Talk:Gymnasium (ancient Greece)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was PAGE MOVED per discussion below. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Gymnasium (Ancient Greece) → Gymnasium (ancient Greece) — The "a" should be in lower case, as this isn't part of a proper name. Compare Homosexuality in ancient Greece, Pederasty in ancient Greece --Akhilleus (talk) 21:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.

• Support. This is rather embarrasing, as I'm the one who made the move, but searching on the web and in my paper encyclopedia showed that Akhilleus is almost definetely correct here. Alsandair 22:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. What, no argument? Andrew Dalby 17:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to dissapoint! Alsandair 01:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support, although I suppose Gymnasion might be simpler. Septentrionalis 18:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support - even if I agree that Gymnasion could be better.--Aldux 23:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments:

A counterexample is Art of Ancient Greece. I did look for a guidline on WP:NC, but didn't see anything helpful. However, outside of Wikipedia, the usually practice is not to capitalize "ancient", and for that matter "classical" and "archaic", since these adjectives aren't derived from proper nouns. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for all the trouble! (I will be more careful about checking the status quo next time). Somebody should probably move Art of Ancient Greece as well - that's part of what convinced to make this move (the rest was what seemed at the time like reasonable logic). I'll revert all the pages I pointed to the new name to make things easier. Alsandair 22:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I've finished reverting all my edits. The only mainspace page still directly linking to this article is Nudity, but I never edited that one, so it must have somehow always linked here - though I don't see how that could be true (no edits were made on it today).

It's a shame this has to wait a few days before being changed back (although maybe there's a way around that?). Again, let me apologise profusely for that silly mistake. Alsandair 23:28, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Alsandair, no apologies necessary. Seeking consistency is a good thing, after all, and the move hasn't caused any real harm, and is easy to reverse. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Reference added

I added a reference for the point that gymnasia may have encouraged erotic attachments. If anyone has a better or more general one, please substitute it.

I took out Around 1598, the commonly understood meaning of the term changed from "place to be naked" to "place of exercise". Heaven knows what 1598 has to do with it. Gymnasion already meant that in ancient Greek. "Place to strip" is the etymology, not the meaning. Andrew Dalby 09:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the edits - I've been trying to clean up the grammar in the article a bit (heaven knows why, I guess I find it somewhat soothing), but have been having some trouble determining the original meaning of the work at some points. That makes it hard to reword things, etc. for grammar purposes, so any fact checks by someone more knowledgeable on the subject than I would be much appreciated! Thanks, Alsandair 00:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Heaven knows you're doing a worthwhile job ... Andrew Dalby 12:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Is the etymology section correct then? It currently states that gymnasium is Greek for "place to be naked". Should I fix it? Alsandair 20:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Removed the copyedit tag

I think this article looks to be in good shape from a grammatical, stylistic, usage, spelling, etc. point of view, so I removed the copyedit tag. If someone disagrees, I wouldn't mind at all if it were put back - there's always room for improvement! (Sorry for the cliché!) Thanks, Alsandair 18:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I'm sorry I took so long to respond about the etymology. I have now revised this section a little. I have removed the "fact" tags here because the facts can easily be verified in other encyclopedias and dictionaries. I took out the sentence about the word "gym" because that doesn't seem relevant to "Gymnasium (ancient Greece)" -- but put it back if you disagree! Andrew Dalby 19:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me - thanks! Alsandair 19:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Added "unreferenced" tags

I added unreferenced templates to the sections on organisation and development/legacy, as these have a lot of unsourced statements. I already tagged most of the stuff with the "fact" template though, so I'm not sure if this is redundant, or a bad idea for other reasons. Just hoping somebody might notice it within the huge backlog and give it some attention. Feel free to revert me if anyone disagrees! Thanks, Alsandair 00:09, 30 October 2006 (UTC

The picture

Something needs to be done about the picture on this article. It shows a picture of gynasium in Pompeii. This is of course a Roman town. I would suggest that this detracts from the article. Surely it would be better to use a Greek example of gymnasium. If an example cannot be found then I would say that the picture should be kept except with some sort of proviso.

Furthermore that captions needs to be changed drastically. The whole caption is almost completely irrelevant. As well as to my mind being factually suspect. The claim about mock naval battles does not to my mind ring true (although of course I am willing to defer to anyone who knows better. My knowledge being far from encyclopaedic on this matter).

Pausanias 01:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

A better idea, if you want to be a stickler about it, is to change the title of the article. A gymnasium in antiquity was a gymnasium pretty much wherever you went, a la McDonald's so to speak. Greece was not confined to its present borders and its culture extend to Italy and well beyond. Also, the Pompeii gymnasium has been preserved for us intact. What are you going to replace it with? As for mock naval battles, do a search for that phrase and see how many examples you come up with. And as for the caption, better a fuller caption than to have readers gape in confusion at an a picture without a proper description. Haiduc 05:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

orphaned reference

Which purpose is that?

"The regulation of the Athenian gymnasium is attributed by Pausanias (i. 39. 3) to Theseus. Solon made several laws on the subject; according to Galen these were reduced to a workable system of management in the time of Cleisthenes (late 6th century and early 5th century BC). While the origins of physical exercise regimes cannot be pinpointed, the practice of exercising in the nude had its beginnings in the 7th century BC. The same purpose is frequently attributed to the tradition of oiling the body, a custom so costly that it required significant public and private subsidies (the practice was the largest expense in gymnasia)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.77.211.9 (talk) 09:55, 17 June 2016 (UTC)