User:Geogre/Talk archive 20

After the pan, up to ArbCom election voting.

Great Article--Where can I find more?

I read your article on Latitudinarianism, along with the lengthy discussion on the article's Talk page. I'm attempting to get a handle on the religious climate in which Samuel Johnson lived, and was hoping you could suggest a good book on the subject. Thanks again for the high-quality article. --Pschelden 09:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! The subject is complex. Books about Johnson's own views of religion exist, but they tend to suffer from assistant professor syndrome. The effects of the Bangorian Controversy may well reach out that far, in that the Bangorian controversy emerges from Hanoverian low church positions and Whig low church constituencies. G. B. Hill's Johnsonian Miscellanies, I contains some of Johnson's written prayers. C.F. Chapin, The Religious Thought of Samuel Johnson (1968), J. Gray, Johnson's Sermons (1972) are more respectable and less theoretical than most, and both will give some glimpses of the atmosphere around Johnson. I'd say you should avoid Macaulay until you already understand things from Johnson's point of view (Macaulay wrote the 1911 EB article, indirectly, and his views are properly called "the Whig history"). My problem with the recent stuff on Johnson's morality is that it tends to want to joust with the 60's naivette and positivism, which is fine in its way but usually less constructive than parasitic. I can point at stuff on Bangorian controvery, if you'd like, and there are CoE church histories, but I get out of my field with them. Geogre 10:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

He seems to have been quite keen on William Dodd (clergyman) (hint). Honestly, how can you resist a macaroni parson? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't, especially since Gerald Howson wrote about him. Dodd gets a lot of ink, though, or Johnson's support of him does. The problem is that those who speak of it are of two camps. One is the "friends of Johnson were special" group, and the other is the "Johnson was a fuddy duddy and moral tyrant." To step in at all is to have to deal with The Johnsonians. I have kept my head above water and my real name from the mud only slightly by knowing when to say nothing and sometimes doing it. Johnsonia is more contentious and popular than Austenia, and no one wants to say that Austen is a jerk. Johnson is the 18th century's Bronte sisters: a figure who attracts passionate writing and defense of views. I prefer Swift, where nothing you say can be the whole truth and nothing you say can be wholly wrong, and Pope, where you can stick to a couplet and not be molested by your peers. Geogre 10:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and defending Pope is very much not done these days. Sadly, Pope is heading for Johnson territory, where it is absolutely de rigeur to dismiss him. (Look what just happened at Eliza Haywood. I don't blame the person making the changes, quite. She's simply doing what contemporary critics do, even contemporary critics who privately know better. Everyone is a f*cking "transgressive figure" or part of the problem. Pope used to be a nice, quiet corner to dwell in, but now he's Part of the Problem or a troubled midget. I'm not interested in him as a troubled midget, so.... Anyway, Johnson's defenders still have the upper hand, but there are many, many, many who want to make him beg for mercy. How dare he not transgress? Didn't he know that transgressing gender definitions and body boundaries in the construction of space was a vital anti-colonial gesture of liberation? Poor, benighted fool to be so sure of himself!) Geogre 03:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the book tips. The bonus information on Dodd, the Bangorian controversy and your assessment of the current state of scholarship are more than I could have asked for. If I might weigh in with my thoughts on Johnsonia as a very recent (and therefore still naive) obsever: some of the Johnson criticism I've found to date has been well-reasoned and well-cited, but I've never read so many critics willing to eschew certain basic steps of argumentation. The assertions made in most of the papers I've read in the last three months are excessively bold and poorly-founded, with arguments riddled with fallacious reasoning. I hope these are just the early judgments of a newcomer who has failed to discover the most valuable writing in the field. --Pschelden 10:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Aha, well, what you're seeing is sort of endemic. We're all trained to know every secondary on our subjects before going on, and everyone used to make every student read certain core texts (Bate, a few others), so critics now begin their careers in the middle of a conversation. Each assumes key pieces of old arguments, whether those are theoretical ones or prior critics or those key scholars, and then add their dissenting murmurs. The same is true of the few Pope folks left and the Swiftians. More, though, graduate students are more and more training themselves in a theoretical approach first and then looking for authors who will fit the outlook. That's not actually new, mind you. People have, for decades, had some new angle and then looked for the works that will fracture when struck from that angle best. The psychoanalytic folks went looking for authors who seemed to fit Freud's categories, and Marxists looked for those who would seem to protest emerging capitalist structures, but when the theoretical perspectives are more and more exclusive and more and more licensed, the texts that will fit grow more and more low profile or the conclusions reached look more and more bizarre. Again, this is not because of "theory" but because of what people do with it. Johnson, last I looked, was getting exposed to New Historicism, which is fine, except that people were being rather hamfisted with it. Anyway, there are some very solid critical texts in Johnsonia, and it's not just that everything new is bad (some of it is very fine), but the old "most of everything is junk" rule applies. There are solid critical texts being fashioned, but they're always rare. Geogre 12:42, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Heh heh heh heh heh

Terrific, Geogre. Love it. :-) I love the way all the buildup tends to the grand, crashing conclusion "you're bored".  :-D Bishonen | talk 21:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC).

Thank you. I thought of one phrasing improvement. Instead of "extrusion or recession of embryology," I thought perhaps, "embryology's dealing of an innie or an outie" to undercut the high seriousness of "body" criticism would be better. Also, there was a typo. It should have been "hope or doom to speak," not "seek." Anyway, it was, I thought, a novel use of Berryman's poem about drunken ennui and the sort of insufferability of the artistic sensibility to itself. (And yoking Wilt Chamberlain to Aggripina the Younger....) Anyway, I keep drumming for readers because I did think it a nice doo-dad, and I'm glad you liked it. Geogre 03:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Since you're more familiar with him than I am...

..care to take care of Policratus for me? I can't find the proper AN/I thread. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• I've posted links on FAC, but what we're looking at is your general poltergeist editor. Disruption would be a valid grounds for blocking, after a warning and repetition of the POINT stuff he's doing. Geogre 21:23, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Strunk and White

I got my copy of Strunk and White, read it straight through, and refer to it constantly. Thanks for the tip—I told my mother (who has had a copy for years) that she ought to be ashamed for not showing it to me before. Anyway, could you give some feedback on my prose suggestions on Talk:Great Fire of London? I'm doing my best to get better at this copyediting thing, and could use some help =). Thanks! --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 22:04, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: deletion review

"'Hunting' is a thing we do when we're hungry, not when we're trying to build, IMO. We need to prune the tangles, but crusading never has ended well for anyone that I'm aware of."

— Geogre

Is it okay if you're my new hero? -- Bailey^(talk) 01:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

-) Sure. No need to worry: I'll do something villainous sooner or later, and I always keep spare feet of porcelain. Geogre 02:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Infoboxes - request for comment

As someone who has produced and contributed to a large amount of articles, including many featured articles, I was wondering if you would have the time to comment at a discussion on infoboxes, or just comment on infoboxes in general. The discussion I'm involved in is at Template_talk:Infobox_Scientist#Thoughts_on_this_template and my thoughts mainly involve how best to present material in an article. I'm partly asking for comments from others because the sentence "Just because science is a thinking-person's sport, doesn't mean we need to get precious about it and treat it differently from ball sports." might provoke a rash response from me about the use of flags in infoboxes. See also Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton and their talk pages. Any comments would be great. Thanks. Carcharoth 06:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Geogre, you may also want to look at the suggestion for an "Infobox Professor" at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities. up+land 07:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Good grief! Is there a carbon monoxide leak in the Wiki Team Bus? People sure seem to be hallucinating. You know what the flag bit reminds me of? Philosophy World Cup from Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. Greece vs. Germany, with Archimedes scoring the game winner. "In news this week, Enrico Fermi has been traded to the US for one Modernist poet." Unflippinbelievable, and this is beyond the general tag and box mess. Geogre 12:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I'll wade in/weigh in after my wits are with me and I'm a bit more awake. I've tossed my brick into the still waters of the University project talk page, and I didn't like the way it read. I began with something a bit more "you're dumb" than is helpful. We really have to avoid antagonizing, and I missed my own cue there. Geogre 12:54, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I like the Monty Python reference. Incidentially, the infobox there is OK. There is also something about this at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) if you want to put something there as well. I'd also be interested in links to those places where you have written about this before, if you can remember them. Carcharoth 13:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The nice place that I've written about it, where I tried to be rational is at user:Geogre/Templates, which is linked at the top of my talk page as the "tags and boxes player's guide." I wanted to avoid these sorts of conflicts by trying to come up with a guideline where we could decide when a Project takes precedence over an author's wishes. Most authors won't care, probably, but some care a great deal. Geogre 13:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've tried to offer some new arguments on the Scientist page. I also tried to stay general and avoid the personal in all ways, and I wouldn't have been able to do that at all, since it seems to be a one-editor campaign, had I written in the morning. Geogre 21:37, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll go and have a look. Thanks. I'm slightly embarassed that you had to remind me of your page about infoboxes and tags, as I read it and commented on the talk page some time ago. I just completely forgot about it! :-) Carcharoth 21:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

My, my, but "scientist" is exalted. Goodness gracious, but it must be a rare thing to know one, as they are masters of logic as well as a paying vocation. I thought I knew boatloads of them, but none of them would have put himself so far forward or described her profession as "scientist." Well, but I am done with that foray, though I do think I enumerated some sound generally applicable points on boxing up lives. Geogre 21:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks anyway. I'm interested to see that you describe yourself as a philologist. I've spent time debating with people over how the approach to philology has in the past (maybe it still is) been something that can only be described as scientific. My interest in philology, in case you are interested, has come from my interest in Tolkien and his works. Carcharoth 00:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I figure I don't need to be more precise than that in that debate. I can't see how it would benefit him/her to get a chance to trot out the old false dichotomies about "science" and "literature." I'm a philologist, but philology is everything from Classicism to literary criticism. I.e. it's fully as vague as "scientist." My point, which I'm not sure will be understood, is that being a scientist is like being an intellectual: it's a descriptor, but not a job title. When I was young, I was all over Tolkein, and then I set him aside, only to hit him again when learning Anglo-Saxon and studying medieval English literature. I've come back to him, but uneasily. His trilogy was the most important group of books in my teen years, and it taught me to raise my demands for literature. Now that I've read some of the originals that gave him ideas (the Volsungssaga -> Gotterdamerung -> Hobbit/ring is a source) and re-read him, it's all a bit complicated. You should read the sagas, if you get a chance. Some of them are a ton of fun, with Njal's Saga being the best of the best of the best. Geogre 02:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Did you ever get as far as the other works by Tolkien? Specifically his essay On Fairy-stories? That explains some of his views on his writings, and what the sources were, specifically the idea of the cauldron of story. Anyway, I see you will have more questions to deal with over the next few weeks, so I'll wind this down now, but thanks for the background. I'll definitely try and read some of the original literature. I want to have a crack at Beowulf sometime. Carcharoth 21:37, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Beowulf is a blast, and I recommend Seamus Heaney's translation over all others, actually. Oh, there are much better notes practically anywhere, but it's the first really naturally poetic translation I've read, and that includes translations by other poets. Really, see Njal's Saga, though: it's a hoot! It's not very fairytale-ish. I never did read Tolkein's other works, no, although, as I said, I met him as an Anglo-Saxonist. I recently tried to read Gormenghast, and I was stunned, truly stunned by the amazing writing, but I also found it too detailed and slow for my jaded eyes. Geogre 21:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Erich Heller

• Erich Heller (AfD discussion)

Uncle G 10:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the word. That user's private world really doesn't belong on a public project. Geogre 12:48, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I have voted to delete the article as well as all userpage forks. Bishonen | talk 00:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC).

Ring meet hat

A stunning development: I entered myself into the lists of ArbCom candidates. I therefore archived this page, in case questions come rolling in. It was already 113 Kb, for pity's sake. Geogre 21:33, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Election? Whowhatwhere?? -- ALoan (Talk) 22:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Great news! Aloan et al see: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006. Maybe others could be encouraged to run? Paul August ☎ 23:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC) P.S glad you got rid of that darn bird, every time I tried to read your page, I had an photosensitive absence seizure which caused me to spend long hours wasting my life staring vacantly at my computer screen.

Could not agree more on the bird. Painful, truly painful. KillerChihuahua^?!?

[edit conflict] Found it - the snappily titled Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006/Candidate statements. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:21, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

You might want to prepare yourself for the standard candidate questions being posed by AnonEMouse. See here. That is the questions on another candidate's page, but the questions should be put on your question page eventually. Carcharoth 23:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey - I have questions too, although the Mouse's probably subsume mine. Good luck. Regards, Newyorkbrad 00:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Ahhhhh. There you go. Bishonen | talk 00:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC).

Oh noes, the bird! What happen? Never mind, let's all have a glass of bubbly in honor of Geogre's candidacy! Bishonen | talk 00:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC).

Bridge of Death!

Touristy bridge of death

• Ah, the Bridge of Death questions? I am ready, bridge keeper, ask me your questions. Bishonen, the bird came with a set of talk page messages, so, when I archived, I flipped the bird to the filing cabinet, but I see you're insisting on those floating images that always cover up the text. Yes, I have entered the lists. If I don't make it, that's fine. If I do, that's fine. I think I have some advantages to offer, and my ideology, such as it is, is very simple. It contrasts with some folks, resonates with others, but there's no holy awe-power associated with it. Welcome back, Paul August: a lot has changed in that month, man, and nothing has changed much. Like I said, it's taken 3 years for me to run, so I guess I'm sure that I want to run, and maybe I'm inclined to want to win a seat. Geogre 01:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I said to another of the newly declared candidates a little while ago, this is going to be interesting. However,

He who would cross the bridge of death

Must answer me these questions three

Ere the other side he see:

• What is your name?
• What is your quest?
• What is your position on aggressive taunting with a suggestion of death?

Newyorkbrad 01:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Geogre, so far as anyone knows. (That's what it says on the tag on my t-shirt.)
• To get a date, but also to keep my mind sharp by writing articles and to ensure that the environment remains salubrious for that by working on ArbCom.
• Obviously, aggressive taunting should not be necessary. The question is a fine one, because when "exasperation" (e.g. Lucky 6.9 was accused of taunting, when he was spending time vandal fighting and got really frustrated) turns into "aggressive taunting" is a judgment call. It's hard to make that judgment in many cases, but if one sign is staying away from the other while the other chases, then it takes an act of will to keep the fight going, and that is something that has to stop. A stern warning would be ideal, and it should go through mediation rather than arbitration. However, if we have a person who has more than a couple of targets, we're looking at a non-functional editor, someone who is not suited to cooperative editing. Such a person should not be tolerated once it's clear that they cannot function in a wiki environment. Jesus said that we must forgive 7 times 700 times, but forgiveness is not license. We can forgive infinitely, but we cannot then allow a person to go to cause damage. To the degree that people brand a user as a troll, or to the degree that arbitrators brand a user, that user is from that point forward useless, because no one but a fool or a saint would continue editing constructively, and that's why the reactions to taunting and the taunting itself have to be examined (although, of course, the solution offered to a bad reaction is much less severe than to a taunting user). Geogre 01:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Geez, if that's how you answer the jokes, wait till we get to the actual questions! Newyorkbrad 01:45, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't find a suitable picture of a bottomless gorge. But I did find the above! Carcharoth 01:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• It's gorges! Geogre 02:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to get rid of the sense of humor. It's necessary for joining ArbCom. (Oh, and there are always people who simply don't understand my danged jokes.) Q. How many Marxists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. None: the lightbulb has to develop its own revolution from within! Geogre 01:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Yerse... yerse... that should have them rolling in the aisles. Have some cake, New Arbcom Candidate! I cannot understand why this one doesn't twinkle, I do apologize. Just let me know if anybody can still read anything on the page and I'll add a moving gallery of treats. Bishonen | talk 04:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC).

Did you know

On 7 November, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article His genitive, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 08:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Glynn Lunney FAC

I am just wondering, since your "pending" tag remains un-struckthrough, whether there's anything else I can do to satisfy your concerns. Thank you again for your comments; they have done a great deal to improve the article. MLilburne 16:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh? It is? I thought it was a straight support, which is what I intended to leave it as. I'll go change it/remove ambiguity. Geogre 19:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I saw you had switched to support, but just wanted to make sure that it was clear that the pending notice no longer applied. I may be a little jumpy; this is my first FAC. MLilburne 19:33, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Going to bed

I just tried to Skype you, but I guess you've already withdrawn to your chaste slumbers. I get more and more fever... oddness. No commuting on Thursday, I don't think. Bishonen | talk 03:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC).

I think I go to bed before you. Last night, I think it was 9:30 PM, US East, but I've been having enormous problems with sleep lately -- not the hours but the thing itself. I can go to it and come away from it (sleep), but I don't seem to do it very well when I'm there. As for you, GO TO NANNY! Go, go, go. I look for you most every day, you know. My e-mai link works, so you can post to me of a time. Geogre 10:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I need help

Hi Geogre, I need some help. I'm kind of hung up on 'English is a Germanic Language', after reading His genitive. I looked through some Germanic Languages articles and they are lacking sources, so I don't know who to attribute this to. I get the sense this is a pretty established notion so I think it is better to ask you than to keep adding {{cn}}s and {{unreferenced}}s. Can you explain this to me? Do I want to hear about it? DVD+ R/W 16:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's kind of common knowledge. Basically, you have Gothic -> Old High Germanic & Low Germanic. OHG -> Old Norse, Frisian, Anglo-Saxon, while the low Germanic -> Dutch and old Germanic goes to German. Old Norse -> Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic. Anglo-Saxon and Old French mix to make Middle English -> early Modern English -> Modern English. I'm wondering where it might already be sourced. Let me check. Geogre 18:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I see that none of our Germanic, Old High Germanic, West Germanic or other articles actually cite this fact, so, after I get to my Questia account, I'll go get an easy one. Since it is common knowledge, it's easy to get a citation. Shoot, I can probably snag one from going to Bartleby.com right now and referring to the Columbia Encyclopedia. As I say, it's a thing that absolutely everyone agrees upon. Geogre 18:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, here's one [[1]] reference. "English language" in

TITLE: The Columbia encyclopedia. Sixth edition, 2001-04.

PUBLISHED: New York: Columbia University Press, 2001–04. NOTES: Last Update: November, 2004. CITATION: “[Entry Title].” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001–04. www.bartleby.com/65/. [Date of Printout].

ONLINE ED.: © Copyright 2001–04 Columbia University Press. Published January 2004 by Bartleby.com. (Terms of Use).

The quote is: "English language: member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages)." Geogre 18:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Since the 60s? Are there sources making this analogy from before then too? I'd heard this before and it sounded kind of weird to me. I'm not going to worry about it though. Thanks for looking it up. Glad you are running for the arbcom by the way. I dropped out today, its not for me. You would be great though. DVD+ R/W 19:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not a new idea, no, nor one that is in any way controversial. Look, here's a book from 1851, on google books: A hand-book of the English language. If English doesn't sound Germanic to you, that might be because, more than any other language supposedly, English has aggressively borrowed from many, many other sources. But the core still harkens back to Old English or Anglo-Saxon, a distinctly Germanic tongue. (OK, I'm talking off the top of my head now. I'm sure Geogre will correct me.) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 19:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, doesn't mean I have to like it tho. me/ sulks off to ru: DVD+ R/W 19:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

English is not only Germanic, it's practically German! Or was before that la-di-da Norman Conquest, or do I mean oh-là-là? Old English is amazingly like modern German, if you can understand one you can understand the other. Albert C. Baugh called them "sister languages". Geogre, it offends me that Baugh doesn't have an article <HINT HINT>. Bishonen | talk 19:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC).

Baugh needs an article, alright. Let her with most umbrage get the cover. :-) House/haus guest/gast mouse/maus God/Gott love <- lof/leib <-leif folk/volk, etc. The number Grapes wants is 60%: roughly 60% of English vocabulary is still Anglo-Saxon/Germanic. Also, he's right: English is one of the sluttiest languages on earth: it'll take in just about anything. Finally, though, England got conquered by the "French" (who spoke French but who were other Germanic dudes who had invaded and conquered France but began speaking the language) (you can conquer France, but you can't make the French speak anything but French). (William was a "Norman"/Norse man, which means he had come from Norway or Sweden or Denmark (don't remember), and his folks had been in "France" for only 2 generations when he went knocking on England.) Anyway, French stuff makes it harder for us to notice how Germanic English is. Geogre 20:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Hose in german = trousers becomes the root of hosiery in english, feld/field, schreiber/to write from 'scribe', wise/weise...........On a tangent I'm just here for another one of my dumb questions, I'm cleaning up an article at the moment - if 'to make something english' is to anglicise it - what is to make something French? Frankicise? francocise?--Mcginnly | Natter 00:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• "Gallicize" is to Frenchify, whereas McDonald's is to french fry.
• BTW, "scribere" is Latin. A good bit of German and English comes from Latin roots. Think of it this way: if monks did it, it probably came into both languages from Latin. For a really fun English language clothing option, note that "Shirt" and "Skirt" were originally the same thing, as people wore a tunic that went to the knees and was belted, if male. Women wore longer ones. The "dress" comes from the mantua, which is nearly Renaissance. On the other hand, the Norsemen living in the Danelaw used the ON "skirt" for their tunic, and the Anglo-Saxons used "shirt" for theirs. When the garment got cut off at the belt, we kept the OE term for the top bit and the ON term for the bottom bit. Geogre 01:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

LOL! Great story. BTW, regarding who has and hasn't got articles, I'm glad to see Jacob Grimm, Elias Lönnrot, Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig and Joseph Wright (linguist) all have articles. Dang, I was hoping to find a gap in there somewhere! Carcharoth 02:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Also found this table giving the chronology as well as the relationships between the languages. Still, a proper tree, as seen here might be useful somewhere on Wikipedia. Carcharoth 02:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

If you want some structural linguistics, I wonder if we have Werner's law and if it links to the Werner in question. I know not his name, but his law is right there with Grimm's law for importance in the early history of figuring out that there is a historical tree at all. Look at that tree for a minute. Now, what's interesting about it to you? What could have prompted people to come up with a tree like that? History? In fact, it's more interesting than that. I've wanted for years now to really get into some texts and research like mad (but it would take at least two years, with pay and sabbaticals, to get the research done) on the quest for the Adamic language. That's what we owe linguistics to. In the 18th century, it got to be all the rage. Actually, it began before that (or never died out), but the quest was to find the language that people spoke before Babel. What was that one true language, the language Adam gave the one true name to all creatures in? Linguistics starts with people trying to work out which language is oldest, and that's because they really thought they could find the pure language, where the connections between things and words would be accurate. (And this is without all that "true name" magical thinking that Frazer describes in The Golden Bough). Geogre 02:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Karl Werner and here is his law [[2]]. It's all about the t/d f/v transformations. Geogre 02:54, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I expect to see Werner's law on WP:FAC by Saturday. Newyorkbrad 03:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Get cracking, then! I expect I'll be answering questions well past then. :-) Here I am, offering a custom-made DYK idea to any of the little birds. If no one gets moving on it, I will do it, eventually. I remember, when I learned Werner's law, thinking that one only needed that and Grimm's law, and you could simply look at any sheet of German and translate it into English. Another fun question, though, is this: how does an entire nation change its pronunciation in a way that precisely fits a law like that? They don't go to a convention and agree that they'll move all sounds up one position in the mouth, we assume, and yet these phonological changes are regular as clockwork. Heck, that's even harder to understand than why the Great vowel shift occurred when it did and across all of Europe and in only 50 years. (The GVS's reasons are more mysterious than Nessie and Bigfoot combined, IMO.) Geogre 03:07, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I've got my hands full at the moment keeping an eye on Supreme Court of the United States (today's featured) (does contributing 3 sentences get me over 1FA? <g>). Newyorkbrad 03:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Please stop tempting me to point out the people who say it *does*, thank you. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:17, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you think if I put my copies of The Golden Bough and The Blank Slate on either side of my head, and think really hard, that I'll find out what Werner's Law is? Carcharoth 03:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I had a link to it, up there. Let's try again: [3]. Now, though, you have me wondering if we have an article on incubation theory, which is the theory that sleeping on a book will give you the knowledge (although it's usually a term used for the idea that the ancient Greeks had that going to sleep in a temple would bestow blessings from that deity). Geogre 03:17, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Dang! Verner's law. I was this close to creating the article as well. I see Karl Verner is still a stub-stub though! Now, which way should the redirect to/from Werner's law go? Carcharoth 03:19, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Random other stuff: Adamic language; Grammatischer Wechsel; and Category:Sound laws (which is where I found the Verner spelling). Carcharoth 03:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Ok, so why the hell does a Swedish website call him "Werner?" "There were four voiceless frikative consonants in Proto-Germanic – /f/, /þ/, /h/ and /s/. These voiceless frikatives changed into their voiced counterparts – /v/, /ð/, /g/ and /z/ – with one exception (which was discovered by the linguist Karl Werner): They remained voiceless when they were immediately preceded by the accent. This happened before the accent moved to the first syllable in all words. " It may be pronounced "Verner," but "Verner" is not a standard name, while "Werner" is. Time to find out if our article was written by someone with a faulty memory or not. (Our Adamic language is poo-poo. I mean really researching it.) Geogre 03:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I see that in Swedish, "v" and "w" are (or until recently were) considered basically the same letter. See Swedish alphabet. This really isn't a bad encyclopedia, sometimes. Newyorkbrad 03:27, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• No, not always either one. The Adamic language article, for example, appears to have been written by a partisan of the last group to look for it. I have to say that Werner, being a Dane, would be likely to have been a W from Germany rather than a V from parts unknown. Besides, the Germans were the ones who wrote these "Preface to the Study of the Phonology of Gothic Derived Tongues, in twelve volumes" and then die before getting beyond the preface. Anyway, we need to find a Dane to testify to the name of this particular great. Geogre 09:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll post something at the language Reference Desk to see if they can help. Carcharoth 11:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I keep trying to taunt Bishonen or Tupsharu to speak up, as they're both Swedes who can understand Danish (if not Danes), and I'd figure that there ought to be some chest thumping pride from the norse. ("We cross the sea/ With thrashing oars/ That carry us to/ A distant shore/ We are your overlords.") (From Werner's law to Led Zeppelin in two steps must be a record.) Geogre 11:18, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

. There is no . There are almost no links to Karl Werner or Werner's law, unlike Karl Verner or Verner's law. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism, no doubt. "I never could succeed in getting those idiots to understand their own language," as Mark Twain said of the French. Seriously: with someone this obscure, I'd not trust any wiki source. That doesn't mean I think I'm right and it wrong, but only that the more iffy a subject, the more you may be looking at a solo contributor, and the more ubiquitous, the more likely you're seeing popular misconceptions. This is an iffy one. (And the Swedes conquered the Danes until Pele the Conqueror set them free.) Geogre 12:18, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at this Google search, hwo many of the "about 1580" results are Wikipedia and it's mirrors? Putting in "-wikipedia" still gets 491 hits. We need original documents that show what he and his contemporaries called him, and how they spelled his name. Carcharoth 13:33, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm satisfied from this scan of a philology journal from 1897 that someone called him Verner. That journal also looks like it has useful information. Can anyone here access it and expand the details at Karl Verner? Carcharoth 13:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I've summarised bits from the first page. Can't access the rest. Carcharoth 13:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, it appears that I (and the Swedish page) was wrong, as I get few Google hits with the W, about which is the more common form of the name. At the same time, I'm still not ready to believe that it isn't a valid variation. I need to get into more academic webbing to be sure. Geogre 15:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Does this count as academic webbing? :-) Carcharoth 16:56, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

"I want to name my baby Cartland, because that's on my soap opera!" I wonder how many unfortunate adults are now wandering around cursing every time a vocative occurs because their mamas were watching a program and deciding to name them "Dylan" and "Olivia" and "Hunter?" I did enjoy putting clothes on the dollie, though. Ordinarily, I prefer taking clothes off, but then I remembered that the scholars of Madonna Studies are now looking at the semiotics of the little black dress. (What? You doubt that there was such a thing as Madonna Studies? Don't be gullible: of course there was, thanks to Camille Paglia having a lesbian crush on her.) Geogre 17:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Should there be at least redirects at Karl Werner and Werner's Law, then? Newyorkbrad 16:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• I want to be more certain than I am now before we do that. Geogre 16:25, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Are we there yet? I see one of them is blued now and the other is still a redlink, so we need some consistency, anyway. Newyorkbrad 00:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. Geogre 02:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Thinking of life outside the boxen

Sigh. Infobox hell. I mean, just look. Isn't this better? Imagine this article with one of those monstrosities. Ugh. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Are they immune to sense? Have they no eyes? Can they not see anything at all wrong with a box that is more than twice the length of the article? How is that a highlight, when it takes more space and has less information than the article? These people are insane, or else, more likely, they never even look at the articles they deface. Geogre 20:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, it could be worse. Clearly articles on the children of Louis XV need direct links to great uncles and cousins and suchlike. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at Princess Louise-Élisabeth of France - it is not so much an infobox as a bloated navbox. But navboxes should be small and provide only a few directions to head outwards in. Think of the article as containing subject and explanatory links, and a navbox as providing the most relevant of the subject links (allowing the reader to easily navigate to related topics). Here, the navbox has bloated to the point where it provides links across the entire topic of the dynasty, most of which are not of direct relevance to this article. The one place where this bloated navbox might be acceptable in its bloated form is on the page about the dynasty. For an example of navboxes and infoboxes working side-by-side, see War of the Ring (though please don't read the actual infoboxes, as they are horrendously inaccurate). The navbox, though, is designed so that one can click back-and-forth across the different wars without excessive scrolling. This is similar to the navbox set-up at The History of Middle-earth. Carcharoth 01:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• I think the impulse to writing an article on every little girl of the Sunny loins is the movie. That's what I'm detecting, anyway. However, those little articles are harmless, but the 1:3 article to box ratio articles actually give one a headache and make Titian's ghost cry. Geogre 20:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Just curious, have you seen the movie? I'd be interested in hearing what a sage as yourself has to say about it. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 20:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• I haven't, and I'm more of a weed than a sage. Sophia Coppola knows how to photograph women, though, and Kirsten Dunst has never looked as good on screen as in The Virgin Suicides, just as Scarlet Johansson has never looked as good as in Lost in Translation. Her visual style is fantastic. She lacks her father's interest in ripping the soul out and putting it on display (something you can see from The Conversation through Apocalypse Now!). Her brother similarly has style more than philosophy, but Sophia does have some themes. She has been working on "lost girl/woman" themes that are somewhat closed off to a male audience but highly resonant with another half (supposedly, optimally). The problem with doing that particular movie is that every person who sees it is going to be misled by the title and subject matter and think that what's at stake is either narrative or history, when, as far as I can tell, Coppola isn't interested in anything but the extremities of a girl having to learn to live with living out of place, a sort of identity alienation. It's a fine theme, if not as fruitful as Kubrick's single theme (the Jungian Shadow and how civilization suffers from its suppression). I look forward to it on DVD, even though I'll lose a lot of the color saturation. Geogre 21:44, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • More on that: The reason the Kubrick analogy came to mind is that it was a case of another director with one dominant theme who made a misunderstood film. All he did, it seems to me, is show us people who become the Shadow (the violent, raping, greedy Id-like creature, the savage) after their social controls are broken down and then what happens. Some people like Alex de Grand are pure Savage. Others, like Jack in The Shining, go "mad" and become the Shadow. Well, Kubrick did Full Metal Jacket, and everyone freaked out. Kubrick doing an intellectual, heartless movie about Vietnam? Doesn't he know what Vietnam means? How dare he make a non-political meditation when the subject is Vietnam? Because of these extra dimensions, the movie got bad reviews from critics and audiences. People misunderstood it. They were offended by it. It seemed disjointed, with over half the movie in barracks and then this other movie tacked on. Now, perhaps, we can see it as a very good movie, if not his greatest, but the frame and setting of the film destroyed the reception. Sophia Coppola does "a girl disaffected from her family moorings and uncertain what it means to be sexual and alive." People seeing Marie Antoinette are freaking out. "It's not about the queen!" "It's about a poor little rich girl!" "It violates history and doesn't even stay true to the woman!" In other words, by picking that subject, she has invited everyone to ask the wrong questions. She is using the queen as an abstraction, as a mere narrative focus point for her lost girl theme. I'll be interested in seeing it, but her theme bugs me with its highly partial appeal. Geogre 03:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know of any weeds that have the sagacity of yourself. :-) I've learned more in these two paragraphs than I've learned in two weeks! I should say this, the film is beautifully concieved, but like you said flawed in its conception. It's a thoughful film trying to be a chick flick and mostly ending up as a chick flick. Though, a very entertaining one. If you can divorce your thoughts from the idea that this is about Marie Antoinette, it's a fun film. Thank you for your erudite comments! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 06:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

She's an exceptional visual talent, but the idea that the children of famous artists tend to have talent without hunger is nearly inescapable when I see her films. Her brother has done rock videos and one feature film (Roman Coppola), and it failed to be quirky by being all quirk and no norm against which the twists and reactions could play. (Yeah, I used to "do" film criticism for pay.) Geogre 12:50, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, why did Kubrick have to die so young? My favourite director – consistently creative and inventive. Diverse and eclectic like no other. Never was there a director more influential and imitated Raymond Palmer 16:48, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, we do have other great directors. I love Bergman, for example, even when he's in a vicious mood, although he was practically a mass production line compared to Kubrick. My regret about Kubrick is that he made so few movies. I even liked Eyes Wide Shut a very great deal, and I regard it as Kubrick's most optimistic film, if not a fitting last film. In that one, a man discovers the subconscious desires of his wife, the dream life that he, as a proper doctor, had been denying, and that tempts him to find out what the male subconscious is, the Id that he had been denying. What he sees is the real danger that he had to embrace and yet not become, and the film ends with the wife saying, essentially, "We must integrate our beasts into our civilization." They have to go home and fuck. The other movie to end with something like that line was Clockwork Orange, but that ends not with Alex integrating, but rather reverting to the beast that must be. I can't say that I love every Kubrick movie, but he never made a shallow one, never made a useless one. Comparing him to his nearest imitator (of a sort), Malik (I'm watching The New World tonight), he was far less sentimental. If that made him sometimes inhuman, it also kept him away from the pointlessness that the meditative and brooding film makers can fall into. Geogre 18:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I revamped the articles on some of Louis XV's children mainly because they were mentioned (and redlinked) in some of the articles on châteaux that I was writing up a while ago; but also because our articles were so bad compared to the ones in French Wikipedia (for understandable reasons), and many include lovely images, and some are quite interesting (the first daughter of the Sun King - a twin! - in a loveless marriage to a Spanish cousin, none of the other daughters marrying, and the youngest becoming a nun to redeem her father's immorality).

But I would rather watch the movie, of course. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Loveless marriage conducted with great politeness, of course. It was the epitome of the aristocratic marriage: if they'd had artificial insemination, they'd have surely used it. Meet the wife for "duty" as a husband, then depart to one's own house (separate bedrooms not being nearly enough). The mistresses chosen for looks and vivacity, and the queen chosen for breeding stock. It's the turning point, in some ways, where the queens really stop thinking that their husbands are going to give them much beyond money. In France, being a mistress's favorite was a ticket to the big time. In England, it was a ticket to the doghouse (viz. John Gay, whom Mrs. Howard favored). Geogre 13:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

As some dick once said: "When I retire I'm going to spend my evenings by the fireplace going through those boxes. There are things in there that ought to be burned." (R.M. Nixon).--Doc^g 15:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• Oh, that's a well applied quote, alright, and I was astonished by the AN post from a guy who's trying to prevent a box listing all of the Criterion Collection films and where each falls on the article for The Seven Samurai. The protest was good, but I went to go look, and he was a little late with his protest: the article has about five boxes. The other thing is that boxes of such a nature really attract the trainspotters among us with which elements they want to include (the numismatics might want each politico's box to have which coins featured on, even though it has buggerall to do with the life in politics, while the philateralists want each stamp approved by that president or prime minister, so the box gets a line longer, then another, then another, when place of birth isn't even clearly of importance). Ugh. Ugh again. Geogre 15:45, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• • It's nice to agree on something :) --Doc^g 18:46, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

RFA Thanks

Thanks!
Thanks for your input on my (nearly recent) Request for adminship, which regretfully achived no consensus, with votes of 68/28/2. I am grateful for the input received, both positive and in opposition, and I'd like to thank you for your participation.
Georgewilliamherbert 04:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Humour

I have given your comment about the humour inherent in the bumper stickers some thought, and I have added a note with helpful links to assist those who miss that aspect and are inclined to be overly concerned about a couple of bumper stickers:[4] KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• That's the right way to answer, I think: make the note for the humorless humorous, but make sure they know that, even though they can't see it, you are being somewhat tongue in cheek. I have tried, before, to explain irony. The best illustration of verbal irony (as opposed to sarcasm, which impresses me sooooo much) is "Life is a waste of money" or my own, "Don't blame me: I voted on a Diebold." Geogre 18:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • For irony see Tommy Cooper - dying on stage, after a lifetime of jokes, and the public knowledge of his ill health; so popular was he, that the audience kept applauding throughout his massive cardiac arrest - even after the curtains were drawn, ambulances called and paramedics on the scene. Tragedy, irony and pathos - what a way to go.........asking for more............

Also, I always liked woodie allen's (annie hall i think) - in the back of a cab "you look so beautiful tonight - I can hardly keep my eyes on the meter" --Mcginnly | Natter 00:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I like both of those. Irony is disquiet, uncertainty, linguistic anarchy, a sort of cognitive vaccuum that absolutely demands the reader supply the meaning that can't be provided. It's in that way that we understand Socrates as being sentenced to death for irony. It's how Chance the Gardener gets elected to president and why the current president, who shares Chance's other characteristics and circumstances, fails as an ironist. Geogre 01:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I find the concept of dramatic irony helpful in understanding irony. Carcharoth 03:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I wrote my master's thesis on the rhetorical triggers for an ironic figure of speech. That's not interesting, but what is maybe interesting is that I had to develop my own definition of irony. At the time, it was a brand new definition, but since then I've seen quite a few people defining it very similarly. This is not because anyone read my thesis, I think. At any rate, I wrote that "Irony is the difference between what is said and what is meant, where that difference is of authorial attitude rather than referrent." I therefore made it very much like metaphor. In metaphor, what one says is not what one means, but the tension between the expected (virtual) word and the actual word is a net addition of intention. In irony, what you expect the author to mean is different from what the author says he means, and the uncertainty and gap between these two is the experience of irony, the value of irony. Geogre 10:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Methaphor

I don't agree with that description of metaphor. In metaphor, what one says is what one means. One just means it more than one way. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:18, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Aristotle had described metaphor as an ornament, since it substituted the "improper" word for the proper one (Achilles is a man, not a lion). I. A. Richards and others suggested that it is more than an ornament, because there is surplus meaning in the new word that communicates. Interaction theorists like Max Black suggested that the metaphor is not in the term substituted, but in the predicate, that the predicate is not "Achilles IS lion" but "Man IS lion." Tzevtan Todorov and others argued that there is a gap between the real and virtual word. My view is like theirs: there is a gap, and readers have to heal the gap between "lion" and "man/warrior," and during the disorientation of the linguistic code and its resolution a transferring of qualities back and forth occurs, so that a specific instance of man/Achilles/warrior and lion/predator/monster is vertically rather than horizontally signifying. That's just me, though. :-) Geogre 11:24, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I should make this your arbcom question?  :-) No, you already have my vote.

Yes. Part of the problem of discussing metaphor is that we run out of language, which is more ironic than surprising.

Achilles is a lion
(target)     (source)
 
 
   target <= qualities of target
     ||          /\
     \/          ||
   source => qualities of source
 
Therefore achilles is a lazy slob who lets the women do all the work.  :-)

The expression itself is a metaphor. And the whole set of associations created thereby, is a metaphor. But I think the two things are not the same. The expression conjours the associations into existence, so the two are intimately connected, but that's not the same as being the same. And yet, we call them both metaphor. And if that's not overloaded enough, we also call the source a metaphor. Grumble. Ben Aveling 23:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Samuel Butler said "All a rhetorician's rules/ Teach naught but to name his tools." There's still truth in that, as a lot of rhetoric is trying to learn and then translate names. Each aestheticist has his own terminology, and then the structuralists get involved and throw theirs onto the pile, and each says that no one has ever realized what he has just said. The neo-Aristotelian ("linguistic gap") and the psychology of reading ("reading requires expectation, orientation in the language stream, and then orientation in the mind, but metaphor introduces disorientation and reordering of the linguistic line") and the interaction theorists ("the terms interact with one another to produce a third thing") all seemed to me to be saying the same thing, but there was a big filter we needed to remove. Most of them were working with analytic languages like English instead of the synthetic languages that the Greeks and Romans spoke, so word order was leading them to put too much importance on "first vehicle and then analog" (to use Richards's terminology, which is probably the most common). If the Greeks knew metaphor the way we do, it can't be based on order of presentation, and that led me to my very own innovation (which, of course, no one has ever thought before) that the metaphor is in the preterite's disorientation of the linguistic slot and that the "is" is, in fact, a wide open agglutination of qualities which we will select based upon our cultures as readers. (E.g. your "he lets the women do the work" from the point of view who watches too much Discovery Channel vs. the Greeks' "he's really ferocious.")
• Oh, and I guess I should say that, yes, I did get somewhat edumucated on rhetoric, and it really wowed all the hot chicks at the coffee house. Geogre 03:38, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

"the metaphor is in the preterite's disorientation of the linguistic slot"

I'm sure I have the wrong end of the handle here, but are you saying that tense has something to do with it?

The interesting question (for me) is how the agglutination/selection process works. Somehow, the action of considering the metaphor expands one's understanding of the 'tenor'. (I do dislike that word, and 'vehicle'; I can never remember which is which.) In part, it is the simple activity of throwing a lot of potential qualities (those of the vehicle) at the tenor, and seeing which ones stick. This causes us to look at the tenor in new ways. But if that was all there was to metaphor, then any random word could be used. And that's not true, there has to be an underlying sameness to tenor and vehicle.

My interest comes from computer programming, where a common activity is putting names to new and often ill-defined concepts. When capturing a concept in code, it helps to be able put a single word to that concept. Metaphor has been suggested as a useful technique (by the great Kent Beck), and many great names do come from metaphors. The problem is that no-one that I've seen has ever come up with a convincing explaination for how it works, let alone how to find good metaphors. Regards, Ben Aveling 04:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, well, my folks are ready for your question. If there is insufficient disorientation and disruption in the substitution, the result is catechresis, and if there is too much, the result is incoherence. Metaphor exists only when there is a disorientation and where the terms can synthesize. Arguably, no one even recognizes that "He plowed through the crowd to get to the front" is an embedded metaphor because "plow" has been so overused as to have lost all disruptiveness, while the "No soap, radio" faux Surrealist joke cannot share qualities.

However, I agree that the filter in place in the agglutination is the interesting part. Some people have seen metaphor as a profoundly mystical activity, a thing that not only defines humanity but allows for the knowledge of God. I don't go that far, but I do think that the synthetic capacity in humans is special.

How it works (finding an apt metaphor) is complicated, and I suspect each working metaphor has a different story. Essentially, computer programmers, biasing young, will tend to favor analogs that provide some humor and denigration to themselves or their work. If the metaphor has that quality, it will be memorable (a triumphant figure must be more memorable than its competitors). It also sometimes requires spatializing, synchronizing, or physicalizing to the body the action. In each of those cases, the metaphor will make the abstract process more natural. So, aphoristic quality, humor value, and concretizing would be my guesses, as these are the general methods for other cant metaphors. To get into studying triumphant metaphors is to get into studying the collective cultural unconsciousness (or episteme, if you want) of an age.

Literary metaphors usually aim at something else: they usually aim for adding modifiers to a known act or object. For example, "plow through the crowd" takes a well known thing (moving through a crowd) and attempts to provide vivid modification ("moves like a plow moving steadily but with difficulty and strain against a crowd that, like the soil, resisted"). Literary metaphors can become cliches and lose their metaphoric value, but it seems to me that they always try to make new and vertical an old and flattened linguistic counter. Geogre 04:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. In this case, the metaphor doesn't have to be intutive, so long as it is not too vague to explain. What is more important is that the metaphor gives enough labels to cover the tenor concept and its substituent subconcepts. For example, a Tree (data structure) has leaves, it has a root, and it has branches. It doesn't have soil, bark, flowers or fruit, or perhaps I should say I've never seen anybody make any use of these terms. If they did, I would make certain assumptions that might even be right. I have occasionally met a forest of trees, and one does sometimes talk of growing or pruning trees. From the one metaphor, we have 4+ key words that each instantly convey the subconcept, or perhaps I should say, convey the the relationships they have to each other. 'Tree' a great metaphor, a 'rich' metaphor. But how did it come into existence? I guess it just grew.  :-) Regards, Ben Aveling 05:11, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

PS. How many surealists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Fish.

You know, that particular one caught on, I think, because of a graphic analog. When you sketch your topolography (and calling it "topography" is itself a borrowing), you write it in a hierarchy that looks exactly like (at least in the token ring days) a family tree. Family trees already had subordinate metaphors like branch and root. However, metaphors like that are dangerous. What really kills is when the metaphor masters the 'object.' Empiricists and "science" and math folks get antsy about the problem of when the metaphor becomes the language and when the language determines the questions and answers possible.

From "tree," you begin to determine the sorts of things a person thinks of doing to one's servers or data structures. Once you start wanting to shear away (metaphor) the figures (metaphor) that color (metaphor) speech so that they no longer determine (pathetic metaphor) the speech, you get to realize that even the innocent (metaphor) seeming words that you were using outside of the metaphor were metaphors. I can't abide what happens then. The analytic philosophers have entirely closed their stores and moved off into their own world where non-languages are used, and they're as bad with assuming that what they figure out about their analog must apply to the thing itself as anyone. (I mean that they create these symbolic logic languages, and they get into all this chopping up. They then apply their conclusions formed on the symbols to language. This is as bad as someone reading "data tree" and thinking that he cannot 'inflate' the branch because branches are rigid (where, if the framing metaphor had been balloons or bubbles, he would have been thinking of how much each line of structure can 'inflate' before 'popping').)

And at this point, I am talking out of my depth (metaphor). Geogre 12:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Two. One to hold the giraffe and one to fill the bathub with brightly coloured machine tools.

You're right that this metaphor long predates computer science, and that it limits thinking. But I'm not sure that it's a bad thing; you need to compare having the metaphor to not having the metaphor. True, it's hard to think past the metaphor, but the question is could we even think that far without it? Perhaps we could, but I think it would be more work.

Consider the limitation to the metaphor. Root, leaves, and branches all make sense. But what to call each entry in the tree? Node, usually. It's not a bad word, it serves the task of being a label, but only if you already know what it means. It doesn't carry any associated qualities with it, not the way root and leaf do. So we can go beyond the metaphor, but we have to start working harder. We have to carry our own baggage, instead of drawing on the model we already have. The metaphor can only be extended so far. To go further, you have to throw it out entirely and find a totally different metaphor, if you can.

I guess I'm complaining too much. Metaphor allows us to reuse an existing mental model, iff we can find one that fits. So the way to be better at it is to have a larger portfolio of mental models, and/or better search algorithms. Regards, Ben Aveling 20:36, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Complaining too much? Horsefeathers! It's not that you're complaining at all, because you are recognizing what way too many of the naive empiricists don't: that the metaphoric process is both valuable and enabling and root. We cannot escape it. If one wants to follow Frige and the logic choppers, then one can try to have integrity (the way Wittgenstein did) or begin to believe in the models (the way some of the lazy and zealous ones do), but one will never escape the need to live in metaphor. To some extent, it's the very ability to draw generalizations.

When Wittgenstein said that what we do not have words for, we must pass over in silence, you can read that as a complaint. I see it as skepticism. If I have a new smell, a smell never smelled before, I will immediately resort to analogies, and I will create a composite of these analogies -- abstractions of likenesses that I call "qualities," such as "sweet," which is in fact no more than the set all "sweet smells" have in common -- and the result will be a new entity. The fact that the analogies limit apprehension and comprehension is regrettable only if you want to be divine.

Then again, I'm an existentialist. Kierkegaard's my favorite philosopher, and he regards these limitations as something we should be quite happy to talk about, because the fact that we seem to be more than we're capable of being suggests either that we're vastly deluded or that there is some third to the self, and this...thing...is either a fantasy or a part of us that does not belong with space and time and mass. (Yes, yes, this does end in mysticism, and I'm quite happy to go along.)

The metaphor can do fascinating things. Sometimes the framing metaphors allow us to have insights we shouldn't have. How, after all, is the wiring of two machines in a network really "lateral?" What on earth gives us the idea that these two are "lateral" to each other in relation to the server? That "lateral" is a power relationship and a flow direction of information. Once we have it, though, we can start talking about direction and dependence in a way that wouldn't be apparent without the metaphor.

Fuzzy thinkers rejoice...so long as you have the right fuzz and lots and lots of it to choose from. :-) Geogre 20:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

a little pleasant conversation

I have wondered a lot about the similarities and differences between "ironic", "sarcastic", and "sardonic". What is your view? --Ideogram 03:44, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Two of those things don't belong with the other. Irony is a kingdom-level distinction. Within irony (a difference between expected and real attitude) would be sarcasm (a difference of attitude that is a reversal) and the ... hmmm, don't know the name for this, as I don't think there is a standard one in English... ειρον, the Socratic ironist (a difference where the speaker pretends to be stupid when he is wise...the Columbo question), as well as the parodic irony (when pretends to be competent but performs poorly on purpose to lead to a satire of the feigned stance). "Sardonic" is more of a personal quality, and it refers to a sort of sourness of mood with cynicism. Geogre 03:59, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Here at post 35 is what I wrote about this a while ago. Let me know what you think. --Ideogram 04:27, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Try this:

• Ironic speech is saying one thing in order to say something else.
• Sarcasim is the same, but the intent is specifically to denegrate somebody/something.
• Sardonic is more about how something is said, than what is said. As Geogre said, one of these things is not like the other ones.

But I think you have already received a number of good answers to the question I just answered, so maybe I'm not really addressing what you want to know. Why do you ask? Regards, Ben Aveling 04:49, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm just making conversation. --Ideogram 05:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

You mean, you didn't care what the response was, you just wanted a response? Ben Aveling 07:19, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Please don't make me squirm over a little pleasant conversation. --Ideogram 08:10, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ideogram, I won't make you squirm. Your 'punishment' is to wp:cleanup and expand the page Rock Mass Rating system to conform with WP:MOS and common sense, to my satisfaction. Fair? Regards, Ben Aveling 20:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Heh, to be honest I'm kind of busy with MedCab and Portal:China right now. --Ideogram 07:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sure you can find the time if you want to. [5] Regards, Ben Aveling 11:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Homework is so boring. --Ideogram 11:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

More of it

I'm somewhat surprised that my little note provoked this level of discourse on the nature of various forms of linguistic style - and also that allusion has not come in for a mention, especially in the metaphor conversation. KillerChihuahua^?!? 09:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Allusion is a bit different. In allusion the reference is more or less hidden, but the referent is something different that is somehow similar. For eg, Jim Casy in Grapes of Wrath is an allusion to another JC. What happens to the one is presented as a repeat of what happened to the other. In metaphor, the referent, the vehicle, is of a different type and yet at the same time, the tenor is conceived of as being an instance of that vehicle. So allusion and metaphor overlap in that they both involve thinking about something using something else as a model. But metaphor is stronger. Allusion says "is like" whereas metaphor says "is". Regards, Ben Aveling. PS. I do like questions that leave me knowing more than I did before being asked the question! 11:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

You know, though, allusion, like metaphor, adds an additional meaning to the vehicle -- or at least it can. Symbol is, to some degree, a stripped metaphor, and it is a compacted allusion. If there are "three trees on a low sky" (Journey of the Magi, by T. S. Eliot), we have an allusion to the passion, and the trees become a symbol. The existing three trees of the narrative and the Passion's three crosses stand together. These three regular old trees are signifying more than objects would because the mind perceiving them (the authorial/the reader) is perceiving their deeper resonance. Now, Arthur Symmonds and the Modernists would go ape and want to talk about mystical depth and other fey stuff, but these symbols made of allusions do show us how the living world works. Geogre 12:40, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and more, please. This is exactly the kind of talk that is food to me, meat and drink and crackers and salad. Geogre 15:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Allusion is not metaphor, but an allusion can call a metaphor into existance. There is an invisibilty to the boundary between the thing and the reference to the thing that makes it easy to overlook the fact that there is a distinction between the two. Usually, the difference between a thing and the name of the thing is either completely clear or totaly unimportant. But not always... Regards, Ben Aveling 22:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

You'll get fat. --Ideogram 15:55, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't you have yard duty to do? Ben Aveling 22:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll do it laaaater. --Ideogram 22:20, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

This is aesthetics and rhetoric and rhetorical theory. It isn't a question of prescriptive and descriptive. It's a branch of philosophy rather than linguistics. That's on top of the fact that no one is a total descriptive in lexicography or grammar, as the whole point of being descriptive is to use inductive logic to derive rules (operative rules), and no one is totally prescriptive, either, because no one is fool enough to think that languages are fixed. When I try to describe the function of a metaphor on the cognitive process of reading, I'm finding the operative rules and the underlying structure of the operation. I may be wrong or right, but I'm not ruling or following nature around with a notebook. Geogre 02:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Quite so. These terms are relative, not absolute. --Ideogram 12:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you a Platonist? --Ideogram 08:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely not. I'm a Christian existentialist, if I'm anything. Geogre 12:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Point taken about this entering the realm of philosohy, though I'm not so sure that we've left linguistics, even given that metaphor can happen without words. Nor am I'm not sure that we've entered aesthetics or rhetoric, excepting that truth is beauty, that beauty has its own truth, and that a beautiful metaphor is easily perceived as true. Regards, Ben Aveling 22:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Which would explain why Wikipedia, while a marvelous thing, is not always a beautiful thing - the criteria being Verifiability, not Truth. Or am I confusing Truth with Trolls? They both start with Tr. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:04, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

This could be a serious extension to WP:UN. Regards, Ben Aveling 07:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Prescriptive and descriptive definitions

Geogre, it seems to me you are interested in creating new definitions that capture some particular essence of a concept that you have in mind. As you might have noticed from the discussion thread I linked to, I am more interested in understanding how terms are used by most people and what concepts they represent in their minds. --Ideogram 15:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

James Joyce on FAR

Have you seen this? Paul August ☎ 22:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't, but I have now. Most of the complaints are without basis, but there's absolutely no way on earth anyone can be expected to go grab that huge Ellmann biography, read it carefully, and come up with stupid page stupid numbers for each stupid fact that these lovely people expect to get a stupid citation. If they're going to insist that we're not featuring encyclopedia articles, but research papers only, then let it fall off. I think it's an incredibly bad idea, but it's a popular bad idea. Geogre 04:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

FAC advice

I have put up Forth for FAC; since you are experienced in the ways of FAC I would value your input. --Ideogram 03:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• I'll take a look when I have time, but remember, going in, that not all objections are actionable. If they're not, then they're not. If they are, though, do your best to accomodate everyone. Geogre 04:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

DOPAMINE on deletion review

An editor has asked for a deletion review of DOPAMINE. Since you closed the deletion discussion for (or speedy-deleted) this article, your reasons on how or why you did so will be greatly appreciated in the above review. NE2 01:25, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Pickles, relish, and applesauce

You realize that your puzzle statement makes it illegal for the applesauce barrel to touch either of the others? :-) AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• We're going to have to put the applesauce on probation, then, and if it keeps touching the others, we'll have to ban it for a year. I always thought the applesauce was a little grabby. Geogre 18:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
  • As an arbcom candidate, would you say that it was just a few bad apples spoiling the whole barrel? Or that it was always saucy to begin with? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 18:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• Well, it's really that Jack who messed everything up. Once you get Apple Jack in the neighborhood, a few felonies and unintended pregnancies are bound to result. Geogre 21:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Truth

What is it? --Ideogram 13:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

That which cannot be disputed but can be questioned and which disputes but does not question all other things. Geogre 14:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Is Truth platonic, or can different people have differing but equally valid definitions? --Ideogram 14:17, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Plato was just flat wrong, although wholly logical. He figured that the source of truth had to be an immobile, immutable, perfect whole. It therefore required a demiurge for there to be anything like a world. This is poppycock and a good illustration of why the human mind is insufficient to questions beyond its internal structures. Wittgenstein reportedly said that we are like a fly in a bottle: it can go around and around and climb a bit, but it cannot go straight up. He also said that we are playing with our letterblocks and are missing the letters for "God." If there is a truth of the sort your question presupposes, it has to be beyond apprehension, and yet it must be generative. If it is generative, then it cannot be static, and stasis is not part of perfection. However, you then change questions to ask about miniscule truth instead of majiscule truth. Miniscule truth is "reliable" and "guiding" and "verifiable" and "consonant with the mental scenery" and language codes. Of that sort, there are no doubt many truths (maybe more than 50). However, when you ask "What is truth," you echo Pontius Pilate, and the question is famous in that form as a philosophical stopper. That kind of "Truth" is singular by its linguistic definition. If you use the word, you say it exists, and if you ask the question, you say that it is incommunicable. Geogre 14:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe that Science and Mathematics have what I call "working definitions of truth" that differ in important ways from Truth, and this is responsible for their success. In fact I would say Science and Mathematics are the only fields of human endeavor to have made significant progress since the Enlightenment. Contrast with the field of Philosophy. What do you think? --Ideogram 14:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Philosophy made enormous advances to the 20th century. It eliminated what Albert Einstein called the "metaphysical slumber" of essentialism, and yet many scientists, and especially mathematicians, cannot get away from an idealism that is intentionally divorced from life as lived. However, the greatest advances have been in tearing down some of the mental calcium deposits on our thinking. However, it has generally given up the goal of making an easily digested explanation of Everything (where science has not). At any rate, a working proposition about truth is fine. We all have operative truths. I have an operative truth that every time I get a girlfriend, a Dutch guy will steal her from me. It's based on inductive reasoning. If it matches up with an external system, it may be proven valid or not valid, but it still works for me. (I.e. all anyone can do with such provisional statements is point out that they're built well or poorly, and that kind of limits what philosophy and science can do.) Geogre 15:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Science hardly aims to explain Everything. --Ideogram 16:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Umm unified field theory and theory of everything? Geogre 16:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't be fooled by the choice of terms. Science doesn't aim to explain morality. --Ideogram 16:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is hylozoism as it currently exists, as well as evolutionary biology as well as anthropology as well as sociology as well as psychiatry as well as neuroscience. Geogre 16:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Science may try to explain why morality exists. It doesn't try to define what is right and what is wrong. --Ideogram 16:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention God, the supernatural, and what happened before the Big Bang. If it can't be measured, science doesn't try to explain it. --Ideogram 21:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Existentialism

Is this the Intelligent Man's (and woman's) Coffee lounge? Discuss. :-) Carcharoth 14:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, you have to BYOB or coffee, and we're not very warm and friendly, but it is a little like the cold pizza dorm room, I suppose. I always thought those worthless sessions were worthwhile in some fashion other than the social. However, I do miss college town bookstores, so it'll have to do. Geogre 15:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I would leave the staff there, although I'm not sure it's truth that keeps him in a box anymore. Geogre 16:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Glad to see you followed the easter egg! :-) Carcharoth 16:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course, I believe deeply in hiding messages, as I think that this medium has a new form of metaphor. Geogre 16:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I wasted a lovely message when I was fairly new to wiki - I will paste it here, altho stale appreciation is pathetic, I will hopefully at least merit sympathy that no one moused over or followed the linked words:

My secret is out. I'm not really Mexican, and I'm not really a dog. FM, I hope you realize this is devastating to me. And now I think we've really wasted enough of this page on this nonsense. KillerChihuahua 00:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I later had much better results on Bishy's talk page - its a pity to waste wit as I did with the first one though. KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

It's always a disappointment, but you're supposed to sniff loudly and conclude that everyone is beneath you. Well, that's what I do, anyway. I did a long one on Bishonen's page, full of funny eggs, and no one bothered, no one noticed. I was disappointed, of course, but I knew, in my heart, that I was just too cool for the room. Geogre 03:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Semiotics

Played much poker? --Ideogram 21:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2006_November_21#GetWiki

You seem to have made a masterful, well phrased, argument to

1. endorse deletion,
2. relist, and
3. redirect,

all at the same time. I'd love to endorse it, but it seems to be physically impossible to do all three at the same time, and rather difficult to do any two, even. Could you please expound on what exactly you want there? Thanks. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

This is the funniest thing I've seen here in a long time. And I've seen some pretty funny things around here. --Ideogram 21:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Sure. I'll go back. What I meant was 1) caution the recreator not to do that stuff, 2) scold the first recreator to go to DRV, where he could have gotten a relist, 3) actually vote to redirect only. I'm no fan of people recreating without using DRV. If it's done by an IP, we call the person a troll. If it's done by an admin, we call it a disagreement? Not me, man. Geogre 03:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Inline citations

Interesting discussion here. Bishonen | talk 02:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC).

Greetings

Hi Geogre,

Could you please have a look at this please. Bishonen said that "Geogre, Bunch, and Newyorkbrad, I strongly suggest that this conflict would benefit from your input" but I don't know if it meant that I should post it on your talk page or not :) Anyways, Thanks , --Aminz 04:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• I read about it on her page. I'm currently slightly busy and will be away from Wikipedia for a day or two soon. My general response to battling experts is to say, "Whether or not the X were in decline in the later middle ages is disputed. Lewis and --- suggest that X was suffering from theological and economic opposition, while the commercial author Johnson argues that this was not the case." In other words, we broaden our readers' understandings of the facts by pointing out to them the disagreement over the facts. Obviously, there is still a question of which view is foreground and which background, and people can quarrel about that, if they're in the mood to, but, if the article is not getting bloated, reporting the controversy in a dispassionate manner is my favorite way out. I hope that's applicable in this case. Geogre 04:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

I've forgotten where you discussion on infoboxes was located - I had an idea. How about this:-

Less of an irritation?

Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright at 165
Born	8th June 1867 Richland Center, Wisconsin
Died	9th April 1959
Nationality	American
Occupation	Architect
Awards	Numerous Glittering Genius Awards
Buildings	Robie House Fallingwater Johnson Wax Building Guggenheim Museum
Projects	The Illinois

Less of an irritation?

Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright at 165
Born	8th June 1867 Richland Center, Wisconsin
Died	9th April 1959
Nationality	American
Occupation	Architect
Awards	Numerous Glittering Genius Awards
Buildings	Robie House Fallingwater Johnson Wax Building Guggenheim Museum
Projects	The Illinois

There's a way of making them default to hidden without putting in two templates which someone with techy skill can sort out (and the alignment issues too I hope). For the aesthetes it's less obtrusive and gets away from the Top Trumps look of infobox pages - for the rest it retains whatever information might be included in the box. --Mcginnly | Natter 01:51, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

A small comment before Geogre wakes up to reply: the image shouldn't be hidden and needs to be brought out of the box. With the infoboxes, the image size allowed is dependent on the size of the box. The box also steals a few millimeters on each side which could have been used for a larger display of the image. This is more of a problem with broad images, which get forced into too small sizes, than with tall and narrow ones. Uppland 05:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Gosh, that even works on my steam-powered computer/browser combination! -- ALoan (Talk) 13:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

A discussion relevant to this is at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#New_Section_-_Infoboxes. Where is the latest guideline for infoboxes, anyway? If there isn't one, then the manual of style might be a good place to argue for sensible stylistic guidelines that minimise the damage infoboxes can do. Carcharoth 02:57, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Well, my rule is this: If it has empathy, it shouldn't have a box. Thus, bugs and bacteria and stars and space rocks should have boxes. Novelists, scientists, historians, religious figures, elephants, dolphins, and chimpanzees should not. Porn stars are borderline. I have a more philosophical sounding argument for this position than what I've just said, but that's what it boils down to. If we see the thing as an object, then it is subject to taxonomy and classification. If it is a subject (as in "subjective consciousness"), then it is not to be subjected to classification, limitation, denuding, and dissecting with a box. Geogre 01:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom questions

Hi. I'm Ral315, editor of the Wikipedia Signpost. We're doing a series on ArbCom candidates, and your response is requested.

1. What positions do you hold (adminship, mediation, etc.)?

1. Why are you running for the Arbitration Committee?

1. Have you been involved in any arbitration cases? In what capacity?

   As pest. Bishonen | talk 16:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC).

   Excuse me? As scold, perhaps, but not pest. Geogre 16:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Please respond on my talk page. We'll probably go to press late Monday or early Tuesday (UTC), but late responses will be added as they're submitted. Thanks, Ral315 (talk) 01:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

1. Will becoming an arbitrator take away from your official duties as pest? Will there be an election to replace you as pest? How did you become pest, anyway? I didn't vote for you ...AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm tempted to remove that as a personal attack.--Doc^g 17:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

You mean I just heard yesterday that there is a steward election going on in addition to the ArbCom vote, and now I need to be monitoring RfPest also? Newyorkbrad 17:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah. You should have read the pre-publication Signpost pages. That would have told you earlier... (can anyone give me a good reason to be interested in the steward election). Carcharoth 18:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

As best I can tell, Steward is a purely ministerial position, at least with respect to the English Wikipedia (e.g., they flick the switch to make someone an admin after an RfA succeeds, etc. but they don't decide whether the RfA has succeeded, they wait for the bureaucrat to tell them, and so forth). So they have an enormous amount of power in theory but not a lot of discretion about how to exercise it. I believe the steward play a more prominent role with respect to smaller-language Wikipedias and other projects that don't have in-house bureaucrats and the like, and also are involved in deciding which projects should be supported to begin with. Whether that translates into your being interested, or is even really accurate, is for minds greater than mine to figure out. :) Newyorkbrad 02:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Bureaucrats flick the promotion switch themselves. 'Crats can promote on their own langauge wiki, but they can't unpromote. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 19:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Stewards are very important. How do you know which wine to select with dinner without the steward coming to your table? Now that they've finally stopped claiming to be the legitimate Kings of England, they're non-controversial. Geogre 03:17, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Do we call our female stewards, stewardesses? Anyway I think there only current duties consist of presiding at coronations and during the trial of peers. Paul August ☎ 06:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Mackensen is our in-house peerage expert, but I believe that Clouds of Witness by Dorothy Sayers is the canonical work on this subject. Newyorkbrad 17:31, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Bah, User:Proteus is the real expert. I don't think there's ever been a female Lord High Steward; for that matter, it's quite rare for a female to occupy any of the Great Officers of State. In recent times, women have been Lord Privy Seal or Lord President, but the title has never changed (similar, perhaps, to the Queen being "Lord of Mann" and not "Lady of Mann"). I suspect, then, that the title would not change if it ever came up. Mackensen (talk) 16:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

We have to avoid gender biased language, and so we seek out a neuter nominal ending from an antique language -- preferrably one involving a letter not present on a standard keyboard. In this case, the answer is to eliminate the gender ending altogether and merely call them "stews". As for the usefulness and importance of those, I simply remind you of what Sir Billy Gibbons said on the subject. As for the masculinist, colonialist Steward, several nations discovered that they didn't need one at all. Geogre 10:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course "stew"! However for that meaning I think some prefer "sex worker", "adult service provider" or "satisfaction engineer". By the way up here in Beantown we like to call a wine steward a "sommelier", makes us feel more high falutin. Paul August ☎ 17:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The patron of a sommelier is a somnambulist, no doubt. I have heard them called by that name, but it lacks the ring of, "Hey, garcon!" and so I doubt it will catch on. For the workers of the stews, I prefer "persons of negotiable affections." Here in the south, though, we have a wine choice of muscadine or Welch's, depending upon how dry the town is. Geogre 17:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

One New Years Eve, when I was six or so my mother gave me and my sister, Welch's grape juice mixed with Seven Up, telling us it was wine — we got quite drunk. Paul August ☎ 18:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

That sounds better than most of the New Year's Eves I've spent. Besides, it's better to be drunk on Welch's than despair, which is much more thoroughly intoxicating but much more bitter. (Only the calendar changes on 1/1. (Or, for Europeans, 1/1.)) Geogre 19:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I view being elected to ArbCom as a way of furthering my role as common scold to Wikipedia. It will allow me to wag my finger from a much greater height, and I plan on finger segment augmentation surgery, so that my finger can be much longer. I think it's important that people feel the breeze when a finger has been wagged at them, and it is always better to wag a finger than to flip a finger. Geogre 17:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

One of these should do it. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

That is so funny! Carcharoth 18:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Yep. I was thinking of the Fin-Longer all along, in fact. I remember that episode, and I recall that the Fin-Longer could go very long indeed. Geogre 19:01, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

By the way, while Bishonen and AnonEMouse say "pest" and Geogre says "scold" (common or otherwise) I prefer to think he is our Socratesian gadfly. Paul August ☎ 22:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

If only! I have no more ambitions to such a lofty goal. Kierkegaard's MA thesis (half normal MA thesis and half brilliant philosophy that no one could have seen coming) makes the point (or was it Ronald Knox's The Word Irony?) that Socrates was tried for irony: the person whose actual commitment or sincerity to his statements is unknown. On my best day, I manage genuine critical irony. Geogre 03:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

And now...

...for something completely different. Geogre, I wonder if I might seek you input on the CfD debate regarding Category:Political prisoners [6]? I think the matter clear-cut, but I could be wrong, and as it stands I don't think there's definite consensus on the matter. Best, Mackensen (talk) 16:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

You bet. I have to be busy very soon, but I'll take a look. I assume that "inherently POV" is a deletion guideline criterion in categories as well as lists? If so, deciding when someone is locked up for a political action is always going to be a split decision. Geogre 16:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Mackensen (talk) 16:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Mackensen, lest it be lost in the threaded discussion, take note that I've irrelevantly dragged you in to the thread just above. Newyorkbrad 17:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Page make-over?

Are you considering a user page and talk page make-over before the election officially opens? :-) Carcharoth 16:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, talk page, surely. I don't mind this last bit, but the stuff about meth-a-phor is dangerous. The user page...I dunno. I'm probably going to edit the opening bit and remove my promises in re Aphra Behn and the bit about having moved, as that was a year ago. Geogre 17:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Have you noticed people are already voting based on what they see on people's talk pages? Unfortunately, you might be caught in a Catch-22 situation here now. Carcharoth 02:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

RU There?

I think I have worked out what I was doing wrong, can you send me a message as an expirement. Giano 17:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• I can, but you need to open your e-mail page. Geogre 18:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Heads up

This was probably inevitably going to happen sooner or later: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Arbcom_campaigning_images. Newyorkbrad 22:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

They missed this one. Think I should mention it? Or as the only person with that bumper sticker, perhaps I should just hush up. They don't list yours, Geogre, should I claim foul because they linked to Daniel.Bryants and FloNights, giving them unfair exposure? (For those Other than Geogre: This is sarcasm. For Geogre: you knew that already, why are you reading this parenthetical remark which is clearly not addressed to you?) KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I added JzG's one to Category:ArbCom_bumper_stickers. So now there are four. I'm going to point out the category at the WP:AN thread. Carcharoth 00:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with JoshuaZ. This particular election is much more mellow than the last one, and we don't have any seriously fiery or magnetic candidates running. Snowspinner and I are probably the most controversial of the well established folks running (controversial in the sense that we're known for issues that people disagree on (except that I am safe and will not hurt anyone)). The last one, I think, had Kelly in it and occurred right after the big userbox war, so there were some very, very passionate voters. In fact, the userbox war and the pedophile war were both fresh wounds and raging fires, so it was a rotten environment for an election where anyone involved in either of those ran.

However, when I saw the heading, I worried that someone might be demanding pictures of the candidates, and that would have cost me votes, big time. I mean, take a look at my picture (below). People with petropecia (rock hair) are not accepted by society. Geogre 03:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Separated at birth? Image:Bart Simpson.png You decide.

• Oh, no. I have to whisper, "Bart, I am your father." Geogre 12:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Given that election to arbcom is more a sentencing than a triumph, a vote in favor takes on a new meaning...Mackensen (talk) 16:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Talking in front of your back

Since I mention you and UninvitedCompany in my candidate statement, I have been been drawn into discussing the both of you: Question(s) from jd2718, Questions from AnonEMouse. Paul August ☎ 20:20, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, dear. Well, there are a few people I wouldn't mind seeing on ArbCom, either. There is a false consciousness at work: this is not either/or. Yes, there are some people I definitely would not want to be arbitrators, but it's not like I have to think I'm the best, the only, etc., and neither do you. This isn't a fight, and Mackensen thinks that perhaps we ought to be fighting to get out, not in. :-) Geogre 20:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Or is this the birth of Geogre...?

Yup. Paul August ☎ 21:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

In fairness, in case you missed it, I should point out that I did end up comparing you to a Greek goddess. And I know some men might take such as an attack on their masculinity (not you of course) It was between that and a Snow White "mirror mirror on the wall whose the fairest of them all" reference. However, while you're no great beauty, I do think you would be fair and so an excellent arbiter. Paul August ☎ 22:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Could it have been Trivia (goddess) or Hecate or Eris, or just Nox and Dulness? Geogre 01:39, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps this is more like the hatching of Geogre.

Actually, I think of myself as a worried bee, pollenating flowers and stinging intruders.

Another arbcom candidate

An arbom candidate nominated at the last moment is here. Bishonen | talk 22:48, 2 December 2006 (UTC).

• Cute. First, someone asks that no one will say anything (obvious) against someone, and then that person announces that he's running...after the deadline. And there is no connection whatever. Besides, I thought he left, was not looking, did not even glance at Wikipedia. I needn't say anything, I think, at least as far as the candidate votes go. Geogre 01:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Everybody seems to have trouble with the deadline, or with UTC or something. No, the nomination wasn't made after the deadline. About 20 minutes before it. I assure you. Bishonen | talk 01:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC).
• 20 minutes before...that's perfect, too. Well, as I said, I don't think I have to say anything. Remember: he's not here, not at Wikipedia, not an administrator, not anything, and therefore not nominating. It really is the most outstanding dog in the manger I've seen in ages. What on earth could he hope to gain except to increase rancor? Oh, well, not my affair. If we're bound to see hate and heat and argument, then so be it. I'll have no part in making it. Geogre 03:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, darn. Well, it's the way the question is appropriate: if you want to be an arbitrator, you really should be telling people not to "leave" and then "return" and use every waking moment between calling names. Geogre 14:35, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Geogre ... why are you calling Kelly a "he"? --Cyde Weys 20:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Was I? Was I talking about Kelly? Geogre 20:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, seeing as how this conversation started off with a link to Kelly's candidate statement ... yeah, I do think you were talking about her. --Cyde Weys 20:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• I see. That's an assumption on your part. As for me, I have no idea what sex any user on Wikipedia is, unless I have met that person in real life, so I wouldn't follow a pronoun back and assume that it refers to a specific proper noun. It's unwise and unsafe. Geogre 20:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It may be an "assumption", but it also follows logically from the evidence presented, and would be reached be about 99% of people reading this. Let's see ... you open up the conversation by linking to Kelly's candidate statement, and then you go on to talk about the person who submitted the application 20 minutes before the deadline ... which also happens to be Kelly. How stupid do you think we are that we can't put it together? Do you think you can hide behind pronouns you declare are ambiguous when the context of the conversation makes it perfectly clear who you're talking about? Is this really the kind of behavior people are looking for in a potential arbitrator? --Cyde Weys 21:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
• So, Cyde, I was talking to you and 99% of the people reading this? I had no idea! I thought I was talking to Bishonen. What must you think of the metaphor discussions, above! All those puns, all that wordplay...I wonder why you didn't respond, when I was obviously speaking to you!
• You don't even get your facts straight in a summary, so, if 99% of the people reading this would make the same mistakes as you, I'm sorry to see that you believe I am responsible for them. If you don't vote for me, Cyde, I will be unsurprised and undismayed. I had kind of figured such would be the case when I saw you pasting a libellous blog into the RFAR case. Geogre 21:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent questions Geogre - well done. I hope you receive some pertinent and truthful answers from that candidate Giano 21:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Giano, I am assuming that you, unlike some people, can follow a link. It's blue. I do not count on any good answers. Instead, I think all of this is a dog in the manger. (You know, if people did read linked text, they might not be jumping up and down and shouting about pronouns, when they themselves are out there calling people names.) Geogre 21:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Apparently, however, you, Cyde, (or someone) is trying to get a great deal of mileage out of your assumption of what I must mean, so let's address what it would mean if you were not guessing and assuming.
  • Let's acknowledge what is obvious: gender is not sex. Gender is a social construct that is fluid. On any online community, discourse communities are identity. There are masculine discourses and feminine discourses, and I have always made it a habit to refer to the discourse rather than any putative person. For example, with "Hollow Wilerding," a putative female school teacher, I consistently used "he." This was not because I thought the person back there was male or female, biologically, but rather because the discourse from the individual was unquestionably masculine. (Masculine and feminine are gender. Male and female are sex.) If a person self-identifies as feminine or masculine, then it is courteous to uphold all of those convention. This is a matter of courtesy and the extending of politeness and has nothing to do with perception, much less biology. The same courtesy would mean that one would never go to a blog and call other editors "prima donnas" and "liars." The same courtesy would keep you from pasting those words into Wikipedia. Now, given that you have been rude enough and contemptuous enough of me, for one, to paste Kelly's blog into the RFAR evidence page (and Kelly says that it was by your prompting and at your desire), you lose all ground to be horrified, even if your assumption were justified. You show partisanship and a desire to divide again by scanning all other talk pages to find evidence of discourtesy, even if you have to invent it.
  • That said, I am not calling Kelly Martin "he" or "she" or "it." I don't know the person behind the words, have no particular desire to be nice to the person behind the words, and have no particular desire to be cruel to the person behind the words. The person behind the words is entirely irrelevant. Since Kelly Martin is "not at Wikipedia," has a blank user page, an inactive talk page, etc., I have no reason to believe that Kelly Martin even nominated herself for ArbCom. However, I'm not sure how calling her "him" would be better or worse than her calling me a "liar" -- indeed, one of the "biggest liars."
  • That said, these are your assumptions of what is being intended in a discussion you have not been a part of. If I thought you were an honest party on this subject, I would discuss it with you. Since I do not trust you to be impartial, I do not intend to explain myself. If there are any people legitimately confused, then I will explain myself to them. I was talking to Bishonen, though, and she either knows what I was talking about or doesn't. Geogre 21:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)