Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 May 10

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 10

Question about Dominique Jackson's birth year?

Why is her birth year listed as 1964/1965? If I'm not mistaken, her birth year listed in her autobiography called The Transsexual from Tobago is 1975. 2001:569:7D97:D200:C450:A11:5371:2D66 (talk) 04:25, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The current entry is referenced and linked to a 2020 article by a named journalist which includes the statement "Dominique is now 55 years old . . . ", though I wouldn't like to comment on the reliability of the source publication.

Particularly in the realms of modelling, acting etc., claims by subjects or their publicists about their ages are treated with caution, because it's often professionally advantageous to exaggerate one's youth (or, in cases where early underage performances may have occurred, age) – see Age fabrication. How reliable the subject's autobiography is would be a matter of case-by-case judgement, taking into account any corroborative details included.

In this instance, we could decide that either the 2020 article or the autobiography is the more reliable, or remove the age from the infobox and present both conflicting sources in the text (per WP:BLP), or find a further Reliable source to corroborate one or another of the contradictory sources. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.125.73.196 (talk) 05:34, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Our article states (sourced) that she moved to Baltimore when she was 15, and that, while living there off credit cards for survival, she was introduced to the NYC ballroom scene in (late) 1993, before moving to NYC. If she was 55 in July 2020, she was 28 at the time, much too old to fit the narrative of our ref [8], in which she was "adopted" by Shatira Revlon, who walked up to her on the street and said "You’re going to be my child". The source that has her as having age 55 in 2020 is the odd man out among many sources stating a year of birth, or stating an age from which a year of birth can be deduced (such as, e.g, the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, which gives her age as 40 in an article dated August 30, 2015^[1]).  --Lambiam 07:51, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

While that source (number 8) is talking about her being a teen at the time, I think it's important to understand that a drag house "adoption" can happen at any age. Established queens will often adopt newcomers as "drag children" no matter the age of either individual. --Khajidha (talk) 11:30, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Translations to German

Moin. In using english sources while writing articles about NH-towns, I've stumbled upon shoe pegs and mackerel kits. While I'm not quite certain what a shoe peg is, I have absolutely no idea what a mackerel kit might be, as its mentioned among the side-products of a saw-mill, 19. Century, among shingles, bobbins and scythe-stones. So. Can anyone link to/explain to me what "shoe pegs", and what "mackerel kits" or maybe "shingle mackerel kits" are? (thought the latter, I guess, might just be a missing comma). Found here, if anyone wishes to see for oneself. Regards, --G-41614 (talk) 11:31, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Presumably the second meaning of wikt:kit#Noun? --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:06, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Shoe peg: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Shoe+peg --Khajidha (talk) 12:42, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The text in that article is likely grabbed using an optical character reader system, and such systems, when left to work without human checking, are prone to errors. At the very least, it seems rather obvious that there should be a comma between shingles and mackerel kits. Given that the proprietor in question runs a sawmill, wooden shingles seems likely. I have no idea what a mackerel kit would have been in the 19th century. A google search of the term turns up fishing tackle designed for catching mackerel, "kit" in a general sense just means "equipment". I don't know if a) that was the term used then as well or b) if the phrase was garbled by the OCR system, and something else entirely was written there. It would help to see the original work, if you have access to it. --Jayron32 13:48, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

While I can only see a snippet, there is definitely a comma after "shingles".  --Lambiam 21:37, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Do you not like the interpretation of kit as "a kind of basket made especially from straw of rushes, especially for holding fish"? The material may have been something more appropriate for a sawmill, though. --Wrongfilter (talk) 14:53, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

After searching for "wooden fish trap", I found images of several types that are made from boards. It seems quite logical to me that a saw mill would make these as a side item, often with scrap lumber. --Khajidha (talk) 15:26, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Could be that too. I pass no judgement on any proposal except to note that without seeing the original page as written, OCR continues to be suspect. I do note that the proprietor in question did not deal exclusively with wood, he also sold distinctive sharpening stones that were used for scythe blades. --Jayron32 16:34, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article titled Creel (basket) that covers baskets used to handle fish. Could be a lead for further research. --Jayron32 16:37, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

All I could come up with is this, the page would be 443, in the Chapter on Lisbon. Seems like the OCR was the explanation, as the comma's there. Anyhow, thank you all so far. This was helpful, though I will keep an eye here just in case somebody comes up with more details about "mackerel kits". Boxes to handle fish does seem probable, though. Regards, --G-41614 (talk) 19:46, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Looking around in the source, I notice that many of the businesses engaged in saw milling as well as grist milling, production of whet stones, and polishing granite. At the time, the technologies used for these things would have had significant overlap. --Khajidha (talk) 20:45, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

PS to anyone else checking that source: the page number G-41614 gave is the page number printed on the original, the number displayed on the reader is about 100 pages higher. --Khajidha (talk) 20:48, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Manufacturing mackerel kits was apparently such a business that a mill could carry the name "The Mackerel Kit Factory", employing twelve men using five hundred cords of saplings in the manufacture of eighty thousand mackerel kits.^[2] A mackerel-kit was an object an adult man could turn upside-down and then sit on.^[3] Others too are reported as sitting on an inverted mackerel kit.^[4][5] An old-fashioned milk-pail with wooden hoops could look more like a mackerel kit than a modern milk-pail.^[6] Retail market reports listing the market price of foodstuffs report a price for "Mackerel, kit",^[7] so apparently mackerel was sold by the kit, like the prices of other items are listed by the gallon or bushel. Mackerel kits could be fashioned of wood, since someone is reported to have brought a grape vine root in a wooden mackerel kit,^[8] which at the same time suggests they could also be fashioned of other materials. A mackerel kit may assume such a form that it can be called "an old tub".^[9] Together, this strongly suggests that senses 1 and 2 of wikt:kit#Noun are not truly distinct but indicate two different implementations of the same utilitarian object, just like there are not separate senses for "bucket" distinguishing between wooden and metal buckets. Whereas a bucket is supposed to be able to hold a liquid (so that people may report the presence of a hole in the bucket^[10]), I suppose that mackerel kits were designed to be leaky.  --Lambiam 07:53, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Excellent work. It does seem like "creel" may be the thing in question, if there is a German equivalent for the OP to translate, that seems to capture the sense of the object. --Jayron32 12:07, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Ok, I stand impressed. Although using the results of you help might be ill-advised, since as there is no real translation of mackerel kit, translating it as "fish basket" (own re-translation of web-based creel-to-german translation back into english) would be OR, sort of. It could also translate as "lobster trap", but in that case, I would assume, the source would have used lobster pot instead of mackerel kit. In any case, it would seem the product in this particular case was some kind of wooden container for storing or carrying fish. Perhaps I'll mention some sort of wooden boxes to transport fish (not tackle box, of course) and quote the phrase. Thank you all for your troubles and input! Much obliged, --G-41614 (talk) 13:11, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Natrum Muriaticum in Morning Sickness. — G. F. Thornhill. "I had occasion to treat a lady for morning sickness in pregnancy, and the leading symptom was craving for salt. Said she felt as if she could eat the brine out of a mackerel kit". The American homoeopathist (1885) p. 11. Alansplodge (talk) 10:26, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

A keg or barrel seems most likely; "attached by a rope is a buoy, sometimes only an empty powder keg or a mackerel kit" [11]. Mackerel were preserved by being "Split and packed into barrels between layers of salt" [12] in the 19th century. Alansplodge (talk) 10:37, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

"The packing and re-packing of mackerel is an extensive business, and the result of the latter, that is, repacking, is not always satisfactory to dealers or consumers. A barrel of mackerel weighs two hundred pounds. Two half barrels, then, should weigh one hundred pounds each, but it has happened too often that half barrels weighed fifteen or twenty pounds less than the hundred. If a half barrel weighs eighty pounds, the re-packer from a whole barrel saved for his own profit forty pounds, or two kits of mackerel... The same system of packing is carried on with respect to kits, which ought to contain one-tenth of a barrel, or twenty pounds. They are often short three, four, or five pounds. The consumer may be offered a kit of mackerel at an under-price, and, buying, believes he is saving money, when he may be losing by the short weight of the kit." The Grocers' Handbook and Directory by Artemas Ward.

So a small keg containing 20lbs of salt mackerel. Alansplodge (talk) 10:47, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Heretofore salt mackerel have been put up in wooden barrels, kegs, and kits. The form or kind of vessel was made necessary by the fact that it was difficult or practically out of the question to make a square water-tight box. Report By United States Bureau of Fisheries (1881) p. 222. Alansplodge (talk) 11:06, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

This link [13] takes you straight to the page in question. 95.148.229.85 (talk) 12:43, 12 May 2021 (UTC)