Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 February 22

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February 22

What is greasy grass?

Our article on the Battle of the Little Bighorn quotes Black Elk as saying, in the aftermath,

“ We fled all night, following the Greasy Grass. ”

I have seen other references to the battle as "Greasy Grass Creek" or "Greasy Grass Ridge" or some such. But what is greasy grass? It has nice alliteration but I can't think what would make grass greasy, or what Black Elk's family was "following". --Trovatore (talk) 19:36, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

As I recall, the Crow called the river/ridge the Little Bighorn and the Sioux/Lakotah called it the Greasy Grass. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

This site [1] gives greasy grass as a common name for Tridens_flavus, both namethatplant and our article mention oiliness as a characteristic. I suspect they were following it because, in the same quote, he says "My two younger brothers and I rode in a pony-drag." -- so the greasy grass probably lubricated the pony-drag. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:02, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

On reflection, I'm guessing that it meant "following the Greasy Grass Creek", like you might say "following the Colorado". Your explanation does make a certain amount of sense, but one doesn't ordinarily speak of "following" a plant. --Trovatore (talk) 20:34, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

(Thanks for finding that article, by the way.) --Trovatore (talk) 20:36, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

List of common misconceptions Jan 8 traffic spike?

What happened on 8 January 2013 to cause a 32x traffic spike at List of common misconceptions (Jan 7:4K, 8:130K, 9:16K, 10:7K)? There was no sudden flurry of editing that day, and no edits or summaries seem to provide any clues. The xkcd comic of 4 January 2011 referred to the first Tuesday in February (Feb 5, for this year) as the day to review the List. It's freaking me out, man. --Lexein (talk) 23:43, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I reverse searched Google for links to the page, and nothing stuck out during that timeframe. There was a reddit discussion but I think it came later, there was a Washington Post mention, but it was earlier by a while. I didn't see any obvious answer. It's possible that the grok server was acting up, or that someone's bot or automation acted up and just kept reloading it. If that much odd traffic came from one IP it probably would have been blocked so maybe the wikimedia team knows. But I don't know if they'd tell you if that's what it was. I'm as stumped as you. Shadowjams (talk) 05:20, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'll ask on IRC. I don't watch enough TV, so I wondered if some talk show host or investigations show mentioned some random common misconception. --Lexein (talk) 07:54, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

You could look at editors who first edited the page on Jan 8 (there are only a three) and ask what led them to the page. A bit of a long shot, but you never know. You could also ask some of the more prolific, but still active at that page, editors like user:Rracecarr or user:Mr swordfish if they know anything. Matt Deres (talk) 13:56, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

? This question makes me feel like I have been subjected to Doofenshmirtz's Confusinator. μηδείς (talk) 02:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

A similarly mysterious (but more sustained) viewing surge happened for the talk page for WP:PLANTS around January 1 as noted here.--Melburnian (talk) 03:09, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

If any of you are watching similar pages let me know, I'll sick a bot on them and then laugh when you come here wondering why. :) Shadowjams (talk) 12:33, 24 February 2013 (UTC)