Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 February 1

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February 1

Humor during the COVID-19 pandemic

I came across this NYT headline "Are We Ready to Laugh About Covid-19?". Do we have an article pertaining to "Humor during the COVID-19 pandemic" If not then please do suggest refs and sources for Draft:Humor during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thanks Bookku (talk) 14:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

You might want to look into the work of Dannagal Goldthwaite Young (Sometimes cited as Danna Young or Danna G. Young), who is a political scientist and communications researcher that specializes in the use of humor and comedy in a political context. here's her CV. I'm not sure if she's done any scholarly work on humor and Covid-19 itself, per se, but I would start with her. If you can't find any published work from her, perhaps she would respond to an email or something and could steer you into some good sources on the topic. --Jayron32 14:59, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Humor based on the September 11 attacks is the only event-based humor article I have found. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:31, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The BBC sitcom referenced in the NYT article is Pandemonium (TV series). Alansplodge (talk) 18:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

See also British comic Russell Kane [1]

Also Upstart Crow (a BBC comedy about Shakespeare) had a Christmas Special using the Great Plague of London to take the piss out of the more ridiculous Covid precautions. Alansplodge (talk) 18:24, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

This will not help you, but if you understand Swedish it's pretty good. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:51, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The problem with telling a COVID joke is that you have to wait five to six days to know if anyone got it. Matt Deres (talk) 21:40, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Boom boom! :-) Alansplodge (talk) 14:04, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Jan Hus story reference

While reading about Jan Hus, I came across the following: "all the chroniclers usually repeat the same anecdotes, invented a hundred years later -- about the piety of his mother and the goose (husa) which she wanted to present to his schoolteacher."

I've tried searching for this anecdote, but cannot find it. Can anyone relate the story, or provide a reference for it? 173.3.152.194 (talk) 15:16, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I can also find no record of these anecdotes. He was known as "The Goose", largely because his name in the Czech language means "goose", and there are a lot of puns made around that usage, i.e. [2], but I can also find no record of the anecdote you speak of. --Jayron32 17:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The story is mentioned in a footnote on page 9 of this PhD thesis, sourced to “Count von Lutzow, The Life and Times of Master John Hus, (London: J.M. Dent & Co. 1909), 65; also Gillett, Life, 46” “Here Gillett suggests that Hus' mother accompanied him on his journey to Prague, bearing as gifts for the rector of the university a cake and a goose, the latter of which gets loose and runs away, which the mother sees as an unfavorable omen.” 70.67.193.176 (talk) 22:15, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I had actually looked in Gilett since it's linked from his article, but stopped at p.45. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.3.152.194 (talk) 05:20, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Have any United States politicians other than Theodore Roosevelt ever commented and/or written at extreme length in response to Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points?

Have any United States politicians other than Theodore Roosevelt ever commented and/or written at extreme length in response to Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points? In his newspaper articles for the Kansas City Star, Theodore Roosevelt was actually generous to comment on all of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points one-by-one:

http://web.mph.net/academic/history/ecurtis/20thc-us-for-policy/readings/wilson%20era/TRon14points.htm

https://books.google.com/books?id=DQ9CAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=fourteen%20points&f=false (the relevant pages here are pages 241-250)

The first link shows a significantly shortened version of what Roosevelt wrote whereas the second link shows the full text of what Roosevelt wrote.

Anyway, any thoughts on this? I'm especially interested if prominent United States politicians such as Charles Evans Hughes, Henry Cabot Lodge, William Howard Taft, et cetera ever offered extremely detailed commentary on Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points one-by-one just like Theodore Roosevelt did. Futurist110 (talk) 21:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, while not United States politicians, Walter Lippmann (an adviser to US President Woodrow Wilson) and someone with the last name of Cobb (Frank I. Cobb, perhaps?) did comment on each of the Fourteen Points in great detail in a 1918 memo at the request of Colonel House:

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/doc31.htm

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1918Supp01v01/d340

Futurist110 (talk) 21:17, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article on the subject, besides Roosevelt, also notes objections to Wilson's plan by Senator William Borah; I don't know if he refuted each point individually, but there's another lead for you. --Jayron32 13:05, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks; I'll look into Borah, but I was wondering if there was anyone else with detailed commentary on these points–ideally on each of these points separately. Futurist110 (talk) 22:20, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Double surnames

Alexander-Arnold, Calvert-Lewin, Maitland-Niles, Wan-Bissaka, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Loftus-Cheek, Hudson-Odoi, Carter-Vickers... I wonder why so many young black footballers in Britain have double-barrelled names. Is there an explanation for that? Ghirla^-трёп- 22:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I think that type of name is common in Britain. Think of all the British actors with names like that. I remember noticing that The Queens's Gambit had a lot of them (Anya Taylor-Joy, etc.) and then figured it was not likely to be a statistical outlier. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 22:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

No young white footballer with a double surname springs to mind, though. Ghirla^-трёп- 23:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

All is explained in Keeping up with the Smith-Joneses: you no longer have to be posh to be double-barrelled. Alansplodge (talk) 23:27, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I know several couples who have hyphenated their surnames together on marriage. It does make me wonder what will happen in future generations. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:10, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Also from anecdotal evidence, there seem to be two motivations; firstly that discarding the wife's surname on marriage is seen as rather sexist in some quarters; the wife will continue using her own surname and any offspring will have both surnames, either hyphenated or (more confusingly) without, and secondly in children of relationships where the parents have either divorced or never married in the first place but there's a wish to preserve both parents' surnames. This is a fairly recent phenomenon outside of the upper classes in the UK, but whether it's more common in Black British families, I can't say. I had never met anybody with a "double-barrelled" surname until the 1990s. Alansplodge (talk) 13:08, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

It seems to be a common practice particularly among American women to preserve their maiden surname even after adopting their husband's. But not hyphenated. Example: Julie Chandler marries William Sterling and becomes Julie Chandler Sterling. Those who spend half their lives tidying up and sorting WP categories will confirm that sometimes such a woman will be sorted as "Sterling, Julie Chandler" and sometimes as "Chandler Sterling, Julie". It's very hard to know in any case which is the preferred approach, outside of reading their article and seeing whether she's referred to as Sterling or Chandler Sterling. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:46, 4 February 2021 (UTC)