Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2018 May 20

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May 20

Risky cordax

Hello I am going to a toga party and I could use some advice on how to keep it in proper form while dancing. My toga is very large (long) and I use a belt. Temerarius (talk) 01:02, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

A Tunic

The article about Cordax describes an ancient dance form that is not necessarily "proper" to perform at a modern Toga party regardless of costume. Juvenal in first-century Rome satirized it as "girls encouraged by applause sink to the ground with tremulous buttocks." Wearing a belted Tunic as illustrated is a practical alternative if you are planning to do much gyration. DroneB (talk) 13:59, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

See toga: "...the toga's bulk and complex drapery made it entirely impractical for manual work or physically active leisure" and was mainly used for formal and ceremonial occasions. Alansplodge (talk) 19:42, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Wearing the same clothes to save time

Hi,

I've read about some successful entrepreneurs like Zuckerberg or Jobs who wear the same clothes every day in order to save time and be more productive. I've even seen videos about it. I have plenty of different tee-shirts but I literally spend less than 10 seconds deciding which one I will wear every morning. I believe that this "same clothes" rule makes absolutely no sense. Am I right or wrong? Thank you for sharing your views about it. Ericdec85 (talk) 12:42, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Please read the header. The RD isn't a place for debates. You may want to read more carefully your sources too. E.g. I don't see any mention of saving time here [1]. (Couldn't find any comments from Steve Jobs on his rationale although did find Obama who again made no mention of saving time [2].) Nil Einne (talk) 13:21, 20 May 2018 (UTC) 17:44, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Hopefully they mean wearing the same style of clothes every day. If it were literally the same clothes, colleagues would want to keep their distance. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:19, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, Why Successful People Wear the Same Thing Every Day makes it clear that it means the same style and colour of garment, rather than actually the same garment over and over again. Alansplodge (talk) 19:48, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Most businessmen wear the same dark suit, white shirt and tie every working day, and nobody ever thinks it's remarkable. Then there are others famous for wearing the same garb: Tom Wolfe, Queen Victoria, all Italian and Greek widows .... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:57, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Bart Simpson... --Jayron32 15:25, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Physicist Richard Feynman supposedly chose to have only chocolate ice cream for dessert for the same reason, to avoid wasting time on minor decisions. This was parodied/mentioned recently on Young Sheldon BTW. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:05, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

The rationale of saving time, credited to high profile business executives like Zuckerberg and Jobs, doesn't make sense to me, but Corporate identity suggests to me that presenting a single colour-coordinated style of dress may reinforce in potential customers' minds that this is a company focused on consistency. In that article, see Coherence in the Best practices section. Akld guy (talk) 19:50, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

But why are you crediting a rationale to someone who has never AFAWK given that rationale? Nil Einne (talk) 01:47, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

The OP stated that the same-clothes rule made no sense to him. So he rejects it. So I'm entitled to think that he must be asking for alternative motivations. Akld guy (talk) 08:13, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with mentioning alternative motivations and I never implied there was. (I do question whether a lot of the responses in this thread are really answering the question which seemed to be specifically about whether the rationale which appears to have been incorrectly credited to at least one individual made any sense, but off topic responses happen and in this case in some ways that's probably a good thing as I said the OP's question appears to be largely an invitation to debate.) But it doesn't make sense to continue to credit a motivation to someone when it's already been pointed out there is zero evidence that was the rationale came from one said person. There is actually a minor BLP issue here as you're effectively accusing a living person of something which you're claiming makes no sense even though you have zero evidence that they actual made the claim in the first place. Nil Einne (talk) 06:40, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Casual attire on modern corporate tycoons can be seen as a departure from the business attire of their predecessors or it can be seen as conformance to prevailing taste in dress in the general populace. Bus stop (talk) 20:13, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

How do people know that they actually live in Bethesda, Maryland (or similar unincorporated places in Maryland)?

The article on Bethesda, Maryland indicates that the community "has no official boundaries". The census bureau, the geological survey, and other organizations have their own definitions for Bethesda, but it sounds like those definitions slightly contradict each other. How could someone confidently say that they live in Bethesda, Maryland? (Or Silver Spring, Maryland, or any other place with a similar lack of clear boundaries?) 76.192.184.29 (talk) 15:29, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Isn't this the norm for many neighborhoods? This is just 1 level higher. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:11, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

i.e. the north border of the Upper East Side transitioned from billIonaire territory to Harlem Lite in c.2000 feet, is 96th and the river still the Upper East Side? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:26, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Sure, neighborhood boundaries can be fuzzy. But you don't need to put a neighborhood name in a postal address. I'm genuinely confused how people in Maryland determine which place names to list in their postal addresses. Sure, these places have zip codes, but a single zip code can serve several different communities. 76.192.184.29 (talk) 19:54, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Maybe townships? I don't know if Maryland has those. And the letter that only says Bethesda might just get there anyway unless the street number plus ZIP if given could refer to 2+ places that could at least possibly be considered Bethesda by someone. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:19, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Does Bethesda collect any taxes from its residents? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:32, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

The postal address is less official than you think. I've lived & worked in unincorporated places in PA. People decide for themselves what to list as their town on a postal address, and sometimes there's no "official" right answer (though some would be obviously wrong). As long as there's a zip code, the letter will get delivered to the local post office, and they will know the area well enough to find your house. Staecker (talk) 11:39, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

That's not exactly right. "Official" postal addresses in the U.S. are designated by the USPS. You can look them up here. What is the case is that postal addresses have no particular relationship to city/community boundaries. Makes sense, they're about delivering mail. This also means people can use more "familiar" community names for postal addresses, and that the addresses don't change every time local borders change. Now, what you've mentioned is that, to add confusion (okay, really because people would complain otherwise), there are sometimes other "acceptable" addresses that the USPS will still accept. Again, these are often familiar local names. Also, people can ask the USPS to change the "official" place name associated with a ZIP Code. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 13:19, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

The census (mentioned in the question) uses census tracts. You aren't placed in a city or town. You are placed in a census tract. Each census tract has a very clearly defined boundary. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 11:37, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

You may be right, but what's your source for that assertion? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:56, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/gtc/gtc_ct.html 209.149.113.5 (talk) 19:40, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• The answer is that these places are unincorporated communities. Such communities lack any municipal corporation, and so any boundaries they have are arbitrarily defined by other agencies, such as the U.S. Census (census tracts) and the U.S. Post Office (postal addresses and ZIP codes) which may or may not have any relation to the place in question; some unincorporated places have their own Post Office which may have the name of the community; but the post office may or may not deliver to the whole community, and some unincorporated places don't have their own post office, so they have addresses where the city is listed as the post office that delivers their mail, rather than where they live. For example, near where I live is Cleveland, Johnston County, North Carolina, which is a fairly large community which has it's own high school, elementary schools, newspaper, local youth sports organization, all named "Cleveland" (i.e. Cleveland High School, Cleveland Post, Greater Cleveland Athletic Association, etc.) It's a real place that people can identify with and know that they live there. Both geographically and population-wise, if it were incorporated and given boundaries, Cleveland would be a medium-sized suburb with 20-30,000 people. However, it isn't incorporated, and doesn't have a local post office, so if you live in Cleveland, your house "address" is listed by the post office that delivers your mail, which IIRC, could be any one of four different surrounding communities. Thus, your house address might say Garner, North Carolina, but you don't live in Garner; you don't even live in the same county as Garner, but because the Garner post office delivers your mail, that's what it says on your mail. You aren't in Garner, you're in Cleveland, which has ill-defined boundaries because there is no municipal corporation given authority over some patch of land called "Cleveland". There's just a population center named "Cleveland". --Jayron32 15:07, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

A lot of this is postcode snobbery. There's also "telephone exchange snobbery" [3] ("Residents of Upper Leytonstone who were originally on Walthamstow (manual) exchange objected to being given numbers on LEYtonstone, a place they considered distinctly unfashionable.") 87.112.145.168 (talk) 17:42, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Having lived many years ago in that part of Maryland, I can confirm that there is some confusion about which place name to use. I think we just asked the neighbors what they used and followed suit (so our mailing address said "Potomac, Maryland" even though the namesake Potomac Village was actually a couple of miles away). Beyond the fact the house was in Montgomery County, there was no other official boundary to the various areas, and people sometimes referred to the area as Bethesda, Rockville, suburban Maryland or whatever. --Xuxl (talk) 15:39, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, that's generally it, really. If you're trying to get a package delivered, you use your postal address. If you're trying to tell someone how to find your house (sans GPS), you might use something else, depending on context. Because of GPS systems using postal addresses, there's probably the sense that those are becoming a more universal means of signifying a place, but locals tend to revert to common usage, even if it is in conflict with other sources. --Jayron32 15:45, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Adding to the fun, if you are not sure of your address, and you call up a nearby post office to see what address you should use for mail purposes, they won't tell you over the phone, supposedly to protect people's privacy. You have to go in person to the post office. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:00, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies! Very interesting stuff. 75.3.115.75 (talk) 03:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

In Britain there's a website you can use which gives anybody's correct postal address [4]. 87.112.145.168 (talk) 15:02, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

It looks as if this data is provided by postal administrations worldwide. Here's the U S site: [5]. 87.112.145.168 (talk) 17:38, 23 May 2018 (UTC)