Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 September 15

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September 15

Elva Blacker press clippings

This page displays a collection of press clippings about the artist Elva Blacker - some from the UK, some from South-East Asia. Can anyone identify any of the sources, and dates, in order that they can be more properly cited? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:49, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

I can highlight the following clues, though you've probably already spotted them.

The clipping headlined "Victorian—and proud of it" (in all caps) is, from the details in the text, almost certainly from a paper local to Sutton, London (formerly Surrey), rather than a more widely circulated journal.

That containing "Queen Buys a Picture" is evidently from a Kuala Lumpur newspaper referring to itself as "The Standard". Note the reference to Raja Permaisuri Agong.

That containing "Wartime memories come out of the shadows" has the header "Evening News, Monday . . ." and is most likely from The Evening News (London newspaper).

That including the words "Artist hangs out her work" (in all-caps) appears to have an identifying header of "The Malay Mail" (we have an article), and pencilled additions of "Kuala Lumpa" [sic] and "1957/8". {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.218.14.16 (talk) 11:13, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Just adding: None of those exact clippings showed up in the British Newspaper Archive, but several others did. You might be able to use some of those as properly cited sources: [1] 70.67.193.176 (talk) 21:45, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Do any religions say an entire solid object has to move to steal it?

So rotating a record found on a turntable can be stealing the record and any record player part that rotated around its hole but not stealing part(s) with solid atoms on the axis. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:58, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any religions whose sacred texts discuss phonographs. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:00, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

The question makes no sense, particularly the part about rotating records. DOR (HK) (talk) 17:28, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Sagittarian Milky Way, are you 1) under the influence of some intoxicant, 2) running an exceptionally high fever, 3) suffering from brain damage, or 4) some combination of the above? Because otherwise I must assume that you are just pulling words out of a bag. Surely you can't have thought that what you typed was in any way coherent or intelligible. --Khajidha (talk) 17:55, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

I read somewhere that the question of how far you have to get with an object before it's stealing was "any distance" in some system(s), this ruled out attempting to steal things you didn't know were nailed down (attempted theft only if you weren't strong enough and gave up) and I guess freezing when caught red handed with hands touching object to avoid increasing sentence for nothing. But then rotating the object came up which is kind of like moving but not really taking it yet so they said every point in the object has to move. Finally someone thought of rotating a holed object around its hole which means every atom travels even though you still haven't really taken it but they didn't make an exception for that so it was still stealing. I'm wondering if that was one of our more legalistic religious traditions like Halaka or Islam or if I'm remembering something secular then did any religion come up with the same every point of stolen object has to travel idea? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:39, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

If this is a Turing test, then it's an epic fail. 107.15.157.44 (talk) 22:46, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

If a cart is blocking the entrance to your home and its owner is nowhere to be found, and you shove it out of the way so that you can enter your home, did you then steal the cart? There has to be something more to the notion of stealing than the act of physically moving an object.  --Lambiam 09:18, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure the movement had to be with intent or at least reckless intentishness to deprive permanently or at least for long enough (noticing unauthorized odometer use is one thing, car coming back years later after you're forced to buy another car is another). Of course in practice if you instead decided to walk the cart over to Vinny the Stolen Cart Fence® but a voice behind you shouts "Cart Thief!" when you've only gone a few feet you could just let go and say you were going to leave it right after he shouted and they probably couldn't prove you intended to deprive. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:11, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Applied to the original question, turning a record with a hole in the middle by 360° with the intent to deprive its owner? That sounds like an evil thing to do, bound to secure you a reservation for a place where you will wail and gnash your teeth. But if there is no hole, the atoms smack-dab in the centre of rotation did not budge, so these will not be included in the indictment laid down in the Book of Life.  --Lambiam 22:41, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Let's say you and your friends are walking along and come across a millstone. Hot damn! That is a sweet millstone. You pull but lo, it doth not budge. It is stuck to the spindle causeth t'was put on in the mediterranean dry season and wood expandeth when wet. So you twist back and forth and pull at the same time but it still doth not budge. Thy diameter of spindle is greater than hole. So you give up. Thou hast stealeth. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:32, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

If you don't have it, and it's where you found it, then you didn't steal it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:46, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I know I know but religions aren't always rational and I've literally read this somewhere (that some system had an every point travels requirement which technically meant you can steal a ring by rotating but not a disk) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:51, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Maybe you could get back to us when you figure out where you read this. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:41, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Theft is the taking of another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. (That's the modern definition, but I'm not aware of any historic definition being substantially different). Neither moving a cart out of your way nor rotating a record involve depriving the owner of them, so neither are theft. (Note though that English law introduced the offence of Taking without owner's consent to cover taking cars in circumstances that don't meet the legal definition of theft, although according to that article, moving one that is blocking access doesn't count as twocking). Iapetus (talk) 10:08, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

As may be seen from the article, there must be an intention to permanently deprive the owner of the article. 2A00:23C5:CD93:6000:FD43:51AE:5D8D:54BA (talk) 12:07, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Not true for all jurisdictions; some have laws in which depriving the owner of the property temporarily is enough to be convicted of theft. -Nunh-huh 02:24, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

In case anyone is worried, SMW has a long history of asking questions based on whatever random thought popped into their head (I assume). This one may be a little more extreme than most but questions where most respondents have trouble following their train of thought isn't unusual. Nil Einne (talk) 12:58, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Most religions of which I'm aware tend not to concern themselves with the full-blown determinatio you seem to envision, at least not at the level of religious teachings to adherents (as opposed to, for instance, canon law). Religions tend to focus on principles rather than nuanced and philosophical applications like "If moving an object without the consent of the owner can be theft, then can rotating it without the owner's consent be theft?" 199.66.69.67 (talk) 16:43, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I must be reading too much Jewish equivalent of canon law.. I'm reminded now of the baptism parts of canon law which explicitly answers such cool minutiae as can you baptize with frozen holy water or liquid sweat. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:54, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Liquid sweat? (In Jack Nicholson voice): Is there any other kind? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:34, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Frozen sweat. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:58, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Can sweat be sanctified so as to become holy water? Holy sweat, Batman, is that possible?  --Lambiam 22:46, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Then there's "sweating bullets".[2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:03, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

The Bull Exultate Deo and the canons on baptism decreed by the Council of Trent establish that baptism requires "true and natural water," the temperature of which is irrelevant. Holy water is not required. Later refinements established that it is necessary for the water to flow over the person, and it is not sufficient that it merely touch them. Also: has to be on the skin (preferably head), not the clothing. Wet clothing doesn't count. And it has to be accompanied by a Trinitarian formula of Baptism. - Nunh-huh 02:34, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

According to canon law, no. At least for baptisms. Now what about seawater? I think it has an answer for that too. But don't use blood or tears. It excludes those by name. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:37, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

There's no prohibition against salt water. In fact salt is usually added in the process of making Holy Water. Exorcised salt. "Exorcizo te, creatura salis, per Deum vivum, per Deum verum, per Deum sanctum, per Deum, qui te per Eliseum Prophetam in aquam mitti jussit, ut sanaretur sterilitas aquæ: ut efficiaris sal exorcizatum in salutem credentium; et sis omnibus sumentibus te sanitas animæ et corporis; et effigiat, atque discedat a loco, in quo aspersum fueris, omnis phantasia, et nequitia, vel versutia diabolicæ fraudis, omnisque spiritus immundus, adjuratus per eum, qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos, et sæculum per ignem. Amen." - Nunh-huh 16:55, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

How much of an object needs to be moved, and how, to be considered to have stolen in it, is subject to much discussion in the Talmud. (When is a purse stolen if it is dragged by its drawstrings on the ground - open end first, or the other way? - etc. (See the example I discussed, Babylonian Talmud Sabbath 91b.) 02:43, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I think the OP question might have been pertaining to larceny, in which case its originates from English common law and not from any religion (unless it be Anglo-Saxon paganism, but that would be speculation). Anyway, I think there is some conceptual narrative in the larceny article about rotating a doughnut on its axis...similar to the OP narrative about the record on a turntable. Firejuggler86 (talk) 19:42, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Breaking glassware after a toast?

I saw from a tv show that after a drink of toast or prosit has taken place, all the participants would then throw their glasses against the floor to break them. I heard from someone that this is a relatively new custom. Does anyone has info on this? StellarHalo (talk) 20:45, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Possibly related to Plate smashing (which lists several TV shows using the trope) and Jewish_wedding#Breaking_the_glass. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 20:51, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Definitely not a relatively new custom. I don't know how far back it goes, but I think centuries at the very least. Just off the top of my (pointy) head, it's featured prominently in the 1932 film One Way Passage. It's to signify that the toast is so significant that the glass is not to be used again for any lesser purpose. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:28, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Alan King got married in 1947. A Jewish wedding, of course. After the toast, they smashed the glasses. He said it was supposed to ward off evil spirits. "It didn't work. I turned and looked, and my mother-in-law was still there." [insert rimshot here] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:40, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I think there is/was a custom after some toasts, of throwing your glass into the fireplace rather than onto the floor. That was a frequent trope in the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon stories by Spider Robinson. Web search about breaking glasses after a toast finds lots of other references. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 02:00, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Glass smashing is featured in the 1966 version of War and Peace and I found it is mentioned in the text http://www.literaturepage.com/read.php?titleid=warandpeace&abspage=424&bookmark=1 I must get around to reading the entire book one day. As a teenager, I gave up after 17 pages. --TrogWoolley (talk) 10:56, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

There is also claim of a Russian tradition in Yefim Smolin and faceted glass possibly originating from Peter the Great, although the origins story seems likely a myth to me even if the glass article has a (not very good) source. (Also it's not mention in Russian traditions and superstitions AFAICT although that article does mention accidentally breaking a glass may be considered good luck.) I found from [3] that Emily's Post in 1922 [4] mentions a (non Jewish I assume) bachelor dinner tradition of breaking crockery including glassware, and a 1899 Rudyard Kipling short story called The Man Who Was which mentions an older tradition in the mess hall of breaking glasses when toasting Queen Victoria albeit possibly in hand. Nil Einne (talk) 12:51, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

"As for smashing glasses, in Poland the tradition goes back at least as far as the seventeenth century. Polish revelers would literally break their glasses against each others' heads..." 40 Degrees East: An Anatomy of Vodka (p. 17). Alansplodge (talk) 17:09, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

It's a very old tradition in Russia, too. Ghirla^-трёп- 21:49, 17 September 2020 (UTC)