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First of all, I hope that I don't offend people from Ireland. I'm from the Philippines so I'm not that keen about European history and culture. Anyways, I'm listening to Celtic Woman. I found that some of their songs are sad such as Siúil A Rúin, She Moved Through the Fair, Danny Boy and Carrickfergus (song). They are mostly about longing for their love and even death. Why is so?-- 121.54.2.188 ( talk) 01:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Infact a huuuuuge proportion of folk-songs (infact music in general) are about emotionally charged things, which often means sadness and horror. 194.221.133.226 ( talk) 09:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Is there any international non-governmental business network (global chamber of commerce) representing big businesses other than International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)? Are the political positions of ICC similar to the positions of the United States Chamber of Commerce? -- WTLop ( talk) 02:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I remember reading a book a long time ago (or maybe just hearing the summary) that I can't remember either the title or the author of. As I recall, the main character was a young woman. She fell off a ladder (or some other height) and was caught by a man who conveniently happened by (he might have startled her?), only for her father to come out and find her in his arms. Her father, being ridiculously strict about rules of propriety, forced the two of them to get married, and the book is about the aftermath. I believe it was "Christian historical romantic fiction" or something, but I can't remember the book's title or anything about it other than this (probably slightly screwed-up) summary.
If anyone knows what book this is (or is better at Googling it than I am!), your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! 24.247.163.175 ( talk) 03:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Many of my favorite authors have written several connected books about the same characters, and I like to get them and read them in order. I've been working on a database of all the books I own, and I include a special note for those books which a part of a sequence, indicating to which sequence they belong as well as their ordinal position within it. This has started me thinking . . . at what point does a sequence of books become a "series"? When you run of number-words (duology, trilogy, tetralogy, etc.)? Or are such words as "trilogy" and "tetralogy" reserved for works that necessarily form a story in their own right, whether or not the individual parts are readable standing alone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 05:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Very sensible. I suppose I could also follow my own example in the above paragraph and refer to any continued storyline as a "sequence." This would mean I wouldn't have to change how books were listed in my classification system just because an author released another book (turning a trilogy into a tetralogy, say) and I wouldn't have to worry whether the works could stand alone or could be understood only as part of a whole. It works for prequel/sequel books as well as extended series, too. 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 08:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
In a handout my mother gives her students when she teaches them about ancient Rome, there is mention of the Romans eating cakes made of corn. They couldn't possibly have eaten what we know as corn today, since corn is indigenous to the Western hemisphere. I've been told that the word "corn" was used by pre-Colombian Europeans to refer to some other kind of food, and that what we now know as corn was first dubbed "Indian corn" by European settlers in the Americas. If this is so, what was it that the Romans make their cakes from? 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 05:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
If "corn" originally meant, and technically still does mean, any kind of grain, how did the word come to be used most often to refer specifially to maize? (And - no, I don't really expect an answer to this one - but if the Romans ate wheat cakes, why, WHY, why would a handout written for middle-school kids use the word "corn," however technically accurate? No wonder the poor kids can't tell sheep from llamas. [3]) 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 06:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Ugh . . . anyone who cares that much about the distinction (and it's not WRONG to call wheat "wheat," after all) shouldn't be writing for seventh graders. (I don't think the handout was from a BrE book - for one thing, it's unlikely there's a BrE book that's perfectly configured to teach California's seventh-grade social studies standards, and for another, I haven't seen any Britishisms crop up in student work, which they certainly would have by now, since these kids seem to think "paraphrase" means "copy the text directly except for a couple of words changed here and there.") Anyway, I think I can consider this pretty much wrapped up. And I suppose with the state of education in the United States today, we've got bigger problems than whether the kids imagine that Caesar liked to chow down on corn-on-the-cob once in a while. 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 08:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you all so much! I know all too well the errors that slip into textbooks - I've read about them and I've been known to catch them on occasion. (My high school geography text had gold discovered in California in 1849. If that had been the case, the swarms of miners that headed west to seek their fortune would have gone down in history as "fiftiers" - and then, of course, textbooks would erroneously say that gold was discovered in 1850 . . . ugh.) Textbooks for the lower grades are often particularly slapdash, since the people who know enough to get a contract to write a textbook often believe they have better things to do with their time than simplify their knowledge to a child's level. Since "Romans ate corn" isn't the obvious kind of error that's likely to jump out at you right away, I can see how it slipped through. I mightn't have caught it myself if I hadn't seen it in student work first (I was already in active error-hunting mode, not passive learn-from-a-text mode). If Steven Schulz's theory is correct, it would seem the writer of the materials was as careless a copier as a lot of the students. Ah, I do love irony. 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 08:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Since the term Tomb Guard implies that the soldier actually has to "guard" the tomb, are there any regulations that specify when and how a tomb guard can break-stride and take the necessary steps to protect the tomb? For instance, if someone were to hop the gallery barrier and land on the platform where the tomb is, what is supposed to happen? Does the Tomb Guard actually do anything? I know his gun is unloaded, but I'm sure there's something he must do. Has anything like this ever happened in the past? Jared (t) 09:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Have you seen this video? Gabbe ( talk) 10:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
We possess more knowlege today than mankind has ever before, electricity, nuclear power, automobiles, science, technology etc. Is there any sort of project on the go anywhere in the world to ensure that this knowlege is preserved for centuries to come. To clarify, if there was a nuclear war tomorrow, and 99% of humans were gone, all our knowlege would have disapeared. But like the pyramids, some things can last for hundreds of years. Wikipedia is great but will not last hundreds of years after a nuclear war, the project I am thinking of would be for instance to write all the wiki articles onto stone tablets and store them in a pyramid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.58.82 ( talk) 10:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know why people in certain countries such as Italy and Cuba believe that one has to wait exactly three hours before entering the water following a meal? I live in Italy and the Italians claim bathing can interfere with the digestion process and even the doctors back up this belief. Most Americans and Northern Europeans, however, consider it to be an Old Wives Tale. I'm an American and I was always told as a child not to swim for one hour after eating, but never three hours, and that was swimming not bathing. Do any other editors know why this is so in these countries?-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 12:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I can testify that it was also a widespread belief in Australia when I was growing up. Kids were told: "Don't go swimming straight after eating, or you'll get stomach cramps and sink to the bottom. Wait at least one hour". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
To old wives' credit - from what Marco Polo has said, it seems that it is not a misbelief, but a correct belief (about swimming with arms and legs), which has been incorrectly extended to bathing and frolicking. It's natural that such a generalization should occur in many places: after all, bathing in the old days would very often be in rivers and such, any entering into the water is likely to lead to swimming, and it's better to err on the safe side.-- 91.148.159.4 ( talk) 20:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for the repost but no one has answered my question please help
Is there a religion based on the writings of Alice Bailey specifically A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. I realise she is a Theosophist, but is this a religion, and alot of Theosophy is, well, tripe. But I am very intrigued by her writings, is this a religious movements? Any enlightenment on the subject would be appreciated. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.58.82 ( talk) 12:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I'm looking for (short) short stories (or at least one) that somehow deal with literature, books or reading. Well, I know Fahrenheit 451 but I'm looking for something much shorter. Google couldn't help me. Can someone here? Thanks in advance. -- 87.123.219.165 ( talk) 15:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Why are dandelions considered weeds? They are not altogether unsightly, they are edible with some good medicinal qualities. Is there a cultural reason why they are not cultivated (similar to the alleged English fear of tomatoes in the 16th and 17th centuries?) Googlemeister ( talk) 16:02, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
As a student of Japanese therapy for close to 10 years, I am considering studying to become a Morita Therapist. I am therefore opening this discussion, to learn more about the Morita Therapy programs available in the United States and abroad.
If you are a Morita Therapist, or have undergone a Japanese Therapy training program, I'd be delighted to hear from you.
Thank you and kind regards, Kate [ Unsigned comment added by Kathleensimonelli ( talk • contribs) 16:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
In the proposition "It's raining.", what does "it" refer to? Speculative responses welcome. 86.45.150.20 ( talk) 16:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
86.45.150.20 -- You're like the duck in Alice in Wonderland:
--
AnonMoos (
talk)
05:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Since the OP requested speculative answers, here goes. Considered philosophically, the "it" can be thought to refer to the subject matter of metaphysics, whatever it may be. Some have argued that the preoccupation of Western philosophy with substrates, ontology, things-unto-themselves etc. etc., is pretty much the result of people trying to figure out what "it" is. In Finnish, for instance, "it's raining" is simply "sataa", with no subject, explicit or implicit. The same goes for all so called "state clauses" in Finnish, statements about the prevailing state of affairs such as "it is summer", or "it is dark in here". The question of what "it" is thus does not even arise in Finnish (but does of course preoccupy Finnish philosophers as well, since they get most of their material from Indo-Europeans). Actually, I should check how that particular passage in Alice's adventures, which again proves that the book is relevant to everything, has been translated into Finnish.-- Rallette ( talk) 06:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't refer to anything (as Lewis Carroll points out) -- it's a dummy pronoun, a consequence of the fact that English demands a noun or pronoun as the subject of every sentence. In pro-drop languages like Spanish, this demand is absent, and people can just say "is raining." -- Radagast 3 ( talk) 12:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I am looking for the name of a famous historical woman who has many names. Her family members protected her from invaders by killing them all.She was from a location (mountainous rock) at the entrance of a bay
I would appreciate any help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.78.214 ( talk) 17:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Why would one big country, in say, South Africa or Europe be better than the countries there maintining their sovereignety? What advantages and disadvantages does one large unified country have over numberous small ones?-- 92.251.220.72 ( talk) 22:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be much of an advantage to being a "big" country. There are plenty of examples of teeny countries that have achieved great wealth, such as Singapore, Luxembourg and Israel. On the other hand, there are big countries that suffer from all kinds of problems, including DR Congo, India and Brazil. It makes you wonder why countries will go to war to get more land when it's the little countries that often wind up doing the best. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 23:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Not really an answer to the OP, but some things to consider: the unification of Germany (in 1871, not 1990) created a very strong country out of a number of weak ones. Some have good reason to believe that unification was the proximate cause of two world wars and a cold war as well. On the other hand, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into many smaller countries probably caused just as many problems. There are many other examples of this dichotomy in the history of Europe Julius Caesar v. Caesar Borgia. Zoonoses ( talk) 00:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Humanities desk | ||
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< April 13 | << Mar | April | May >> | April 15 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
First of all, I hope that I don't offend people from Ireland. I'm from the Philippines so I'm not that keen about European history and culture. Anyways, I'm listening to Celtic Woman. I found that some of their songs are sad such as Siúil A Rúin, She Moved Through the Fair, Danny Boy and Carrickfergus (song). They are mostly about longing for their love and even death. Why is so?-- 121.54.2.188 ( talk) 01:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Infact a huuuuuge proportion of folk-songs (infact music in general) are about emotionally charged things, which often means sadness and horror. 194.221.133.226 ( talk) 09:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Is there any international non-governmental business network (global chamber of commerce) representing big businesses other than International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)? Are the political positions of ICC similar to the positions of the United States Chamber of Commerce? -- WTLop ( talk) 02:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I remember reading a book a long time ago (or maybe just hearing the summary) that I can't remember either the title or the author of. As I recall, the main character was a young woman. She fell off a ladder (or some other height) and was caught by a man who conveniently happened by (he might have startled her?), only for her father to come out and find her in his arms. Her father, being ridiculously strict about rules of propriety, forced the two of them to get married, and the book is about the aftermath. I believe it was "Christian historical romantic fiction" or something, but I can't remember the book's title or anything about it other than this (probably slightly screwed-up) summary.
If anyone knows what book this is (or is better at Googling it than I am!), your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! 24.247.163.175 ( talk) 03:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Many of my favorite authors have written several connected books about the same characters, and I like to get them and read them in order. I've been working on a database of all the books I own, and I include a special note for those books which a part of a sequence, indicating to which sequence they belong as well as their ordinal position within it. This has started me thinking . . . at what point does a sequence of books become a "series"? When you run of number-words (duology, trilogy, tetralogy, etc.)? Or are such words as "trilogy" and "tetralogy" reserved for works that necessarily form a story in their own right, whether or not the individual parts are readable standing alone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 05:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Very sensible. I suppose I could also follow my own example in the above paragraph and refer to any continued storyline as a "sequence." This would mean I wouldn't have to change how books were listed in my classification system just because an author released another book (turning a trilogy into a tetralogy, say) and I wouldn't have to worry whether the works could stand alone or could be understood only as part of a whole. It works for prequel/sequel books as well as extended series, too. 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 08:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
In a handout my mother gives her students when she teaches them about ancient Rome, there is mention of the Romans eating cakes made of corn. They couldn't possibly have eaten what we know as corn today, since corn is indigenous to the Western hemisphere. I've been told that the word "corn" was used by pre-Colombian Europeans to refer to some other kind of food, and that what we now know as corn was first dubbed "Indian corn" by European settlers in the Americas. If this is so, what was it that the Romans make their cakes from? 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 05:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
If "corn" originally meant, and technically still does mean, any kind of grain, how did the word come to be used most often to refer specifially to maize? (And - no, I don't really expect an answer to this one - but if the Romans ate wheat cakes, why, WHY, why would a handout written for middle-school kids use the word "corn," however technically accurate? No wonder the poor kids can't tell sheep from llamas. [3]) 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 06:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Ugh . . . anyone who cares that much about the distinction (and it's not WRONG to call wheat "wheat," after all) shouldn't be writing for seventh graders. (I don't think the handout was from a BrE book - for one thing, it's unlikely there's a BrE book that's perfectly configured to teach California's seventh-grade social studies standards, and for another, I haven't seen any Britishisms crop up in student work, which they certainly would have by now, since these kids seem to think "paraphrase" means "copy the text directly except for a couple of words changed here and there.") Anyway, I think I can consider this pretty much wrapped up. And I suppose with the state of education in the United States today, we've got bigger problems than whether the kids imagine that Caesar liked to chow down on corn-on-the-cob once in a while. 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 08:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you all so much! I know all too well the errors that slip into textbooks - I've read about them and I've been known to catch them on occasion. (My high school geography text had gold discovered in California in 1849. If that had been the case, the swarms of miners that headed west to seek their fortune would have gone down in history as "fiftiers" - and then, of course, textbooks would erroneously say that gold was discovered in 1850 . . . ugh.) Textbooks for the lower grades are often particularly slapdash, since the people who know enough to get a contract to write a textbook often believe they have better things to do with their time than simplify their knowledge to a child's level. Since "Romans ate corn" isn't the obvious kind of error that's likely to jump out at you right away, I can see how it slipped through. I mightn't have caught it myself if I hadn't seen it in student work first (I was already in active error-hunting mode, not passive learn-from-a-text mode). If Steven Schulz's theory is correct, it would seem the writer of the materials was as careless a copier as a lot of the students. Ah, I do love irony. 71.104.119.240 ( talk) 08:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Since the term Tomb Guard implies that the soldier actually has to "guard" the tomb, are there any regulations that specify when and how a tomb guard can break-stride and take the necessary steps to protect the tomb? For instance, if someone were to hop the gallery barrier and land on the platform where the tomb is, what is supposed to happen? Does the Tomb Guard actually do anything? I know his gun is unloaded, but I'm sure there's something he must do. Has anything like this ever happened in the past? Jared (t) 09:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Have you seen this video? Gabbe ( talk) 10:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
We possess more knowlege today than mankind has ever before, electricity, nuclear power, automobiles, science, technology etc. Is there any sort of project on the go anywhere in the world to ensure that this knowlege is preserved for centuries to come. To clarify, if there was a nuclear war tomorrow, and 99% of humans were gone, all our knowlege would have disapeared. But like the pyramids, some things can last for hundreds of years. Wikipedia is great but will not last hundreds of years after a nuclear war, the project I am thinking of would be for instance to write all the wiki articles onto stone tablets and store them in a pyramid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.58.82 ( talk) 10:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know why people in certain countries such as Italy and Cuba believe that one has to wait exactly three hours before entering the water following a meal? I live in Italy and the Italians claim bathing can interfere with the digestion process and even the doctors back up this belief. Most Americans and Northern Europeans, however, consider it to be an Old Wives Tale. I'm an American and I was always told as a child not to swim for one hour after eating, but never three hours, and that was swimming not bathing. Do any other editors know why this is so in these countries?-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 12:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I can testify that it was also a widespread belief in Australia when I was growing up. Kids were told: "Don't go swimming straight after eating, or you'll get stomach cramps and sink to the bottom. Wait at least one hour". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
To old wives' credit - from what Marco Polo has said, it seems that it is not a misbelief, but a correct belief (about swimming with arms and legs), which has been incorrectly extended to bathing and frolicking. It's natural that such a generalization should occur in many places: after all, bathing in the old days would very often be in rivers and such, any entering into the water is likely to lead to swimming, and it's better to err on the safe side.-- 91.148.159.4 ( talk) 20:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for the repost but no one has answered my question please help
Is there a religion based on the writings of Alice Bailey specifically A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. I realise she is a Theosophist, but is this a religion, and alot of Theosophy is, well, tripe. But I am very intrigued by her writings, is this a religious movements? Any enlightenment on the subject would be appreciated. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.58.82 ( talk) 12:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I'm looking for (short) short stories (or at least one) that somehow deal with literature, books or reading. Well, I know Fahrenheit 451 but I'm looking for something much shorter. Google couldn't help me. Can someone here? Thanks in advance. -- 87.123.219.165 ( talk) 15:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Why are dandelions considered weeds? They are not altogether unsightly, they are edible with some good medicinal qualities. Is there a cultural reason why they are not cultivated (similar to the alleged English fear of tomatoes in the 16th and 17th centuries?) Googlemeister ( talk) 16:02, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
As a student of Japanese therapy for close to 10 years, I am considering studying to become a Morita Therapist. I am therefore opening this discussion, to learn more about the Morita Therapy programs available in the United States and abroad.
If you are a Morita Therapist, or have undergone a Japanese Therapy training program, I'd be delighted to hear from you.
Thank you and kind regards, Kate [ Unsigned comment added by Kathleensimonelli ( talk • contribs) 16:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
In the proposition "It's raining.", what does "it" refer to? Speculative responses welcome. 86.45.150.20 ( talk) 16:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
86.45.150.20 -- You're like the duck in Alice in Wonderland:
--
AnonMoos (
talk)
05:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Since the OP requested speculative answers, here goes. Considered philosophically, the "it" can be thought to refer to the subject matter of metaphysics, whatever it may be. Some have argued that the preoccupation of Western philosophy with substrates, ontology, things-unto-themselves etc. etc., is pretty much the result of people trying to figure out what "it" is. In Finnish, for instance, "it's raining" is simply "sataa", with no subject, explicit or implicit. The same goes for all so called "state clauses" in Finnish, statements about the prevailing state of affairs such as "it is summer", or "it is dark in here". The question of what "it" is thus does not even arise in Finnish (but does of course preoccupy Finnish philosophers as well, since they get most of their material from Indo-Europeans). Actually, I should check how that particular passage in Alice's adventures, which again proves that the book is relevant to everything, has been translated into Finnish.-- Rallette ( talk) 06:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't refer to anything (as Lewis Carroll points out) -- it's a dummy pronoun, a consequence of the fact that English demands a noun or pronoun as the subject of every sentence. In pro-drop languages like Spanish, this demand is absent, and people can just say "is raining." -- Radagast 3 ( talk) 12:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I am looking for the name of a famous historical woman who has many names. Her family members protected her from invaders by killing them all.She was from a location (mountainous rock) at the entrance of a bay
I would appreciate any help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.78.214 ( talk) 17:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Why would one big country, in say, South Africa or Europe be better than the countries there maintining their sovereignety? What advantages and disadvantages does one large unified country have over numberous small ones?-- 92.251.220.72 ( talk) 22:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be much of an advantage to being a "big" country. There are plenty of examples of teeny countries that have achieved great wealth, such as Singapore, Luxembourg and Israel. On the other hand, there are big countries that suffer from all kinds of problems, including DR Congo, India and Brazil. It makes you wonder why countries will go to war to get more land when it's the little countries that often wind up doing the best. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 23:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Not really an answer to the OP, but some things to consider: the unification of Germany (in 1871, not 1990) created a very strong country out of a number of weak ones. Some have good reason to believe that unification was the proximate cause of two world wars and a cold war as well. On the other hand, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into many smaller countries probably caused just as many problems. There are many other examples of this dichotomy in the history of Europe Julius Caesar v. Caesar Borgia. Zoonoses ( talk) 00:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)