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July 27

Accessing "old" gen AI response before a Wikipedia article was published?

Odd question here - I'm a high school teacher, and created the Wikipedia page Capitol Crawl to use as a demonstration for my students (also because it well exceeds the notability guidelines and should've had its own page ages ago!). Many popular websites say or imply that the Capitol Crawl was a major catalyst for the passage of the ADA, but I found in my research that the reality is more nuanced, so the page reflects that.

When I ask Chat GPT about the impact of the Capitol Crawl, its response closely mirrors what I wrote, and cites the Wikipedia page as its source. I'm confident that these responses would have been different before I created the article, and I'd love to use this as an example for my students of the limits of AI and how AI models get their information. But sadly, I didn't think of it until now! Is there a way I can see what an AI model like Chat GPT would have said about this topic before the article was written? If it's relevant, the article was created on May 10th. MissRedwood (talk) 22:52, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

If you ask AI about the impact of the Capitol Crawl and its answer is very similar to what you wrote on Wikipedia, you can then ask a follow-up question like "Ignore Wikipedia and answer the same question." Stanleykswong (talk) 23:08, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

And then they can politely say, "Yes, OK, of course", and proceed to answer by using info they got from Wikipedia during the learning phase, distributed in an inextricable way across the possibly trillions of parameters (weights) of the neural network.  ​‑‑Lambiam 04:23, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I've never tried this method on Wikipedia, but I always use "ignore sources from China and answer the same question" to get more accurate economic information about China. Stanleykswong (talk) 05:21, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

What Lambiam is saying is that when the LLM is trained it uses billions of pages of text to adjust trillions of parameters (numbers). Text that it's given changes these values to improve how the model writes text. It doesn't store the text but just adjusts the numbers, similar to how a book I read five years ago is going to adjust how I communicate -- I'm not remembering the book word for word, it's just somehow influenced me in some way, and it can be extremely difficult knowing how that book affected my brain. If I told myself to ignore that book, I would not do a good job adjusting what I write because I have no idea how that book influenced me. Panamitsu (talk) 06:27, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

An article you just created yesterday cannot be included in the learning phase without time travel. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 15:06, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Is it May 11 where you are? Matt Deres (talk) 13:30, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

The OpenAI training cut-off date is December 2025. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 14:21, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

If that is the case, then the chatbot's reply with similarity to the new Wikipedia content is not from training it into the weights, but from the chatbot using the web - so telling it to not use the web should work. Icek~enwiki (talk) 13:32, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

This question has already been asked at the Help desk where it has multiple responses. Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:08, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

July 30

Where to Report Two Incidents

I would like advice on where to report two (unrelated) software incidents (so probably two different places).

About two weeks ago, I was trying to make an archival copy of my C: drive to a large external HDD, using ROBOCOPY. I forgot to specify the /XJ switch on the ROBOCOPY, which resulted in about 1 TB of data being copied (from a C: drive that had about 230 GB of data) to the archival drive before I killed the copy. I know what that problem was, which was a ROBOCOPY runaway in following symbolic links. Then I tried to delete the recursive archival data from the archival drive. After some effort, I tried one last effort, and can look up exactly what I did, but am not looking it up yet. My last attempt to delete the recursive data resulted in no response after an extended period of time, after which I made various attempts to interact with my computer, and I eventually had to unplug the computer from the UPS and restart it. Analysis of the Event Viewer log showed that memory had been exhausted. I also lost one of the directories on my C: drive. The attempt to delete recursive data had caused a loss of real data. My conclusion is that I shouldn't have tried to delete the recursive directory that had been created by an out-of-control process, and that formatting the external disk was the way to minimize the damage. So my question is what is a good forum in which to describe this incident and the lesson learned.

The second incident was that I was trying to use Microsoft Copilot to help me walk through the process of replacing the cartridge for an HP 139W laser printer. It told me to open the front door of the printer. I said that I had opened the top cover of the printer and could access the cartridge, and it told me not to do that, but that I should open the front door instead, and that changing the cartridge through the top could result in damage to the cartridge. There isn't a front door, only a top cover. Other printers presumably have a front door. How can I report to Microsoft that Copilot was hallucinating about the HP 139W? What is a good forum to advise users of Microsoft Copilot that it may hallucinate about the design of a printer?

These are two matters that are unrelated except that I would like to know a good forum to describe each incident for the benefit of other users. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:26, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Based on your description, ROBOCOPY behaved as it should. You didn't include /XJ to tell it to skip symlinks. What would you report to ROBOCOPY? You made a mistake and you deleted files you shouldn't have deleted after that?

As for Copilot, it is an LLM chatbot. They are not intelligent. They only put sentences together that appear to make sense. They all come with legal disclaimers that you need to verify the correctness of the LLM's output. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 11:25, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

A video shows opening the top cover of the laser printer that the OP may recognise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WrUspm9tqg . When I ask CoPilot for instruction it replies "here are the exact, official steps for replacing the toner cartridge in the HP LaserJet M139w/M139we series, based directly on HP's support documentation and videos." and it provides links to HP Support instructions and a replacement video overview. CoPilot arguably covers the OP's issue about whether one opens the top or opens the front by quoting "01 Open the toner access door....Lift or open the front toner access door fully." I understand CoPilot has no image interpretation ability to distinguish between a door and a cover. CoPilot comprehends them both as "access door" which is perhaps forgiveable. However to warn that changing the cartridge through the top is forbidden and damaging is bad advice. My experience of correcting CoPilot's mistakes is that when confronted it readily "apologises for the confusion" but neither Microsoft nor CoPilot will pretend never to make a similar mistake again. ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 20:46, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

August 3

Unblock my simcard puk code

Give me the puk code simcard +966545876963 ~2026-43097-65 (talk) 18:17, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-43097-65 Nobody knows your PUK code except your mobile service provider. It may be available on the SIM card's packaging, the contract, or provided by their customer service after identity verification. You will need to call them. Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:11, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

August 4

Chromium renders visual editor using 2GB RAM (on large pages)

I presume this was not part of the design... and for that I have some serious debugging work to do.

debug_info:
MacBook Air | M1 - 8GB - macOS 26.5.2
ungoogled-chromium | arm64 - 144.0.7559.96
Display enlargement 200%
User-defined font: IBM Plex Sans (variable, 16 pt)

海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk} 09:13, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Is THAT why it was bogging down so badly the other day?? I had to help someone on Teahouse with a workaround to disable it because it was locking up the entire page - couldn't even load in to swap over to source mode. Phones are not made for that ish! (Me and Chromium's insatiable appetite for memory have had issues for a hot minute.) ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 11:03, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

July 24

Far-away astronomical object naming

Draft:1E 2259+58.6

Does this name comply with standard naming for such astronomical objects? The draft mentions three categories into which it will be placed if moved to mainspace, and I didn't see any contents with similar names. The current name makes me think of the awkward form of scientific notation used by simple calculators to represent large numbers. Nyttend (talk) 04:37, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

The name is compliant. "1E" indicates the catalogue, in which the object was found, in this case the first Einstein Observatory catalogue. The remaining numbers give the coordinates (equinox B1950, to be precise), first right ascension (22 hours 59 minutes), then declination (+58.6°). The declination is rather short and the decimal point seems to be omitted in most of the literatur, but otherwise the name is fine. --Wrongfilter (talk) 05:22, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Per WP:COMMON NAME, we use the name that is "most commonly used", which may be non-obvious for something that is not a household thing, and that has in fact many designations (including 1RXS J230109.7+585242, 2E 2259.0+5836, 2E 4673, 2XMM J230108.1+585244, INTREF 1098, MITG J2301+5852, PSR B2259+58.6, PSR J2301+5852, and SRGA J230109.9+585254).

We have an article by the abbreviated name 1E 1048−59 for what SIMBAD names as 1E 1048.1-5937. We also have 1E 0317+186, 1E 1207.4-5209 and 1E 161348−5055, and several more 1ES ...'s.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:08, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

July 25

arxiv.org timestamp

The metadata for this article says 2008, but the v1 pdf says June 2022 and v2 says November 2024. Any idea what's going on? Is this a normal thing with with arxiv preprints? The references section of v2 doesn't have anything later than 2007 iirc, so I don't think the paper has been updated. I got the link from the article transformation optics but haven't checked when it was added. It's definitely a good introductory article. ~2026-41486-45 (talk) 07:51, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

The LaTeX source file (which is what the authors upload to arXiv) presumably has the command \today, which is replaced by the current date when the source file is compiled to pdf. So June 22 and November 24 was the last time the pdfs were produced from the original source files (which date back to 2008). What this tells us is not to use \today in material that is to be published. --Wrongfilter (talk) 08:05, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, the source file has:

\title{Transformation Optics and the Geometry of Light}
\author{Ulf Leonhardt$^1$ and Thomas G. Philbin$^2$\\
$^1$School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews,\\
North Haugh, St Andrews KY16 9SS, UK\\
$^2$Max Planck Research Group 
Optics, Information and Photonics,\\
G\"{u}nther-Scharowsky Str.\ 1, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
}
\date{\today}
\maketitle

 ​‑‑Lambiam 11:08, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Wow thanks. That explains. ~2026-41428-07 (talk) 18:30, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

July 31

[Neuroscience?] Why can I read nonfiction but struggle badly with fiction and primary texts?

Why can I read nonfiction but struggle badly with fiction and primary texts?

I have very little difficulty reading nonfiction when it concerns something I genuinely want to understand. Fiction, narratives, and older primary texts are another matter. Even when I recognize that they may be worthwhile, I quickly start feeling as though I should be doing something more useful. If the material does not hold my attention immediately, I may also become tired while reading it.

This was not always a problem. I read stories more easily when I was younger, but sometime in early adulthood my reading habits shifted heavily toward informational material. I now tend to collect books about whatever subject currently interests me and can read extensively when I feel that I am learning something concrete.

This has recently become noticeable because I have developed an interest in philosophy. I enjoyed an introductory ethics class and did well in it, but I find many original philosophical works extremely difficult to tolerate. I can read explanations, summaries, and contemporary discussions of the same ideas without much trouble. With the primary texts, however, my attention quickly drops and the reading begins to feel unnecessarily slow.

I have ADHD and autism, although I do not want to assume that either condition completely explains this. My attention is strongly interest-based. When a topic captures me, I can explore it independently for years. I have gone deeply into areas such as music production, technical hobbies, electronics, security, and hands-on computer projects. At the same time, I often burn out when I try to turn an interest into a rigid, structured curriculum.

I also have difficulty studying simply because I have decided that it is time to study. I am working on that as I continue college, but there is a large difference between deliberate studying and the intense focus that happens naturally when something catches my attention.

Is this mainly a problem of attention, motivation, reading preference, or the feeling that fiction and primary texts are not immediately productive? Has anyone experienced a similar split between being able to read nonfiction deeply while struggling with stories or original works? Rottentortoise (talk) 01:35, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

No idea about the psychological causes but yeah, assigned readings can be tedious. What helped me in school was to take notes while reading, on a pad of paper alongside the book. I'd read a paragraph from the book and write a one-sentence summary of it in the notes, then repeat. That required mentally processing the content of the paragraph to be able to summarize it, so it kept me paying attention. It also usually let me recognize important points so I'd mark those with a "*" or whatever in the notes, write down verbatim quotes if I thought I'd use them in the class paper based on the book, that sort of thing. It thus just became a matter of plodding through the assignment until reaching its end. It was much slower than reading something just because it was interesting, but probably resulted in deeper understanding, so it worked out ok. ~2026-42295-00 (talk) 03:02, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

I think this is probably quite a common experience. In my teens and twenties I routinely read two or three novels a week, plus various monthly short-story magazines, plus a good deal of non-fiction.

Now, in my sixties, I always have a couple of novels on the go but rarely finish more than one per fortnight. However, I consume considerably more non-fiction both as books and magazines, and as YouTube (etc) lectures and podcasts, particularly about science and history.

Fiction for its own sake has somehow come to seem a bit less engaging than it used to be, although reading fiction with a further purpose (such as assessing whether it deserves entry in some specialist list or publication) adds motivation. I exploit this by keeping a journal in which, when I finish a book, I write a few-hundred-word summary of it, and my assessment of its qualities.

That said, a really good storyteller can still grip me to the level of reading through the night. Perhaps you could adopt new approaches to finding writers and works which will really appeal to you. One strategy might be to look at lists of works shortlisted for various literary awards, both general and genre. Hope this helps. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 06:26, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

In general, one's attention span unconsciously tends to create a balance between effort and motivation. When reading fiction, the motivation may be lacking. With primary philosophy texts, the effort to wade through the thicket can exhaust the most motivated reader. In any case, this book may capture your attention.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:35, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Electromagnetism before relativity

Say after Maxwell's equations but before the Michelson-Morley experiment or postulates of special relativity. So Luminiferous aether was a viable theory. Did the concept of spacetime make any sense then? Would it have used a Euclidean metric signature? Do any (in retrospect) obvious paradoxes arise? Has anyone worked such a thing out, including in the modern era? Thanks. ~2026-42295-00 (talk) 04:46, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

It would have made no particular sense to use a Lorentzian metric signature such as (− + + +). Also with a purely Euclidean metric on Newtonian absolute space and time, one needs a conversion between temporal and spatial distances. Although c is a reasonable choice, it is counterintuitive to the human experience that two co-spatial events merely one second apart would be as distant as two simultaneous events separated by almost 300000000 metres. And, at the time, there was no reason to assume that speeds exceeding c were excluded, so this particular choice of conversion factor would still have been perceived as somewhat arbitrary. There would have been no practical or theoretical use of such a metric, so it appears rather unlikely that anyone would have seriously proposed it.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:25, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Despite some modern, and I am persuaded irresponsible opinions, we may rest assured that Newtonian mechanics and Maxwellian electrodynamics are essentially complete. High authorities such as Albert A. Michelson in 1894 reportedly said: “The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered.” Lord Kelvin concurred in a 1900 address: “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” Below for proper enlightenment of readers perplexed by rumors that “Significant paradoxes need to be solved in physics.” is a speech by a qualified professor. The professor, an elderly gentleman heard 146 years ago, does not take kindly to the proposition.

Speech of Dr. Archibald Wetherstone, FRS Gentlemen of Wikipedia, Honored colleagues, and all who cherish the noble traditions of natural philosophy:

I rise today to oppose — with all the vigor that a lifetime devoted to the sciences can muster — this curious and misguided proposition that “significant paradoxes need to be solved in physics.” The very phrasing betrays a lamentable misunderstanding of the present state of our discipline. For we stand, not upon shifting sands, but upon the firm and immovable foundations laid by Newton, strengthened by Maxwell, and now illuminated by the admirable demonstrations of Hertz.

It has become fashionable in certain quarters — particularly across the Atlantic, where intellectual sobriety is not always held in the highest esteem — to speak of “paradoxes” and “unsettled questions,” as though physics were some adolescent pursuit still fumbling toward maturity. I refer, of course, to the recent and rather noisy claims made by two American experimenters, Messrs. Michelson and Morley. These gentlemen, with an enthusiasm far outstripping their discernment, have circulated the notion that by means of a contrivance of mirrors and beams they may overturn the venerable doctrine of the luminiferous aether.

I must speak plainly. Their experiment, which I am told produced no result whatsoever, is now heralded by some as a revelation. A revelation! The effrontery of it. To imagine that a null result — the most trivial and unilluminating of outcomes — should be taken as evidence against the existence of the medium through which light travels, is a notion so cockeyed that one wonders whether the spirit of scientific rigor has entirely fled from certain laboratories in America.

Let us recall what every sensible man has known since the publication of Newton’s Principia over two centuries ago: light is a wave. And wherever a wave travels, it must have a medium. This is not speculation; it is the very logic of nature. The sea has water, sound has air, and light — the most refined and exalted of all waves — has the luminiferous aether. That we cannot see this aether is of no consequence. We cannot see gravity either, yet we do not doubt its universal dominion.

Indeed, the illustrious Fizeau has already shown us that when a medium such as air or water is in motion, it drags the light along with it, accelerating or retarding its speed. His results differ somewhat from the simplest calculations, but such discrepancies are precisely the sort of minor refinements that occupy the patient labor of physicists. They do not constitute “paradoxes,” nor do they threaten the grand edifice of our science. To elevate them to matters of crisis is to mistake the polishing of a gem for the forging of it.

And now we have Maxwell — whose equations, I remind you, are the most perfect and harmonious mathematical expressions ever bestowed upon mankind — revealing the true nature of electricity and magnetism, and showing that light itself is an electromagnetic wave. Hertz, with admirable ingenuity, is already transforming Maxwell’s theory into practical demonstration. What greater triumph could we desire? What further “paradox” could possibly trouble us when the unity of the physical forces has been so magnificently displayed?

I must also speak to a deeper truth, one that our forefathers understood instinctively. When the Almighty declared, “Let there be light,” He did not, in His infinite wisdom, neglect to provide a medium for that light to traverse the heavens. The aether is not merely a scientific necessity; it is a theological certainty. It is the subtle, invisible substance that fills the vast spaces between the stars, binding creation together in a manner both elegant and divinely ordained.

Thus I say to you: physics is not beset by paradoxes. It is not in need of rescue, nor of revolution, nor of the fevered imaginations of those who mistake novelty for insight. The great questions have been answered. The remaining tasks are but the refinement of details — the smoothing of edges on a structure already complete.

Let us therefore reject this proposition. Let us affirm that physics stands today in its full maturity, its truths secure, its principles unassailable. And let us consign talk of “paradoxes” to the dustbin where all idle speculation belongs.

Gentlemen, I thank you for your attention. ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 21:42, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Lambiam, thanks, I think you are right. 2026-39925-22, the above speech and "Archibald Wetherstone" seem to be fictitious? 1880 was about the era that I had in mind though, yes. By 1900, relativity was in the air, as was QM due to the ultraviolet catastrophe. My question came partly from reading about transformation optics which among other things studies the behaviour of refractive media by introducing coordinate changes that treat light in a medium as travelling through a geodesic on a manifold, like in GR. I will have to check again but I think the article I looked at used a Lorentz metric even though it's a non-relativistic treatment. It uses Fermat's principle as an action principle. ~2026-42295-00 (talk) 22:44, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, in equation 4.23 the paper introduces the Minkowski metric

${\text{d}}s^{2}=c^{2}{\text{d}}t^{2}-{\text{d}}x^{2}-{\text{d}}y^{2}-{\text{d}}z^{2}\,,$

corresponding to a signature convention (+ − − −).  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:22, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

August 3

Source of 2026 daily UK minimum and maximum temperatures

I wish to illustrate 2026 United Kingdom heatwaves by pointing out the peaks on a plot of minimum and maximum temperatures vs day of year for significant places in the United Kingdom (at very least, London). Can someone please tell me a URL with data of daily temperatures acceptable as a reputable source? Thanks, cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 10:03, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

https://open-meteo.com/ ?

https://openweathermap.org/ and https://serenum.org/ might also be of interest.

~2026-42295-00 (talk) 11:47, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Maybe stating the obvious, but Summer 2026 so far: A look at the season at the halfway point (16 Jul 2026) from the UK Met Office has a good overview. Alansplodge (talk) 12:26, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. https://open-meteo.com seems to be the best free site. cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 18:16, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

July 24

Geodesic n-dimension distance calculation

I was looking at distance calculations like all the p-value Minkowski distances, and I looked at geodesic distance. If radius is the same for every dimension (a circle in 2D, a sphere in 3D, a hypersphere in nD), the formula to calculate the shortest distance between two points (defined as vectors from origin) is easy. What if every dimension had it's own radius? I'm thinking about Earth. The first two dimensions have the same radius (creating the equator), but the third is shorter (the polar radius). If I wanted 4D, 5D, 6D? Is there a single formula where I can use the angle definitions of two vectors and a list of the radii and calculate the shortest distance along the surface of the curved shape? ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 17:36, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Take the case p = 2 (Euclidean distance) in two-dimensional Cartesian space. What does it mean if the two dimensions "have" their own radii – say one "has" radius a and the other radius b? Do you mean they are rolled up, topologically forming a torus? But then, why mention a circle for the case that a = b?  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:33, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Our article on ellipse describes a shape with a larger and smaller diameter. One is in one dimension (height) and the other is in another dimension (width). It mentions no confusion with a torus. ~2026-39968-68 (talk) 21:56, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

I do not think that there is any simple formula for the distance along a geodesic on an ellipsoid or spheroid. You will just have to integrate the metric numerically. JRSpriggs (talk) 22:48, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

There is not even a simple formula for the 2D case of the arc length along a segment of an ellipse.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:08, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

I know you're referring to ellipsoids beyond just three dimensions, but geodesics on an ellipsoid might help for the 3D case. GalacticShoe (talk) 00:45, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

You could try using the calculus of variations and apply the constraint of staying on the ellipsoid with a Lagrange multiplier. This would give you a difficult set of differential equations to solve. JRSpriggs (talk) 11:42, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

The method from Geodesics on an ellipsoid § Geodesics on a triaxial ellipsoid should be generalizable but I'd expect it to get unpleasantly complicated. –jacobolus (t) 18:48, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Just thinking: If the complication is recursive, it is a time/calculation complexity, not a method complexity. So, a relatively simple recursive computer function could do the estimation. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 14:56, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

In computer science, "recursive function" has several unrelated meanings.

The calculation comes down to computing a definite integral of a function that is not only complicated in terms of how many symbols are needed to write down its definition, but more so (and I think this is what was meant) in how much work it will be to determine the correct form of this function. This is not a job for the faint of heart – but perhaps someone has already done the work.  ​‑‑Lambiam 17:51, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

I assumed it was obvious by context I was referring to self-referential, repeating logic where computational complexity scales with depth. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 17:59, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

July 29

Kulczynski Similarity Coefficient I (K1)

Every similarity metric I've used is bounded, usually [0,1] or [-1,1]. K1 is unbounded [0,inf). Distances and scores are unbounded. Is K1 actually a score and not a similarity? ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 11:56, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

See Qualitative variation#Kulczyński's coefficient. Kulczyński's coefficient varies between 0 and 1. What is this K1, you are talking about? JRSpriggs (talk) 13:20, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

This is the definition I have:

Kulczynski I (K1): The ratio of shared elements to non-shared elements. Counts matches (elements in both sets) against mismatches (elements in exactly one set). Shared absences are ignored, so no universe size is needed.

Formula:

K1(A, B) = a / (b + c)

a = |A ∩ B| (in both: n11)

b = |A only| (in A, not B: n10)

c = |B only| (in B, not A: n01)

Range: [0, inf)

inf = identical sets (no mismatches)

0 = no shared elements ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 13:32, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Here, the coefficient defined in the Wikipedia article is called "Kulczynski 2".

In the extreme case that A = B, we get indeed K1(A, B) = a / 0.  ​‑‑Lambiam 15:49, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

It considers division by zero to be infinity rather than undefined. Because it is unbounded, I was wondering if it is properly called a "score" instead of a "similarity coefficient". Maybe it is just my limited experience with similarity metrics, but all I've seen are bounded. Score and distance metrics are always unbounded. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 16:39, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

There is no standard meaning of the term ''coefficient'' that would impose limits on its range. In physics, the coefficient of thermal expansion can even be negative, as it is for fairly pure silicon for temperatures between about 18 and 120 K (−255 and −153 °C; −427 and −244 °F), and the reflection coefficient of a wave vector can become infinite.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:04, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

- "Maybe it is just my limited experience with similarity metrics, but all I've seen are bounded."

- "There is no standard meaning of the term "coefficient" that would impose limits on its range."

I do not feel that this response fits. Some similarity metrics are coefficients. Some are indexes. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 11:08, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

AFAIK, the area of similarity measures is a free-for-all, with no agreed conventions.  ​‑‑Lambiam 17:36, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Not necessarily an answer to your question, but it's worth noting:

1. $b+c=|A-B|+|B-A|=|A\Delta B|$ (the symmetric difference), and $|A\cap B|+|A\Delta B|=|A\cup B|$.

2. ${\frac {x}{x+y}}={\frac {1}{1+{\frac {1}{x/y}}}}$, and ${\frac {1}{1+{\frac {1}{z}}}}$ is bijective and monotone increasing from $[0,\infty )$ to $[0,1)$. Its inverse, ${\frac {1}{{\frac {1}{y}}-1}}$, which takes ${\frac {x}{x+y}}$ to ${\frac {x}{y}}$, is consequently also bijective and monotone increasing from $[0,1)$ to $[0,\infty )$.

3. Since ${\frac {x}{y}}\in [0,\infty )$ for $x,y\in [0,\infty )^{2}$, and all possible values of $x=|A\cap B|$ and $y=|A\Delta B|$ are nonnegative integers, K1 is just a bijective remapping of values of the Jaccard index ${\frac {|A\cap B|}{|A\cup B|}}$ to $[0,\infty )$.

GalacticShoe (talk) 15:28, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

July 25

Proof of life

I think conventionally if someone hasn't been seen in a while and there are doubts, you can call their local police and request a wellness check. Does that somehow not apply if the person is a US Senator? There is apparently significant uncertainty regarding one of them. A bunch of statements have been released under his name, whose authenticity has been disputed by some. Question: is it that big a deal for Congress or the state governor to send some EMT's to go to the person's rehabilitation center, check for a pulse, and report what they find? This is just bizarre. Thanks. ~2026-41486-45 (talk) 20:28, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think just any old Joe Schmo can request a wellness check on someone unless they're a close relative or otherwise have a close relationship. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:48, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Note that this is specific to the USA, where the case in question is ongoing. In the UK a mere friend can request a wellness check by the police on someone unheard from for some time and unresponsive to phone calls, etc. I have recent personal experience of this. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 00:16, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Anyone can request a check on anyone. Whether the agency to which the request is made will respond to it is another matter. The police may respond to a request by a neighbour living across the street, or by a UPS delivery driver. I don't think they'll go and check whether some patient in an ICU is alive and well, even if the request is made by their concerned spouse.  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:25, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Maybe in theory. But in America, at least, you would have to demonstrate a need to know. In general, if you were to call a hospital and ask about so-and-so, they would tell you they can't give out information on possible patients. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:33, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

"But in America, at least, you would have to demonstrate a need to know."  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:23, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Without their consent, Protected health information can only be given to the patient's authorized representatives. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 16:41, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Is this restriction documented somewhere?  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:46, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

The first thing that comes to mind is HIPAA. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:24, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

The "United States" section of the article I linked has all the receipts starting from its first sentence. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 15:01, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

There have to be circumstances under which providing information about a medical condition is perfectly fine. What I do find in the articled linked to is that obtaining information about a medical condition may, in some cases, breach HIPAA regulations. But I do not see an exposition of the criteria that determine when and with whom medical information can be shared.

If someone enters a hospital with a shot wound and dies there, I am fairly convinced the hospital is allowed to inform the investigating police officers of this death, even though they are not the deceased patient's authorized representatives.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:34, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

There's substantial public interest in knowing whether this dude is alive. If he's merely indisposed, we can all wish him a speedy recovery and hope to see him back on the job soon. But if he's dead, from what I gather, the Kentucky Secretary of State is required to schedule a special election to pick a replacement Senator, unless a certain deadline has passed which happens on August 3. A suspicious sort might imagine political operators deciding instead to put the body on ice until after August 3. So people have been asking for evidence one way or another. I wonder the House Speaker could ask the United States Capitol Police to do a wellness check. He might opt against doing so though, for similar political reasons to the above. ~2026-41533-46 (talk) 08:22, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Or those who need to know probably already know. They just aren't blabbing to the public about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:24, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I'd think that the people of Kentucky need to know, but it appears that even the Governor of Kentucky is kept in the dark.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:34, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Or, being a politician, maybe the KY Guv is playing a game to try to force the issue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:11, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

If the KY Gov knows, nothing stops him from speaking up. If the SoS knows that the person is dead, he has a duty to say so and schedule a special election, but since he's also a politician (of the same party as the Senator), he might keep quiet for the same reason the Senator's colleagues and family are not being forthcoming with answers. It's pretty clear that the Senator's party doesn't want a special election. IDK whether the opposing party wants one though. If they also don't, that could explain why they're keeping relatively quiet. ~2026-41758-01 (talk) 18:59, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Or maybe he's not buying into conspiracy theories. The only "official" information we have is that he's hospitalized. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:24, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Today's news says that Beshear has now communicated with the McConnell team asking for clarity on what's going on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:23, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

The first I mentioned as needing to know were the people of Kentucky. Whatever games some big shots may be playing, it is obvious that the people of Kentucky are not in the know, so this reply is a distraction.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:38, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Theoretically, they've already been informed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:30, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

They know what they've been told by McConnell's supporters (two photos and some written statements, but no audio, video, health checks from medical people, etc). But they want something more definite. This is from today and describes the situation I guess. Someone online called him a cruel name that was funny enough that I can't resist repeating it: Lich McConnell. ~2026-42187-04 (talk) 19:25, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Unless you can prove he's deceased, that's a BLP violation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:26, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Readers not familiar with US politics should consult Mitch McConnell#June 2026–present hospitalization for context. Nyttend (talk) 12:01, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

July 26

Anecdota Americana

This is a real long shot, but can anyone find me reliable (or even vaguely reasonable) sources that discuss this series of books? If you search Google, the AI will tell you that it's a vintage humour anthology published in 1934 and followed by the New Anecdota Americana in 1944 (sourced to Reddit). If you check out the Internet Archive, you'll find a shocking number of books with that title, including the 1934 one Google knows about here. It has a publisher (Nesor) and a date (1934) and everything. No author given unfortunately, but that's not unusual for dirty joke books. There's also a version purportedly from 1927 (here) that also has a publisher (Humphrey Adams) and date (1927) and even an (presumably pseudonymous) author (J. Mortimer Hall). Unlike the 1934 version, this one is not expurgated. Many of the jokes are the "same", albeit often retold slightly. Another book from 1934 is called Anecdota Americana Second Series. It references the 1927 book and J. Mortimer Hall is now a PhD. Much later editions or offshoots from 1944 and 1968 and 1981 and more are also available with an account.
In short, what are these? Is the Nesor edition some kind of ripoff from the self-published 1927 edition? Who really collected it? Is there really a J. Mortimer Hall? As I said, it's not unusual for joke books to not have clear ownership, but this is ridiculous. Matt Deres (talk) 03:28, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Several copies on abebooks. Mentioned in a book on Scribd, here as "compiled by one William Passemon". DuncanHill (talk) 13:08, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

A interesting passage and it pointed out my inattentiveness (thank you!): the pages here clearly credit Passemon as compiler and J. Mortimer Hall as merely the preface writer (and drawings by Anton Erdman). But the 1934 "second series" omits Passemon entirely and certainly leaves the impression that it is the sole work of Hall. Matt Deres (talk) 13:37, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

This is, presumably, the Passemon 1934 version: "Anecdota Americana; Being, Explicitly, An Anthology Of Tales In The Vernacular; Collected By William Passemon, Preface By J. Mortimer Hall; Published by Humphrey Adams / The Association For The Asphyxiation Of Hypocrites, Boston, 1934", said to be a first edition. But some sellers give the publication date of apparently the same book (if you can judge a book by its cover) as 1927. There is also an Anecdota Americana with a salacious cover, showing imagery suggesting an ejaculating phallus. No year info is given, but it is also said to be a first edition.

In 1934, collecting and publishing such jokes under one's own name would have sullied the reputation and might even have ended the career of many an esteemed, distinguished and reputable gentleman. This would at the same time have inhibited suing rip-offs for copyright infringement.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:19, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

If that's a sample of quality of the jokes being told at that time, no wonder the period was known as "the great depression" Chuntuk (talk) 13:40, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

July 29

Clemenceau's hat

Clemenceau and hat

What kind of hat is Georges Clemenceau wearing here? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 02:07, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

See https://lionheartautographs.com/autographs/original-portrait-of-clemenceau-publisher-of-zolas-jaccuse/ - it's actually a custom make. Nanonic (talk) 03:27, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

According to that article, the designer (one Mlle. Jeanne Taty), based it on the French Army calot or forage cap; an example is shown here. Alansplodge (talk) 16:29, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Appointing an Australian premier

With the replacement of Jacinta Allan by Ben Carroll as Premier of Victoria, I'm left wondering — what's involved in the appointment of a new premier, whether here in Victoria or elsewhere? Let's imagine a situation like this one, where there's no question of which party/coalition has a majority, and no question who leads that party/coalition; I'm just wondering about the formalities. Does the governor just sign some paperwork, or is there a formal kissing hands-type ceremony, or is it somewhere in between? I didn't find anything online, but ChatGPT told me that the new premier must visit Government House, formally have an audience with the governor, take an oath of office, etc., but the whole situation is much less elaborate than a royal audience. But then, yesterday ChatGPT told me that bus services to Marysville didn't exist, so I know I can't trust it. Nyttend (talk) 04:50, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

ChatGPT got those formalities right. HiLo48 (talk) 06:11, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

@JackofOz: as a fellow Aussie, any insights on this? ~2026-42237-99 (talk) 02:00, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Comment on "much less elaborate than a royal audience": My impression - that's the best I can do, given that I've never been summoned to one - is that royal audiences are not elaborate at all. You turn up at the palace or wherever, get ushered in to the royal presence, shake hands, sit down, accept tea if offered, answer questions, then leave at the appropriate time.

Visiting a state governor would be virtually identical to this. In the case of a new premier, there's an oath to be administered by the governor, and spoken and signed by the new premier. That's it. Well, the Governor may firstly ask the person whether they'd be willing to accept the role of premier - but that's nearly always a foregone conclusion in these circumstances. That piece of paper, and the official notice about the visit in the newspapers, constitute the complete official record of the occasion. There may be a photographer present for the oath swearing bit, but whether that video is the property of Government House or some private organisation like a TV station, I could not say.

We tend to expect some grand announcement of the new premier - but that's the media's job. As far as Government House is concerned, the baton has been handed on quietly without any fuss, and the governance of the state keeps calm and carries on. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:37, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

The elaborate part of the Buckingham Palace operation seems to be ushering the previous incumbent out of the back door, while the new boy or girl is welcomed at the front, without the twain meeting. Presumably this is so that there is a minimal time when the country lacks governance. Alansplodge (talk) 16:41, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

But this would depend on the reason for the previous one leaving office. I get the impression that the 2007 Labour Party leadership election (UK) was not a contest to overthrow Tony Blair (which would have been similar to what we had here last week) but a contest to replace him after he decided that he wanted to leave office, and that Blair was happy to have Brown succeed him, so I suppose it wouldn't have been uncomfortable for them to meet. Nyttend (talk) 07:50, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

July 30

Was Bruno Bettelheim really Bruno Bettelheim? asking for reports on speculation, not asking for

Enough already. The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

speculation. Could the actual Bruno Bettelheim have been murdered in Buchenwald and then someone stole his identity and emigrated to the United States? It would fit the character traits of the man we know as Bettelheim. Richard Pollak, among others, obviously didn't trust Bettelheim, or at least the man he knew as Bettelheim, and since he thought that man was such a liar, maybe he had private speculations in his notes and conversations that Bettelheim wasn't really him. Rich (talk) 00:37, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Who put this notion in your head? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:58, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Myself Rich (talk) 01:12, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

So you're allowed to speculate, but we aren't? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:18, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't know, but I know that I am not allowed to ask for speculation.Rich (talk) 01:33, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Actually it might have been my ekxperience as a 5 year old in Princeton NJ, early 1960s when I was being dosed with Haldol(I didn't know until 45 years later. I alwayys wondered what was wrong with me, and the answer apparently was that doctors were recklessly and/or greedily making me very messed up). Anyway, having learned about it I've often puzzled over it since then because it didn't fit my comforting stereotype of kindly Jewish doctors from Europe. A few years ago it did ocur to me that they might have been Nazi doctors fleeing Germany under a cover of Jewish names and occupations, a cover few would suspect, since their actions do fit my stereotype of nazi doctors. But yesterday, I was reading about Bruno Bettelheim's alleged plagiarism and so I thought, why not so.e rascal fleeing Germany BEFORE the war with a Jewish name. Rich (talk) 01:31, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Note, I recommend hatting this thread as it is going nowhere fast. Rich, Frank Abagnale was a real person. If you haven't seen it, check out Catch Me If You Can. It's a fun film. Viriditas (talk) 02:13, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Let's let it go where it goes, if anywhere, before hatting it. Rich (talk) 02:40, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

If the 'Bettelheim' who arrived in New York in 1939, rejoining Bettelheim's previously emigrated wife Gina, was an imposter who replaced the 'real Bettelheim' in Buchenwald in 1938–9, why didn't Gina, married to Bettelheim from 1930, notice and/or say something? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 11:23, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

If he wasn't really Bettelheim, she didn't tell on him, but they didn't pretend any further relationship. Rich (talk) 13:23, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't seem terribly likely on the face of it. What would the supposed impostor stand to gain from such a scheme? He wouldn't be able to use any of Bettelheim's connections without risking giving himself away, so why not just travel under his own name? One could, I suppose, imagine a Nazi trying to pass himself off as a concentration camp survivor in 1945, but not in 1939.

And if your only evidence is the man's negative personality traits, that doesn't mean he has to be a Nazi in disguise. He could just be a Jewish guy with the same traits. People are just people. Chuntuk (talk) 13:54, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

August 1

Decelerating history

Is there an idea or well known examples of a historical topic where the interesting events are near the beginning, and then it's mostly just stuff playing out routinely? As an extreme example, The First Three Minutes is about the early history of the universe, from the big bang til 3 minutes later. After that, stuff was roughly like it is now. Some fiction writers have dated the Star Wars saga (a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away) to around 5 billion years ago, when the universe was around 2/3 of its present age. I'm specifically looking for the idea that stuff gets less important or interesting as time passes. Obviously that will be false for a lot of topics, like the history of mathematics goes back 1000s of years but most of the good parts are in the past century. Thanks. ~2026-42295-00 (talk) 06:23, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

You're not going to like this answer, but I suspect the entire idea you propose is flawed and culture bound. I say this because when you study history closely, things are always interesting, even when we say they are not. There was even a book about this that came out last year but I can't remember the name. Anyway, I'm instead taken with the edge of chaos. The most interesting events don't necessarily happen at the beginning. They happen whenever a system is balanced between rigid order and complete disorder. This could be why you get periods of stability and upheaval all the time. This doesn't need to happen at the so-called "beginning". And maybe there isn't really a beginning in the first place; as a matter of perspective, that's just a story we like to tell ourselves to make things make sense. From this point of view, forget about beginnings and endings. There is no unique beginning, there are many, endlessly occurring. Whenever order becomes disordered the cycle begins again and again. You can see this happening now around you. Things are stable at first, then they tend to get rigid, followed by a crisis of some kind. Then you get innovation and the cycle repeats itself. And don't forget about the Copernican principle: don't assume your location in space or time is special. Viriditas (talk) 07:07, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

The present time is typically chaotic or worse. The past is in the past. I think this quote is attributed to Lincoln: "The quiet past is inadequate to the stormy present." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:04, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

And attributed rightly, though more fully "The dogmas of the quiet past...". --Antiquary (talk) 08:16, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Isn't this supposed to have happened whenever you see a history book talking about a revolution at a particular time?

Anyway, in the understanding of the world by humans, I think of the early 20th century this way. Ever since the understanding of quantum mechanics reached a critical point in the 1920s, nothing has changed the worldview as much on a fundamental level (even though it took decades to understand some consequences of the formalism, like Bell's theorem only in 1964). Icek~enwiki (talk) 16:55, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Official name

Hello, I wanted to ask what the official name of the Mayan underground city was ? I didn't find it. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 17:52, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm guessing you found this report referenced in our article Maya cave sites.

For interest, there is another slightly more detailed report on the same discovery Here. Such sites were portals to the Mayan underworld Xibalba, a name which has been applied to part of a different cave system, the Chiquibul Cave System.

The underground complex in question is near a village called called Tzibichen or Tahtzibichen, itself near the city of Mérida, Yucatán (we have a further article on the city, Timeline of Mérida, Yucatán), but I have not been able to find an official name for it, despite searching on the name of the lead archaeologist Guillermo de Anda (aka Guillermo de Anda Alanis).

A possible avenue of enquiry might be to contact a museum, university or research institution in Mérida (see its article, several mentioned there have their own articles). Hope this helps. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 22:53, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

OK, thank you!--Vyacheslav84 (talk) 07:54, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

User:Vyacheslav84, do you have reason to believe that there was an official name for it? The idea of official names for cities (like concepts such as municipal boundaries, incorporation, etc) seems to me to be a modern thing, and I'll just guess that all references to the city in Mayan writing would have been what we call a common name, since they wouldn't have had any reason to call it one thing and officially name it something else. Nyttend (talk) 01:32, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

copyright of the us declaration of independence

What was the copyright recognition of the US Declaration of Indepencence in England when it was first created? Would it have been in the public domain from the outset? How long was it copyrighted under US law? 781h (talk) 19:57, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

At the time, importing foreign works into Great Britain was prohibited. More importantly, copyright was only granted to printed books.  ​‑‑Lambiam 23:04, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

The news and text of the Declaration of Independence reached England by mid-August 1776. In the newly United States, the text had been printed in over 30 newspapers in the span of a month. In Great Britain and Ireland, the Declaration was printed in still more newspapers, from London to Dublin, from Edinburgh to Canterbury. The majority of British newspaper printings of the Declaration of Independence look similar to the American printings. But some censored the text, even going so far as to change words or only excerpt certain portions.

Unsullied by Falsehood: The Present ---- of G---- B------ from the Harvard Declaration Resources Project. Alansplodge (talk) 16:24, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

You may be interested in this handwritten copy of the Declaration that was copied by Vice‑Admiral Molyneux Shuldham and sent off to London on 10 July 1776.

And this copy of the Declaration which was presented in the House of Lords at Westminster on 20 January 1778.

Also this copy, one of only eleven known examples of the "Exeter Broadside" which was recently discovered in the British National Archives, having been captured from an American brig by HMS Raisonnable and brought to Plymouth (the one in England) in January 1777. Alansplodge (talk) 16:24, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Assuming the founding fathers wanted this to be widely distributed, wouldn't copyrighting it have been counterproductive? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:33, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Under the current rules as they apply in most of the world, copyright exists automatically as soon as a work is recorded on some physical medium (including as bits in a file). An author who does not want this needs to declare that the work is released in the public domain. Perhaps the questioner did not know that in the 18th century being entitled to copyright protection required registration.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:37, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

You might want to look into whether a copyright notice were required in English-and-Welsh law at the time. Lambiam has an interesting point, although that would be a non-copyright restriction. Nyttend (talk) 07:45, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Why was Loyd "Budget"?

Why was Charles Loyd nicknamed "Budget"? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 20:20, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Dubious but - "Second to None - The Coldstream Guards 1650-2000" pg 46 "So called because he joined the regiment in 1910, the year of Lloyd George's Budget. Nanonic (talk) 22:07, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

@Nanonic: Thanks - sounds reasonable. DuncanHill (talk) 13:47, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

August 2

Morality of non-combatants in a war of aggression

Have there been any answers by philosophers and theologians to the issue of morality of some non-combatants helping the offending side in a war of aggression (such as medics in the Wehrmacht)? The crux is apparently saving a human life vs. facilitating a return of any such soldier to kill the defending side and/or inflict injuries that are treated by medics of that defending side, creating a vicious circle where Hippocratic Oath or Declaration of Geneva become controversial. A particular aspect of it is that a medic of a defending side may treat a person who suffered because of an enemy soldier, brought back to the frontline by enemy's medic. The same generally applies to the offending side's firefighters, workers of military factories, priests, engineers, etc. Brandmeister ^talk 21:12, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

A place to start might be our Conscientious objector article. In Britain, some of those refused combat roles but were willing to serve in auxilliary roles such as the Friends' Ambulance Unit, while others eschewed anything war related. Alansplodge (talk) 12:08, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Our article Killing baby Hitler suggests you may want to consider deontological, consequentialist, and utilitarian approaches to your question. Basically, you pays your money and you takes your choice. DuncanHill (talk) 12:33, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

There can be no doubt both philosophers and theologians have pondered and/or pontificated on the issue. There can be little doubt that, in either category, they have reached mutually contradictory conclusions. Some may even have reached self-contradictory conclusions. Any such conclusions are only answers to those who hear what they are open to hearing.

In any case, under Article 12 of the Geneva Conventions, wounded combattants in the field must be treated humanely and cared for by the belligerent party in whose power they are, also if they are enemy combattants. Which side they are on may not be used to discriminate in their care.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:24, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

August 3

1764 RSA art awards

We read:

April 16th, 1764.—Wednesday Evening last the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c, adjudged the first Premium of fifty Guineas, for the best Landscape, to Mr. Barratt, a celebrated painter from Dublin; the second of twenty-five, to Mr. Bond of Birmingham; and the third of fifteen to Mr. Stewart, of London.

Who were the three artists? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:46, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

George Barret Sr. was a celebrated painter from Dublin, Daniel Bond was from Birmingham. DuncanHill (talk) 17:52, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Quick work, thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:54, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I think Charles Stewart was Charles Steuart, see also here. DuncanHill (talk) 17:58, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

August 4

AD or BC?

The article about Glaucias of Athens contradicts itself. It says that he "appears to have lived in the 1st century BC", but one of the categories labels him as a 1st-century Athenian. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:04, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

 Fixed.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:43, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

July 24

Questions

1. Are there any words in Spanish where a diaeresis is used to break diphthongs?
2. Does the French word créée have ”three Es” or ”two És and one E”? In other words, when counting how many times each letter appears in a word in French, are accented letters counted separately from their unaccented counterparts, or not?
3. Are there any words in French with letter Á (not À)?
4. How are the letters in pinyin read out loud? Do pinyin letters have names like English ”a, bee, cee”? How is ”Zhongguo” read, ”Z-H-O-N-G-G-U-O”?
5. Are varieties of Arabic such as Egyptian, Iraqi, Algerian and Moroccan Arabic, their own languages since they, at least the most distant ones, are not mutually intelligible?
6. Is 23:59 on Thursday ”one to twelve on Thursday evening”, 0:00 on Friday ”twelve on Friday night” and 0:01 on Friday ”one past twelve on Friday night”?
7. Can the word ended be used an adjective like ”The team scored 50 goals in the ended season”, ”The ended year was quite normal”?
8. Is English Saint ever abbreviated as S:t, like Swedish Sankt is?
9. Can the word water be used as a countable noun when referring to a single container filled with water, like Bring three waters and two teas to this room?
10. Can the word kettle be used to refer to Finnish kattila, to which kettle is related with borrowing of the Finnish term from Germanic?

--40bus (talk) 07:42, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

6. No, 0:01 in Friday is still Thursday night.

7. No. You could say "the season just ended".

8. No, never.

9. Yes, this usage is possible in a restaurant context.

--~2026-41082-90 (talk) 08:08, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

1. See Diaeresis_(diacritic)#Spanish.

7. No, it would be like the above user said.

8. not that I've ever seen. It's typically just "St", with or without a trailing "." In older times, it was "S" plus a smaller superscript "t" that was underscored.

9. Sure. It's not really using water as a countable noun, though; it's a shorthand way of saying "glasses of water" (and "cups of tea").

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:08, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

6. "a minute before midnight on Thursday"; "midnight on Thursday"; "a minute after midnight on Thursday" or "...Friday morning"

7. "end of season", "end of year"

8. No

9. Yes, although "glasses of water" would be more usual. Bazza 7 (talk) 09:03, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

7. "When you went onward on this ended action, I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye" (Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1, scene i), but I would say that that sense of ended is archaic now, at a pinch maybe possible in poetry. In a different sense you can talk about double-ended screws and the like. --Antiquary (talk) 10:56, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

3. A quick search on French Wikipedia and Wiktionary yields nothing but proper names. Given the existing prevalence of à as well as the prescriptive orthography assigned by the Académie Française, I find it unlikely that any words will use it anytime soon.

5. Varieties of Arabic is relevant here.

GalacticShoe (talk) 13:23, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

2. In French, e, é, è and ê are considered to be just one letter. So créée has three e's. When spelling the word out loud, one would say cé, erre, e accent aigu, e accent aigu, e. In dictionaries, words with accented letters are ordered as if the accents did not exist. Xuxl (talk) 13:30, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

10. According to Wiktionary, Finnish kattila has a large number of meanings. It seems that at least the geological sense, as in kettle hole is common to both languages. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:25, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

4. I wouldn't think that in Chinese, Latin letters used in Pinyin would be considered fundamentally different to Latin letters used in other contexts. Then, it seems as if every article on Latin letters in Chinese Wikipedia lists a Pinyin pronunciation by the heading 汉语拼音发音 . 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:34, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

4. Latin letters in Pinyin not infrequently represent different sounds in (Modern Standard) Mandarin than they do in English and similar 'Western' languages. This is because

(a) Some 'Western' sounds are not present in Mandarin;

(b) Some sounds present in Mandarin do not exist in English, etc., and consequently;

(c) Pinyin has deployed some 'unused' Latin letters to represent those non-Western sounds. See the tables under Pinyin#Syllables, which show how those letters are pronounced in MSM.

This is because, while previous 'romanization schemes' were mostly designed by Western scholars to represent the sounds of Chinese (or rather, the many Chinese languages – note the obsolete term 'dialects' used in this context is misleading) to Westerners, Pinyin was designed by Chinese linguists primarily for use by Chinese people where using Chinese characters was inconvenient, particularly for tasks involving keyboards.

As I understood the question, 40bus asked about the names of the general letters in Pinyin, and I don't really think they would have any specific. A question like "How do you spell 'Zhong Guo' in Pinyin?" would probably not get a response with different names than "How do you spell 'walkthrough' in English?" 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:37, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

The question about "what are the letters called" is simple to answer. They are normal letters. They don't have special names. So, "zh" is "zee aich" (or however you want to spell the letter names). I feel there is confusion about the use of pinyin. It isn't used for writing in China. It is used for non-native speakers to learn to pronounce Mandarin words. That is why the example shown in the question "zhongguo" is not actually pinyin. It should be zhong1guo2 or zhōngguó. Without the tone markers, you don't know how to pronounce the words. If you pronounce it with the wrong tones, you spout nonsense like zhong3guo1 (seed pot), zhong2guo4 (time-traveling clock), or zhong4guo3 (heavy fruit). ~2026-38520-51 (talk) 11:32, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't know how common it is, but apparently Chinese speakers might use Pinyin(-ish) when they're unsure of how to write the character correctly. It might not really be proper use, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:41, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

The way character input works is you type the main radical and then branch out from there. They don't type what it sounds like in the same way as pinyin works. There are longstanding complaints that the ease of typing radical and picking strokes with autocomplete has made many young generations that can long longer write Chinese without a computer. ~2026-39968-68 (talk) 15:21, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

How are individual words written in Chinese characters spelled out in Chinese, in a context where the hearer does not know the spelling of the word beforehand? And in Pinyin? --40bus (talk) 19:54, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

There is the Bopomofo system, at least. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:17, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Chinese isn't an alphabetic language, so there is literally no concept of "spelling out" a word with letters. Pinyin is just a phonetic tool invented in the 1950s—mainly used for children learning pronunciation, foreign learners, and typing on digital keyboards.

If a Chinese speaker hears a word they don't know or wants to clarify which word they mean, they don't spell it letter-by-letter. They describe the character visually.

For example, they might say: "It’s the character with the 'wood' radical on the left and the 'sun' character on the right." If they're talking in person, they will often literally trace the strokes with a finger on their palm.

Relying on Pinyin to "spell out" a word to another Chinese speaker actually creates more confusion, because Chinese has dozens of completely different characters that share the exact same Pinyin spelling. The character is the word. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 14:54, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

9. Usually not, in normal writing or conversation, it would be "three bottles of water" (or whatever); however, in very specific circumstances where the exact nature of the water vessels is known – such as two waiters talking to each other – just "waters" might be used. It could be used in other situations: "The waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans [or, of the Holy wells in Cerne Abbas, Glastonbury, and Mottisfont] differ in character. These three waters . . . ." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 17:08, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

7. As far as I’m aware as a native English speaker, there are literally no words you can use in this way to mark the passage of time. English is not Finnish. ‘The ended year was normal,’ ‘the finished year was normal,’ ‘the started project was going well,’ are all not grammatically correct in English. You could perhaps do this in other contexts, such as ‘the cat climbed the painted building,’ which sounds perfectly normal (if a bit oddly specific, but if there happened to be only one painted building, that wouldn’t sound weird) but that’s not an adjective that marks the passage of time like many of your questions to this end seem to be about. That’s just not how English works. Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 02:29, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

An amendment to my statement: I say ‘not grammatically correct.’ I don’t know if that’s true, since it may be technically grammatically correct in some very specific cases; however, even then, it would probably still sound very weird and unnatural. Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 02:33, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

They're not "grammatically" incorrect, but I would say they are "idiomatically" incorrect. For someone saying those things, it would be a dead giveaway that they are not a native English speaker. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:24, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

That’s sort of what I meant by my amendment; it can be grammatically correct, but it’s not a thing anyone ever says. Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 04:13, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

10. I suspect that the pan seen in this image, referred to as a "soup kettle", might be called a kattila.

If a stew recipe were to direct one to put ingredients in a kettle and cook them over moderate heat while stirring, I might use a pan that Fins would call a kattila if that is what happens to be available, but given a choice I'd use a hollantilainen uuni (Dutch oven).  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:43, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

July 26

//Ani (language) and ||Ani (dialect) - and clicks

See Glottolog.

It's clear that there are two entities on Glottolog, Spoken L1 Language //Ani (IS0 369) hnh anii1246 and anii1247 Dialect: ||Ani a dialect of Spoken L1 Language: Kxoe kxoe1243 (ISO 369) xuu. What is not clear is which click belongs to which, because Glottolog does not explain these.

|| may be standing in for ǁ, which is Unicode: LATIN LETTER LATERAL CLICK U+01C1 (in Latin Extended-B). However while there is (for //) ⫽ DOUBLE SOLIDUS OPERATOR (U+2AFD) I can't find that this as a click (nor do I think it is the diaphoneme marker in IPA, which may reuse U+2AFD). There is also COMBINING LONG DOUBLE SOLIDUS OVERLAY U+20EB. It's possible that // represents LATIN LETTER ALVEOLAR CLICK (U+01C2).

Note that the Glottlog pages can be even more confusing as they also use italics, making || look like || and // look like //.

1. Do these distinct entities exist?
2. If so what are the clicks?
3. What is the correct IPA/Unicode way to represent them?

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 18:47, 26 July 2026 (UTC).

AFAIK // is just an ASCII substitute for ǁ, which can be slanted in handwriting or italicized in print (common for transcriptions). See Click letter. Nardog (talk) 20:12, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! All the best: Rich Farmbrough 07:16, 27 July 2026 (UTC).

Pinging User:Kwamikagami who is knowledgeable abut these things. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 07:16, 27 July 2026 (UTC).

Yes, || and // are just keyboard hacks for ǁ.

The dialects in Glottolog were adopted wholesale from Multitree, which was an undergrad student project and not a RS. I've seen some progress in making the dialect lists more robust, but it's slow-going. I'd ignore dialect stuff on glotto unless it supplies a source to confirm it. — kwami (talk) 19:26, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

At all

My understanding is that "at all" is used with either plural countable things, or uncountable things: "Would you like any extra towels at all?" "I don't need any water at all".

It could be applied to a singular countable thing that has many aspects to it, or where there's a spectrum of possible attitudes: "I know a lot of people rave about it, but I didn't like The Odyssey at all".

But where it definitely doesn't apply is to a singular countable thing where it's a Yes or No, black or white, binary option. If I buy something at a shop counter, I may be asked whether I'd like a receipt. "Would you like a receipt?" would be the way to phrase that question. But what I hear more and more often is "Would you like a receipt at all?". It's not as if I might be favourably disposed to taking a receipt but not so far as a definite Yes.

Is this just an Australian thing or does it appear elsewhere? And what are the questioners on about? Is it supposed to be a politeness thing, and if so, how do these words add politeness?

Am I overthinking this, at all? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:48, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

@JackofOz: It seems to be for emphasis rather than politeness.

• Collins and Cambridge say it's used for emphasis at the end of negative statements, and questions.
• Longmans agrees.
• MW similarly equates it to "in any way or respect", "to the least extent or degree", "under any circumstances"; and helpfully dates it to the 15th century.
• Oxford, as usual, is elusive.

Bazza 7 (talk) 22:49, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

What is being emphasised in the "would you like a receipt" scenario? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:40, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

It is your liking that is being questioned. The speaker seeks confirmation of their growing suspicion that you are one of those who do not like to receive receipts.  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:34, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

On what possible basis could such a suspicion arise? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:58, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

The look you give while glaring at them from below your eyebrows. Or the observation that most customers don't care about receipts, and why should they – or you.  ​‑‑Lambiam 17:57, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

We seem to inhabit rather different worlds, Lambiam. That's OK. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:58, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:32, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

If you are lucky enough to be able to submit expenses either to the firm you work for, or for yourself, receipts are indeed very important. I haven't used a black London taxi for many years, but it used to be the case that if you chatted nicely with the driver and asked for a receipt at the end, they would give you a whole handful of blanks to fill out at your leisure. Ah, the joys of creative accounting. MinorProphet (talk) 21:55, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

This expression is common in the UK as well.

Regarding the receipt scenario: here vendors have a legal obligation to provide a receipt if wanted, but of course the purchaser is not obliged to take it. Tills used to print receipts automatically (so consequently unwanted ones were thrown away) but now the till or equivalent will only do so if prompted, so most vendors ask the question, and the answer is not predictable, hence " . . . at all?" is perhaps a signal of the vendor's uncertainty.

(Some vendors, especially volunteers in charity ('thrift') shops neither offer a receipt nor ask if one is wanted, and occasionally when I ask for one (as is my habit) they prove unable to provide one because they have operated the till incorrectly. [/rant]) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 04:32, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

I remember when the Poundland self-service ones use to always print out a receipt. I guess they no longer do thankfully, seeing as I wouldn't take it for a fiver or less. Not to mention that food and drink is almost always unrefundable and receipts are usually unrecyclable (even though people throw it in the recycling anyway and still gets accepted). London Buses used to give out paper receipt tickets until they stopped accepting cash in 2014 and most people who use the train now use tickets on their phones instead of physical paper ones. Or contactless if a journey is within London and some just outside it (such as Reading and Maidenhead).

For me, I've been told to print receipts for electricals and purchases over £20 and not ask them if they need it, I just give it to them anyway. At my local charity shops, they always ask me for a receipt and I tend to only get one if I need to go into another shop, have paid at least £10, have electricals or if the item is for someone else. At least receipts will save me in case the price says £1,40 but get charged double that seeing as they forgot to update the system. JuniperChill (talk) 13:27, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

In the receipt scenario it's really just a filler, like asking "Would you like a receipt today?" If you have to ask a question many many times there is a tendency to elaborate it a little. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 07:20, 27 July 2026 (UTC).

It's like the German überhaupt. It's not really about quantity. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:39, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

"Any at all" does fit better with a mass or plural noun, but is not restricted to it. "Would you like X at all?" sounds like a suggestion that I expect you to decline but feel I should offer anyway. Or because I think something is wrong. You order black coffee -- "Don't you want cream at all?", because I can't imagine anyone taking their coffee black. [Also, it makes a difference whether 'at all' is stressed.] But for receipts, you have presumably just declined them, so it would be odd for me to ask if you really meant it. Maybe for multiple receipts, because I want to verify that you don't want any of them, but for a single receipt that you've intentionally left on the counter, I might say 'don't forget your receipt', but 'at all' would suggest you're doing something wrong and I think you should reconsider your poor decision. — kwami (talk) 19:40, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

To me, "at all" is asking about the wanting, not the tax invoice; the mass-or-plural-noun doesn't refer to the quantity of receipts. The way I hear this phrase, it's basically "Do you have any bit of desire for a receipt". Consider how many people actively want receipts (i.e. they'll be disappointed or upset if they don't get one) versus how many people accept them because they're offered. I don't know about you, but if I'm handed a receipt without being asked, I'm likely to take it, even though I won't normally ask for a receipt if I'm not offered. It's kind of an implied "do you mind if I don't print you a the receipt". When I think back to the times when I've worked cash registers, both in the US and Australia, it seems like I would say something like "do you want your receipt" if I had it in hand already, or if I were cheery with an ordinary customer; "do you want it at all" is when someone shows signs of impatience (doesn't want to wait for the receipt to print) or for repeat customers who don't normally want theirs, and saying "at all" would be odd if I were already holding it. Nyttend (talk) 06:35, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

July 28

Huld/hold

Having recently listened to bits of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, I'm curious about "Huld" in this line, at the finale:

Wer so viel Huld vergessen kann, Den seh' man mit Verachtung an

It's easy to find the meaning of what Belmonte and his party are singing. But is "Huld" related to the obsolete English "hold", used by Tolkien in the nicknaming of Meriadoc as "Holdwine of the Mark"? About the latter word OED says

hold adj.; Old English had hyldo in the same sense = Old Saxon, Old High German huldí, German huld, noun of quality < hold adj.

But I'm unclear if the item cited by the OED is related to the current-although-archaic word in Belmonte's song. For this word, Wiktionary says

From Middle High German hulde, hülde, from Old High German huldī (“friendliness”), from Proto-West Germanic *hulþī.

So...is there an etymological relationship here, or are they false friends? Nyttend (talk) 06:18, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Wiktionary says that hold in the OED archaic sense is “cognate with… German Huld (“grace, favour”).” Though, interestingly enough, Wiktionary gives two different conjugations of what appear to be the same word as the Proto-West Germanic roots for the two words: *hulþī for German Huld, *hulþaz for English archaic hold. To my admittedly untrained eye, it would seem these are noun/adjective conjugations? (Hulþaz, kindness, the noun; hulþi, kind, the adjective?) Whatever the case of the conjugations, it would seem these are the same word, the latest shared root word of the two. So, yes, they are related. Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 09:15, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

The other way round: hulþaz (> archaic English hold, modern German adj hold) is the adjective ; hulþi (> modern German Huld) is the derived noun, with an -i suffix typical of abstract noun formation. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:28, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Funny, if you'd not mentioned that those were proto-Germanic roots, I would have guessed that they were the Gothic forms, rather than those forms' ancestors. Thank you for the help. Nyttend (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Goths and Arabs

My comment above about Gothic reminds me of another question in my mind. In the 1001 Nights, #539, we encounter a king named Mihrjan (at least in the Lyons translation I'm reading through) who has horses, and immediately I wondered about a Germanic connection: modern English mare, Old English mearh, Proto-Germanic marhaz, Gothic (again thinking Tolkien) appearing in the name Marhwini. Do we see any sustained contact between Arabs and Goths, aside from when they conquered Gothic peoples in North Africa and Spain? Or is this likely to be a false friend? Nyttend (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Mihrjan is borrowed from Middle Persian Mihragan. Mihr is a form of the deity name Mithra. It is more Iranian than Germanic. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 19:58, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Turns out it’s honestly more closely related to the name of the Roman Pomerium than to mare (through the PIE root *mey-, “to bind”). Mihr comes from a borrowing of a Sanskrit word, which did evolve from Proto-Indo-European, so it does have Germanic cognates (which you can find here), though no direct relatives. Germanic tribes don’t appear to have spent enough time around Arabs for loanwords to have occurred. Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 00:38, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

For a Tolkien connection, surely mearas is a better fit? Matt Deres (talk) 13:46, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

But "mearh" is the singular of "mearas", and anyway it doesn't as easily resemble the Farsi name as does the name of the man of Rhovanion. Nyttend (talk) 20:35, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Does our friend from Rhovanion have anything to do with horses? Matt Deres (talk) 15:34, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes Marhwini was intended by Tolkien to be a name with the transparent (in Gothic) meaning 'friend of horses'. Eluchil404 (talk) 16:34, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

July 29

What does Trump say here (or even anything)?

What did Donald Trump presumably say on July 13, 2024 after the failed assassination attempt, in this moment before the agents took him down the stair? Of course, in this video there is no chance to hear it, but in this photographers video indeed we hear him a bit. (The time URL parameter for starting at the right point apparently does not work with short videos; the scene is at ~43 seconds). --KnightMove (talk) 07:42, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Here is a regular link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwVzoae7zA8. I can't hear any sound emanating from POTUS's mouth after the shot.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:34, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Then at first, I set this video with time parameter. --KnightMove (talk) 10:17, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't hear him because the speakers on my laptop don't work, but the journalist Salena Zito, an eyewitness, has Trump first calling for his shoes, then saying "USA", then "Fight! Fight! Fight!". Indeed she seems to have got a whole book out of that. --Antiquary (talk) 11:59, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I perfectly agree with her [addition: You can see it in the main video a few seconds earlier - although I doubt that Trump really said "USA". He asked for his shoes, then "wait, wait, wait!" as he wanted to pose, then "Fight, fight, fight!"], but that specific moment was after he said all that [and when he was a few further, and away from the microphone].

Do we maybe have some lipreaders reading this? --KnightMove (talk) 12:39, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

People here are ignoring the reason Trump asked for his shoes. When most people are involved in traumatic events like this, they do not ask for their shoes, and very often leave them behind. Trump asked for them for a very specific reason. Viriditas (talk) 22:54, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Which would be what exactly? --KnightMove (talk) 08:12, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Maybe I have posed the wrong question: Does he even say anything in this moment (again the video), or does he just take a deep breath? --KnightMove (talk) 14:40, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Polly matete cry town is my daskalon.

In The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling we read "I remember my old schoolmaster, who was a prodigious great scholar, used often to say, Polly matete cry town is my daskalon. The English of which, he told us, was, That a child may sometimes teach his grandmother to suck eggs." Presumably "Polly matete cry town is my daskalon" is a mangling or mis-remembering of some Latin or Greek quotation. But what? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 17:03, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

The note in my copy says: "Source unknown, quoted by Cicero". I'll try to type in the original Greek, but the translation is given as "Many scholars are wiser than their teachers". --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:23, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

It's explained here as "a humorous transcription of πολλοὶ μαθηταὶ κρείττονες διδασκάλων, i.e., Many pupils are cleverer than their teachers, which occurs in Menander, Monostichs 651 Jaekel; Cicero, Letters to Friends 9.7.2; and Greek Anthology 11.176.5 (by Lucilius)". -- Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:28, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm a bit disappointed with my copy now (Penguin, 1966). --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:36, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Many thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 21:22, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

The quotation by Cicero can be seen here.

It appears that Partridge is indeed misremembering. His old schoolmaster probably said, "... is the daskalon". Perhaps Partridge was not among these polly matete.  ​‑‑Lambiam 22:41, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

at first I wondered how Eric Partridge came into this. —Antonissimo (talk) 03:18, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Questions again

1. If the word strange is pronounced /streɪ̯nd͡ʒ/, then how would a word that is pronounced /streɪ̯ŋ/ be spelled?
2. Can the word seen be used as an adjective like in Seen crimes can be reported to the police (meaning the crimes that have been seen by people)
3. Can the word made be used as an adjective like in Made changes (meaning the changes that have been made)?
4. Is this correct: I can’t wait when it will be 2027, or should is be used in place of will be?
5. Are there any words in English where Greco-Latin φ/ph appears in English as ⟨f⟩, rather than ⟨ph⟩?
6. Why the word kolkhoz is pronounced as /kolkɔːz/, rather than /kolhɔːz/? How would it be pronounced if it were spelled kolhoz?
7. Do English speakers ever pronounce original /x/, /ç/, /χ/ and /ħ/ sounds as /h/ if they can’t pronounce the original sound, in foreign names?

--40bus (talk) 20:43, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

1.) Predicting English spelling is always a dangerous game but I might go with "strang" based on "bang". This could also be pronounced /stræeŋ/ or /strɑːŋ/ but most English spellings are simply not unambiguous.

2.) Not usually. The sentence would ordinarily be rephrased with a full verb "crimes that have been seen".

3.) Same as 2 above.

4.) Either verb tense is correct but the conjunction(?) should be "till" or "until".

6.) Because most English speakers don't know how to pronounce 'kh' (in Russian or really any language) and use a spelling pronunciation based on English phonemes. Without the 'k' I would pronounce it /kolhɔːz/ and expect most other English speakers to do the same.

7.) I am sure the answer is more than never but it depends mostly on the spelling used. The standard English approximation for /x/ and /χ/ is /k^(h)/, for /ħ/ /h/ was traditional but other approximations are sometimes seen especially when it is spelled 'ch', for /ç/ it varies by language and speaker; I would expect /k^(h)/ and /tʃ/ are at least as common as /h/. Eluchil404 (talk) 21:39, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I can think of one possible exception for #3, which would be made man. GalacticShoe (talk) 00:03, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

1. straing perhaps.

2, 3. That horse may not be dead yet, keep whipping!

4. Either will do, if you replace when with until.

5. fantasy

6. Because most English-speakers do not know what kh means in transcription.

7. For Semitic languages, at least. —Antonissimo (talk) 21:56, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

1: Predicting the spelling of non-existing English words, even when allowed by phonotactics, is like walking on thin ice, but based on words like strain, my guess would be "straing".

2, 3: In English's closest relatives, it seems generally possible to use participles as adjectives without any restriction. At least in Dutch, it's common to extend those participles into entire subclauses (you can do this recursively), which are then used as adjectives (this is made easier by the verb-final word order marking the end of a subclause). English seems a bit more restrictive. Even if not ungrammatical, it often is unidiomatic to use a participle as an adjective.

7: English isn't Finnish. In Finnish, /h/ and /x/ may be seen as allophones and in the Slavic languages they are variations of the same too, but English's closest relatives normally make a threefold distinction between /k/, /x/ and /h/ (or something similar). English lost /x/ (except in some loans from Celtic languages in dialects where this Celtic influence is strong), turning it into various other sounds often written <gh>. When encountering /x/ from another language, English speakers tend to interpret it as /k/. Why /k/ and not /h/? Can't say, but making a distinction between /h/ and /x/ is pretty common. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:07, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

5 Filipino, sulfur (though not traditionally so spelled in the UK), griffin. --Antiquary (talk) 11:22, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

I have heard that in English, using present participles as adjectives such as in a coffee-drinking man (meaning a man who drinks coffee) is common but with past participles like in a coffee-drunk man (meaning a man who drank coffee) it is not similar. Where in English can such past participles be formed from compound verbs? --40bus (talk) 20:01, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

"A drunk man" sounds like an inebriated man, so "a coffee-drunk man" sounds like a man who's inebriated on coffee, and "a fish-eaten man" sounds like a man who has been eaten by fish. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:44, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Milk is a commonly drunk beverage. Does this mean that milk has a drinking problem?  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:26, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Some past participles are homonymous with adjectives derived from these past participles, while others are not. There is no rule governing this.

You can use past participles as participial adjectives when they are modified by an adverb:

• The job was finished → *the finished job (wrong)
• The job was recently finished → the recently finished job (fine)
• The sonata was performed → *a performed sonata (wrong)
• The sonata is rarely performed → a rarely performed sonata (fine)
• The cake is decorated → *a decorated cake (unusual)
• The cake was beautifully decorated → a beautifully decorated cake (fine)

(In the sense of having received awards, decorated is not only a past participle but also an adjective, so "a decorated cake" could mean, "an award-winning cake".)

Also, the agent of the verb of the (passive) past participle can sometimes turn into an adjective-forming modifier:

• The lad was struck by love → a love-struck lad
• The coat was eaten by moths → a moth-eaten coat

This is idiomatic, but is rather productive when the agent is oneself:

• The album was produced by herself → a self-produced album

 ​‑‑Lambiam 22:09, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

@Lambiam: I might be missing something subtle in your reply, but where I live (UK) "a decorated cake" is far from unusual. , , . I'm aware of a cultural difference between what constitutes "cake" between countries: could this be a factor in you assigning "unusual" to your example? Bazza 7 (talk) 08:47, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Maybe there is a cultural difference, not in what is a cake but in how a cake should be. Where I'm from, the kind of cakes that are usually decorated are not conventionally sold in undecorated make-up; one would have to specifically order one.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:17, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

In English (and, AFAIK, the other Germanic and Romance languages), the past participle of a transitive verb, when used as an adjective, defaults to a passive voice (skipping over some details wrt impersonal passives etc.). So, a drunk man, when not referring to a man who's had too much alcohol, must refer to a man who has been liquefied and then consumed. You may be able to form an active voice by combining it with the present participle of the auxiliary that forms the perfect tense active, but it doesn't look like this is supported over the entire language family. It doesn't seem idiomatic in English.

The present participle defaults to the active voice. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:03, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

If a drunk man refers to ”a man who has been drunk”, how would then ”a man who drank” be changed to a participle + noun construction? In Finnish, both present and past participles have both active and passive forms, and ”a man who drank” is juonut mies and ”a man who has been drunk” is juotu mies. --40bus (talk) 07:04, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

@40bus: The phrase a drunk man contains no information about timing, so it refers to a man who is, has been, was and still is, or will be in the future, drunk (or drunken). You continue to assume that all grammatical constructions you enjoy in Finnish have direct equivalents in English, despite other contributors' efforts to point out that this is not the case.

• a man who drank = a person who has imbibed tea, coffee, water, milk, beer...; also colloquially a person who imbibes alcoholic drinks to excess
• a man who has been drunk = a previously drunken man = a person who has imbibed alcoholic drinks to excess but no longer is inebriated
• a man who is drunk = a drunken man = a person who has imbibed alcoholic drinks to excess and is inebriated
• a man who is drinking = a drinking man = a person who is imbibing tea, coffee, water, milk, beer...; also colloquially a person who habitually I'm ibes alcoholic drinks to excess

Bazza 7 (talk) 09:01, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

July 31

Roman Numerals

Why do Roman numerals lack a symbol for zero? ~2026-42339-28 (talk) 04:51, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Because the Western Classical World did not come up with the ideas of zero as a mathematical number requiring a symbol rather than a blank space until quite late, partly because it did not use Positional notation. It is very difficult to use Roman numerals for positional notation: try writing out a complicated calculation such as a long division substituting Roman numerals for Arabic, such as we now use.

The early Western scholars who did use an equivalent to zero (such as Ptolomy in the second century CE, did not use Roman numerals for calculations. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 05:46, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Not only did the ancient Romans lack an idea of zero as a mathematical number, but they had no concept of zero as a number at all. In response to the question, "How many people have responded?", one can say in English, "Null people have responded" or "Zero people have responded". Speakers of Classical Latin couldn't do much better than "Nemo respondit" or "Nullus respondit" ("No one has responded"). Only in Medieval times did Dionysius Exiguus repurpose the word nulla, a shortening of nulla quantitas ("no quantity"), to serve as a numeral, allowing one to write, "Nulla persona respondit."  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:09, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Dress

Greetings! What are dresses that look like shirts but longer called? ~2026-35599-34 (talk) 19:12, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Maybe a Kaftan? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:25, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

You may be thinking of a shift dress or chemise, but more details or a picture might help us be more specific. Eluchil404 (talk) 19:51, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Maybe the OP can find a pic of Avril Lavigne wearing one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:02, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Are you thinking of shirtdresses? GalacticShoe (talk) 20:25, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

@Eluchil404 Kinda like the dress worn by Nicole Richie at the 2010 Oscars, but shorter. Also this one by Elizabeth Olsen https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fvev0omzwd5bh1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D510%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dc9ab8d2efad4eeaf910e4c8ea49a3f49d44fd3a4 ~2026-35599-34 (talk) 12:06, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

I dont get it. That example doesn't look like a shirt at all to me. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:28, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

It looks like a normal dress. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:58, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Like Nicole Richie at the 2010 Oscars? You mean this dress, but shorter? To me, that seems distinctly unshirtlike. John M Baker (talk) 14:17, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Another possibility is A-line (clothing). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:01, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

@John M Baker I find it shirtlike because it covers her shoulders. Most dresses don't. Also, dresses usually begin above cleavage. This one is full body. ~2026-35599-34 (talk) 16:52, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

August 1

Time expressions

1. Does English ever use the word ”three quarters” to describe a period of 45 minutes, like Finnish ”kolme varttia”? Would anyone say ”I come back three quarters from now”?
2. When 24-hour clock is used in public transportation announcements, is 21:00 ”twenty-one oh oh” and 0:25 ”oh twenty-five”?
3. Is ”half a day” commonly used to describe a period of 12 hours?
4. Is ”half a year” commonly used to describe a period of 6 months?
5. Is a period of 15 seconds ever called ”quarter of a minute”?

--40bus (talk) 14:16, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

1. Not in normal English.

3. Can be.

4. Can be.

5. Not very often.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:57, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

1.) The English expression is "three quarters of an hour" and is rather old fashioned but not unknown. The "of an hour" is however never dropped when referring to a period of time.

3.) "Half a day" is a common enough phrase but doesn't mean 12 hours so much as half a work day or all morning or all afternoon. It would not be used to describe a 12 hour work shift, for instance, at least not commonly.

4.) Yes. But the meaning can be either general 5-7 months or precise depending on the usage.

5.) Not as any kind of ordinary idiom, but certainly not impossible. Personally, I strongly associate "quarter" time references with analog clocks versus the precise numerical displays of modern digital ones. When I imagine someone timing a quarter of a minute I see them using an old analog watch with a smoothly moving second hand. I don't know if that's universal. Eluchil404 (talk) 15:05, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

"Three quarters of an hour" is still current in British English, but agree that it's never shortened. Alansplodge (talk) 16:51, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

2. Not usually. It would normally be rendered in hundreds, like "twenty one hundred hours". For early hours, the zero in front may or may not be used (zero seven hundred hours or oh seven hundred hours or oh seven hundred, etc.)

3/4 - yes, but only context would tell you how precisely those things were meant. If I broke my foot "half a year ago", it could mean anything from four months to eight months ago (or thereabouts). If we wanted precision, it would always be rendered in units, not fractions: 182 days ago, 12 hours 15 seconds ago, etc. And as Eluchil404 said above, it might not refer to a full clock day at all. Matt Deres (talk) 15:44, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

5. Here are examples of a time interval of 15 seconds being called "a quarter minute": , , .  ​‑‑Lambiam 16:06, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

1) "I'll be about an hour and three quarters" is normal, as is "I'll be about three quarters of an hour", but "I'll be about three quarters" is not. You have to get the "hour" in there somewhere. Nothing old-fashioned about "three quarters of an hour". DuncanHill (talk) 18:05, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

”One hour and a three quarters” sounds like a full hour of 60 minutes and then additional three quarters of an hour (45 minutes), thus a period of 105 minutes. Is this phrase ever used to mean that number of minutes? --40bus (talk) 20:31, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

"an hour and three quarters" means "105 minutes". "One hour and a three quarters" wouldn't be said by a native speaker. It would probably be understood though. DuncanHill (talk) 20:33, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

2) As one example, ScotRail use an automated announcement system which reads 21:00 as "twenty-one hundred". I've never heard an 00:25 announcement because trains normally don't run that late here. However, they released all the announcement recordings as of 2022 as a result of a FOIA request, and the section with hour numbers goes "midnight", "oh one", "oh two"... "twenty-three" with no "oh oh", which suggests it'd say "midnight twenty-five". (Which then makes me wonder whether it would read 00:00 as "midnight" or "midnight hundred". There's no special case for "midday"; it says "twelve hundred".) Adam Sampson (talk) 18:17, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Not Scottish, nor British, so I suppose it's possible the Scots have some ideosyncratic way of talking about times that I don't know about, I am fairly sure they do not say "midnight hundred", because "midnight" only means exactly 12:00/00:00 (or sometimes even 24:00), but not as a prefix for the entire hour. I do not know (nor can guess) what they do with 25 after midnight trains. Also it makes sense why they would call midnight "midnight" but not noon "noon": with 24 hour times 12:00 is unambiguous. And so is 00:00, but there's no good way to say that time aloud other than "midnight".

With 12 hour time "12:00" is problematic because it's not actually correct to use am or pm for 12:00 as they literally mean "before noon" and "after noon" respectively. But noon is neither and midnight is both. ~2026-40817-33 (talk) 01:51, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

August 2

French regional accent

Video is of a French guy reacting to a music performance. Can anyone tell what part of France the guy is from? Is there a name for his dialect? Is it plausible that he'd have trouble understanding French as spoken in other parts of France? I don't mean obscure dialects, I mean Paris vs Marseilles or that sort of thing. Thanks. ~2026-42295-00 (talk) 05:55, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

The accent sounds pretty standard to me and easily understandable. In another video he says he's the founder of a company called teletech; googling around then links him to Dijon. --Wrongfilter (talk) 06:41, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, yes, I can (somewhat) understand him too, while I can't understand Quebecois French at all. The video guy also reacted to a song with French lyrics performed by a non-French speaker, complaining that he couldn't understand the lyrics without reading them from the captions. But other French-speaking reactors have said the singer mostly did fine. So I'm trying to get a sense of how much the video guy is being a snob, and how much it might be a regional thing. ~2026-42295-00 (talk) 07:39, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

There is no "standard" French accent. There are, however, around eight or so regional dialects, and you can generally only place a French speaker to within a hundred or even two hundred miles or so. It's not like England, where the accent can change quite considerably every 30 miles or so. I would suggest that the speaker in the clip is definitely not from the north, including Paris, Normandy, the Loire valley, Brittany or the eastern Champagne region. He is also not from the south, either SE around Marseilles or SW towards Toulouse. There's always the French-speaking Belgians, also a very distinct dialect once you have heard it. Before reading the comments above, I thought he's probably from the middle of France, perhaps from the Midi: and Dijon certainly makes sense. Beware following generalisations! Don't forget that the whole of French discussion is based around disagreeing - in an intellectual way - with your interlocutor. The French are naturally argumentative. They are very particular and critical about attempts by foreigners to speak their semi-sacred tongue: I don't think he's being snobby in the slightest, certainly not being disagreeable: he's just being French. MinorProphet (talk) 22:58, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I have to disagree. There is a "standard" French accent, that is the accent of most French people (Continental France). We say that these persons have "no accent". It is impossible to say from what part of France is a person with no accent. The speaker in the video has "no accent". There are regional accents. In this case the speaker has not the burgundian accent (Dijon is in Burgundy). Moreover dialect and accent are different concepts. However speakers of French dialects (there are becomming fewer and fewer) have an accent. AldoSyrt (talk) 09:57, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Stereotypical Swedish

Apologies to any Swedish people reading this. I've been reading American joke books from the 1930s and 40s. Joke books at that time were heavily expurgated in terms of their sexual content, but had no trouble at all with the most vicious racial stereotyping; Black characters were portrayed about the same as they would in a minstrel show. Back then, Swedes were often given the parts that later went to the Polish in Polish jokes a few decades later. In an attempt to mimic or mock a Swedish accent, the word "bane" gets liberally used and I'm not sure what it's supposed to represent. At times it could possibly be meant to represent the word "being", but in other contexts that wouldn't seem to make sense. For example, in the punchline to this joke, the Swedish maid misunderstands what dickering means and replies, "Don't you tank that bane do some good. I bane raspactable 'oman; and I bane need the money, too!"
Now, all the racial caricatures presented are just the worst kind of stereotypes, but the written text at least faithfully represents the racist way the joke is meant to be told orally. So what are they trying to indicate here? Do Swedish people often insert "bane" into their speech? Is it supposed to be a heavily accented English word? I've just provided the one example, but it pops up all over - like all the Irish saying begorra. Matt Deres (talk) 15:15, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Here is a nice small piece (a 'squib' as linguists would call it nowadays) about this topic: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/451586.pdf –Austronesier (talk) 15:28, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Interesting! Thank you. It's not an answer per se, but I can at least be assured that I am very far from the first person to be puzzled by the word. Matt Deres (talk) 16:43, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Alright, I am a native Swede, and I can't come up with any common Swedish word it would credibly imply. I guess it is some way of approximating various forms of the verb be, such as 'being' or 'been'. One strained explanation is that words like 'being' and 'been' pronounced as if they were Swedish words (with Swedish orthography) would be pronounced with an [e:]-sound, like in French café, which then would have been approximated with the CaCe-spelling. Also, conjugation of Swedish verbs is generally somewhat simpler than in English, with Swedish basically lacking conjugation by person and number, but the ubiquity of the word - to me - just looks like lazy comedic shorthand. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:52, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. Lazy comedic shorthand is very likely. Matt Deres (talk) 13:50, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Street names in Quebec

Are there any places in Quebec where there streets have official English names on street signs, which appear alongside, or even above or without, French names, such as "Rue Principale" and "Main Street" on the same sign? --40bus (talk) 22:13, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

No. Streets have one official name, so as not to create confusion for mail delivery, first responders and the like. Many English street names were translated into French when they were generic (i.e. Main Street becoming rue Principale or Church Street becoming rue de l'Église), but not when they were proper names. If translated, only the French name remained official. Xuxl (talk) 14:51, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Are there any English names in widespread use in areas with large Anglophone population, such as Montreal West and Nunavik (with Inuit names in addition in the latter)? And as New Brunswick is bilingual, do street names in any city in that province have bilingual English-French names? --40bus (talk) 18:22, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Not in North America, but Brussels actually has bilingual street signs, in Vlaams and French. Some info to be found here: Francization_of_Brussels. Lectonar (talk) 09:44, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Likewise parts of Wales and, surprisingly perhaps, Cornwall have bilingual street-name signs. There are Welshmen who speak little or no English, but I'd be very surprised if that was true of even the most nationalist Cornishman. --Antiquary (talk) 10:10, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

And while 40bus obviously knows this, others may not be aware that street name signs are by law bilingual in the parts of Finland where the minority language (usually Swedish, but Sámi in the far north) is spoken by at least 8% of the population. When visiting Helsinki in 2017 I (being English) found it easier to navigate on foot by reading the Swedish names, because both languages are Germanic and have some affinities. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 13:55, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

A similar situation happens in South Tyrol in Italy where German (more specifically Austrian German) is a co-official language of that region. Italian is the main language spoken in Bolzano but elsewhere in the region, German is the main language. Road signs are also bilingual. And regarding Finland, only 5% of Finns speak Swedish as their native language, so its just above average. JuniperChill (talk) 12:56, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

While I agree with the explanation that a street needs a single official name, I just realized that many streets have both a numeric name and a word name. For example, I grew up on Highway 152, which was also known as Barry Road. Some people called it 152. Some called it Barry. Some are popularly multi-named. CA-1 is the PCH. US 441 is the Blue Ridge Parkway. Visitors call it the Blue Ridge, but locals call it the 441. Perhaps it is accepted that roads have a number and name, but they can't have two names (unless you live in the Southeast where the street names tend to change every few blocks ... Turn right on Orleans, it will turn into Tobias Gadsden and then turn into William Kennerty, you know the O-T-W stretch). ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 11:25, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

August 3

Old English

What would ‘I come in peace’ (or something to that effect) be in Old English? (Around the 1050s, and near London if that makes any dialectal difference.) Unfortunately, Google Translate doesn’t appear to have Old English.

In addition, any general pointers on ways Old English’s grammar structure differs from Modern English’s that might trip up someone trying to translate sentences? (I’m aware of the Old English grammar article (which I have partly read through), but I’m asking if there’s any differences in particular that might be especially problematic for a speaker of Modern English.) Thanks! Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 08:11, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

The inflections (cases, gender agreement, strong/weak adjectives, modes) and verb-second word order in Old English were greatly simplified on the way to Modern English. In this specific simple sentence this is not a factor; a word-by-word translation works: iċ cume in friþ. (The dot on the ⟨c⟩ is a modern convention and would not have appeared in an Old English manuscript.) In this case, since the preposition in is used with the accusative case, friþ has to be in the accusative, but for this word the accusative has the same form as the nominative. For the synonym sibb the accusative form is different; if this is substituted, it needs to be altered to sibbe.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:24, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be friþe (dative), since it's the inessive/non-illative meaning of in (i.e. "in", not "into")? I'm not actually sure in would be the most appropriate preposition; mid friþe seems to be attested in Old English, though in the sense of "depart in peace" rather than "come in peace"; "on friþe wunedon" ('they lived in peace') is also attested in West Saxon. But none of the combinations of preposition+friþe I've seen seem to match the exact intended semantics here, where "in peace" means "having peaceful intentions"; they all seem to mean "enjoying a state of peace" instead. Maybe for the intention meaning they would have used some adverbial expression instead, like gesibsumlíce? (Or, possibly, Old English folks just never went anywhere "in peace" at all, and didn't have a word for it.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:43, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

You are probably right. It is hard to tell, though. Also in the American English of 1951, the semantics of in following come is unclear in this phrase, so we cannot be fully sure why Klaatu used a prepositional adverbial instead of proclaiming "I come peacefully", and also not which case he would have used, had he landed in 11th-century London. In 1951, the US was one of the belligerents in the Korean War, so the visitor may have been in a peaceful state of mind but his landing site was not in a state of peace. The syntactically nearest I can think of in current English is "We come in good faith", which basically means the same as Klaatu's "I come ... with good will".  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:58, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

August 4

Fucken vs. fuckin'

I'm reading the novel The Tribute by John Byron (2019). It's very well written and researched, has a very engaging plot, and I'm constantly in the state of wanting to know what happens next. It has a wealth of technical medical terms, and various cultural references to Renaissance personages like Vesalius, etc. I'm at page 229 and have yet to detect a single spelling or grammatical error. (He does refer to Leonardo da Vinci as "Da Vinci" as if this were his surname, but that's not uncommon.)

But there's a problem with the swear words he has his characters say. Or, more to the point, the spelling of one of those words. "Fucken" crops up quite early in the piece. After a few dozen fuckens I quietened my inner editor and accepted that this has become one of the ways of spelling fuckin'. But then, he has one character use fuckin', another use fucking, and then all three variants have a party. The first character to use fuckin' says it three times, then reverts to fucken, and later says fucking – there goes my theory that he's using the different spellings to mark his characters.

So, I'm left wondering whether there's a difference in meaning between fuckin' and fucken. I'm in little doubt that the author has deliberately chosen these different spellings, because he's so careful with his wording and spelling generally.

• Another person encountered the same issue in 2004.
• Wiktionary just says it's an alternative spelling of fuckin'.
• Urban Dictionary says, inter alia: childish spelling for the adjectival/adverbial intensive "fucking". Easy way to identify you're chatting with an illiterate &/or child.

I could accept that last quite readily, were it not for the fact that Byron is far from an illiterate or a child.

Any ideas on this? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:49, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I think your post is the first time I've ever seen "fucken". Fucken Awesome question. Is it perhaps an Australianism? DuncanHill (talk) 22:02, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I've been seeing it on social media for over 15 years. That's obviously become the Great 21st Century Word Foundry. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:45, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Would fucken or fuckin have different intonation in the Sydney patois? Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:17, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Not being a Sydneysider, I don't know. But having spent much time there, I rather doubt it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:45, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Might be able to ask him about it. [https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/authors/John-Byron/235314559] Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:29, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Based entirely on my limited experience of Australian films, I would suggest that fucken' might be more of a random interjection with little aggressive intent, whereas fuckin' is perhaps more emphatic, with the voice more obviously lifting at the end of the phrase. MinorProphet (talk) 23:15, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks. (I was in my mind sounding it out as fucken would have the stress on the second syllable FukEN compared to the other, fuk'n). Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:20, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

The only thing I can think of for an author to intentionally vary the spelling of a term in a character's direct speech, corresponding to subtly different pronunciations, is that in the narrative the character themself is varying the pronunciation. Not having read any part of the novel I can only speculate as to why the character from the novel would do such a thing, but we're not allowed to engage in speculation. Among candidate reasons is that a speaker may change register depending on the occasion, such as whom they are addressing, but if the variations occur within a contiguous block of speech addressed to an unvarying audience, this can be ruled out. Another potential reason, perhaps far-fetched but not unreasonable, is that the speaker is imitating the way various others pronounce the term, so that they are as it were quoting these others.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:27, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

My first thought - as with some above - is that this is meant to show slight differences in pronunciation. It wouldn't be accents since the same character uses different spellings, but perhaps different vowel stresses depending on the situation (?), but I think if that were the case, you'd see it in more than the one word. Like, he might be thinken about fucken in one scene, but in a different context he'd be talkin' about fuckin'. If that's not what's going on, I'm a bit stumped. Matt Deres (talk) 12:52, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

And would someone from New Zealand pronounce fuckin' the same way an Aussie would? Would fuckin' in New Zealand sound closer to fucken? ~2026-40817-33 (talk) 00:55, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Off-topic: No idea, but ignoring The Quiet Earth, the unsung Shaker Run is one of my fave road movies ever, especially if you like your Trans-Am in pink... MinorProphet (talk) 01:24, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I have to confess to a partiality for Australian dashcam vids. A few years ago the worst thing anyone said was, "Idiot!" Now, it tends to be "Fucking idiot!" with variations. Compare from 5:38, perhaps "What are you fuckin' doing, you fucken' muppet?" And from 7:38 - "What an absolute fuckin' cockhead! Fucken' Jesus, chum. What the fuuuck?" MinorProphet (talk) 01:08, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Another Australian here. There are no doubt different pronunciations of the word in question here. Are we seeing attempts by the author to reflect that? It's a bit class based, with the "ing" ending coming from more upper class swearers. HiLo48 (talk) 02:00, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

August 5

Alphabetical ordering of people's names

What How do cultures without surnames list/order people? Indonesia seems to be a particularly chaotic situation; Indonesian names says most (but not all) western Indonesians don't have them, but eastern Indonesians generally do. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:28, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

In Iceland, many people do not have a surname. They sort by given (first) name. The call directory for a hospital I did work for there was mostly just first names, sorted alphabetically. Not everyone has an alphabet like English. In Myanmar, they use a script (abugida). The script has order itself (same as our alphabet having order), so they can sort their names by abugida order. In China, they use characters. They do not spell out words. Names are usually sorted by radical and stroke order. They usually have family names and personal names. The family name comes first, so you would see all the Wu people listed under the radical kou (mouth) with a stroke order of seven. As with memorizing the order of letters in the alphabet, Chinese have memorized the order of the radicals. Japanese uses both hiragana and katakana. When working there, I had to learn the kana order for their symbols to look up items in lists. It is similar to sorting in alphabetical order. This made me wonder about the case where a culture has no surname (so they likely sort by first name) and they do not use letters, scripts, or characters. That indicates that they do not write. So, an oral-only culture, they wouldn't write down a list of names. Perhaps they will follow the practice of many African communities which sort by birth order. Older people are first and younger people are last. That does cause age inflation. A similar age-sorting practice was common in Abkhazia. The result was that almost everyone was well over 100 years old because every time they had to be sorted into a line they would add a year or two to their age. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 14:13, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

In Indonesia, it seems to be common with people having only one name, and thus, that is the one used for listing and ordering (as per the Latin alphabetical order). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:19, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Re: Japan, out of curiosity, do you happen to remember what the kana order was for lists? When I learned kana it was arranged as a two dimensional grid, with the vowels as columns and consonants (or lack thereof) as rows and (syllable-final) n ( ん / ン ) by itself. So I'm curious if the "list order" is the same. Did all of the open vowel names come before all the names that begin with consonants? I remember the vowel order was A I U E O. ~2026-40817-33 (talk) 04:50, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

The grid you likely saw is the order. It is ordered left to right, top row down to bottom row.

あ い う え お

か き く け こ

さ し す せ そ

た ち つ て と

な に ぬ ね の

は ひ ふ へ ほ

ま み む め も

や ゆ よ

ら り る れ ろ

わ を ん ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 11:00, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Also: in Iceland, is everyone sorted by given name, or are the people who do have surnames sorted by their surname? ~2026-40817-33 (talk) 05:10, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

My only experience is name lists for a hospital system. They sorted everyone by first name. I have a first and last name. I was sorted by by first name even though my last name was listed. Of note, almost everyone had their name followed by their mother's name with either 'son' or 'dottir' added. So, if you are John, daughter of Martha, your name would be listed as John Marthadottir, sorted into the J's. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 11:03, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I believe just about everyone born on Iceland has a patronymic (more commonly, rather than a matronymic as explained), rather than a proper surname. If you want to become a proper Icelandic citizen, you would need to change your name . Also, for transgender purposes, apparently it was now accepted to add a -bur rather than a -son or dottir to your patronymic. (Which in context, would mean "child".) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:42, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Isn't using just given names horribly inefficient? A popular first name would lead to massively long lists (say the non-English equivalent of John). Clarityfiend (talk) 23:51, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Worse than a list of Smiths? —Antonissimo (talk) 00:58, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

In a culture where ordering by first name is common, mononymous persons would be listed by their first name. In a culture where ordering by last name is common, they would be listed by their last name.  ​‑‑Lambiam 22:02, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

August 6

Jason Atta Kwei Arday

Jason Arday, of Ghanaian heritage, is much in the news. His full name is Jason Atta Kwei Arday. Are "Atta" and "Kwei" given names, or some form of patronymic or similar? In what language? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:35, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

July 29

Music notation oddity

This is something I've never seen before, in over 60 years of piano playing. The key signature of this piece (the first piece in the set, P. 2 is in 6 flats but the 6th flat (C-flat) is enclosed in parentheses. This raises questions before I've even read the first measure: How am I to interpret this? But lo and behold, in that first measure there's a C in the bass stave, but with a natural sign (♮). This tells me the C-flat in the key signature is to be obeyed. A C-natural appears in every single measure of the piece, and not a single C-flat. In other words, the key signature tells the player to play Cs as C-flats everywhere except where otherwise indicated; yet in every single case he does otherwise indicate. It all seems to be rather pointless.

It seems to be in a sort of weird version of E-flat minor, and not B-flat minor, so the 6-flat key signature is appropriate. It seems to be a cousin of the E-flat melodic minor scale, except that that scale naturalises both the C and D when ascending, and flattens both when descending. Ryazanov's scale naturalises only the C-flat universally. Many of the D-flats are also naturalised, but not all. When they're to be played as D-flat, they're marked with an explicit flat sign (♭) in the score, even though the key signature requires them to be flattened anyway. More pointlessness.

What am I to make of this pre-war Soviet oddity? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:53, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

So two things are notationally odd: the parenthesis in the signature, and the explicit flattening of the D-flats (as well of some other notes that are flats per the key signature, as in bars 9 and 11). Explicitly indicating already implied alterations is actually not uncommon when in the context playing naturals may feel more natural to one's fingers; I can't tell if this may have played a role here. One scenario for the odd key signature I can think of is that the composer originally only wrote the five flats that were needed, but was berated by his composition teacher because the key theoretically required six, and then half-heartedly wrote the sixth flat in.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:53, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I get that, and thanks. What I don't get is: having gone through and laboriously added naturals to all instances of the note C, why confuse the player with parenthesising the C-flat in the key signature? Either it's part of the signature or it isn't, but the parentheses make it look like a bet each way. Naturals always countermand a previous instruction, whether in the same bar or in the general key signature. Hence the C-flat in the key signature does definitely apply, and the player is left in no doubt that they're playing the right notes. It's just a stupidly clunky way of doing things; adding tons of accidentals when there are already 6 flats in the key does not endear one to players. It must have snuck past his teacher on the way to the publisher.

FWIW, this is one of those pieces that look really interesting on the page, but sound dreck to the ears. Stalin's mid-30s Russia was a pretty dreck place ... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:55, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

There were plenty of shows though. DuncanHill (talk) 22:09, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Sometimes you see this with music that is written in the Dorian mode or other ancient modes which don't have their 'own' key signature in the modern sense of musical notation. The root in your example is E♭, and an E♭ minor key signature would normally include six flat symbols. An E♭ Dorian mode only 'needs' five flat symbols, but a musician of the 20th century might automatically associate five flat symbols in the key signature with either B♭ minor or D♭ major, so adding the sixth flat symbol in parentheses (and then canceling it with ♮ on every occasion within the music) is one way of signalizing that its root is E♭, not B♭. For example, Bach's "Dorian" Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538 normally has no key signature, but you can find sheet music with a flat symbol in parentheses in the key signature. ---Sluzzelin talk 04:56, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

• Thanks to Lambiam and Sluzzelin, both of whose ideas make a lot of sense to me. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:12, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Resolved

August 2

A question for finding the Arabic CG Astroganger sequel asked by a blocked user on Teahouse interests me

LTA evading block. Athanelar (talk) 14:14, 2 August 2026 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

They said this information is on the Japanese Wikipedia article for Astroganger and multiple Japanese websites. However, this user coundl’t find the Arabic CG Astroganger sequel series. When asked whatever or not this information is vandalism done in the Japanese Wikipedia, they said that this information is on multiple Japanese websites. Astroganger was very popular in Arabic-speaking world, and was also kind of popular in Spain and Italy. While i’m not from either of these countries, i do know Astroganger and i am interested about finding the Astroganger sequel. So this blocked user isn’t the only one talking about the Astroganger sequel in the Teahouse. I would like if we could find the Astroganger sequel. ~2026-42678-73 (talk) 11:11, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I’m wondering if there are other overseas adaptations/sequels of japanese anime/media? ~2026-42678-73 (talk) 11:20, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I have also posted it on the Teahouse and on the Wikipedia:Help desk. ~2026-42678-73 (talk) 11:25, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

August 3

questions about the song "Return to Innocence"

Return to Innocence

Is Return to Innocence a New-age and worldbeat song? Is yes, there any reliable source for helping me for making this article as Wikipedia:GA? VitorFriboquen :] (Talk) 00:54, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

This article can be used to support the "new-age" and "worldbeat" genre labels.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:45, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Can you guys confirm this text?

Is a true that Return to Innocence was released in December 1993 by Virgin Records as the lead single from the group's second album? yes, there any reliable source for helping me for making this article as Wikipedia:GA? VitorFriboquen :] (Talk) 23:25, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

August 5

Newspapers

If a newspaper is published five days in a week - all except Saturday and Sunday - would it be called a "daily newspaper" then? And in English-speaking countries, are there any newspapers that are published two or three times in a week? Many newspapers in Finland are published in such a density. --40bus (talk) 12:28, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Depending on the context, yes it might be described as a daily, but the lack of weekend editions would probably be noted. I don't know the newspaper trade any more these days, but not publishing perfectly weekly or perfectly daily is still unusual I think (though see The Meridian Star). Of course, when everything is online the concept of days and editions is almost meaningless. If I heard of a paper that printed/published twice a week or something, I would assume it was a local or regional paper and not a serious publication. Canadian context. There are sections or articles on dailies and weeklies. Matt Deres (talk) 12:41, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

It is becoming common:

"The once-routine, seven-day-a-week print run is disappearing, with 42 of the largest 100 newspapers now delivering a print edition six or fewer times a week. Eleven of those largest dailies publish in printed form only one or two times a week." Northestern

The same article explains that 'daily' and 'weekly' are used as value terms, not necessarily frequency. So, the definition of 'daily' still means "more often than weekly" but not necessarily 7 days a week. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 12:59, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Traditionally in the UK, daily newspapers published Monday–Saturday but not Sunday, however a particular daily was/is often closely associated with a Sunday (only) paper having a similar graphic design (and some overlap of staff), though much thicker and often with one or more supplementary colour magazine(s); these would be called something like The Daily Gossip, and The Sunday Gossip with its accompanying Sunday Gossip Magazine. Some Sunday newspapers, however, had/have no associated daily.

A variation was the influential London daily newspaper The Evening Standard (at times in its long history being an evening edition of The Standard, but latterly appearing from the early morning like other papers, though with updated editions appearing later in the day). This was published Monday–Friday with a Weekend edition appearing on Saturday to also cover Sunday, but in recent years this has been reduced to a weekly free paper.

Other 'provincial' papers have always appeared once weekly, often on Thursday. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 16:05, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

USA Today is considered a "daily", though it does not have Saturday or Sunday editions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:57, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

A little odder, the Daily Illini (student paper at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) is – or, as of 1981, was – published Tuesday-Saturday. —Antonissimo (talk) 20:27, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

The masthead on the Chicago Tribune for Sundays used to say Chicago Sunday Tribune, until they changed it starting with the edition of February 17, 1963. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:32, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

July 25

Scary Story

Hi! I'm looking for a scary story i read somewhere. It was about a boy who was contacted (via e-mail?) by twins (both girls) who tell him that they lived in his house before him and were murdered. At the end, they tell him to look in the closet if he doesn't believe them... ~2026-41268-79 (talk) 02:52, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

It's The Smith Sisters, found here. Matt Deres (talk) 14:48, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

This version is different. There is another version: John's parents were murdered and skinned, but he survived. Which version is the original? Stanleykswong (talk) 17:19, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Here is a version with skinned parents. Many versions of this urban legend have been circulated on the Internet, starting in 2005; see "Did the Ghosts of Two Teens Return to Kill and Skin Their Parents?" on Snopes. The origin may have gotten lost in the mists of history.  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:34, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Go here https://www.scaryforkids.com/smith-sisters-murdered-anonymously/ if you want to read the story the way it was meant to. ~2026-35599-34 (talk) 19:47, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

The story is set in Plainfield, Wisconsin, which was Ed Gein's bailiwick. That might be more than a coincidence. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:00, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Numbers vs. dates

Do any people, or at least commonly, associate some three-and four digit numbers with date numbers formed by the day and month in either order, such as the number 257 to today (25/7) or 725 to 7/25 where it is the month first? --40bus (talk) 20:51, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Never. —scs (talk) 23:44, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Hardly ever. —Antonissimo (talk) 01:32, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Insane idea. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 15:44, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

The number 420 is associated with 4:20 pm as well as 4/20 (April 20). And some people have wondered if there is a connection between 911, the North-American emergency telephone number, and 9/11 (the date of the September 11 attacks).  ​‑‑Lambiam 04:37, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Why 4:20 pm instead of 4:20 am? Stanleykswong (talk) 22:39, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Probably because most reasonable people aren’t awake at that hour. (Unlike, I suspect, a lot of us here at the reference desk, myself included.) Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 03:17, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Also Star Wars Day, "May the Fourth Be With You". Didn't you already ask this just a couple of weeks ago? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:05, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

When I think the number 257, I think the date 25/7. When I think the number 267, I think the date 26/7. When I think the number 277, I think the date 27/7. Do any people think so? --40bus (talk) 06:24, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Just you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:30, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

So when you think 269, you think 26 September, which is also the 269'th day of a normal (non-leap) year.  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:20, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

You obviously turn 257 into twenty-five seven. Someone else might say two fifty-seven. I'm a veteran. To avoid confusion, I was trained to never combine numbers. I say two five seven. There is far less chance of that becoming a date in my head. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 11:35, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

There's an old nurd joke: "Why can't computer programmers tell the difference between Halloween and Christmas? Because OCT 31 = DEC 25." —scs (talk) 10:48, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I myself celebrate June 10 as "Steve's height day", because I'm 6'10". —scs (talk) 10:49, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

So the bottom line is, no, it's not just you; people do this all the time! —scs (talk) 10:51, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

According to your notation, does 121 represent 1/21 or 12/2? Stanleykswong (talk) 22:37, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

The EU emergency number 112 comes into mind, as it represents 11 February, which represents the date format used there (and most of the world). JuniperChill (talk) 11:32, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

What, not the first of December? That day I'll always remember. —Antonissimo (talk) 04:38, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

July 26

Can daily word puzzles be more effective than reading Wikipedia for vocabulary?

I know reading Wikipedia articles is often recommended for improving vocabulary and general knowledge. However, I've been spending time on daily word games like Spelling Bee and Waffle and wonder whether they can be just as effective or perhaps even better for learning new words. Has anyone come across research or personal experience comparing these approaches? Johnsmithwaff (talk) 10:51, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Suppose Spelling Bee serves up A•B•I•O•L•N•R, with the O being central. Being an expert on anthraquinones, you enter BARBALOIN, an existing word, useful to know and a pangram to boot. It is rejected – bummer. Another pangram using these seven letters is BARONIAL. Now assume this is a word of whose existence you weren't aware. You'll find it the next day on yesterday's answers, but without a clue as to what it means and how it is used. Just knowing that some word exists, without knowing how it is used, is not very helpful (except for Scrabble players – but this one is a very low scoring word). On Wikipedia you'll find information on AZIMUTH, BRAHMIN, CELADON, ..., ZYMOGEN, embedded in a context showing how the word is used and relating it to more general knowledge. See also Wiki rabbit hole and some user's lists: User:Gobonobo/rabbit holes and User:EF5/Rabbit holes on Wikipedia. To get going, there is always Random page, linked to from the side bar when using a browser.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:47, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Beware of Wiki rabbit holes. You can easily get stuck in one for hours. Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:54, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Also, several online dictionaries have a "word of the day" page:

• Collins;
• Dictionary.com;
• Merriam–Webster.

 ​‑‑Lambiam 09:27, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

July 27

High schools in China focussing on natural sciences

Hello,

I would like to know, where it says whether a specific Chinese high school focusses on natural sciences. Asfar as I know, in higher secondary School most students focus on either social sciences or natural sciences. Kind regards Sarcelles (talk) 16:23, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Education in China is a good source for learning about education in China. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 16:40, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Do you mean schools like Chengdu Wenjiang Science and Technology Innovation High School (成都文江区科技创新中学)? Stanleykswong (talk) 21:31, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

In China, some provincial key or demonstrative high schools include terms such as "scientific and technological innovation" or "experimental" in their official names. These labels are regulated and typically indicate that the school operates specialized programs, often with a strong emphasis on natural sciences, technology, and curriculum innovation. Stanleykswong (talk) 21:41, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your messsages. Not only schools with such names focus on sciences in their final examination.

Kind regards Sarcelles (talk) 06:57, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps the intention of the question is the following:

Given some particular high school, such as for example 北京市延庆区第四中学, is there a systematic way (such as through some directory of high schools) of finding out about their focus (if any)?

 ​‑‑Lambiam 09:20, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Thankyou for your message.

Education in China doesn't give such information. I can't read Chinese. Sarcelles (talk) 19:15, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2?fromModule=lemma_search-box seems to say, that there is a choice between arts and sciences in senior high school. Does 高中科学课程 mean high school for sciences?

Kind regards Sarcelles (talk) 20:03, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

It states: "Students must decide whether to pursue a science or humanities track during their second or third year of high school." So, their system differs from the flexible approach in the US and the UK, as we do not have such a rigid streaming system. Stanleykswong (talk) 22:07, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Their streaming system bears a closer resemblance to the German Gymnasium and French Lycée. Stanleykswong (talk) 22:08, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Tthank you for your messages. Which sources can be used to fill up such schools in List of scientific gymnasiums?]]

Kind regards Sarcelles (talk) 10:11, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

You appear to have gone about creating this List Article WP:Backwards. Rather than creating the list and then looking for sources on which to base articles on the schools, you would have done better to have:

(1) found multiple sources (compliant with WP:Golden rule) for each of the schools;

(2) created an article for each of the schools based on those sources; and only then

(3) created the List Article listing those now-existing Wikipedia articles.

As it is, you have an Article listing 39 schools, 36 of which are red links. This is, shall we say, sub-optimal.

If you cannot find the sources as specified in (1) for a school, that school cannot qualify for an article (see Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)#Schools).

I suggest you Draftify the List Article, and then create Drafts for each of the schools you wish to include according to the criteria in Golden Rule. I suspect finding the required Reliable sources will be a considerable task, and I have no particular suggestions to make as to how to achieve it; others may. Good luck. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 10:56, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

July 29

Celebrity photo search

Hello! Where can i find a photo of Avril Lavigne and Britney Spears together? Apparently it exists, but I can't find it. Photos of Avril with Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian are easy to find, but these aren't. ~2026-35599-34 (talk) 00:19, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Like this? I found it by googling "Avril Lavigne and Britney Spears together". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:55, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

August 1

Question about some Swiss road signs

Hello! On the page of Swiss road signs in the German Wikipedia it says that road signs and have been repealed and vice versa two new signals introduced and only from 1 October 1995, even though according to the Swiss Federal Law website (see: ) it was decided (meaning "promulgated") on 19 June 1995 (but it only came into force from 1 October of the same year). This raises many doubts for me. In your opinion, did those two new signals already exist before 1 October and only from 19 June 1995? I ask this question because it is a bit like comparing it with the current Italian Highway Code on road signs, promulgated on 30 April 1992 and which came into force only on 1 January 1993, that is, those current Italian signs already existed the year before, as it says here. So at this point, the date on the German Wikipedia should be corrected from 1 October 1995 to 19 June 1995, as well as that of the Swiss Road Sign Law of 1979, which should also be corrected from 1 January 1980 to 5 September 1979, since the new Swiss signs already existed the year before. Furthermore, regarding the complete catalog of Swiss road signs, was it better before or after June 19, 1995 (or October 1, 1995)? With the removal of two signs and the addition of two others, the current set seems somewhat incomplete and very odd to me—as evidenced by the "EasyDriver 3.0" CD-ROM (the Swiss driving license software released in 1997), which lacked the "no entry for vehicles carrying explosives" sign and the round "Stop" sign. Thanks! DanielParoliere (talk) 11:29, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

What does it mean for a national road sign to "exist"? Images of these signs must have been present in the text of the legislation on 19 June 1995, so they existed on paper. But, at the time, they were not yet "Swiss road signs". Presumably, after the proposal had become law, many physical items with these images were manufactured before 1 October 1995. Some were probably even installed along road sides days before 1 October 1995, possibly temporarily covered. These became "Swiss road signs" on 1 October 1995, or later, when revealed.  ​‑‑Lambiam 15:51, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

The proper place for a discussion of a page on the German Wikipedia would be the talk page associated with that page, not an unrelated page in a completely different wiki. Lambiam's already talked about "existence." It's not at all unusual for a decision to be made on a particular date, but to only come into force on some later date. In fact, it's the normal way governments (and other large organisations) work. In this case the Swiss decided in June to remove two road signs and introduce two new ones, but gave themselves four months to manufacture and install the replacement signs, and to tell drivers what the new ones mean.

I'm not sure what you mean by "was [the complete catalog of Swiss road signs] better before or after June 19, 1995?" Better in what way? And why would you expect a CD-Rom released in 1997 to include signs removed in 1995? Chuntuk (talk) 09:40, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Because if you don't believe it, that's how it is on EasyDriver 3.0: . Furthermore, by "complete catalog", I mean a complete set of road signs. DanielParoliere (talk) 09:54, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Your original message implies that Easy Driver omitted the two abolished signs, your later one says they were included. I don't see why we should care either way. Maybe, despite the Swiss reputation for efficiency, they figured that some signs officially abolished two years earlier might still be visible on the nation's roads, and drivers should be told what they mean. It was thirty years ago now, what difference does it make?

A list of the road signs that are currently officially recognised in Switzerland is a complete list. A list of the road signs that have ever been officially recognised in Switzerland is also a complete list. They're just lists of different things. Discussion of which approach would best be applicable on that wiki page should be done in its talk page, not here. Chuntuk (talk) 09:22, 4 August 2026 (UTC)