Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 August 21

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August 21

Why did the Pope REALLY resign?

see WP:BLP
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Some say he was blackmailed by of [BLP violating speculation removed] ... What is the real truth? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.253.214.4 (talk) 00:16, 21 August 2013 (UTC) We don't do conspiracy theories, especially not about living persons. μηδείς (talk) 00:26, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

You can read our article about the Pope emeritus by searching with the search bar on the top right. There is a section on his resignation. But no one short of a mind reader can tell you why he "really" resigned. Most everything you've been reading is baseless conspiracy. You would do well to ignore people who offer explanations for an event but refuse to provide evidence, or often, even reveal where their information came from. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:31, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Of course, the Pope himself has given two different explanations: (1) his strength waning, he was no longer up to the job, and (2) God, during a mystical experience, told him to quit. [1]. - Nunh-huh 18:48, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Item 1 would be, in a sense, the manifestation of item 2. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:40, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

"God...told him to quit", you mean he was fired. ouch. 202.158.163.3 (talk) 05:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Per capita income

Why is per capita income used to show how wealthy and good life in that country is? I mean if everything in that country is cheap and you don't earn much, you'll get along as well as someone with high income living in an expensive country. It's all relative.--77.1.169.221 (talk) 00:58, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

From my understanding, it is fairly relative unless you can somehow allow for things like cost of living, etc. Perhaps more countries should use the idea of gross national happiness. Dismas|^(talk) 01:57, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

By why is cost of living high? There's usually two aspects that raise this the most: scarcity due to demand, and taxation for services. If there's demand, and if people are generally rational, there must be significant utility being derived. Similarly, services generally supply utility. This would be basic economics. Also, like basic economics, the description is not perfect: Frequently quality of life is not the same as income. This can be for a number of reasons. Two big ones: People aren't perfectly rational, and moving both yourself and your wealth to a new area is never without significant cost. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 02:32, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• There have been attempts to adjust for that. For example, look at List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita for a ranking adjusted to reflect purchasing power parity. Looie496 (talk) 02:39, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• You also want to adjust for Gini coefficient as per capita income doesn't deal with the distribution across population. (Or even more subversively, adopt a social theory of economics that is based around relations of production such that the question becomes who owns social property and directs its use and distribution?) Fifelfoo (talk) 04:10, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

But cost of living is very low in developing countries. Cost of living of living is high in developed countries because labour cost is high.
Sleigh (talk) 09:43, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

"Get along well" isn't always the comparison you want. Rent and food are pretty variable, but many prices are more universal. A low cost of living won't help you buy an iPad.

Countries with high per-capita income can generally afford to import goods manufactured by people living in low-per-capita income areas, but people in low per capita income areas often can't afford to buy those same goods they work to manufacture. That strikes me as an important point of comparison.

It all depends on what you want to compare. If you're trying to figure out who's most likely to starve to death, then you're right. Per capita income isn't the best for that. APL (talk) 16:14, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Age of baptism and circumcision

What is the earliest age at which the male infant is, generally speaking, baptized and circumcised? 140.254.227.112 (talk) 15:44, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Which tradition are you asking about? Not all baptized boys are circumcised. Mingmingla (talk) 16:31, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Coptic Orthodox. 140.254.227.112 (talk) 16:33, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

This source says "Coptic Christians (including Ethiopians) circumcise in imitation of Old Testament Jews, but the time at which circumcision is performed varies from the first week of life to the first few years.". it also says " Ideally Jews circumcise on the eighth day of life.". As for baptism of a male child, this source says "40 days after her delivery, the woman would have recovered from her puerperium and tiredness. Hence, she comes to the church with her baby to ask the priest to baptize him." - Karenjc 18:40, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I have the notion the Jewish "eighth day" is based on inclusive numbering; by modern standards, it means when the baby is seven days old, not eight. Can anyone confirm or refute that? --Trovatore (talk) 03:29, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

The source is Leviticus 12:3 "And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised." (KJV). Alansplodge (talk) 07:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

But the question is, is the day of his birth the first day, or the zeroth day? --Trovatore (talk) 08:22, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

It certainly seems to be the 1st day, if the fact that Jesus is said to have risen on the 3rd day after his crucifixion, which is only the 2nd day by our modern reckoning, Sunday being only 2 days after Friday, has any relevance. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:29, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

In the UK at least, "on the eighth day" would mean the same as "seven days old". Somebody in their fiftieth year is 49. Alansplodge (talk) 12:59, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

It depends on whether the sense is "on the 8th day" or "on the 8th day after <an earlier event>", and this may be where an intimate knowledge of Biblical Greek, Aramaic, whatever may be very useful in determining what the scriptures actually say, as distinct from what some think they say. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Maybe, but I think most people's understanding of "the first day of life" would be the day that you were born on, not the day after. Alansplodge (talk) 14:01, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes. But in the crucifixion/resurrection scenario, he was said to have risen "on the third day", which for most people means Monday (the 1st day after Friday being Saturday and the 2nd day being Sunday). That's why I say it matters whether the sense is "on the third day after the crucifixion", or just "on the third day", which takes the day of the crucifixion as the 1st day. The same dichotomy would apply to the timing of any important event, such as circumcision. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:03, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Point taken. Let's just hope nobody gets circumcision and crucifixition confused ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 00:03, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

French deputy foreign ministers

Another Lee H. Hamilton question. Now I've found a photo from November 1991 in which Hamilton is shaking hands with a somewhat younger woman. The back of the image is labeled "Madamn [sic] Gisot - French Deputy Foreign Minister". I can't find anyone by this name (or by other spellings) who was the French deputy foreign minister. Does anyone know this woman's name? 2001:18E8:2:1020:202A:8DD6:6403:B77 (talk) 17:56, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Allowing for some mangling of the name, it might be Élisabeth Guigou - not a "deputy foreign minister", per se, but the Minister for European Affairs. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:30, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Not possible, since Guigou looks very different from the person in my photo. A pity that these photos can't go online for identification help...I guess I'll just note that it's seemingly an error in the caption. Thanks! 2001:18E8:2:1020:FCFB:D6EF:1ABC:E637 (talk) 13:16, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

There was no minister called Gisot in 91. Guiguou was indeed a junior miniter working under the foreign affair minister, in both 91 governments. --Lgriot (talk) 08:36, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Name of USA

Was there any drive or desire to give the country we know as the USA a name rather than a descriptor? I realize that it is defacto the name, but not in the way say, Canada or Belize has a name. I get that it was initially treated as a union of otherwise sovereign states rather than a nation as we might think of one now, so that might explain it a bit. Mingmingla (talk) 19:13, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

See Usonia#Origin of the word. 2001:18E8:2:1020:202A:8DD6:6403:B77 (talk) 20:05, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm guessing you're not going to like the answer, but the name of the US "in the way that Canada or Belize has a name" is America. --Trovatore (talk) 20:30, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Is it, though? I always interpret the of part of "United States of America" to indicate the America part refers to the continent, not the country. I know that convention treats it as the country name, but is it? To be clear, I wonder the same thing about the UK. Mingmingla (talk) 23:02, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

There is no continent called "America". There are two continents, called North America and South America, and collectively they are the Americas. --Trovatore (talk) 00:00, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

That's right. But it can become ambiguous when we enter the mysterious world of adjectives. "American", depending on the context, can mean many things. Some people pretend that this means the ambiguity extends retrospectively to the word "America" when used in isolation. It does not. That only ever means the USA. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:43, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

But nobody calls the UK "Great Britain and Northern Ireland", do they? The other difference there is that the UK takes in all of the places mentioned in their full name, while the USA doesn't - unless, and this is where it gets circular, one considers "America" to be a legitimate name for the nation. It certainly has that legitimacy by popular usage ("the American people", The American President, Coming to America etc - nobody thinks these refer to any place outside the USA). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:33, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

It's worth keeping in mind that the USA was an independent nation well before all or most of the other European settlements became independent, and they kind of glommed onto the name. When south broke away for a few years, they became the Confederate States of America. Meanwhile, the capital city is in the District of Columbia rather than the District of America. Place names often arise by common usage or whim rather than some well-thought-out plan. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:51, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Technically, the capital is the District of Columbia. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:04, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes. As opposed to "District of America"; or just "Federal District" as it is in Mexico. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:34, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the fact they named DC as such has any bearing on the issue at hand. Calling it the "District of America" would have been decidedly loopy. Imo. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:43, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Romanians usually call the UK Marea Britanie ("Great Britain"), even though it's technically wrong. And that's how they compete in the Olympics as well. (German speakers also usually say Großbritannien to refer to the whole thing.) 92.81.68.23 (talk) 10:43, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

That is if they are being pedantic. Much more common to use England to refer to the whole thing. Of course the English themselves do the same. 86.130.155.0 (talk) 22:46, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

See "Columbia (name)".—Wavelength (talk) 20:44, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Technically the term "Columbia" never appears in the text, only the term "The District". Article I, Section 8, para 17 covers "To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings."

Leszek Kołakowski once wrote a short humorous philosophical story, The Legend of Emperor Kennedy, which – among other things – made fun of the fact that one country may be known by different names. The story takes place far in the future, where historians write about our times using only a handful of written sources that survived a "great catastrophy". They determine that an emperor named Kennedy ruled over two large domains called USA and America (they also conclude that the he came from a northern island called either Ireland or Iceland, and that his three greatest enemies were the kings of Russia, Soviet Union, and Cuba). — Kpalion^(talk) 07:58, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

The toponymist George R. Stewart, in Names on the Land, wrote about the unfortunate name "United States of America", going as far as to say "the makeshift establishment of the national name was the worst misfortune in our whole naming-history. Its too great length has consumed paper, ink, time, and energy. Its vagueness and inaccuracy have caused incalculable misunderstanding, and bad feeling." He explains how the name evolved from the need, during the revolutionary era, for a term describing all the rebelling colonies, and how "united colonies" was used early on, but soon changed to "united states", because it didn't sound as mutinous. That, in short, the name arose naturally, without any single known source, during the revolution. And it was a useful term during the revolution, as it "represented the least possible break with tradition" and "was even an argument of the legitimacy of the Revolution", as Stewart puts it. After the war, however, the "inadequacy" of the name became more apparent and there were movements to adopt a new name. The "chief rival name", again as Stewart puts it, was "Columbia", which dates back earlier than "united colonies, to at least 1775. Stewart says that "Columbia" "was almost everything that the United States of America was not—short, precise, original, poetic, indivisible, and flexibly yielding good adjectives and nouns. The obvious chance to adopt the name was the Constitutional Convention of 1787. But the delegates "did not get around to the question". Stewart points out that the two people most likely to have argued for a better name were Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. But Jefferson was in France and Franklin was "no longer vigorous". The Constitution ended up using both "United States of America" and just "United States", without ever specifying an exact formal name. Even after the Constitution was adopted there was some agitation for "Columbia", and many places in the US were named Columbia (such as the District of Columbia). But the effort did not result in any official change, and in 1819 a South American country named itself Colombia, after which the term "was no longer available as a national name". There were still, for a while, some people who advocated a new national name, perhaps most famously Washington Irving, who proposed Appalachia or Alleghania. Unfortunately none of these efforts ever got anywhere and we are stuck with "the worst misfortune in our whole naming-history". Pfly (talk) 10:07, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

He's either being extraordinarily pedantic or just being funny. "America" works fine. The term "American" has been around for a long time. "USA" works. "United States" works. Most of us Americans don't worry about this kind of thing. We didn't adopt our unofficial national anthem as official until the 1930s. We still haven't adopted our unofficial national language as official. This kind of thing bothers some of its citizens, but not enough of us to impel any action on it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:50, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm puzzled as to why the Spanish word norteamericano means "American" as in "from the US", even though norteamerica, at least according to google translate, means "North America" (I assume in the sense of the whole continent). Duoduoduo (talk) 19:21, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

América del Norte is used to mean "North America" in Spanish, while both Norteamerica and norteamericano refer primarily to the USA. In contrast, both Sudamérica and América del Sur both mean "South America". The use of norteamericano as both "North American" and just plain "American" may be to distinguish from Latinoamerica and latinoamericano. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:59, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

norteamericano means "North American". "American" as in "from the US" is estadounidense. Using a word other than "estadounidense" to refer to the citizens of the United States of America is rather informal. --Immerhin (talk) 21:36, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

• Note that the descriptor idea wasn't that unusual at the time; as well as the United Kingdom, discussed above, the Dutch Republic was widely known to contemporaries as the United Provinces. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:06, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

A line from a poem

There is a very specific line I remember from a poem, but unfortunately it's the only line I can recall, and I don't know what the poem was. I originally thought it was from a work by Gerald Manley Hopkins, but that might be wrong. The poem, as I remember it, was written around the themes of death, mortality, and willing self-sacrifice, the overall message being a general "pick yourself up and get on with it."

The line was, "For this wast thou made," or something very similar to that. I know that's not much to go on. I don't think the poem was originally written during the period of Middle English, but some of the language had been archaized to give it a stylistic feel. If anyone can help, that would be great.64.134.185.41 (talk) 21:08, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

John Wesley's "An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:31, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Time made thee what thou wast - king of the woods; is from William Cowper ,Yardly Oak Hotclaws (talk) 11:45, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

(OP) @Jack - Uh... maybe? I've never read much of Wesley, as I find him theologically infuriating, but that seems to be the only result for the exact wording, which I was pretty sure of. Maybe I read it quoted elsewhere... 198.86.53.67 (talk) 16:19, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

According to Louis Ginzberg in Students, Scholars and Saints, a similar phrase occurs in the Talmud: "A calf, the Talmud tells us, about to be led to the shambles, took refuge with Rabbi Judah, and hid its head in his mantle, entreating help. "Go," said Rabbi Judah, "for this thou wast created.". (Rabbi Jochanan ben Zaccai wrote: "If thou hast learned the law much, do not ascribe the good to thyself; for, for this wast thou created.", so I assume that phrase is well known in Jewish tradition.) The original story seems to be in Talmud - Mas. Baba Metzia 85a.) Dbfirs 07:40, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

A meditation by St Anselm of Canterbury: "Praise then, and praise with all thy heart; and whom thou praisest, love; for, for this wast thou created, to praise Him, and to love Him also." Dbfirs 07:46, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

(OP again) It was the Talmudic story of Rabbi I was thinking of. Something got crossed in my mind, and I may in fact be thinking of a poem with a similar line, but that is definitely the origin of the specific phrase as I remembered it. Thanks Dbfirs! 64.134.148.250 (talk) 22:05, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I guess it was answered already but I found this: "9. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai received the Torah from Hillel and from Shammai. He used to say: If you have learnt much Torah do not claim for yourself moral excellence, for to this end you were created."[2] Bus stop (talk) 22:25, 23 August 2013 (UTC)