesorah) of the animal being eaten and regarded as kosher? If not, it may be ruled out simply for that. So discovering a new species of cow might not be enough, even if it's clearly a cow (and otherwise kosher). This has been a real question over many bird species. But many Jews just don't see this as a restriction at all.

Do you know what it is? Zemer are kosher (specifically listed, Deuteronomy 14:5), no-one agrees what they are. Most say giraffes, but the Talmud (Chullin somewhere) says wild goat instead. Likewise the pygarg. Many species are just poorly identified or lost in translation - you can find the rock hyrax (one of my favourite critters and named as non-kosher) described as 'badgers' in some late medieval Bibles, and that has now crossed into the Southern Baptists where they don't even have the right sort of badger.

Are you doing good basic observational biology? Where do camels have teeth? Upper incisors? Do you think this matters? (a big question in the theology of science!)

Or in the end, ask Natan Slifkin. Who sorted that camelgiraffe! question out once and for all (camelgiraffes in general are, but it's near impossible to obtain a single specifically kosher camelgiraffe in a kosher state). A fascinating chap who I've had long discussions with in the past, and who sadly now seems to be being cancelled by his community (and why his books are largely out of print). Andy Dingley (talk) 15:46, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

This is only the second time that I've heard of camels being claimed to be kosher. Our article on Kosher animals has references that camels are not kosher because they do not have split hooves. Also, they are not true ruminants. These distinctions Camelids Are Not Ruminants are important and would seem to matter in terms of what may be safe to eat or not, regarding potential parasites and diseases. Modocc (talk) 16:42, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

What our article Pygarg fails to mention is that the Ancient Greek word πύγαργος already existed before the Septuagint translation. Herodotus used it to refer to some sort of antelope, and Aristotle used it to refer to a bird of prey that might have been the white-tailed eagle. Anyway, all I meant by kosher was following the "cloven hoof + chewing the cud" rule. Are there any animals outside Ruminantia that have cloven hooves and chew their cud; and are there any animals inside Ruminantia that either don't have cloven hooves or that don't chew their cud? —Mahāgaja · talk 19:03, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Ruminantia chew cud. The only other artiodactyls that also chew cud are Camelidae and they are not kosher. Also, a quick inspection of the animal species listed under the Ruminantia tree should verify claims that they each do have a cloven hoof. Modocc (talk) 19:11, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

• Sorry! My typo there and I meant giraffe, not camel. Camels (and all the camelids) are definitely treif. Both because they have only the one sign, also because they're specifically listed as unclean. Llamas (camelids) fail under the first one too: cud-chewing, but theire hooves aren't cloven. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:33, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm not a biologist or a posek, but a Christian historian who's worked in the Jewish community. I suppose the Talmud has detailed lists of animals that are kashrut, but since Torah gives qualifications for deeming a land animal kashrut — rather than saying "everything is kashrut except these ones" (as happens with birds) or "everything is treif except these ones" — there may be animals in the Americas or Australia that qualify, animals that were unknown to the compilers of the Oral Torah and would have been included in a list if they were known. Who knows; perhaps there are even animals in East Asia that were utterly unknown to Jews until recent centuries, and therefore poskim might have had to sort out their status in the modern era and could even have ended up disagreeing. "Two Jews, three opinions", as the saying goes, even if you ignore non-observant and liberal Jews who don't care about this kind of question. Nyttend (talk) 19:47, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

PS, remember that the Torah definition of "chew the cud" is broader than the biological definition. For halakhic purposes, rabbits chew cud (Vayikra 11:6 — And the hare, because it brings up its cud, but does not have a [completely] cloven hoof; it is unclean for you), even though their process of consuming droppings (see Cecotrope) is very different from regurgitation of partially digested food from the stomach. Again, just guessing, but it's quite possible that the scholars of the Talmud were unaware of some cecotrophic animals with split hooves, especially in regions of the world utterly unknown to ancient Jews. Nyttend (talk) 19:54, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

The ancient Hebrew scholars no doubt observed that there were some species and practices that were safer than others with respect to preparing food. Had they figured out that hand-washing helped, that instruction would have passed down too. Of course they were unawares of New World species, but those discoveries did not change the nature of ruminants, all of which have common traits and are understood to be kosher when properly prepared in accordance with their traditions. Hence, these animals' domestication and food supply is still relevant. Modocc (talk) 20:12, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Also, a citation is needed for "...of some cecotrophic animals with split hooves,..." given that I cannot find any in the literature. It would seem that modern scholars are either unaware, or I just have not looked hard enough, trying my best to convey what we do know about kosher mammals with appropriate references. Modocc (talk) 21:51, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

July 19

Some questions mainly on linguistic evolution

1: Is it possible that the Hangul letters that in modern speech are flattened to an unreleased T in syllable-final position may have originally (e.g., close in time to when Hangul was created) been pronounced with something closer to their syllable-initial values?

2: Does the presence of a soft C in “France” imply anything about whether first contact with the Franks was before or after late Latin C-palatalization started?

3: In languages with relatively fossilized spelling that has not kept up with more recent pronunciation changes, can the form of a foreign word indicate when it was borrowed?

4: Did Akkadian and/or Sumerian lose some distinctions between consonants when said consonants were at the ends of syllables? The Wikimedia Commons image for the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform syllabary shows some VC signs being used for two or more different final consonants. Primal Groudon (talk) 00:19, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Re 2: The soft C only tells us something about when the English term was borrowed from a Romance language, in this case Old French. The earlier, purely Germanic names Franc-land or Franc-rice^[29] were pronounced with a /k/ (for the ⟨c⟩ in Franc; the ⟨c⟩ in rice was palatalized to /t͡ʃ/).  ​‑‑Lambiam 04:44, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

French also uses the soft C here. 17:51, 19 July 2025 (UTC) Primal Groudon (talk) 17:51, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Re 3: The spelling of Neo-Latin is frozen to that of the times of Caesar and Cicero, also in Ecclesiastical Latin as spoken in Vatican City, the main source of new borrowings. The Neo-Latin word autocinetum (meaning "automobile") can be analyzed as being borrowed from Ancient Greek αὐτοκίνητον but with a semantic change from "living being" to "automobile", corresponding to the semantic loan seen in Katherevousa, leading to modern Greek αυτοκίνητο. Now the pronunciation of αὐτοκίνητον is with a lenited K (IPA /c/), while the Ecclesiastical pronunciation of autocinetum is with a /t͡ʃ/ (as the onset of English chip). This counterexample shows that we can deduce nothing about the time of borrowing purely from the form of a borrowed word.

The question as phrased involves pronunciation changes in the receiving language. If, on the other hand, it is the donor language that is subject to significant pronunciation changes, there may be cases where one can tell by its form whether an adapted borrowing is from before or after the pronunciation change. Our word rose comes from Latin rosa, which is thought to be derived from a variant of Ancient Greek ῥόδον (rhódon), which itself is thought to have been borrowed from some Eastern language, most likely Proto-Iranian *wardah ("flower, rose"). Now from the latter (reconstructed) Iranian form we can see this must have been an early borrowing, because its descendant in Persian became گُل (gul). The Turkish form gül shows that this was, via Ottoman Turkish, a much later borrowing from already Classical Persian.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:47, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Re 1: Yes, the final consonants would have been distinct in Old Korean and tended to merge over time in the Middle Korean period. In Middle Korean, a final s sound was still distinct from final t, which is not the case in modern Korean [30]. Note that even in modern Korean, these final consonants are still fully distinct when they are followed by (for example) -i, -eun, -eul, or -ida. --Amble (talk) 16:18, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

5. Was there a good reason not to post these unrelated questions in separate sections? —Tamfang (talk) 04:19, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Hey guys!

When I was kid growing up in Australia in the 1950s, a guy was a rope helping hold the tent up when we went camping, and when TV arrived, because we lived a long way from the transmitters, it was a cable that did a similar job with the tall pole holding up the TV antenna. We are now thoroughly Americanised (except for small things like the s in that word), and a guy is a bloke, a male person, sometimes even a sheila, a female one. Where did Americans get "guy" from? HiLo48 (talk) 05:13, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

OED indicated guy as in a man, dates from 1796 and comes from Guy Fawkes. Merriam-Webster indicates guy as in a man dates from 1712 and again probably comes from Guy Fawkes. Merriam-Webster also indicates guy as in a rope dates from 1623, as is from the Dutch gei - a rope used to control a sail. MLWoolley (talk) 05:36, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

So how did the man version become a major part of American English, but not British (and Australian) English? HiLo48 (talk) 05:39, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I blame Damon Runyon, Frank Loesser and, most of all, Frank Sinatra. Doug butler (talk) 07:51, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Flying too high with some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do. Some versions change it to ...gal in the sky..., ruining the internal rhyme to avoid any suggestion of homosexuality I suppose, but the guy seems to be the pilot, so that would be risky in any case; I doubt Cole Porter would really have wanted to distract him. Also annoying is the change from some get a kick from cocaine to perfume from Spain, which is strained at best. --Trovatore (talk) 18:37, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Wiktionary quotes Twain in 1873 writing "some guy from Pennsylvania". Here in the Saturday Evening Post, 1915 there are many, many instances of tough guy, wise guy, old guy, big guy, thin guy, new guy, literary guy, fly guy, funny guy, fresh guy, another guy, and some guy from Hungry. The Saturday Evening Post, guys. I was searching for the phrase "some guy": here's an instance from 1894, "tell her youse had a job packing coal for some guy". I'm not seeing any early British uses, except in the context "some Guy Faux" to signify a revolutionary or bomber. Here's a good organic American use of "some guy" in 1868, about a travelling circus touring Texas: "as for stealing you never saw its equal. As soon as anything is laid down some guy standing by picks it up and walks off just as easy as if it belonged to him. If you say anything they pull a revolver and say you are a d——- Yankee."  Card Zero  (talk) 09:31, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

In British English of 100 years ago and more, guy meant someone who was dressed weirdly or badly. In The Mikado, reference is made to "the lady from the provinces who dresses like a guy" meaning not that she dresses like a man, but rather that she dresses in ugly clothes. Or in Mapp and Lucia, Miss Mapp sees her friend Major Benjy dressed like a medieval king and thinks he "looked a perfect guy in his crown" meaning he looked ridiculous. So the fact that guy meant something completely different in British English probably prevented it from taking on its American meaning in the UK, until recent decades after the old meaning died out, and nowadays younger Brits use guy in American sense of "fellow, chap". —Mahāgaja · talk 13:09, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Welsh children with their guy in 1960.

To clarify, it's the custom in England and Wales before Bonfire Night on 5 November for children to make an effigy of Guy Fawkes ("a guy") out of old clothes and stuffed with newspaper, to be burned on the bonfire. So "dressed like a guy" would be similar to "dressed like a scarecrow". The tradition has been displaced somewhat by American-style Halloween only in the last couple of decades. Alansplodge (talk) 18:21, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

It's still a peculiar lyric though. I understand that Ko-Ko is simply venting his poorly thought out prejudices, which may be assumed to coincide with Gilbert's, and that Gilbert is more confessing than taking pride in them. But this particular one seems to come from an aristocratic space that I wouldn't have expected Gilbert to share. What does he dislike about suburban women who dress unfashionably but are open to new experiences? --Trovatore (talk) 20:42, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I think it's a mistake to assume that Gilbert is voicing his own prejudices via Ko-Ko – he was far too astute a satirist. Rather, Ko-Ko's list, which has always been modified to reflect circumstances contemporary to the performance, in part reflects petty societal prejudices that Gilbert is in part holding up for ridicule, and in part minor annoyances for which execution would be a ludicrous over-reaction (as befits the play's premise of flirting having being made a capital offense). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 09:47, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Hmm, that does make a certain amount of sense. Though I do get the sense that the audience is expected to agree emotionally with one or two of them.

Another lovely little G&S touch is the fact that this song is so memorable, but as soon as it does happen that a victim must be found, everyone completely forgets about the list. But of course Ko-Ko is basically a sweet person and has no real desire to find a victim. --Trovatore (talk) 19:20, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

So it may have evolved from a derogatory term about being overdressed, as with dude. But I notice geezer comes from guiser (some guy in disguise), and I wonder if American guy might have that origin too. Reading Guy Fawkes Night, I'm unclear whether the early tradition involved costumes/effigies, and it sounds like it had almost died out by 1850 before being revived, so I wonder if British guy developed at around that time, independently. (My terrible OR.)  Card Zero  (talk) 15:24, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

The original celebrations of Gunpowder Treason Day, which morphed into Bonfire/Guy Fawkes night and which were actually encouraged in law, usually featured the burning of an effigy of The Pope (which, given the geopolitical situation of the time, would be akin to Americans in the 1950s burning effigies of Stalin). The central emphasis shifted to Guido/Guy Fawkes over subsequent decades, but Pope Paul V (incumbent in 1605) and other modern deprecated figures are still also burnt in effigy at some current manifestations of the event, such as in Lewes. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 20:24, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I believe that the Lewes Bonfire is unique in England in burning papal effigies and has come under considerable pressure to desist, which they have so far resisted. Alansplodge (talk) 21:14, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

...flying too high with some guy in disguise.... Hmm. Have I been hearing it wrong? --Trovatore (talk) 19:18, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• Obligatory mention of Tough Guy Book Club, of which I'm a proud member. Despite the Americanish name, it was founded right here in Melbourne, and has spread worldwide. If there's not a chapter near you, start one! -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:23, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

My first visit to England was in late October. I saw fireworks for sale and thought “Halloween,” though fireworks are not associated with Halloween at home! —Tamfang (talk) 18:15, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

July 20

Date format

Do people in Canada ever write today's date as 7/20/2025? "July 20, 2025" is more common than "20 July 2025" there, but what about all-numeric dates? And do any of English speakers ever write the dateas "20.7.2025" like many other languages? And do they ever write like "20.7. is today", where the dot after month is retained even in non-final position? And do any people in the US prefer to write day first, followed by month, and then year? --40bus (talk) 19:09, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

As to Canada, I live there and I habitually look at things like receipts provided by different stores and other businesses. The answer is yes. Some write numerical dates in the order month-day-year, some write day-month-year, and a few get it correct with year-month-day. Dots after the month and day are a notation from German and some other languages to represent ordinals (i.e. 7. means "7th"), and are pretty much never seen in English. --142.112.140.72 (talk)

Disagree with your last assertion. Native English speaker here, and I always write the short date as 20.7.25. --Viennese Waltz 06:48, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

But your user name is German... --142.112.140.72 (talk) 21:45, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

If it were German, might it be Wiener Walzer? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:07, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

This Australian says that too. HiLo48 (talk) 07:17, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes, 7/20/2025 is seen in Canada. It's probably more common than 20/7/2025. Of course, I use 2025-07-20 like all good-hearted people. Using stops as placeholders is very uncommon; you'll see slash marks much more often: 2025/07/20, but I think that's more frequent when just writing a month/day combination: 7/20. I wouldn't call it authoritative, but it may be instructive that Excel has no pre-built format for dates that uses stops or slash lines, but it will automatically assume that entering 7/20 into a cell means July 20 of the current year. Matt Deres (talk) 15:28, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Never seen dates written with dots like that in texts produced by native English speakers. I've only seen the use of / or - . That is, "today's date is 7/23" or "today's date is 7-23". As to order within a date, day-month-year is virtually never seen outside of military (and a few other categories) usage in the US. However, it is the format that I prefer, despite my never having been in the military. As for your question about week numbers, I can't remember ever seeing them on any calendar (whether large or small, for personal or business use). They are not seen (for example) on the desk calendars that I have just purchased for faculty members in my department here at my community college. -- User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:47, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

I have heard that the US sometimes uses its own week numbering system, where weeks run from Sunday to Saturday, and there are partial weeks at the beginning and end of the year (week number always changes when year number changes), for example, the last four days of 2025 are part of week 53 and first three days of 2026 part of week 1. In years when 1 January falls on ISO week 52 or 53, such as 2022, 2023, 2027 or 2028, the US week number is one more than ISO week number through the whole year. But does US ever use ISO 8601 week numbers? In Finland, 100% of calendars include them. --40bus (talk) 05:47, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen week numbers in any US context (ISO or otherwise). In fact, I don't even see what the point of such numbers is. How are they used that wouldn't be simpler to just give an actual date. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:48, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Does any English-speaking country present calendars like this, with ISO 8601 week numbers?

	August
Wk	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa	Su
31					01	02	03
32	04	05	06	07	08	09	10
33	11	12	13	14	15	16	17
34	18	19	20	21	22	23	24
35	25	26	27	28	29	30	31
2025

In Finland, every calendar is presented like this. --40bus (talk) 07:15, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

It's uncommon in Canada, but I have seen it on some calendars put out by businesses. I don't think I've ever seen it printed on standard wall calendars for typical personal use. We don't use weeks in that way, so printing it on a calendar would be meaningless for most people. Matt Deres (talk) 16:55, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

July 22

Two different types of “or” questions

I notice two different types of questions centered around the word “or.” The first type is one where the answer is expected to be (or at least involved) one of the words surrounding the “or.” For example: “Do you prefer helicopters or personal watercraft?” “Should I turn left or right here?” “Is this Wikipedia RefDesk question written in English or French?”

The other type of “or” question is one in which the expected answer is not one of the surrounding words, but either yes or no. For example: “Did you eat or drink anything high in sodium yesterday?” “Can the general read or write?” “Was there any rain or snow here in February 1879?”

Do these types have their own special names? How do they render differently when translated into other languages? What factors influence which type a hearer interprets an “or” question to be? Primal Groudon (talk) 04:30, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

In computer programming, those correspond to the Elvis operator and the Logical or. Deliberate misparsing of the first type as the second has comedic potential. "Is this really true, or are you making it all up?" — "Yes".  Card Zero  (talk) 05:04, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the second group forms a type of question. It's rather that a single concept for which no simple word exists is broken into two simple words. The questions could be formulated as "Did you take in any nourishment high in sodium?" "Is the general literate?" "Was there any precipitation here?" The questioner is interested in whether you took up anything high in sodium, not in how you did so. Most people who can read can also write, so there's not really an alternative here. Somebody else will sure provide the proper term for the phenomenon. --Wrongfilter (talk) 06:34, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Exactly. The inclusion of "or" in the second set of examples has nothing to do with them being a question and simply comes down to extraneous wording, idiomatic expressions, and similar. Matt Deres (talk) 14:09, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

These questions can be split into a pair of questions, like Q1: "Did you eat anything high in sodium yesterday?" and Q2: "Did you drink anything high in sodium yesterday?". From the yes/no answers A1 and A2 to both questions (assumed to be truthful), we can compute the answer to the combined question A1 ∨ A2 by using the logical disjunction operation, equating "yes" with "true" and "no" with "false". That said, this is not specific to the issue being presented in question form. The answers to the questions reflect the truth values of the corresponding factual statements "The patient ate something high in sodium yesterday" and "The patient drank something high in sodium yesterday", and the answer to the combined question is the truth value of the disjunction of the factual statements.  ​‑‑Lambiam 17:08, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Suppose you think your keys have been stolen, because they're not in your bag. I could ask "did you use the keys recently, or start using the bag recently?" and you could say no, ruling out both lines of enquiry, no idiom involved.  Card Zero  (talk) 07:42, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

The first type is also called an "alternative question". Unfortunately, this is by itself an ambiguous term:

• If a participant seems hesitant or unwilling to respond to a specific question, have an alternative question ready to smoothly transition before any awkwardness ensues.^[31]
• Well, we have an alternative question then: What gave you the most fun?^[32]
• Think of it as an alternative question to why this firm?^[33]

 ​‑‑Lambiam 17:33, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Some languages have two different words for the two types of "or", e.g. Finnish tai and vai (see https://uusikielemme.fi/finnish-vocabulary/interesting-words/the-difference-between-tai-and-vai). --2A02:8071:880:91C0:213D:AC15:1C1E:12EE (talk) 07:30, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

The Dutch conjunction dan wel is used for mutually exclusive alternatives. It differs from tai by being exclusive, and from vai by being used normally only in affirmative clauses.  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:39, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand the usage notes. Dan wel usually separates alternative cases unknown by the writer; it does not offer a choice. What is this saying you can't do with it? I don't understand how you can write (or speak) about alternative cases without knowing what they are. And I don't get how not knowing what your own words mean is opposite to offering a choice.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:06, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

If someone asks, "How many lumps of sugar do you want in your coffee?", you can answer "twee of drie" ("two or three"). You cannot answer, "twee dan wel drie". The answer "twee of drie" suggests that 2.5 lumps would be just perfect, while "twee dan wel drie" would mean you don't not know your own current sweetness preference – maybe two, maybe three, who knows? If the question had been, "How many lumps of sugar had he put in his coffee?", and you don't know the exact amount, you can use either of "twee of drie" and "twee dan wel drie". The latter sounds more formal than would be used in casual speech. As an incomplete rule of thumb, if you can use "or else" in English, "dan wel" is probably OK in Dutch.  ​‑‑Lambiam 04:26, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I think the phrasing is terrible, but perhaps I'm just a tad hard of thinking. These abstract semantics are difficult and I can't phrase it any better myself, yet. A replacement phrase (however clumsy) is "or if not that then", which shows that the first option, and hence the second too, must be possibly wrong, and possibly right; it's the correctness of the cases that is unknown to the speaker, not the descriptions of the cases. It's funny that in "two or three" the options are exclusive, yet both correct. It reminds me of a certain flag passed to Windows GDI when selecting a font family: if all you want is text of some kind, you specify FF_DONTCARE.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:53, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

July 24

Replace a French caption

Old map

New map

I've just gotten a new map for the local government areas of the Perth metropolitan area in Western Australia, and I'm replacing the old .gif map. Unfortunately, I can't replace the map at fr:Perth (Australie-Occidentale) because the caption says something about the colours: Le centre ville (city of Perth), la proche périphérie (en vert pâle) et la « banlieue ». Can someone write me a new caption that represents the new map's colours but otherwise is identical to the old caption? Nyttend (talk) 07:52, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

There's only one color mentioned, pale green, for the inner suburbs. Replace vert pâle with brun.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:51, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Why is Rottnest Island shown in dark-green, like City of Perth? As far as I understand it has nothing to do with Perth but is directly administrated by Western Australia? --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:54, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

According to the file history, the editor shaded Rottnest Island dark green because it's an unincorporated area – presumably the same as the other dark green area? --Viennese Waltz 11:58, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

And according to Local government in Australia#Western Australia, that small dark green blob in the middle of Perth is not City of Perth but Kings Park, Western Australia. Although, it looks like that local government list should also include Rottnest. --Viennese Waltz 12:03, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

July 26

Chirtaloo (possibly Hindi)

Please see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#Chirtaloo. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:51, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

July 28

Peace for our time sentence of Neville Chamberlain

"My good friends, this is the second time in our history there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour." I get the meaning, but don't understand this sentence grammatically and semantically. What is even the subject? --KnightMove (talk) 15:21, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

As English is an analytic, rather than inflectional language, using a creative, flexible word order might be confusing, but I believe it would be the same structure-wise as "My good friends, this is the second time in our history that peace with honour has come back from Germany to Downing Street." 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:26, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

See Dummy pronoun § Existential there. Another example is Adenauer's "There has arrived a moment pregnant with fate", probably a translation of a German sentence (Es ist ein schicksalsträchtiger Moment gekommen). The subject ("a moment pregnant with fate") in the usual SVO word order ("a moment pregnant with fate has arrived") is replaced by "there" while the original subject is moved to the end. In such constructions, the verb is intransitive, so there is no O in the SVO. Yet another example: "There has returned a certain pride in ourselves as soldiers and in our units".^[34]  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:53, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank you both. Indeed the additional object in between "from Germany to Downing Street" makes it particularly hard to recognonise the peace as the subject. --KnightMove (talk) 06:50, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Either way, he got it wrong. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:11, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

July 29

Semitic roots and LLM tokenisation

I recently was sent an abstract about failures of LLMs to correctly answer questions about the Quran in Arabic. That got me pondering. As I understand the tokenizers used in LLMs, they identify relatively frequent character sequences as tokens. That is a good match for languages that work (mostly) with a word stem and various pre- and postfixes for grammatical markers. But is this a good match for languages like Hebrew or Arabic that use multilateral roots and modify words by injecting extra characters in between the consonant roots? And is this the right desk or is this a computing question? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:17, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Homage - a vs. an

Is it a homage or an homage in American English? The Cable Guy has: The fight sequence at Medieval Times between Chip (Jim Carrey) and Steven (Matthew Broderick) is an homage to the Star Trek episode "Amok Time"... Jay 💬 13:19, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

I would say "an". As a rule, the article follows pronunciation, not spelling, and the "h" is silent. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:15, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

I would assert that the version with the silent h - usually along with the faux-French pronunciation with the stress on the second syllable - is a relatively recent arrival that has become a sort of buzz word that people use in mostly inappropriate places. All my life it was only ever HOMM-idge, until this weird o-MAHZH started cropping up about 20 years ago, particularly among pop culture people who think they're sounding sophisticated. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:42, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. After posting this, I saw more usages - two at Sofia Coppola, so realized it was not a one-off. I didn't even know "homage" can be pronounced with a silent 'h'. When I asked Google to pronounce the word, it did not make the h silent. When I asked it to pronounce with the silent h, it did not, but gave me further links. Later on the AI must have kicked in, and it gave me a drop-down with British and American pronunciations, with the silent h for American. Jay 💬 10:05, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

To me the om-aazh pronunciaiton is very much the language of pseuds and poseurs. I tend to associate it with an excessive admiration for Bloomsbury and Wagner, but that's probably the people I first heard it from, them and late-night BBC2/Channel 4 "culchure" programmes. DuncanHill (talk) 11:57, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

I think that originally there were two different but related words. Firstly, there's homage (pronounced with an /h/, stressed on the first syllable and ending with the "j" sound), which meant "respect paid to someone" and in a historical context "the oath sworn by a subordinate to his lord in the Middle Ages"; this word was inherited from Middle English, which borrowed it from Old French in the 13th century or so. Secondly, there's the doublet hommage (pronounced without an /h/, stressed on the second syllable and ending with the "zh" sound), which means "a work of art done in respectful imitation of another artist"; this word was borrowed from modern French probably in the 20th century. However, the distinction between the two in both spelling and pronunciation has become blurred in recent years, so that among younger people at least the spelling homage and French-like pronunciation (no /h/, second syllable stress, ending with "zh") is being used for both the general meaning and the art-specific meaning. Language changes, cry me a river. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:42, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Either pronunciation and either spelling is found on either side of the Atlantic Divide.

• Uses of "a homage" by American authors: [35], [36], [37].
• Uses of "an homage" by British authors: [38], [39], [40].

The prevalence is sounded /h/ in RP and silent ⟨h⟩ in American English.

For more, see Ben Zimmer's item 'Homage' in the New York Times Magazine column On Language.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:01, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Ngram Viewer verifies [41] it. Modocc (talk) 20:46, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

It's complicated.

h (or eta) hasn't been used in the Greek language since it was replaced with the spiritus asper diacritic in the Athenian Spelling Reform of 403 B.C. Therefore, such words are treated as beginning with a vowel even though the first syllable is aspirated. Nevertheless, in Latin—and by extension, English—we to this day continue to spell Greek-based words such as "hero," "habit," and "history" with the 8th letter for reasons of etymology. (And don't even get me started on the whole "ydor/hydrogen" "nero/aneroid" mess.)

Thus, to widely varying degrees, prescriptive English grammarians have insisted on using an before such words so as to honor their origin. Viz., some always use an; some always use a; and still others use every possible combination in between.

In my personal writing style, however, it's quite simple.

A.) if the first letter is silent then always use an

Silent h

an hour

an honor

an heir

and B.) If the first letter is not silent, then only use an if the word has a primary stress on the second syllable.

Primary stress on first syllable	Primary stress on second syllable	Primary stress on third syllable	Primary stress on fourth syllable
a hero	an heroic act	a hydroponic plant	a heterosexual man
a history	an historic occasion	a hyperactive child
a habit	an habitual offender	a homogeneous mixture

Most 21st-Century writers consider this somewhat dated. I myself, however, find that it still makes quite an impression!

Pine (talk) 23:50, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

This is an excellent answer! I learned something and will pay homage to you ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:28, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

A small addendum to Pine's answer (which corresponds exactly to my practice in writing and formal speech): in accents such as Cockney that drop initial 'h' –so that, for example, hedge becomes 'edge – speakers usually treat the result as vowel-initial and precede it by 'an' – a hedge, an 'edge – thus avoiding the insertion of a glottal stop. (I myself do this when speaking casually.) In writing, however, this would only be applied if attempting to represent the accent in spoken mono- or dialogue. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.253.201 (talk) 11:50, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Some people think the primary stress in homogeneous is on the second syllable though.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:02, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Because they're pronouncing "-neous" as one syllable, as in the recent variant (and arguably incorrect) "homogenous"? That would make it the antipenultimate syllable, which (pace Pine above) is I think the underlying rule from original Greek pronunciation. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.253.201 (talk) 13:55, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Indeed!

And I'd like to add that, according to the Oxford American Dictionary, Third Edition, homogeneous is the only correct spelling when used to mean all of the same kind, as in "Iceland's homogeneous population."

Said dictionary, however, also lists homogenous as a term once used in evolutionary biology meaning "having a common descent," but now more-or-less displaced by homologous.

Pine (talk) 17:43, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

OED says "The spelling homogenous is less common than the pronunciation /həˈmɒdʒɪnəs/ , which perhaps owes its currency partly to the influence of the verb homogenize and its derivatives." It has citations from Websters, The Times, Elisabeth Palmer's translation of Andre Martinet, and Nature. As for the biological use of homogenous, it gives homogenetic, and in surgery homoplastic. DuncanHill (talk) 15:55, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

July 30

Downward comparison of English directional adjectives.

Hello, again! Unlike practically every other language on Earth, English remains notorious for having different ways to compare adjectives.

e.g.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
soft	softer	softest
delicious	more delicious	most delicious

One saving grace, though, is that this usually does not apply to downward comparisons.

Negative	Negative comparative	Negative superlative
soft	less soft	least soft
delicious	less delicious	least delicious

When it comes to adjectives relating to dimensions such as "up," "east," "left," "away," and "forward," however, I am now stumped! For upward comparison, the rule is pretty easy!

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
down	farther (or further) down	farthest (or furthest) down

But how exactly does one decline a direction downwards? Would he say "least down," "nearest down," "closest down," "least far down," "least farthest down," or something else?

Thank you for reading this. Pine (talk) 00:14, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

EDIT: Removed an irrelevant mention of adverbs. Pine (talk) 00:28, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Is the different comparisons really due to adjectives vs. adverbs? Cf. the famous example of 'dumb' and 'stupid', synonymous adjectives compared differently for phonetic reasons. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:24, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply different comparisons for adjectives vs. adverbs. Just adjectives as a whole. (I removed the mention of adverbs.)

Pine (talk) 00:29, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

One can say "a more downward direction"^[42] and "a more upright posture".^[43]  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:16, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

"Less far down" looks clunky but sounds perfectly natural to my (British) ear. There are also "low down", "lower down" and "lowest down". -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 19:33, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

July 23

Add Discography

I found his music catalog, could you please add this Draft:Samraat Singh 117.194.111.24 (talk) 12:31, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

This isn't the place to request article submissions; use the links provided at the top of your article draft. However, I can tell you that it is not ready to be published; there are not enough reliable references, your citation list is broken, and there's way too many external links. Remember, Wikipedia cannot be used for promotion. Wikipedia:Autobiography may apply as well. Matt Deres (talk) 17:54, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Julian LeFay and Russia Heat

The Danish programmer Julian LeFay was in an electro-pop band called Russia Heat (Discogs) before he began his programming career. Apparently, this band was the first of its kind in Denmark and had at least one charted single, but I've been unable to find a source to confirm this that isn't LeFay himself saying "we were on the charts" in an interview. Searching for sources on an obscure Danish band is a bit of a challenge and I was hoping maybe some reference desk magic could turn up more about this band, especially verification of a charted song. Thank you kindly, MediaKyle (talk) 13:17, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

There's a 28-page thread on the UKMix forum listing the Danish charts from 1979 onwards. Link below.

https://www.ukmix.org/forum/chart-discussion/chart-analysis/121831-danish-chart-archive-singles-1979-____-b-t-ifpi-dk

I can't find Russia Heat but there is information about the different Danish charts and suggestions of alternative sources. Hopefully this may help as a starting point. Sorry, I can't commit to trawling through all 28 pages! Dalliance (talk) 18:05, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

July 24

METV

can metv be watched on android phones DMc75771 (talk) 03:02, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.metv.metvandroid&hl=en-US&pli=1 Aaron Liu (talk) 15:12, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

July 30

Longest gap between first and second series

What are the TV shows with the longest gap between the broadcast of its first and second series? Wolf Hall had nine years between its first and second series, but there must be others. My criteria are:

• US and UK shows only
• Live action shows only (no animation)
• Dramas and comedies only (no documentaries, entertainment shows, reality shows, game shows etc.)
• Gap between first and second series only (so Twin Peaks, which had a 25-year gap between its second and third series, doesn't count)

Thanks, --Viennese Waltz 11:29, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

The Night Manager has had a gap of more than 9 years since the first series but will be back shortly. The Comeback had a gap of nine and a half years between first and second series, but not quite so long as Wolf Hall. --Antiquary (talk) 12:01, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Plot and character continuity, no reboots?  Card Zero  (talk) 07:36, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. --Viennese Waltz 07:51, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

The question makes me think of the 18 years Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. But I think it doesn't qualify; during those years there were not only several movies but also an an animated TV series. Also, you might be speaking British and, as I would put it, have meant "season" when you said "series"; the original Star Trek ran for 3 seasons. --142.112.140.72 (talk) 18:04, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

July 19

Home port of pollution prevention vessel "Point Nemo"

Hello,

for the purpose of accurate category work on Commons (cf. c:Commons:Village pump#Anyone into making ship categories?), I'd like to ask if somebody can tell me the current home port of the pollution prevention vessel Point Nemo. Under its previous name New Jersey Responder, it was registered in New Jersey, but it currently serves outbound of Seattle, so a home port change may have occurred. A fellow German Wikimedia thought that people with access to databases of the American Bureau of Shipping may help out - hence my question here. Lastly, a ping to Jmabel as initiator of the matter. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 21:02, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

The info is here, but behind a paywall (9 USD / ship).  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:41, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

I've flagged this up at WP:SHIPS. You might get an answer from one of the members of that WP. Mjroots (talk) 08:58, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll keep the WikiProject in mind if any shipping-related question comes up in the future. Meanwhile, a fellow Wikimedian managed to find this image, showing the an inscription of "Seattle" on the stern. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:27, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

July 20

Call for Participation: Research on the Impact of the October 7 Events on Israeli and Jewish Wikipedia Editors

Israeli and Jewish editors of the English Wikipedia are invited to participate in a study exploring how the October 7 events have influenced their editing experiences, particularly in articles related to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The study involves a 30–60-minute Zoom interview focusing on your editing experiences, challenges, and perceptions of bias.

All responses will be anonymized and handled with strict confidentiality.

17 editors were already interviewed. If you are interested in participating, please contact me.

Thanks שלומית ליר (talk) 07:14, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

July 23

hot-running torpedo

What does it mean when a torpedo is said to be a 'hot-running torpedo'? (I was reading the article on the USS Scorpion Nuclear Submarine.) 22:49, 23 July 2025 (UTC) RJFJR (talk) 22:49, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

It's a dangerous malfunction. It's described in Bliss–Leavitt Mark 8 torpedo. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:19, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

July 27

Street View

Have Google cars ever taken Street View pictures during war in any country? --40bus (talk) 22:35, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, I've tried looking through Ukraine street views, but they all seem to be prior to the invasion. If you search, you'll likely come across this, which is quite compelling, but doesn't appear to be Google-generated/licensed. Matt Deres (talk) 00:55, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

July 28

Are most of the missing model numbers in Template:Boeing model numbers even real?

I asked this question in the template's talk page too but I don't think I'll get an answer there since it's really inactive.

It seems that the only online source I could find about the missing ones is this thread on the Secret Projects Forum, and even there most of the redlinks are marked with question marks. Could somebody who has expertise in this topic confirm whether they actually exist (e.g. listed in sources such as Peter M. Bowers' Boeing aircraft since 1916, Paul Eden, Soph Moeng, and editors' The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, Lloyd S. Jones' U.S. Naval Fighters, etc.) or not? SquaredHexahedron (talk) 01:39, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

@SquaredHexahedron: WT:WikiProject Aviation would be a good place to get the attention of some knowledgable editors on this. --Slowking Man (talk) 02:48, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Got it; I've posted there now, thanks! SquaredHexahedron (talk) 03:11, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

July 30

Weight of a fighter jet stick

How much, approximately, does the control stick of a fighter jet weigh? (I am aware that this certainly changed over time - any aircraft and period are interesting, but mainly Teen Series types). --KnightMove (talk) 14:16, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

You're aware that most modern fly-by-wire fighter aircraft just have a small side-stick, like this F-16?

I couldn't find any obvious sources for how much one would weigh (probably not much). If nobody here can help, you could try Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation or a specialist aviation forum like Aviation Stackexchange. Alansplodge (talk) 18:37, 31 July 2025 (UTC)