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October 1

Wikipedia random article function

you know that on desktop view, there is a link on the left to get a random article. Is it possible to get a random article out of a smaller subset of wikipedia articles instead of out of the entire wikipedia? for example, generate random Australians. Or random Australian scientists. Or random female Australian scientists, etc. ~2026-52731-07 (talk) 04:57, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Yup, you're looking for Special:RandomInCategory. Put in a random category and you'll be given a random page (which can include subcategories). ―Panamitsu (talk) 06:00, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

cool thanks! if you have a sec to explain how it works though? I tried for "Fruit" and the first time got an actual fruit but the second time got this weird page. can i get a fruit every time? weird page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Fruit_morphology&wpcategory=Fruit ~2026-52731-07 (talk) 18:54, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Yeah you put in Category:Fruit. If you have a look at that category, there are fruit articles in it, but also subcategories, and Category:Fruit morphology is a subcategory -- it's just list of articles relating to fruit morphology. ―Panamitsu (talk) 21:07, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. That doesn't quite do what I hoped for then, though slightly better than the general random function. If you think of a way to do it and only get real articles, let me know, but thank you for the answer so far. ~2026-52731-07 (talk) 02:59, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

It turns out there's the template Template:Random page in category which allows for this, but it's not as simple to use. The wikitext {{Random page in category|Fruit|type=page}} creates this link: Random page in category Fruit. But you have to put that wikitext onto a place like your talk page if you want to be able to use it yourself.

An alternative is you can go to this link: https://randomincategory.toolforge.org/Fruit?site=en.wikipedia.org&type=page but if you don't want "Fruit" you change it to another category name. This link is what the template above uses. ―Panamitsu (talk) 05:28, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Amazing, that URL is just what was needed! thank you for persisting and answering this question. ~2026-52731-07 (talk) 17:28, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Apple SEP

On Security and privacy of iOS#Secure Enclave there is the sentence:

The secure enclave itself is a flashable 4 MB AKF processor core called the secure enclave processor

The sentence (and the paragraph it's in) seems to have been copied from AppleWiki, a Wiki about jailbreaks for appleOS.

"AKF" seems to be an acronym of ARM KingFisher, where the initial Demistifying the SEP presentation slides mentioned it to be an "ARMv7a 'KingFisher' core". Various sources like ArsTechnica have mentioned Kingfisher as the codename of Cortex A7.

Should we be bold and just change the text to say "SEP is a Cortex-A7 core"?

Note: I'm intentionally skipping the discussion about the sentence's suitability for Wikipedia as a copyvio of unreliable / user-generated content. 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk / Uploads} 11:28, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Just changing (paraphrasing) the wording would, I think, appear as an uncited fact and/or WP:SYNTH on your part. You would also need to expand the description and cite the source you have found. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 17:56, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Indeed. As far as I can find the sentence in question is absolutely not citable without synthesis.

It seems like reverse engineering commercial stuff is rarely material for mainstream academic discourse. 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk / Uploads} 06:22, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

October 3

What is the name for the phenomenon of children experiencing the founding of major web companies?

I thought I founded most of the top websites when I was five, but Sergey Brin or Larry Page appeared to me and said children sometimes think they founded websites that are actually much more difficult to code (they experience coding parts of the sites). Is there a name for this phenomenon, such as a scientific or theological one? --Michael White^T·C 05:47, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Speaking in tongues would seem most appropriate. Your post is entirely deficient in anything resembling an answerable question. Or even an indication of what the question might be about. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:53, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Delusion? Dream? —Antonissimo (talk) 17:31, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Google was founded in 1998, years after you were five. You could have figured that out without appearances.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:55, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

Seems to me that False memory, and perhaps False memory syndrome, could be relevant. —scs (talk) 12:17, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

I had a computer and was able to design and code the first versions of the websites. I sent various emails about them, such as asking Harvard University to administer them. There were different pseudonyms for all of them.--Michael White^T·C 21:38, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

No you didn't. As you are well aware, Wikipedia is not a platform for absurd self-promotional nonsense. Not here, not in your ridiculous autobiographical draft, not anywhere. If you want to make yourself look stupid, find somewhere else to do it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:27, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

22- and 14 nm process nodes

Regarding process nodes in semiconductor device fabrication, we currently categorize (read: redirect) 16nm process to 14, and 20nm process to 22.

There maybe exceptions: SemiWiki wrote two articles about TSMC's transition from planar transistors to FinFET. They wrote:

Source 1

TSMC took a different approach to FinFETs. After mastering double patterning on 20nm, TSMC added in FinFETs and called it 16nm. The density was less than Intel 14nm thus the name difference. Samsung 14nm was a similar density as TSMC 16nm but Samsung took the low road and pretended they were competitive with Intel. And that is why process nodes are now marketing terms, my opinion.

Source 2

[The] 16nm FinFET process technology is a bit of a misnomer. It was probably named by Marketing people to imply that the resulting performance when transitioning from planar to FinFET in a 20nm [would] be "between 20nm planar and 14nm FinFET".
Why 16nm FinFETS you ask? Two reasons: (1) EUV is late so a true 14nm FinFET process will not be possible by 2015 and (2) Customers designing mobile devices were not willing to wait for the power savings FinFETS have to offer. As a result, the current 20nm lithography process was modified for FinFETs, and the 16nm FinFET process was born.

Which means that technically some 16"nm" are 22"nm"s. This is messed up. Yet I can't cover these subtleties without actively violating WP:V and WP:OR. So instead, I present them here to see if anyone has any thoughts. 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk / Uploads} 10:54, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

In this area, "##nm" is more a model number than a measurement. I completely agree that "nm" is a unit of measure, but it isn't used as such here. So, 16nm has nothing to do with a measurement. 22nm has nothing to do with a measurement. It is just marketing people throwing out numbers. One says "If we call it 20nm, more people will buy it." Another says "No, let's go with 18nm." Another says "Our competitor is using 18nm, so we'll go 16nm!" Then, after the fact, there is an attempt by the consumers to categorize them by the new advances in each generation. But, because the label and technology aren't truly tied to one another, you can't make a perfect one-to-one relationship between them. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:08, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

References

September 24

Walter Breuning, calorie restriction, and extreme longevity

Is Walter Breuning proof of concept for the idea that calorie restriction can extend human longevity? ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 02:49, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Is his lifelong love of cigars proof for extending human longevity? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:15, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Good genes can sometimes immunize one from the negative health effects of smoking. See Jeanne Calment and her smoking habits. ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 07:41, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

It appears that she did not smoke very much. But good genes have to be considered for contributing to longevity. I am personally aware of individuals who were quite overweight and yet lived to be over 100. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:02, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Which people were relatively fat when they were centenarians, other than Leon Kaleta (1912-2022) and Alberto Andrade (1911-2021), both of whom died a month or two before their 110th birthdays? And I suppose Lawrence Brooks (1909-2022) at age 103, based on the photo that I've seen of him at that age from a newspaper article. (Unlike Kaleta and Andrade, who kept their weight until their death, Brooks became much thinner when he reached supercentenarian status.) ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 20:55, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

In the first half of the 20th century, several of the so-called blue zones combined wide-spread poverty (even famine, as in Okinawa) with conditions requiring strenuous physical activity (such as the daily tending to vegetable gardens up in the mountains in order to feed the family). While far from proof, this, as well as published studies on other mammal species, may be stronger indicators than a single data point could ever be. Regular exercise may be part of the mix required for caloric restriction to have a lifespan-extending effect. Without large-scale studies controlling for all kinds of potentially confounding factors, very little can be said with confidence.  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:12, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

There are many (too many) studies on calorie restriction in mice. The consensus is that it increases average and maximum lifespan. It is assumed that the effect translates to humans. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 13:39, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Incorrectly assumed. Lifespan can easily be increased in mice, for example by upping expression of superoxide dismutase, but then when you look in humans, they are already running superoxide dismutase on max. Humans are incredibly long-lived given their body mass, indicating lots for natural selection for it. Mice are selected for fast generation time. See Allometry and r/K selection theory. Abductive (reasoning) 17:59, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

One exceptional person isn't proof of anything. I suppose he's proof that calorie restriction doesn't make extended longevity impossible, but beyond that you can't generalise. in solidarity Chuntuk (talk) 12:04, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

<- LLM slop removed per Wikipedia policy ->

No idea about increased lifespan but I've found that 1) I can go on fairly severe calorie restriction for moderate periods without too much discomfort; and 2) while on the restriction I don't have much physical or mental energy and tend to sit around doing nothing. This made me think that even if sticking to it leads to longer lifespan, it's a lifespan with lower concentration of the experiences and creativity that make life interesting. I'll leave any conclusions up to philosophers. ~2026-53423-74 (talk) 06:15, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

People who are naturally overweight or obese would likely have much more trouble with this due to chronic hunger inducing chronic pain for them. Weight loss drugs are a wonder in this regard. The newer ones like Ozempic or Zepbound can massively lower weight but even the ones that don't reduce weight as much like Topiramate still do wonders at reducing chronic hunger. I can testify from personal experience with Topiramate. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:18, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

September 25

Euacidalia brownsvillea

What does the larva of Euacidalia brownsvillea look like? There is a single observation tagged as larva on iNaturalist but it's not Research Grade, and that identification is based on computer vision (which can't be particularly accurate for the larva of this species if there aren't any other larva observations, since the computer vision model is exclusively based on iNat observations...), so I'm hesitant to make any conclusions from it. I've tried searching everywhere online - TWL, Google Scholar, many many moth websites - but there's not many results, and none with images of larva. The original description of the species may have a description of the larva, but I haven't been able to find it freely online. Suntooooth, it/he (talk | contribs) 20:36, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Your link works, just have to scroll down to its entry. If that link doesn't work try this one. But it doesn't look like Cassino talks about the larval form. Abductive (reasoning) 23:50, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

The link doesn't work for me, it shows the top of the entry but refuses to show the rest of the page for copyright reasons (even though I'm pretty sure the book would be in the public domain by now...). That's a shame, though. Suntooooth, it/he (talk | contribs) 00:19, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

The description in this source is of adults only.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:19, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

October 1

Are dyslexia and nonverbal atavisms, and why do/don't they count as such?

Around a year or two ago, I discovered the term "atavism" – the state in which a trait (e.g. a tail or hind limbs) that have been lost through evolutionary pressures reappear in an individual. This made me wonder – can the two aforementioned disabilities count? Goats 601 (talk) 20:29, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

This is a popular pop science topic. Not to say that its wrong. Rick Riordan made Percy Jackson have ADHD and dyslexia for the benefit of his son's self-esteem, and suggested that these are traits and that they would have been adaptive in the past. There is this hypothesis of self-domestication in humans. Certain issues come to mind; there is basically no genetics for these disorders, and natural selection in humans is incredibly weak in general, and in particular for behaviors. The whole field of evolutionary psychology is a scam and a joke. But don't rule out the possibility that some disorders might be atavistic. Just be unbiased. Abductive (reasoning) 00:09, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

October 4

The purple slime of twelve thousand snails

Tyrian purple#Production from sea snails has the quote "twelve thousand snails of Murex brandaris yield no more than 1.4 grams (22 grains) of pure dye, enough to colour only the trim of a single garment", from I think fr:David Jacoby, a historian. I just edited this to include the source's source, Paul Friedländer (chemist). But something smells fishy. This 1925 Introduction To Organic Research speaks of Friedlander's isolation of 1.5 grams of 6,6'-dibromindigo. I am not worried about where the 0.1 gram went missing, but I wonder how Jacoby concluded that this was "enough to colour only the trim". Is it possible that Friedlander's experiment was not representative of an efficient industrial method of harvesting dye, but was in fact quite destructive in the course of seeking purity? Furthermore, might the very pure dye that resulted have been powerful enough to dye a whole lot of cloth? The legend of the discovery of purple is that a dog bit a snail and got a purple mouth - from chewing on one snail, not several thousand.  Card Zero  (talk) ※ 00:34, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

This Worst Jobs in History video says 1,000 shells for one whole cloak. The process is demonstrated for real. Taste-testing fermenting snail goo. Eww. Abductive (reasoning) 19:41, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

October 6

Artificial stomachs

Will science ever be able to produce an artificial stomach just like it has been able to produce an artificial heart? Especially only using machinery? Or is that impossible, with one needing actual enzymes to properly digest food, which machinery can never, ever replicate? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 02:22, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

We don't answer requests for predictions. Note that current artificial hearts can only temporarily stand in for natural hearts. Note also that the power source of current artificial hearts is an internal battery that needs to be recharged from an external power source. There is no reason to think developing a fully functional artificial replacement is impossible in principle. But it will be incredibly difficult.  ​‑‑Lambiam 03:51, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Enzymes can be synthesized, no? —Antonissimo (talk) 04:11, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Important enzymes needed for breaking down the nutrients and allowing them to be absorbed are pepsin and intrinsic factor. They could be produced by genetically modified bacteria, which may be more doable than synthesizing them in a portable miniature laboratory.

There is a US patent for an artificial stomach, using which these enzymes would need to be supplied externally ("a chemical food handling system may be adapted to release various chemicals into the food reservoir for treating the food, e.g. by releasing digestion-facilitating chemicals (e.g. an enzyme, an acid, etc.) ... Furthermore, an injection port connected to the special container is also provided to enable filling or re-filling of chemicals to the special container."). I don't think embodiments of this or similar inventions have been tested on actual patients.

Within the scope of futuristic scenarios, having patients regrow biological stomachs may be more promising than developing functional artificial ones.  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:48, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

That's my point, tho! You'd need to supply biological enzymes externally, not produce enzymes made from machine parts. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:16, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

illicit antidepressants

News reports that Sean "Diddy" Combs has been getting illicit goodies in prison, including Hennesey's liquor, cellular phones, and Remeron (Mirtazapine). I can understand the prison being upset about the first two, but the last is a tricyclic antidepressant with annoying side effects. It doesn't sound like a recreational drug. If it's helping him (prison has to be conducive to mental health issues) shouldn't he be able to get a prescription? Or is this actually a drug that people take for fun? The article doesn't say anything about abuse potential and it's not the type of thing I'd expect drug dealers to have on offer. Thanks. ~2026-53423-74 (talk) 07:37, 6 October 2026 (UTC):

<- LLM-generated reply removed. Wikipedia does not permit the use of Chatbots on talk pages -> AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:51, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Heidi Krauth CEO of Audria recently announced a AI startup serving dementia patients .Is the above post from the same AI ? ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 16:43, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

 Courtesy link:  doi:10.1080/10550887.2025.2514287, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0340092 and doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2026.0159 all seem to be genuine, so we just need to teach the AI to create links.... Mike Turnbull (talk) 17:25, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks but those links are about using mirtazapine to treat drug withdrawal and about its safety profile, i.e. useless from the perspective of the original question, which was about abuse potential. I also wonder how Diddy managed to pay for stuff while in prison. ~2026-53423-74 (talk) 19:47, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Presumably he has friends, employees, etc., on the outside who are willing to pay for things on his behalf? His being in a low-security correctional institution may also have some bearing on what he is allowed to receive from outside. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 06:51, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

"Despite its potential benefits, mirtazapine can be addictive and lead to abuse, mainly when it is used recreationally."  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:54, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

October 7

What is the evolutionary reason behind the somatosensory cortex for the genitals and feet neighbouring each other? What clade is this a synapomorphy of?

Ditto, but I learned this is one of the main reasons for the evolution behind the prevalence of foot kinks. Goats 601 (talk) 11:34, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps it was purely accidental. After all, the regions involved had to neighbour some area. What is the reason a lowercase h looks like a horse? More seriously, why are the regions of the cortex involved in the identification of letters and numbers adjacent to a region involved in colour-processing? (See Synesthesia § Mechanism.) I doubt this has an evolutionary reason.  ​‑‑Lambiam 16:37, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

All are innervated from the Sacral plexus. Abductive (reasoning) 08:21, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

And what's the evolutionary reason for the pelvis and feet belonging to the same nerve plexus?

Furthermore, why are the genital and pelvis sensory nerves not in the same plexus? Goats 601 (talk) 11:38, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

You asked what clade. It's Vertebrata or Chordata, which are characterized by having a spinal cord, or a tail. The wiring is adjacent, the brain regions are adjacent. Abductive (reasoning) 18:29, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

You remind me of a book of my childhood, in which h was a lady with a bustle. —Antonissimo (talk) 05:04, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Holy Toledo. How old are you? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:24, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Older than I look (it seems), but not nearly old enough to have seen bustles in real life! —Antonissimo (talk) 19:02, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

October 8

flag of Mars

I was wondering whether a cloth flag would even be able to get up a decent flutter in the thin atmosphere of Mars. Arlo James Barnes (pro-∪nion) 21:06, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

There are windstorms on Mars from time to time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:22, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

You might be interested in Lunar Flag Assembly - no wind but it looked good anyway beinga bit like a curtain rather than stratched and flat. I guess one could stick usa a motor but that would be extra weight. NadVolum (talk) 22:20, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

The start of crossdressing

An unbreeched 2-year-old FDR in 1884 is NOT what I'm asking about here!

Is there any data as to what percentage of crossdressers (transvestites) begin crossdressing in which stages of their life (early childhood, onset of puberty, late adolescence, early adulthood, mid-adulthood, late adulthood, old age, et cetera)? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 22:39, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

It may have started with Jefferson Davis. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:50, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't see any mention of him crossdressing on his article! ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:06, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

If any such data exists, it can only do so in relation to a specific society and time period. What might be considered 'crossdressing' could only be answered in relation to social norms: and in many societies, young children were dressed identically regardless of assigned gender anyway. See e.g. Breeching (boys). AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:00, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

I meant voluntary crossdressing, not little boys wearing dresses because their parents forced them to, as was actually historically a thing in the West with unbreeched boys. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:06, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Boys were no more 'forced to wear dresses' than girls were, in societies where dresses for boys were the norm. Nobody is born with a need to wear a particular item of clothing. In as much as 'transvestism' means anything at all, beyond being a pseudomedical label, it can only describe a desire to wear clothing considered gender-inappropriate in one's own society. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:43, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Amyloidosis and extreme longevity

Will curing amyloidosis allow many more centenarians and supercentenarians to reach age 120+? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:08, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

September 28

Cohen equivalent of "normal number"

Somewhat vague thoughts I've had for a while, which came to the forefront of my mind based on a recent edit at normal number.

Background: Two of the most basic notions of forcing that everyone needs to know are the OG Cohen forcing, and so-called random real forcing. They have a lot in common. If a real number x is generic for Cohen forcing (over some inner model M, say), that means that for every open dense set U of reals that has a code in the inner model, x is an element of U. If it's generic for random real forcing, it means that for every Borel set A of reals having a code in the inner model, if A is conull (that is, its complement has Lebesgue measure zero), then x is an element of A. (We can pare down from full Borel sets to Gδ sets and get the same notion; that makes it easier to think about the codes.)

Now, it's really really easy to see that a random real over M, for any reasonable M, is normal, but that a Cohen real over M cannot possibly be. This is a good way to think about the divergence between measure and category. For example, if you express a random real in base 17 and look at the fraction of digits that are equal to 13, as the initial segment of the representation gets longer and longer, that fraction has to converge to ${\frac {1}{17}}$. But for the Cohen real it behaves in a much odder way: For any number r between 0 and 1 and any positive ε, there are arbitrarily long initial segments of the representation where the fraction is within ε of r.

My (vague) question is, is this the "right" analogue of normality for Cohen reals? Or is there something stronger we should say, but that's still satisfiable by an actual real number rather than one in a generic extension? --Trovatore (talk) 21:24, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I thought of a slightly streamlined way of putting it, which it seems to me bolsters the case that it's the "right" analogue, but still interested in hearing thoughts.

Suppose we define, for x a real number, b a natural-number base at least 2, and d a digit from 0 to b−1 inclusive,

$\#(x,b,n,d)=$ the number of occurrences of d in the first n digits of the base-b expansion of x

Now say that x is simply normal to base b if, for every digit d,

$\lim _{n\to \infty }{\frac {\#(x,b,n,d)}{n}}={\frac {1}{b}}$

And say x is normal if it is simply normal to every base. I believe this is the standard definition.

Analogously, say x is simply cat-normal ("category normal") to base b if, for every digit d,

$\limsup _{n\to \infty }{\frac {\#(x,b,n,d)}{n}}=1$

And x is cat-normal if it is simply cat-normal to every base.

Exercises for the reader:

1. This definition of cat-normal is equivalent to the criterion I gave above.
2. Cat-normal reals exist (in fact they're comeager in the reals).
3. Any real that is Cohen over a transitive inner model of ZFC is cat-normal.

Does this seem right, and is it convincing that this is the "right" analogue of normality for Cohen reals? --Trovatore (talk) 02:14, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that looks like the right notion. It captures what can be said about the frequency of digits in a Cohen generic. Antendren (talk) 03:41, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Update: I put the question to Claude, and it pointed me to the concept of "extremely non-normal numbers", which means that for any possible collection of probabilities for digits, there's a subsequence of the initial segments of the representation where the frequencies converge to those probabilities. See here.

At first Claude thought my criterion was weaker than this, but its reason seemed to be considering it base-by-base. I pushed back, saying that my criterion gets stronger than you might expect when you require it for all bases (because you can take lots of digits at a time by looking at, say, base $b^{k}$ for some large $k$). Then it reversed course and said my criterion "for all bases" is equivalent to extremely non-normal in all bases, which I think is probably correct though I haven't tried to completely nail it down.

Aside: This is a little depressing. It's so bloody fast. If math isn't going to be done by humans anymore I wonder if I'm going to like it. It is what it is and there's no point crying about it. But it's my passion and I'll cry if I want to. --Trovatore (talk) 21:34, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

October 7

Leinster seems to be saying that proof of Yoneda lemma is a priori, but what about with in the relaxed category?

For example, in the semigroupoid, ${\hat {\alpha }}=\alpha _{A}(1_{A})$ is not guaranteed. Also, I don't think naturality holds for multiplicative graph. (because Coppey says that: square diagrams in a multiplicative graph can take one of five types depending on which potential compositions in the diagram are actually defined.) Will these examples useful for understand the Yoneda lemma? (I would suggest adding these two examples to the article.) What is the minimal condition (structure) under which the Yoneda lemma holds?--SilverMatsu (talk) 02:33, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

You would need to formulate a version of the Yoneda lemma that is meaningful in the relaxed context, before it can even be discussed whether it is true, and if so whether the proof is analogous. The usual formulation of the Yoneda lemma involves a family of hom functors, each denoted, for a given object $A,$ as $\mathrm {Hom} (A,-)$ or $h_{A}(-),$ defined on an arrow $f:P\to Q$ by $h_{A}(f)(g)=f\circ g,$ where $g:A\to P.$ For a multiplicative graph, $f\circ g$ is in general not defined, so it is dubious that a construction can be defined that assumes the role of these hom functors.  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:53, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I agree with you that $\mathrm {Hom} (A,f)$ is not guaranteed in a multiplicative graph. I'll looking into how to the define of the hom functor in a multiplicative graph. Also, since the composition of natural transformation is general not defined in a multiplicative graph, I think $\theta \circ -$ ($\theta \circ \alpha$) is not guaranteed.--SilverMatsu (talk) 03:48, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Reference

• Tom Leinster (2016). "Basic Category Theory". arXiv:1612.09375 [math.CT].

September 24

About a missing or forgotten image

I am college student doing a project about zionism. I remember seeing an image of historical document on a wikipedia page, which is a conference record or a post-conference declaration or something similar, about a zionist organization to accept part of the terms of a solution suggested by another organization.

After asking gemini, me and my groupmates believe it is likely to be "Resolutions of the 22nd Zionist Congress", but we still failed to find this image on wikipedia or internet.

Does anyone remember this image, or can an administrator check the deletion logs for files related to the "22nd Zionist Congress" or similar post-ww2 Zionist declarations? Any help finding the file name, the original Wikipedia page, or a copy of the document on the internet would be greatly appreciated for our project! Thank you. Nato18273 (talk) 19:03, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AZionistCongress-PartitionResolution-1937.jpg

Is it that image by chance? It is on the Peel Commission page. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 19:27, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

This is a resolution of the 20th Zionist Congress. You can find an English translation here, in the Palestine Partition Commission Report of 1938. (Not the Peel Commission but the Woodhead Commission.)  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:19, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, thank you both of you. Nato18273 (talk) 19:39, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

September 26

Why would soldiers do this to ambush?

So it shocked me that this ranks #15 in English literature and was reinterpreted by almost a dozen other artists. I just recently discovered The_Highwayman_(poem) by Alfred Noyes. I get that it is fiction, but as they say "historical fiction", Noyes was writing it as if it could have actually happened. I can not understand why a detachment of soldiers charged with law enforcement (even corrupt ones) would tie a shot gun or long gun to the "bait" after bounding her up (presumably to ensure she can't warn the Highway man even though she does anyway). For such a vaunted work of literature that has been adopted by everything from Anne of Green Gables to Fleetwood Mac, this is starting to bug me. Why would you if you are trying to lure, bait and trap a Highwayman in that era, tie a gun to the bait? Any and all theories or references appreciated!~2026-50044-25 (talk) 05:10, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

In reality, you probably wouldn't, but this is romantic fiction, set in an historical period. No-one would, in sober analysis, take it to be a practical procedure or necessarily an actual historical occurrence, but in the context of reading/listening to a romantic ballad, suspension of disbelief is expected of the audience.

In any case, this was (set in) the 18th century, before modern expectations of law enforcement had formed. In an historical milieu, such behaviour on the part of soldiers is not particularly implausible: consider the only slightly earlier Massacre of Glencoe.

For an example of a not dissimilar narrative (though without the specific feature you complain of), consider Whiskey in the Jar. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 16:16, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Would it also shock you to learn that it's fictional? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:12, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Please don't bite the newcomers. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:18, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: OP said "I get that it is fiction". To get away with your degree of sarcasm and unpleasantness you must at least read the posts you are criticising. You are increasingly a bad caricature of yourself. I think it's time you left the building. DuncanHill (talk) 17:21, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

I am eagerly looking forward to your answer to the user's question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:59, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

It appears to be some incoherent drunken mistreatment of the prisoner: a "jest". I don't get it either. But the physics of the scenario bother me more. First they had "bound a musket beside her", yet somehow "with the barrel beneath her breast", and then she was able to touch the trigger when she "twisted her hands behind her". So is this a weapon fashioned like a Krummlauf?  Card Zero  (talk) ※ 15:00, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

<voice=Rainier Wolfcastle> That's the jest. —Antonissimo (talk) 22:05, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Although cavalry were sometimes used to escort important people and there was some patrolling of known hot spots, I have been unable to find any reference for infantry being used to combat highwaymen, so this is probably all out Noyes's lurid imagination. Alansplodge (talk) 16:54, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

September 27

Interest rate

Headlines blare that Nene Royal is to receive $1 million in prize money for winning America's Got Talent, with the fine print revealing that's it's really a 40 year annuity like Lotto jackpots. The linked article quotes a 2016 source stating the present value as $300K. If my math is right, that's calculated from an interest rate of about 8.7%. Even in these inflationary times, does that reflect some ridiculously risky investment or what? Some kind of additional shenanigan on the show's part? Current 30 year US treasury yield is 5.5% (OMG in its own right) which would give a PV of $423K. Of course it's probably best for her to take cash up front regardless, given the dubious reliability of TV show management. Thanks for any thoughts. ~2026-51492-82 (talk) 05:36, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I would hazard a guess that America's Got Talent and the overall Got Talent franchise have become increasingly lucrative over the last ten years, and can well afford to spread their money over a wide range of safer and riskier investments, besides having a total ongoing income stream estimated at around $3.9 billion – Simon Cowell personally makes around $45 million annually from AGT alone. In the light of these sorts of sums, $1 million prize money spread over 40 years is chicken feed. (Disclosure: quoted figures are from Variety according to Google AI, so not inherently reliable by Wikipedia standards; feel free to seek better sources.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 19:13, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Wait, have I got this right? She gets $25,000 a year for 40 years? That's below minimum wage in California. DuncanHill (talk) 19:39, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Do you really think that's going to be her only source of income for the next 40 years? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:47, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

To get from $300,000 to $1,000,000 over 40 years requires an interest rate of 3.0557% p.a. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 20:10, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

That's the wrong calculation, it's what you get if you put $300K in the bank today and let it sit there for 40 years with no withdrawals til the end. You have to calculate the interest rate based on withdrawing $25K in cash today, another $25K next year, and so on for 40 years. It's similar to figuring out the payments for a home mortgage or car loan. See Annuity#Valuation. ~2026-51492-82 (talk) 20:37, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I assumed the prize was $1,000,000 spread out over 40 years, or $300,000 today. My mistake. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 03:43, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes that is right, $25K/y x 40 years, or $300K today. I calculated the interest rate you'd have to collect on the 300K to support drawing it out over 40y like that (answer: 8.7%). Then I wanted to know whether that means that the prize was undervalued at 300K today, based on comparing the 8.7% to other kinds of returns. I presume that the show doesn't pay out the 40 year prize itself, but rather just buys an annuity from a bank or insurance company or whatever. But, the 300k figure appears to just be somebody's guess. It will be interesting to find out if the amounts ever become public. ~2026-52011-78 (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Ok, I found that Oracle Corp (which is trying to be a media conglomerate now) has BBB- rated bonds (maybe because of their AI burn rate) and they have a 40 year issue with 8.28% yield. I don't quite understand the stuff about the coupon and payment schedule or how it affects things that the bond is redeemable, but anyway I think this gives me some kind of idea of what the AGT annuity is objectively worth. Thanks everyone. ~2026-52011-78 (talk) 00:30, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

September 28

Jack Jones and David Lloyd George

The 1944 book The Man David - An imaginative presentation, based on fact, of the life of David Lloyd George from 1880 to 1914 by Jack Jones, published by Hamish Hamilton, has a Publisher's note saying "A second volume dealing with Mr. Lloyd George's live subsequent to 1914 is in preparation". I am not aware of a second volume ever being published. Do we know what happened? Was it finished but unpublished? Abandoned? and whichever, why? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 22:12, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

In his 1946 autobiography Me and Mine, Jones writes "and how was the second half of it working out? Not at all, I told him. I've roughed out a couple of chapters and I'm stuck. It's Mons, the Aisne and Ypres all over again and it's now a stalemate as far as my writing of it is concerned. The weight of this war is too heavy on me to see that job of writing through. I'm afraid I shall have to leave it until this business is over." Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 22:40, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

@Pickersgill-Cunliffe: Thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 09:30, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

October 2

Legality of cocaine in the USA

In this YouTube Short, Jay Graydon observes that cocaine was legal in the US when the song Wacky Dust was written (1938). Presumably then, it ceased to be legal some time after 1938. But the Wikipedia article Cocaine in the United States seems to skips over this. It says that "the Jones-Miller Act of 1922 put serious restrictions on cocaine manufactures" and, later, has a quote from 1976 stating that cocaine was illegal, but says nothing of what might have happened in between. Is Graydon right or wrong? ~2026-52873-26 (talk) 01:12, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Our article on the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 contains the puzzling sentence,

"Although technically illegal for purposes of distribution and use, the distribution, sale and use of cocaine was still legal for registered companies and individuals."

So for registered companies and individuals the distribution and use of cocaine was legal, provided it was not for purposes of distribution and use?

In any case, according to the website of the Office of the Inspector General of the US Department of Justice Office, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act

"banned non-medical use of cocaine; prohibited its importation; imposed the same criminal penalties for cocaine users that were levied against users of opium, morphine, and heroin; and required a strict accounting of medical prescriptions for cocaine".

 ​‑‑Lambiam 07:00, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Presumably, it means that it is illegal in general, but with exceptions (e.g. Mallinckrodt). I thought our article on Coca-cola might be fruitful, but it also is cagey with regard to when Coke lost its coke. Coca-Cola#Coca_leaf says, "Since then (by 1929), Coca-Cola has used a cocaine-free coca leaf extract." Of course, that need not be tied directly to when cocaine was made illegal, but I was hoping to establish an upper bound. Matt Deres (talk) 13:35, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I think part of the issue is that cocaine illegalization in the USA followed a somewhat standard pattern of drug prohibition where the first effort was licensing (likely to pharmacists or other such licensed dispensers) with successive tightening of regulation prior to full prohibition. I don't know enough about the specifics of American law to present more than that general narrative but it is a VERY common pattern. Simonm223 (talk) 13:38, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I found a good source about this: McLaughlin GT (1973) Cocaine: The history and regulation of a dangerous drug. Cornell Law Review, 58:538–573

Quotations from that source about federal laws concerning cocaine:

"The Harrison Act [1914] served for more than fifty years as the corner-stone of the entire federal scheme of drug control legislation. The Act required every person who produced, imported, manufactured, compounded, dealt in, dispensed, sold, distributed, or gave away opium or coca leaves or their derivatives (cocaine) to register with the Internal Revenue Service and to pay a special tax. [...] the Act envisioned that all transfers of cocaine and opium would be between registered persons. Offenses were punishable by fines of up to two thousand dollars, a possible prison term of five years, or both."

"In 1922, Congress [passed federal legislation] prohibiting the importation of cocaine and coca leaves. The amendments to the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act banned the importation of cocaine absolutely but permitted the importation of certain amounts of coca leaves needed for medical and other legitimate uses. Any cocaine thereafter needed for medical purposes had to be produced from these legally imported coca leaves or chemically synthesized.

[Also,] for the first time in a federal statute, cocaine was dearly defined as a narcotic drug. Prior federal statutes had only referred to opium and cocaine by name. Cocaine thus became a narcotic drug in the eyes of the law, [...] penalties for violating the Act were more stringent than those in prior federal drug statutes. Whereas earlier penalty provisions had been drafted in the alternative-either a fine or imprisonment or both — the 1922 Act imposed a fine of up to five thousand dollars and imprisonment for up to ten years."

"In 1951, Congress made two fundamental changes in this pattern by making penalties for all drug offenses uniform and by requiring mandatory minimum prison sentences.

With the 1951 amendments to the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act and the Harrison Act, Congress standardized penalties for all drug offenses. Thus the penalty for failing to register as a cocaine distributor became identical to the penalty for illegally importing large quantities of cocaine into the country.

Prior law had always left the sentencing of a drug offender to the discretion of the judge; a maximum outer limit was set but no minimum term of imprisonment was required. The 1951 amendments reversed this approach and required a judge to sentence a drug offender to a mandatory period in prison."

"In 1970, Congress repealed existing federal drug laws and in their place enacted the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. Title II is known as the Controlled Substances Act."

There were also various state laws regulating cocaine.

Quoting the same source as above (McLaughlin 1973):

"[In 1887] Oregon prohibited the sale of both opium and cocaine without a doctor's prescription. By 1914, forty-five additional states had adopted some form of legislation to regulate the distribution of cocaine. Illustrative of these early state cocaine laws was the New York statute. It provided that any person who sold, offered to sell, furnished, disposed of, or gave away cocaine except as authorized by the act was guilty of a felony."

-IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 15:31, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

October 3

Databases for research papers in Chinese

I'm quite good at finding interesting research papers and academic books on services like JSTOR, the Wikipedia Library, Academia.edu, OAPEN, etc. However, what's available there skews towards European languages and Western institutes, which is inconvenient when searching for information about Chinese history and archaeology. These are obviously subjects more published about in Chinese journals.

What databases are there for Chinese-language research publications? (Bonus points if the publications are Open Access or otherwise accessible, but I'd like to know even if that's not the case.) Suðurhafsljósæta (talk) 11:40, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Does SciHub have any Chinese-language papers? What about LibGen and Anna's Library? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:10, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

October 4

Numbers for book sales in the US

Hi all--I'm trying to contextualize numbers of books sold in the early 20th century in the United States. I can easily find the top 10 sellers for those years (really I'm looking at 1880-1920), although there are competing top 10s, but what I would like to find is actual numbers for the bestsellers. Numbers for a few authors, a few years, would already help.

For instance, Winston Churchill (the other one) shows up regularly, and there are indications of numbers in Winston_Churchill_(novelist)#Career (two million copies in one year?); I've ordered Alice Hackett's 70 Years of Best Sellers (and the 60 one, and the 80 one...) from Interlibrary Loan, but it would be nice to find some of this material online (I could not find any of her books in GBooks). Especially 1904 is an interesting year for me--and I'd love to see numbers per year for any given bestseller as well as some cumulative numbers... Thanks so much! Drmies (talk) 22:27, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

Fifty Years of Best Sellers 1895-1945, 60 years of best sellers, 1895-1955, 70 Years of Best Sellers 1895-1965, 80 years of best sellers, 1895-1975. All on Archive.org. free, you just need to register. DuncanHill (talk) 22:43, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

What....DuncanHill you blinded me with science. Thank you so much. Drmies (talk) 21:16, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

October 5

What kind of top is Sara Croce wearing in this photo?

I'm not sure the term for the specific type of top Sara Croce is wearing in this photo. I'm not even sure if it's a type of one-piece garment or not. I'd like to add Commons categories or structured data for the top.

Sara Croce at the 2026 New York Film Festival.

Lovelano (talk) 02:11, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

What happens at the bottom? It looks like lingerie worn over trousers. I rather doubt there's a term for this. Johnbod (talk) 02:18, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Ok, from this photo it seems the tail things just dangle. I don't think you can call it a "one-piece garment". Johnbod (talk) 02:22, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

This photo on Getty images shows them dangling all the way to the floor. The tail things, that is. in solidarity Chuntuk (talk) 08:03, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

It's an over-the-top top. Other than that, I'm not even sure if it's a type of garment.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:55, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

I'd probably describe it as a halterneck camisole. Matt Deres (talk) 12:07, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

October 6

Widespread birth registration before 1950?

Were the Americas (including the Caribbean), Europe (including the Soviet Union), the Japanese Empire (especially, but not only in Japan itself), Australia, New Zealand, and European settler colonies in various parts of the world, such as South Africa and Israel, especially among their European gentile and Jewish populations, the only places in the world to have widespread birth registration before 1950? Or were there any other exceptions to this rule? Such as perhaps urban areas in places like China and India, or perhaps even urban areas in the Muslim world and/or Sub-Saharan Africa? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 06:28, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

China has a long history of extensive vital record-keeping and bureaucracy, even as far back as the Zhou dynasty; this was in part due to the Sinitic tradition of household registration (often referred to as hukou, though the specific system described by the term "hukou", introduced during the Han dynasty, was predated in China by earlier forms of household registration). Hukou#History has a good amount of information on such record-keeping throughout early Chinese history. (fugues) (talk) 22:23, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

The Roman Empire kept birth records at a city level, and City administrators could issue Roman Citizens with small waxed wooden tablets which confirmed their citizenship for use when they were travelling away from their home city where their status would be widely known. (Sorry for lack of reference links: I learned this while researching Paul of Tarsus.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 06:36, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Polish Screwdriver ad in 1971 NYT

I'm looking for a scan of the 1971 advertisement for Wyborowa Vodka with a tonge-in-cheek recipe for a "Polish screwdriver" -- a literal screwdriver popped into a glass of colorless vodka. I know it was printed in the October 17, 1971, issue of The New York Times. If anyone here has access to the online (or print) archive, could you email a full scan of the ad to me (it's probably copyrighted, so can't be shared in Wikipedia)? Here are some fragments of the recipe I could glean from snippet preview, which may help you with the archive search:

The Polish screwdriver. Pour some Polish vodka. Freezing cold. Remove screwdriver. Allow last bit of Polish Vodka to drip from screwdriver back into glass. Now drink. An explosively good taste. How to drink it. Straight. Freezing cold.

— Kpalion^(talk) 09:13, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

It's missing the bottom of the ad, but here is a copy of the image in a collection of clippings from the Carnegie Museum. Adam Sampson (talk) 14:28, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Adam, that's already something. But if someone can obtain the full scan (image and text of the ad together), that would be even better. — Kpalion^(talk) 20:37, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

The text can be seen, in (to me) unreadable form, here. Gemini claims it can decipher this, as follows:

The Polish Screwdriver.

Column 1	Column 2	Column 3
Pour some Polish Vodka. Stir with orange screwdriver. Remove screwdriver. Allow last bit of Polish Vodka to drip from screwdriver back into glass.	Now drink. Bonus. An explosively good taste. Especially, unmixed. The Polish Vodka Connoisseur’s choice. Not only do the Poles know how to make the best	vodka in the world, they know how to drink it. Straight. Polish Vodka is the only vodka that tastes so good you’ll want to drink it straight. Wyborowa. The Polish Vodka.

Note that this text does not contain "Freezing cold" at all. Use at your own risk.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:00, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, Lambiam. The scan you provided is from Photographis '71: International Annual of Advertising Photography. I've been able to find a better scan in the Internet Archive. It shows the same campaign also ran ads with other recipes, for "Polish Bloody Mary" and "Polish Vodka on the Rocks". But still, Photographis only has black-and-white copies. From the clippings book at Carnegie Museum, we know they were originally printed in color. It would be great to find a full color version. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:42, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Worst electoral wipeouts?

In Québec, the Coalition Avenir Québec just went from 90 seats on a possibility of 125 to ZERO (out of 127) as of yesterday.

Canada wise, Kim Campbell in 1993 went from 156 to 2, but still existed. Any other complete wipeouts? Matt714931 (talk) 15:07, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Complete wipeouts from one to zero seats must be quite common. Is the question limited to places with election systems similar to Québec or should we try to compensate for other systems? In not so proportional systems (like Québec), a small loss in the fraction of votes can lead to a much larger loss in the fraction of seats. Furthermore, less proportional systems tend to encourage few-party systems (just 4 with seats in Québec now), making the parties larger, so there's more to lose. It seems that CAQ lost two thirds of their votes, which is a lot, but not exceptional. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:34, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Our electoral wipeout has loads of examples, some to zero seats. The most extreme example might be the 2002 Turkish general election, where every party was completely wiped out, the only two parties to win seats not having win any at the previous election. Warofdreams talk 21:22, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Side note: the 1993 Canadian election saw two major parties lose their official party status, essentially wiping both the Progressive Conservatives (Campbell's party) and the New Democrats from the landscape. The PC drop was more noteworthy, both for the sheer drop in seats that you mention and because it was the only time in Canadian history that a party went from governing one day to not (officially) existing the next. Matt Deres (talk) 15:23, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

In Israel, Kadima went from 28 Knesset seats (the largest Knesset party, albeit in opposition rather than as a part of a governing coalition) in 2009 to just 2 Knesset seats (which it just barely got, getting just 2.09% of the vote total, just barely above the election threshold of 2%) in 2013, the very next Knesset election. It subsequently fell to 0 Knesset seats in the next, 2015 Knesset elections and completely, permanently disappeared. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:07, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Also, in France, Boulangists went from 72 seats in 1889 to 0 seats in 1893. General Boulanger committed suicide in 1891, so they lacked any support based after his death. Does that count? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 02:22, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

In Israel, Likud went from 38 Knesset seats in 2003 to just 12 Knesset seats in 2006 due to Kadima's defection from Likud. Likud then partially recovered in 2009, to 27 Knesset seats. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 02:24, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

October 7

Upright tombs

Standing room only

In around the year 1600, Thomas Gooding was buried standing up in the wall of Norfolk Cathedral, apparently to beat the rush come Judgment Day. Is this manner of burial used anywhere else? Marnanel (talk) 00:21, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

There is an old schoolyard joke that George Washington was buried standing because he could not lie. —Antonissimo (talk) 04:10, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

There's a growing trend, at least here in Australia, towards natural burials, frequently involving upright burial. see here. That natural burial article informed me that upright burial is a Maori custom.

Apparently Ben Jonson was buried standing up. The phrase in our article "the fact that Jonson was buried in an upright position was an indication of his reduced circumstances at the time of his death" seems to suggest this may have been a reasonably common practice. I also found mention of other figures being buried upright; this book suggests that an upright burial was the fate of George Hancock and a few others, while American Revolutionary War captain Abram Simons apparently was buried upright, musket by his side, so that he could fight the devil. GalacticShoe (talk) 05:09, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

The rock-cut graves of the Qumran community were, I recall reading, narrow vertical holes, some of which were also subsequently used by Bedouin semi-nomads in later periods. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 06:44, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Wordsworth wrote in The White Doe of Rylstone (1807-08) of Bolton Abbey:

Pass, pass who will, yon chantry door; / And, through the chink in the fractured floor / Look down, and see a griesly sight; / A vault where the bodies are buried upright!

Alansplodge (talk) 12:00, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Even more grisly would be to bury them feet up and head down:

I saw upon the sides and on the bottom
The livid stone with perforations filled,
All of one size, and every one was round.
...
Out of the mouth of each one there protruded
The feet of a transgressor, and the legs
Up to the calf, the rest within remained.

To borrow from an old joke, pointing them head down could be to "aim them the direction they're going". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:53, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

 ​‑‑Lambiam 16:52, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

At Alcor Life Extension Foundation, I hear, those who opt for whole-body rather than head-only are stored head-down, so that their heads will thaw last in case of mishap. —Antonissimo (talk) 05:00, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Invasion of England (1326)

 Courtesy link: Invasion of England (1326)

There is a source credited as Ormrod, p. 287 in the wiki article, however I cannot find the exact source anywhere online. Can you clarify the source or verify it's existence? ~2026-53997-73 (talk) 16:25, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

The full citation is Ormrod, W. Mark. "England: Edward II and Edward III." The New Cambridge Medieval History. Ed. Michael Jones. Cambridge University Press, 2000. Cambridge Histories Online. Cambridge University Press IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 16:39, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

It should be specified in the citation that this is Volume VI of The New Cambridge Medieval History.

You can find all volumes of The New Cambridge Medieval History available online. This link should take you to Ormrod's chapter: https://archive.org/details/iB_CM/06/page/n303/mode/1up

Let me know if that link works for you or not. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 16:44, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Parentage of Lilian E. Porter

A footnote on Lilian E. Porter says:

Porter is cited as being the daughter of the botanist John Gilbert Baker however, Baker only had one daughter Katherine Unthank Baker (died 1918).

Can we resolve the contradictory sources, perhaps by reference to birth or census records? JG Baker was a Quaker, if that helps. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 18:08, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

A quick scan of online sources shows that someone, long ago, saw Lilian was born 'Baker' and improperly listed her father at John G Baker. It was later that the error was discovered, but the original text persists. Multiple sources claim Lilian's father is John Baker from Airdrie, but these are family tree sites, not what I would consider reliable. Her mother is listed as Jane, sometimes Jane Ellen. Side note: I was curious about "Unthank" and it turns out to be a very local surname for a squatter. Katherine's mother's maiden name was Unthank. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 18:55, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

?? Unthank lists about 15 villages called this, mostly in the north of England or Scotland. Johnbod (talk) 02:42, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Indiana's anti-miscegenation law

Why did Indiana keep its anti-miscegenation law for many decades after all other states in the Northern United States abolished their own anti-miscegeneation laws by 1887? Indiana only abolished its own anti-miscegenation law in 1965, almost 80 years after 1887, IIRC. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:22, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

This article's map and data confirm my point here. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:24, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Oversight? Chesterton's fence? —Antonissimo (talk) 05:02, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

October 8

Nazi German views on the Confederacy

What did Nazi Germany think about the Confederate States of America, given that both of these countries were racist to the core? I mean from a historical perspective, since obviously both of them did not exist simultaneously. But the Nazis could read about the Confederacy from historical books, watch historical movies about the Confederacy, et cetera, so it seems logical for the Nazis to have had some thoughts on them. What were these thoughts? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 03:12, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Hitler and other Nazis expressed admiration for the Confederate states and regarded their defeat as a tragedy that put the United States on 'the wrong historical path'. Specific references can easily be found by simply web-searching the question in suitably concise form, but this is a pool in which I do not care to paddle further. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 05:18, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

From USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences;

Germany’s strange nostalgia for the antebellum American South

Alansplodge (talk) 11:46, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Never saw that before; thanks! ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:09, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Related question

This discussion reminds me of something I forgot about. I wanted to write an article about a eugenics (or medical?) conference that took place in the early 20th century that was attended by Nazis, but the details have escaped me. According to several authors, this conference (I think it took place in California?) was attended by either proto-Nazis who became influential later or the Nazis themselves (can't remember which). I suspect we already have an article about this, so any help would be appreciated. The implicit argument here (and in the sources) is that this American conference (if that's what it was) formed the pseudo-scientific basis for some of the Nazi ideology. Viriditas (talk) 23:04, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

I can't quite answer your question, but suggest Eugenics in the United States (particularly the section Eugenics in the United States#Influence on Nazi Germany, Eugenics in California, Rockefeller Foundation, and International Eugenics Conference as reading which may jog your memory. DuncanHill (talk) 00:10, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. It's apparently in the book The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism, but I haven't had time to read it. Viriditas (talk) 00:35, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Pinyin Television

In areas where Pinyin is used, is television in normal Chinese or in Pinyin or both? ~2026-53988-83 (talk) 17:18, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

If you are referring to the routine subtitles included for Chinese dialogue on TV and movies in mainland China, they are always in Chinese characters, from what I've seen. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:22, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

The dissenters in Osborne v. Ohio

Did the three dissenting SCOTUS Justices in Osborne v. Ohio genuinely argue that bans on the private possession of real (not animated/virtual, which was addressed in a later, different case) child pornography should be viewed as unconstitutional, and got overruled by the Osborne majority? If so, how did the American media, American commentators, and general American society react to these three dissenting Justices' views and opinions in this specific case? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 21:47, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

October 9

Same-sex interracial romantic and sexual relationships and anti-miscegenation laws?

Were all same-sex interracial romantic and sexual relationships also criminalized under anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, including lesbian interracial same-sex relationships, between white women and black women? Was interracial lesbianism criminalized at all and was interracial sodomy punished more heavily than intraracial sodomy was? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 00:18, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

September 25

Rail in Sandrail

Where did the name come from, and what does it actually mean? The article doesn't say, and its Talk page has couple of unresolved debates on the matter. HiLo48 (talk) 09:20, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

An answer might be found in the article Front engine dragster: "These early dragsters were nicknamed "rails", due to the frame's longitudinal members (rails) being exposed to view." --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:48, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Long before the sandrail vehicle came along, in Newspapers.com I found the term "sandrail" in reference to a machine used for dredging. Since the term "drag" in drag racing also seems to refer back to dredging, it could be that these terms are all related. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:20, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

A sandrail is literally a rail designed for driving on sand. A rail is a straight-line racecar. Starting in the 1940s, straight-line (drag) racers began reducing car weight by discarding the body parts and replacing much of the frame with straight steel rails. The result was long straight cars with visible rails, so people referred to the cars as rail cars (or simply rails). A dune buggy is classically a Volkswagen Beetle modified for beaches (and deserts to some degree) with fiberglass bodies. Some racers wanted the straight-line racing feel, so they removed the bodies, replaced the frame with straight rails and ended up with sandrails. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:38, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

That sounds credible, but do you have a reliable source for it? I would like to fix the article. HiLo48 (talk) 23:02, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Semantic link between urination and anger

What could have possibly given people the idea to start using "p***ed off" to mean angered, and why is that phrase such a popular synonym for it? – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 14:18, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

It's easy to find the historical record of the usage of the expression. Why people started using it is unattested. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 14:23, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

www.etymonline.com says:

Pissed off "angry, fed up" is attested by 1946 (Partridge says 1937); said to have been used in the military in World War II; in common use from 1970s.

I suspect it may be connected with an early meaning of "pissed" which is being intoxicated (drunken people are often angry), but that's just my guess.

BTW, the exact origin of "taking the piss" is equally mysterious.

Alansplodge (talk) 14:52, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Why "off"? Surely the command piss off, meaning go away, must have preceded the state of being pissed off. Or it could be by extension from ticked off, which Etymonline says is from World War 1, and has a sense of being summarily ticked off from a list of names and consigned somewhere.  Card Zero  (talk) ※ 13:39, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

User:Card Zero, perhaps related to the slightly earlier and equally curious "browned off", also meaning fed-up. Alansplodge (talk) 12:53, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

There's a connection in Chaucer: He is as angry as a pissemyre. Pismire is a word for ant, because the formic acid produced by the angrier varieties of ant smells a bit like urine.  Card Zero  (talk) ※ 13:33, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that this has something to do with it. The expression for 'ant' is also known in other languages, e. g. Low German: Pissmirr (consists of the same words: piss + mire, Mirr = ant, borrowed from Middle Dutch miere) or Pissamink, Migeemk (migen also means to piss, literally this would be a piss(ing) ant, other derived forms meaning the same, i. e., ant, would be Migimm 'piss(ing) bee', Mighauhn 'piss(ing) chicken', Migworm 'piss(ing) worm') etc. These are nouns, not verbs. The expression does not refer to the urine itself as it does in the expressions for ant but the result of the activity. This is also not unusual in other languages:

In High German "sich verpissen" means 'to bugger off', 'to piss off', the imperative "Verpiss dich!" Piss off! So this is similiar. Another metaphorical use is "sich vor Lachen bepissen", i. e. to laugh out lout in an extreme manner. A quite similar use to pissed off would be "angepisst sein", literally meaning to be pissed. It's a passive construction derived from "anpissen" 'to piss on' or 'to piss against', e. g. "einen Baum anpissen", 'to piss against a tree'. In a metaphorical sense one can "jemanden anpissen", i. e., to make someone angry, literally one pisses on someone. So the passive is the result of that bevaviour - this person "ist angepisst", i. e. pissed off.--~2026-53574-41 (talk) 13:38, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

September 28

Scottish Gaelic sentence

I’ll admit I only know about enough Gaelic to get by in basic conversations, but I encountered this sentence on gd-wiki: 'S e An Eala Bhàn òran gaoil le Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna, and it doesn’t look correct to me. Should that be ’S e òran gaoil le Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna a ‘th ann An Eala Bhàn? I’m pretty sure that’s correct, but I want to fact check it before I change it and I’m not sure where to ask on gd-wiki. Thanks! Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) 09:06, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't know a word of Irish, but I can confirm that other articles on the Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia (Dàin do Eimhir, Hallaig (dàn), Òran na Cloiche) follow the "’S e definition ann topic" pattern. So this appears to be a more common way. But the opening sentence has had this challenged form since 22 September 2014 after an edit by a gd-3 user who is an administrator with 2,350 live edits, and the article has been viewed over 700 times since then. It has, furthermore, been edited since then by three other users, including a gd-2 user with 982 edits and a user who is a bureaucrat and administrator with 12,600 live edits. If the opening sentence is seriously wrong, one would expect at least some of these to have spotted it.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:24, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

That’s a good point. Thanks, just checking! Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) 08:26, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

September 29

Irish - Was Dev your unscrupulous friend?

On the website "Documents on Irish Foreign Policy" is the letter of 30 September 1921 from Eamon de Valera to David Lloyd George accepting the latter's invitation to a conference in London. The Irish text is signed "Mise, do chara gan cháim", the official translation gives "Faithfully yours". Google translate, on the other hand, translates "Mise, do chara gan cháim" as "I, your unscrupulous friend". A moment of humour from Dev? Or a cock up by Google? I think we should be told! DuncanHill (talk) 22:42, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm taking a wild guess here that "Dev" is a nickname for de Valera? If that's true you might say so; not all of us recognize it. --Trovatore (talk) 22:49, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, "Dev" is a nickname for "de Valera". DuncanHill (talk) 23:02, 29 September 2026 (UTC) I suspect that anyone who speaks Irish would recognise it. DuncanHill (talk) 23:11, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

I speak not a word of Irish, but I understood it instantly from context. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 03:44, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't speak any Irish at all and I'm going at this piecemeal without any claim to complete accuracy.

Mise is just the emphatic form of "I" or "me".

Wiktionary's definition of do, under etymology 3, explicitly lists do chara as meaning "to/for a friend" (do means "to/for" and gets combined with a lenited dative, chara is the lenited form of cara which is such a dative and means "friend".)

Gan cháim appears to be the phrase causing issue. Google pointed me to a couple of examples of this phrase, one in a blog about a hymn composed by Father Peadar Ua Laoghaire and another in an Irish language forum discussion of a book entitled An Mám ó Dheas. The definitions given in these posts are "flawless" and "guileless". It seems that gan triggers lenition, and the unlenited caim derives from cam meaning "crooked", so the meanings naturally derive from idea of something being without crookedness.

As to how this could become translated as "unscrupulous" is unclear; there might be a term similar in spelling to caim which has the complete opposite meaning of scrupulousness, or it might just be that Google Translate does was not trained on a large enough Irish corpus. GalacticShoe (talk) 12:30, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

September 30

English tenses

Does English ever say: ”Yesterday, I drove on a road that leads from Boston to New York.”? Or should it be: ”Yesterday, I drove on a road that led from Boston to New York.”? --40bus (talk) 06:00, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

You could use either one. The one with "leads" sounds a little more natural to me (because presumably the road still leads there) but the one with "led" sounds slightly more "technically correct". See sequence of tenses for a more in-depth discussion. --Trovatore (talk) 06:07, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I concur with Il Trovatore. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:29, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Arguably "...leading from Boston to New York" would sound more natural, but I'm not a native speaker, anyway, and the sentence feels a bit strained to begin with. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:15, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Given the choice between the two, the first sounds more natural. But a native speaker would probably say just "I drove from Boston to New York". The "on a road" part seems superfluous. Like, what else I drive on? The sidewalk? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:31, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

You could have entered the road at Framingham and driven as far as Sturbridge. You might choose to describe it as "a road that leads from Boston to New York" if the point you were making was about how distances along that journey are signposted.

As to the tense usage, in statements like this you should use the past tense if the fact you're citing might have changed, but if you don't believe it would have, then it's common to use the present tense. "Yesterday I was told that Boston is (or was) the capital of Massachusetts", but "Yesterday I was told that it was raining in Boston." --~2026-52517-31 (talk) 16:18, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I sometimes get irritated when, for example, science fiction contains a phrase like The Galaxy was a very big place. —Antonissimo (talk) 22:02, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

If the entire work is narrated in the past tense from the point of view of one of the characters (as is common), then it would be more natural to phrase it so. Using 'is' would transform the narrator into a timeless omniscient observer, which is also a possible mode, but the two cannot usually be mixed, unless the participant's narration is embedded within a framework of that of the omniscient observer. However, if the observation about the galaxy is made in some character's quoted direct speech, 'is' would be fine in all circumstances.

In the context of science fiction, 'the Galaxy' could, of course, refer to one that no longer exists. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 23:14, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

If the Galaxy has ceased to be a very big place within the lifetime of the narrator, I want to know why. [The poster formerly known as a minor irritant] —Antonissimo (talk) 00:40, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

When I was young, the village I grew up in was a very big place. Now, having travelling the world, I see it is among the humblest of humble hamlets.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:06, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

The only other (theoretical) possible way to drive between Boston and NY without the road is the train. However, I don't think people can drive trains for recreational purposes and that there are limits on how long train drivers can work without a pause (similar to HGV/bus drivers). Its why train drivers don't drive between London and Glasgow/Edinburgh, but rather Preston/Newcastle, at least not without a pause. JuniperChill (talk) 10:58, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Yes. If you had driven a train, you would say you drove a train, unless driving trains in general was already a subject under discussion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:48, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

October 6

Can women be pederasts?

Is the word "pederast" gender-neutral or does it only ever apply to men? Germaine Greer was quoted as having said in response to her book The Beautiful Boy that "a woman of taste is a pederast—boys rather than men", but was her application of the word "pederast" to women unusual, or have other people also called women pederasts if they are attracted to and/or have sex with pubescent boys? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 21:23, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

The "pederast" Wikipedia article says that the term can be used to describe same-sex relations between adults and pubescent minors, but what about opposite-sex relations of this nature? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 21:26, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

The term derives from the Ancient Greek term παιδερᾰστής (paiderăstḗs), and originally described a specific type of Ancient Greek social relationship between an adolescent boy and an older man (see Pederasty in ancient Greece). The specific implication is that it is a relationship between a man and a boy, not just love of an adolescent boy in general. Wiktionary lists the coordinate term korephile for a women attracted to adolescent girls, and ephebophile as (at least originally) referring to attraction to young males in general. (fugues) (talk) 22:37, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

There's also hebephile for attraction to even younger males (and females, presumably). Hebephilia is attraction to pubescent minors (from ages 9-11 to 14-15) while ephebophilia is attraction to older minors (from ages 14-15 to age 17 or so). ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 02:59, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

In my understanding of the term pederast, it refers exclusively to adult men who have an actual ongoing homoerotic relationship with a younger, adolescent male, just like the original Greek practice. So merely being attracted to boys without having relationships is not enough. Also, while the relationship goes beyond friendship, it does not have to involve sex. In contrast, the -phile terms refer to individuals experiencing a form of attraction but do not imply their engaging in some relationship.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:15, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Why are adult women who have an actual ongoing relationship with a younger, adolescent male, or at least who have ever such relationships (as adults) in the past, excluded from the pederast definition? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:26, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

By definition. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:04, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

October 7

Questions

1. If in French, the word mais is pronounced /mɛ/ and the word maïs is pronounced /ma.is/, the how would a word that is pronounced /majs/ be spelled? Would it be spelled maills? Are there any words in French where a combination of a vowel letter and ⟨ill⟩ (which is pronounced (/j/) occures before a consonant?
2. How would English speakers pronounce a made-up word lyiny (and as well as any word where ⟨yi⟩ occurs in the beginning of word after a consonant)? Would English speakers pronounce it /ljiːni/?
3. If the French word qui is pronounced /ki/, then how a word that is pronounced /kɥi/ be spelled, as /ɥi/ is normally be spelled ⟨ui⟩?
4. Are there any words in French where /ɥi/ in the beginning of the word is spelled as ⟨ui⟩ rather than ⟨hui⟩, as if the words huit and huile were spelled as uit and uile?
5. Are there any words in English with an onset /fn/, such as in made-up word fnick, pronounced as /fnɪk/?
6. Are the abbreviations US, UK and UN ever pronounced as words (as /ʌs/, /ʌk/ and /ʌn/ respectively)?
7. How common are given names Jovanni and Juseppe instead of Giovanni and Giuseppe in Italian, as variations of Giovanni and Giuseppe?
8. Are there any personal and place names in German where a common prefix über- is spelled yber- instead?
9. Does English ever use word "last day" to refer to the last 24 hours and "next day" to refer to the next 24 hours? Would "three days ago" ever mean the same moment on a day three days ago, for which Finnish uses kolme vuorokautta sitten and Swedish tre dygn sedan? --40bus (talk) 21:27, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

   3. One might ask César Cui. —Antonissimo (talk) 04:55, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

   5. There's fnord. —Antonissimo (talk) 04:55, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

   He did say "English" words. I don't think made-up words from 1970s dystopian sci-fi novels count, no matter what language the novel was written in. HierophantOfOmens (talk) 22:33, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

   7. I think those would be pronounced with /j/. (I have seen the birth certificate of an American born in Italy, whose middle name is given as ANTHONJ. Neither ⟨j⟩ nor ⟨y⟩ is used in Standard Italian.) —Antonissimo (talk) 04:55, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

   I think, in a name, there would be no hard-set rules for how J is pronounced, since the letter doesn't exist in the standard language anyway. As a case example, in the Rossini opera William Tell - which exists in both French and Italian variants, with many of the characters' names being specific French or Italian variants accordingly - in both versions William's son is named (and spelled) "Jemmy" and pronounced gem-EE (but with a "soft" J sound, as in mirage. That said, I think the answer to 40bus' question is not common. HierophantOfOmens (talk) 22:50, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

   10. Can't you dream up a more distinctive title than Questions? —Antonissimo (talk) 04:55, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

   11. If you must continue these bulk deliveries, would you consider signing each item so that responses are naturally separated? —Antonissimo (talk) 04:55, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

   1. If there was a French word pronounced /majs/, it would probably be spelled mailles. This would then be a homograph of the plural of maille, but not a homonym, since the ⟨s⟩ in that plural is silent.  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:45, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

   1. There's a number of problems with this idea: that it doesn't seem likely that a French speaker would differentiate between /majs/ and /mais/ anyway; that the nature of French diphthongs is such that /majs/ (as opposed to /ma'is/ < maïs > ) is implausible; that neither < maills > nor the proposed < mailles > would be pronounced with a final /s/, as outside of loanwords, all French words with final /s/ (such as fils, tous, ours) are the result of archaic pronunciations that survived late Old French sound shifts and are thus in a sense a closed set. Fundamentally, though, there's just no precedent in the French language for a /js/ cluster and no precedent for < ailles > to be pronounced /ajs/ (or with an /s/ at all) at any point in a word.

   (fugues) (talk) 15:18, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

   Not all French words with final /s/: russe for example. To pick a nit. —Antonissimo (talk) 19:13, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

6. Maybe only as a play on words, equating "US" to "us". The other two, I doubt it.

9. The last 24 hours would either be "yesterday" or "the last 24 hours". "Three days ago" would mean like if today is Wednesday, then three days ago would be Sunday. If you're trying to say "exactly" three days ago, you would say "72 hours ago".

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:09, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Poul Anderson wrote a story "Un-Man" in which it is eventually revealed that the title character is an augmented agent of the UN. —Antonissimo (talk) 04:57, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

6. and WHO is never pronounced as a word, always W-H-O Doug butler (talk) 01:10, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

2. [British English perspective follows] (Not proficient with IPA) They (I) would probably pronounce the first syllable as 'lie' (to tell an untruth) as for example in lycanthropy, lyre, and the town Lyme Regis. However, other 'ly–' words in English are pronounced differently, such as lych (rhymes with itch), also spelt lich and only used in the 'fossilised' term lychgate (a gate into a burial ground), Lydia, the ancient Anatolian region, lyric which derives from lyre, and lynx, so some might use that pronunciation.

5. Other than the foreign capital Phnom Pehn. I cannot suggest any.

6. UK has been jocularly used in the invented words 'Ukland' and 'Uklander' to mean The United Kingdom and a native of it (like Usaian ("Yoo-SAY-ian") for an American from the USA), but it is not generally recognised.

9. "Last day" can be used, for example in a phrase like "Over the last day or so, . . .", however it is inherently vague and would never be used to denote a very specific period or moment in the past counting back from now. "Next day" can be used in referring to the past, for example "X happened last week on Wednesday, the next day Y happened", and the future as in "The first day of our holiday will be spent at the museum, the next day at the park", but it is never used to mean the day following today, which is always 'tomorrow'. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 04:58, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

3. cuit ("cooked"). --Wrongfilter (talk) 06:23, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

5. Leaving aside Middle English words, we apparently have fnar and fnarr.--Antiquary (talk) 09:54, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

2. English has words dying, lying, tying and vying, plus more with a consonant cluster at the start, such as crying, flying, and spying. --Amble (talk) 19:08, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Of which there is no denying. —Antonissimo (talk) 19:14, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

4. Looking up French Wiktionary, I found two rare words; ui as an wikt:eye-spelling variant of oui, and uit an onomatopeia for rapid actions. (Cf. wikt:vite.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:01, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

October 8

Homosexualist in English vs. Gomoseksualist in Russian

Why did the term homosexualist fade in English much more than the term gomoseksualist (the Russian equivalent of homosexualist) fade in Russian? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 03:26, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

English also has the term bisexualist but it also almost completely faded out by now. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 03:28, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

English also had the now forgotten term 'invert'. In general it is very difficult to determine why a word became more or less popular in a given language: these things just happen, and can be observed but not usually definitively explained. It is therefore even more difficult to determine why two equivalent terms in different languages diverged in their popularity. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 05:03, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

It's to some degree a form of affix pleonasm (by surface analysis) since -ual and -ist can both be used as nominalising suffixes in English. Seemingly, Russian also uses -ist in this way but not -ual (or -al), making the term read as less redundant. (fugues) (talk) 15:34, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Gondon in Russian

Why did Russians create and name an insult, gondon, after a condom? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 03:28, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

English also has sexually explicit insults, such as dick, pussy, ass, asshole, shit, fuck, et cetera, but none named after a condom or after any other form of birth control. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 03:30, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

I think I have read of "cum-bag" being used as a term of derision, but it's not common. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 05:05, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps scumbag, for which Wiktionary gives as the first sense:

"(slang, vulgar, dated) A condom."

 ​‑‑Lambiam 05:34, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Why scumbag and not cumbag? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 21:35, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Read the origin. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:46, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Compare also douchebag, in its literal sense an object, like condom, rather than a nether body part.  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:31, 8 October 2026

Oh, yeah, I forgot that one! ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 21:36, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Someone could be a complete pill (n.4) -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 19:21, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

I didn't realize that pill could be used to describe an annoying or nagging person. Today I learned something new! ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 21:37, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

It's kind of old-fashioned. My parents' generation used it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:39, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Is it due to contraceptive pills blocking conception, similar to human pills blocking new input and thus remaining annoying, nagging, and obstinate? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 21:41, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

No connection. That old usage was around generations before "the pill" was invented. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:50, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

I guess that if a woman was both annoying and attractive, she'd be a sexy pill, right? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 22:35, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

The origins of the term ass bandit?

How did the term ass bandit, or its British cousin arse bandit, originate? Why specifically bandit instead of, say, thruster or plower? Was it because homosexuality (and sometimes, such as in Britain, even heterosexual anal sex) was historically illegal and taboo, thus making it perceived an activity only done by bandits? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 21:41, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

MILPH vs. MILF

Can MILPH be a valid, slightly less graphic alternative to MILF? As in, Mom I'd Like to Plow Hard instead of Mom I'd Like to Fuck? The meaning is fundamentally the very same in both of these phrases. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 21:42, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Believe it or not? Straight to jail.

Phrases tend to be accepted by usage rather than invented. This could be a valid acronym, anything beyond that is up to whoever wants to use it. GalacticShoe (talk) 00:29, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

September 26

commercial songs in soap operas

From 1985 - 1989, I was attending high school classes, in San Francisco. I remember once hearing "Midnight Motion" by Kenny G on an episode of Days of Our Lives. On one episode of General Hospital, "Najee's Theme" by Najee was played. Did any commercial smooth jazz songs play on The Young and the Restless? Anyone know?~2026-51751-36 (talk) 08:05, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Nasty Mouse & Swift – Move Your Body

Shazam identified one of my queries as "Move Your Body" by Nasty Mouse & Swift, but doesn't open that song and I failed to find it anywhere in the internet (never heard it before). Does it exist somewhere at all? Brandmeister ^talk 16:55, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Discogs lists "Swift - Move Your Body" on Strictly B-Boy Breaks Volume 3, which is here on YouTube. I think Discogs credits it to the wrong Swift, which might be why it was hard to find under Swift aka Nasty Mouse. (Edit: heh, and it samples Coldcut's Every Home A Prison.) Adam Sampson (talk) 17:58, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Per Shazam, this beat appears in the 1986 film The Man from Fifth Avenue from 46:44, so I wonder why YouTube and Discogs give the year as 2006. After my listening it appears as the same beat. Brandmeister ^talk 19:56, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Because Swift is sampling whatever track is playing in the film (and I agree that it is the same track). The Swift track is made up of samples of several different existing recordings. Adam Sampson (talk) 15:05, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

September 28

Looking for a deleted YouTube video (TSI Switzerland broadcast from 1996)

Hello, I am looking for a video that was recently deleted from YouTube. It was a broadcast recording from the Swiss Italian television (TSI) titled "Sequenza Tsi - Mercoledì 31 Dicembre 1996 + Textvision".

The original YouTube URL was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYD9GKSTN9o, but unfortunately, it was never archived on the Wayback Machine.

Since it is a piece of television history (New Year's Eve 1996 from Switzerland with Teletext/Textvision), does anyone know if this specific clip has been re-uploaded elsewhere, or if there is an alternative archive where I can find TSI continuity clips from that exact date? Thank you. DanielParoliere (talk) 07:24, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Did you check the rest of the Internet Archive? Wayback Machine archives webpages, but they may also simply have a copy of the video completely unconnected from what was put on YouTube. Something along the lines of their Prelinger Archives repository (but not that, specifically, as it is US-focused). Matt Deres (talk) 01:53, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

October 2

Name of movie

I think it may have been a French movie. Mainly I remember there was a woman who got married, seemingly happily, but then her husband tragically perished in a freak accident. After a period of mourning, she remarried, but husband #2 then died in his own freak accident having no resemblance to the first. Similarly with husbands #n for n=3, 4, 5, and 6. I don't specifically remember her inheriting money each time, but that may have been part of it. I half remember that one of the husbands was a Dutch novelist, but that scene may have been from a different movie. It showed him writing "Eerste Kapitel" on the first page of a new novel, with a voiceover or subtitle saying "Chapter One". Any recognition? Something just reminded me of this. Oh yes, in one of the freak accidents, the husband then in effect was riding somewhere in a car (he may have been a front seat passenger) near a construction zone, when a steel beam swinging from a crane smashed through the windshield and crushed him. Thanks. ~2026-52011-78 (talk) 04:59, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

A real Dutch novelist would have used "Eerste Hoofdstuk".  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:12, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I immediately thought of What a Way to Go! (1964), directed by J. Lee Thompson, with Shirley MacLaine as the widow and Dick Van Dyke, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Gene Kelly, Dean Martin as the husbands. It does have an episode in France. —Antonissimo (talk) 01:12, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check into that. I think the movie is likely to not be that old, but I could be wrong. ~2026-52011-78 (talk) 08:18, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

October 6

Great lost silent films

Are there any lost films that are silent films and that were considered truly great by cinema critics either in the past (contemporaneously) or nowadays? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 01:36, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Excluding rediscovered and partially rediscovered films such as Metropolis (1927 film), where a full copy of this film was found in Argentina in 2008. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 01:37, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

One possibility: in 1929 Emil Jannings won an Oscar for his performances in The Way of All Flesh and The Last Command. The first of those is lost apart from two fragments. --Antiquary (talk) 17:13, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

What about F. W. Murnau's Four Devils? Is it likewise considered a great film? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 20:53, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

It's not a silent. --~2026-53838-66 (talk) 04:29, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

The entirely lost Adventures of Mr. Pickwick seems to have got excellent reviews. --Antiquary (talk) 09:13, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Note: This is a great test for AI chatbots. Silent films are long enough ago that the information is highly compressed. AI chatbots will confidently conflate many different things, producing nonsense. For example, ChatGPT claimed that Germaine Dulac's 1929 "The Wedding Basket" is widely considered the best French silent film, with only fragments of some reels still available to see. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:12, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

The British Film Institute is looking for:

The Mountain Eagle (1927), Alfred Hitchcock's second film.

The Patriot (1928), by Ernst Lubitsch, "one of the most critically praised lost movies ever" (a part-talkie).

London After Midnight (1927), Tod Browning’s first vampire film.

The Life of General Villa (1914), a drama-documentary featuring Pancho Villa himself.

Hollywood (1923), a comedy featuring Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, 'Fatty' Arbuckle, Cecil B DeMille and Douglas Fairbanks.

Greed (1924), the original uncut edition is lost.

See Six of the greatest ‘lost’ movies (BBC) amd BFI Most Wanted - The hunt for Britain’s missing films.

Alansplodge (talk) 13:04, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Does Cleopatra (1917) also count for this? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 03:04, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

October 9

Charlie Chaplin's little tramp and World War II

Did Charlie Chaplin plan to continue his little tramp character after his 1936 film Modern Times and before the start of World War II, before World War II and its Cold War aftermath caused him to permanently retire his tramp character? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 00:20, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Apparently Chaplin regretted killing the tramp character (according to the Wikipedia article linked to above about the "little tramp"): "In 1959, having been editing The Chaplin Revue, Chaplin commented to a reporter regarding the Tramp character, "I was wrong to kill him. There was room for the Little Man in the atomic age."[4]" ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 00:22, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

September 24

Bridal practices

I'm reading a biography of Frances Partridge. In the section about the early years of her parents' married life, it says: As a bride, Mam had to make and receive endless calls and wear her bridal dress to dinner. ("Mam" was how Frances called her mother.)

This was referring not just to the evening of her wedding day but to a considerable period of time afterwards. But the period is left unspecified: days? weeks? months? How long does a newly-married woman remain a "bride"? I've never heard of the above-mentioned practice of wearing the bridal dress on numerous occasions after the wedding. The biographer just states this as an unremarkable detail that her readers would understand. But I don't understand it. What's the explanation? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:14, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Unlike 19th-century American bridal dresses, made as expensive and as heavy with rich and costly lace as the bride's family could afford, English bridal dresses were relatively simple, aiming more at elegance. Still, the bridal dress constituted a considerable part of the wardrobe a bride brought in. This together leads me to the theory that Mam wore her bridal dress as a matter of money-saving practicality, it being simple enough to be worn for these dinners and not really usable for other purposes.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:57, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Some traditional costumes for women display their status, for example in Japan married and single women wear different styles of kimono. Such societies would understandably disapprove of a bride reverting to her pre-marriage dress. Frances Partridge is quoted speaking of her mother Margaret Anna né Lloyd and family standing for "class distinctions courteously observed" - Gordon N. Bergquist (1982). "Essay: Love in Bloomsbury". Magill's Literary Annual. Salem Press. I find it understandable that Frances would have recorded her mother, an ardent sufragist, railing against social categorisation of women by their dress. ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 10:13, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

• The absence of any compelling explanation from my esteemed colleagues, combined with my frustratingly fruitless further forays into google and AI land, suggest to me that the practice to which the biographer alludes is unknown to history. Thanks for your contributions. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:51, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Resolved

Only just noticed this. @Lambiam: "This together leads me to the theory that Mam wore her bridal dress as a matter of money-saving practicality" - but T. H. Marshall in our article William Marshall characterises the family as "intellectually and artistically cultured and financially well-endowed". That suggests to me that 1) the dress wasn't a matter of wearing what you could for economy's sake, and 2) they weren't noticeably eccentric, which cuts out some weird familial tradition. The giving and receiving of calls after marriage would have had a fairly-well defined period, perhaps something like an Enquire Within Upon Everything would tell you (as I recall, they have instructions for the distribution of cards after moving to a neighbourhood, periods of mourning, etc).

The dress is puzzling - was there a movement for practical wedding dress that could be adapted to evening wear? A wealthy and cultured family could indulge in that without attracting too much comment, and dress reform was a fad of the times. DuncanHill (talk) 12:51, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

This from the Bowes Museum talks of dresses being re-used for formal wear, altered for pregnancy, etc. DuncanHill (talk) 12:57, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

From the Victoria and Albert Museum:

In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was common for brides to rewear and alter their wedding dresses. The concept of a 'dress for a day' didn't come into being until the early 20th century.

Old, new, borrowed, blue

Alansplodge (talk) 12:39, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Oldest prisoner ever

Who is the oldest person to have ever been a prisoner (not necessarily while incarcerated)?

Can anyone beat this man?

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/21727/albert-house

106 years and almost 10 months.

Political prisoners and concentration camp victims might need to be excluded from this. ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 23:08, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

What have you in mind with the parenthesis? —Antonissimo (talk) 00:27, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

I mean that they were in prison while younger but then got released and lived to an extremely old age outside of prison, not in prison. ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 20:47, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Probably that they also might have been briefly in prison once, like for a minor thing when they were young, and then died, after a long and productive life, at age 108, beating Bill Wallace. Obviously, the information that they had been in prison at all may not have been recorded in their obit.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:53, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

A former prisoner living almost until age 108 is very impressive. ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 20:49, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

But he was surpassed by Brij Bihari Pandey.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:00, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Can Pandey's age actually be validated by modern standards, though? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:47, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Polska - (Reference desk „pl.wikipedia.org” jest zamknięty, SORY!) Która z tych 2 stron internetowych jest prawdziwą Fundacją Auxilium?

Dzień dobry, przepraszam bardzo, Reference desk polskiej Wikipedii (pl.wikipedia.org) został zamknięty, czy mogę napisać po polsku, aby zapytać, czy w sprawie numeru pomocy, którego naprawdę potrzebuję, a który został mi polecony przez stronę internetową, której[numer pomocy, a nie ta strona internetowa!] adres URL kończy się /kończył się na 1815.pl, a która obecnie przekierowuje na „auxilium.pl”, czy rzeczywiście była to strona, którą mi polecono, ponieważ Wikidata przypisuje tej fundacji adres URL „https://www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl”, który należy do innej strony podającej się za Fundację Auxilium, więc zastanawiam się, która z tych dwóch stron podszywa się pod drugą? Nawet jeśli jedna z nich jest tą, do której zostaje się przekierowanym po wpisaniu „1815.pl”, nigdy nie wiadomo – nazwa domeny mogła zostać wykupiona...~2026-51580-89 (talk) 23:43, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Machine translation: Good morning, sorry, Reference desk of Polish Wikipedia (pl.wikipedia.org) has been closed, can I write in Polish to ask if about the help number I really need and which was recommended to me by the website, whose [help number, not this website!] the URL ends / ended at 1815.pl, and which currently redirects to “auxilium.pl”, was it really a website that was recommended to me, because Wikidata assigns this foundation the URL address “https://www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl”, which belongs to another website posing as the Auxilium Foundation, so I wonder which of these two pages is impersonating Even if one of them is the one to which you are redirected after entering “1815.pl”, you never know – the domain name may have been purchased... —Antonissimo (talk) 00:28, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Odwiedzając stronę auxilium.pl, trafiamy na inną stronę internetową, prowadzoną przez inną organizację, niż w przypadku www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl.

• Strona internetowa: auxilium.pl
  • Operator: Fundacja „AUXILIUM”, Tarnów, Polska (KRS 0000773804)
  • Cel działalności: pomoc osobom doświadczającym trudności lub kryzysów
• Strona internetowa: www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl
  • Operator: Fundacja Pomocy Osobom Niepełnosprawnym oraz Dzieciom i Młodzieży „AUXILIUM”, Bochnia, Polska (KRS 0000410419)
  • Cel działalności: pomoc osobom ze szczególnymi potrzebami

 ​‑‑Lambiam 06:38, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Machine translation: Visiting the auxilium.pl website leads to a different site, operated by a different organization than the one behind www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl.

Website: auxilium.pl

Operator: "AUXILIUM" Foundation, Tarnów, Poland (KRS 0000773804)

Mission: assisting individuals facing difficulties or crises

Website: www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl

Operator: "AUXILIUM" Foundation for Assisting People with Disabilities, Children, and Youth, Bochnia, Poland (KRS 0000410419)

Mission: assisting individuals with special needs ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 09:03, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

September 25

Looking for a DOS F1 quiz game

Hi everyone! A friend of mine told me that when he was a child, he had a very old 1980s computer. He had a 5.25-inch floppy disk containing a Formula 1 quiz game running in MS-DOS mode, which covered the years from 1974 up to 1988-1989, but he can't remember the title anymore. In some of the questions, the game also displayed national flags to help identify the drivers' nationalities. I haven't been able to find this game anywhere on the internet. Could you help me identify the name of this very rare DOS game? Thanks! DanielParoliere (talk) 19:56, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

There was a game that did come on 5.25 inch floppy called Gerhard Berger's Formula 1 Quiz. The problem is that it is an early 90s game and it was primarily for the Commodore 64, but there were certainly ports to MS-DOS. At that time, games tended to get ported all over. But, it clearly isn't an 80s quiz game. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 13:07, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

If the quiz covered up to 1989, having the game released in the early 90s doesn't sound crazy to me. Matt Deres (talk) 02:02, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

October 1

Fun Facts About the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election

Not a forum The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

If John Kerry had won Ohio in 2004, he would have won the presidency—and here’s my point: is it possible that Minnesota’s mysterious “faithless” presidential elector, had Kerry won, would have correctly cast his electoral vote for Kerry? This is just my personal opinion, but the elector—probably influenced by the defeat in the November popular vote, where it was clear that Kerry had already lost the Electoral College—ended up filling out his ballot carelessly. Something he probably—who knows—wouldn’t have done had the Democratic candidate won. Could you share your thoughts on this? Thank you.

~2026-52702-80 (talk) 20:31, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

We don't do speculation, hypotheticals, counter-factuals and the like here.
(Now please welcome a bunch of people who make up their own rules as they go along.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:13, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

You rang? --Trovatore (talk) 00:46, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

October 4

New sea arches

The least advanced sea arch I have found so far

The Hōlei Sea Arch has just collapsed. Earlier this year a sea arch collapsed in Melendugno, Italy, and our natural arch article has a picture of the Azure Window, Malta, which collapsed in 2017. But logically new sea arches must form at about the same rate. Strangely these don't make the headlines. Can you find me a photo of a hole in the rock which has only just begun, and is very small? I had no success with an image search for "least impressive sea arch".  Card Zero  (talk) ※ 12:08, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

A new arch forming in Natural Bridges State Beach is reported here.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:54, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

October 6

red dyed diesel fuel

This is a reference desk, not a forum. In as much as questions are asked, any reply would be speculation. We don't do that. The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Trump has signed an executive order allowing people to buy dyed diesel fuel for any purpose, i.e. you can run your 18 wheeler on home heating oil legally now. Of course people have done that illegally since forever. It's basically the same fuel but it's cheaper at the pump since there's no transportation excise tax. So he's essentially suspended the excise tax, or alternatively, shifted it from truckers to everyone else, plus maybe causing shortages and higher prices for heating oil. Maybe that's good policy, maybe not, but I'm left wondering:

1) if he wants to suspend the excise tax, why not suspend it directly instead of allowing dyed fuel in vehicles (supposedly temporarily)?

2) I thought the red dye was supposed to permanently leaves some colorant in the engine, so if you use it, it can be detected if the engine is torn down later. You then get in trouble (tax evasion) even if you've switched back to non-dyed fuel afterwards. So random people with diesel passenger or work vehicles sometimes took their chances, but big trucking fleets were at much more risk and paid the tax. So are we now in a situation where basically every diesel vehicle motor will have the red colorant, so they may as well keep using dyed fuel even after the waiver is withdrawn?

Overall this doesn't make much sense. Of course it's the US government so I shouldn't expect it to. ~2026-53423-74 (talk) 07:54, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

October 7

Jeffrey Epstein

Was Jeffrey Epstein a hebephile, ephebophile, or something else entirely? He doesn't seem like a pedophile since AFAIK his victims were not prepubescent children, but rather pubescent children or older. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 06:14, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Can't speak to the specific case, but it has long annoyed me that the term paedophile (as we spell it here in the UK) is so widely misused. {The poster formerly know as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 06:25, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, any attraction to anyone below the age of consent is colloquially referred to as pedophilia, even though this isn't the term's technical meaning. Someone attracted to 17-year-olds where the age of consent is 18 (or even to minors slightly younger than that) is attracted to a different body type that someone who is attracted to prepubescent children. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 07:23, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Still, as commonly used in the wider sense, the implication is usually that there is a considerable age difference, and generally also a power imbalance.  ​‑‑Lambiam 16:20, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, that's why the age of consent is 18 in some places, such as in California. Of course, sometimes even consenting adult relationships with huge age gaps, while legal, are still frowned upon, such as, say, a 70-year-old or 80-year-old man dating a 20-year-old. For instance, 70+ year-old Bill Belichick's 20-something year-old girlfriend. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:14, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Everything that I have heard about Epstein suggests that he would be considered an ephebophile, but the technical uses of the terms are not common and they have no legal relevance to his charged crimes. He seems to have targeted girls/women in 17-20 range which is consistent with a basically ephebophile sexuality but as far as I understand these things are best understood as a spectrum rather than distinct orientations. Eluchil404 (talk) 17:53, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

He also served slightly over a year in jail for paying a 14-year-old girl for sex, didn't he? Which is essentially child prostitution and is on the border between hebephilia and ephebophilia in terms of sexual attraction. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:14, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

I didn't remember that any of his victims were do young. He certainly could have been a hebephile, but remote psychoanalysis is problematic at the best of times and he is no longer available for experts to question. He took girls on trips for sexual purposes which is the basis of the sex trafficking charges and paid them for services which included sex which is prostitution. His motivations for how he treated different girls are largely unknown and it would be inappropriate to speculate. Eluchil404 (talk) 14:45, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Ricola candy

what is the package made of? ~2026-54088-77 (talk) 09:24, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

The individual wrappers are confectionary twist paper coated in paraffin. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:20, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Highest age that both spouses in a marriage ever reached?

Is age 108+ the highest age that both spouses in a marriage ever reached (not necessarily simultaneously), with Lyle (born 1917) and Eleanor (born 1918) Gittens of the United States? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:37, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Julio Cesar Mora Tapia reached age 110 while his wife reached age 107.5, but the Gittenses beat out this record since both of them reached age 108+. Remember that I'm not asking about combined spousal age, only about both spouses each reaching the maximum age, not necessarily simultaneously. So, a marriage where both spouses die at 110 is "better" by my criteria than a marriage where one spouse dies at 115 while the other spouse dies at 109. In the former marriage, after all, both spouses reached age 110+, while in the latter marriage, only one of the spouses actually did so. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:39, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Lyle Gittens was born on March 10, 1917 while Eleanor Gittens was born on February 20, 1918. So, both spouses reached an age of 108 years, 7.5+ months and are still alive to expand and increase their record! Both Lyle and Eleanor Gittens are also African-American, if anyone is wondering. ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 23:45, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

October 8

Kim Jong-un, peeing, pooping, and gulags

Would either a North Korean citizen or a foreigner visiting North Korea get sent to a gulag for many years (and likely get severely tortured and possibly murdered Otto Warmbier-style there as well), along with three generations of their family for North Korean citizens, for saying "Kim Jong-un has a urethra and anus just like the rest of us have and thus pees and poops just like the rest of us do!"? Would this statement, and/or a similar statement, excessively humanize Kim Jong-un and thus be considered completely unacceptable in North Korea? ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 02:08, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Maybe you could take a trip there and give it a try! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:17, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

That's only good advice for the suicidal, and even then, there are much better ways to commit suicide that don't involve anywhere near as much suffering! ~2026-53159-81 (talk) 03:02, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

If you already knew the answer, why did you ask? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:57, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

The statement might be seen as malignantly hurting the dignity of the respected leader of the country and its glorious institutions, with predictable dire results,  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:21, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

It is not necessary to complicate the topic with juvenile talk of poop. The real question is: Will a person be punished for claiming Kim Jong-un is just like everyone else? Yes. Any statement that appears to negate the supreme status of the royal family is punishable. It isn't a problem to state a member of the royal family eats or sleeps or poops. It is a problem to include "just like the rest of us" to it. ~2026-54318-85 (talk) 11:18, 8 October 2026 (UTC)