Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous

The Wikipedia Reference Desk covering the topic of miscellaneous.
Miscellaneous #eee #f5f5f5 #eee #aaa #aaa #aaa #00f #36b #000 #00f miscellaneous Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous Miscellaneous WP:RD/M

Welcome to the miscellaneous reference desk. Want a faster answer? Main page: Help searching Wikipedia How can I get my question answered? Provide a short header that gives the general topic of the question. Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when. Post your question to only one desk. Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. All answers will be provided here. Specific questions, that are likely to produce reliable sources, will tend to get clearer answers. Note: We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice. We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate. We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point. We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need. Ready? Ask a new question! How do I answer a question? Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

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March 11

Which reference desk gets the most questions per year?

Question in the title. _{^{Clearly Miscellaneous gets +1000 questions/year for being the best reference desk.}} —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 02:42, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Scraped from the monthly archive indexes linked from annual table in WP:Reference_desk/Archives:

Reference Desk Questions Asked in 2019

	Total	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Humanities	849	65	51	67	79	64	82	97	63	83	76	56	66
Science	750	61	71	66	54	67	69	69	67	49	64	66	47
Miscellaneous	471	27	37	40	38	37	47	45	33	51	44	36	36
Language	388	35	26	31	42	27	42	40	29	17	35	30	34
Computing	358	29	23	19	40	32	30	30	33	34	26	37	25
Entertainment	338	22	20	35	30	28	36	28	37	22	24	27	29
Mathematics	199	15	25	13	19	16	19	9	17	19	18	16	13

-- ToE 06:50, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Fisher's exact test gives p=0.1024 so it is reasonable to assume that all desks have the same monthly split. Robinh (talk) 18:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Neat. @ToE, if that was a simple action to perform, could you do it for a year some time ago, like 2010 or 2009? I suspect that the number of questions has dropped dramatically since then. Matt Deres (talk) 02:01, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Hey @Matt Deres: How about this?

Reference Desk Questions Asked by Year

	Total	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Science	37983	4993	4783	4692	5029	3940	2943	2609	2048	1897	1757	1584	958	750
Humanities	31190	4165	4043	3314	3433	3125	2839	2429	1655	1598	1322	1470	948	849
Computing	26124	4109	3874	3736	3246	2581	1993	1589	1228	1243	856	859	452	358
Miscellaneous	23775	4559	4446	2936	2607	2039	1606	1448	1003	981	789	524	366	471
Language	16755	1945	2168	1920	2009	1642	1266	1330	1211	897	738	732	509	388
Entertainment	13688	1658	1933	1607	1739	1365	1044	1060	794	654	680	456	360	338
Mathematics	10381	1364	1467	1357	1452	1105	833	620	472	417	451	397	247	199

-- ToE 20:19, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Wow! Well, colour my hypothesis correct. :-) Thanks for that! Matt Deres (talk) 02:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Moonythedwarf: More directly answering your question:

Reference Desks Ranked by Number of Questions Asked

	Total	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	Average
Science	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	1.08
Humanities	2	3	3	3	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	2.15
Computing	3	4	4	2	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	4	5	3.31
Miscellaneous	4	2	2	4	4	4	4	4	5	4	4	5	5	3	3.85
Language	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	4	5	5	4	3	4	4.62
Entertainment	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6.00
Mathematics	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7.00

-- ToE 20:19, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

March 12

Is the world mad at China for the coronavirus?

Hi!

Are some countries angry at China for the coronavirus? Do you think some countries could put pressure on China to stop eating wildlife? Or will China just not care and not learn anything from what happened? Ericdec85 (talk) 01:59, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

The last two parts of the question call for speculation, and will not be answered here.

As for the first part, what have you found so far from googling? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:50, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

You might consider that wildlife is eaten in most countries of the world – perhaps all. Also, people can get angry, but countries have no feelings.  --Lambiam 05:33, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The Chinese government has prohibited the sale of bushmeat. In this country, a shopkeeper in a local street market let it be known that she could supply it. Shoppers in the market are used to police sweeps (e.g. for illegal immigrants) but one morning the shop was closed with police stationed outside. Would-be customers were told there was a "customs investigation". What had happened was that an undercover investigator had asked for bushmeat, and when the shopkeeper obliged she was arrested [1]. She was sentenced to seven months' imprisonment at Crown Court. The local community said "enough is enough" and staged a protest outside the Nigerian High Commission (in Trafalgar Square, I believe), whereupon diplomats told them to go away. See Will the next pandemic come from...Bushmeat? [2]. The takeaway is that rats get eaten. 2A00:23C4:7908:EF00:894D:1E6F:66EE:BE5C (talk) 12:07, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Considering that HIV, Ebola, SARS and recent outbreaks of pneumonic plague have all been traced back to bushmeat I bet a great many people aren't particularly thrilled about it right now. 93.136.43.47 (talk) 03:46, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

This is a fast-breaking story with tons of misinformation and speculation flying around in all directions through every known medium. Honestly, the best way to get an answer to this question is to wait and see how things pan out.--WaltCip (talk) 13:30, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

And wash hands frequently. By the way, China is now blaming America for it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:41, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

They have a point. The Orange One hasn't exactly been executing sound leadership in managing COVID-19.--WaltCip (talk) 14:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I never thought I'd be defending that creature, but his mismanagement of, well, pretty much everything he ever touches does not equate to the coronavirus originating in American forces stationed in China. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:54, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm angry at first world countries and their wealthier, powerful residents for forcing large parts of the third world to remain poor, and thus live in non-hygienic conditions and feel the need to eat unsafe foods, just so rich, first world people could build even greater wealth. OK, that's an obvious POV comment, but it's to highlight the narrow perspective and POV nature of the initial question here. HiLo48 (talk) 21:46, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

By that same token, it annoys me when I see the word "bushmeat" used (though the use above is fairly neutral) because it simply means wild animals that were hunted/killed by non-white people. Wagging our collective fingers at Chinese people for hunting in their forests works a lot better than teling our own hunters that they can no longer hunt deer/moose/turkeys/etc. but because we call one action "bushmeat trade" we can "other" the action and continue to do the same thing. Matt Deres (talk) 01:58, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

There is a lot to unpack here, and I had intended to make a better researched post, but honest I don't think will bother. First, since this is clearly began with the SARS-CoV-2, I think we need to be clear that a big reason for the consumption there is not from poor people who can't afford or lack access to "ordinary" meats, but due to some of the wealthier people wanting "exotic" meats [3], [4], Ye wei. A look at that widely circulate price list from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market [5] is an example of this.

Those farming, catching/poaching or butchering these animals are the ones more likely to be at risk of starvation but they probably often aren't eating them themselves in that case. Even then, I think it's complicated. While there's clearly major problems for the poor in quite a few developing countries, and I don't restrict this to China since the animals could easily have been caught from somewhere outside China, I don't think it's really clear how many of these people would be in major economic strife if not involved, or whether they would probably be able to do something else for less money but still generally able to live. (You get the same questions when it comes to things like scam call centres in India.) This is not to say there's no one in China hunting "bushmeat" because they don't have access to anything else. And the situation in large parts of Africa may be different.

Note that I'm not saying that the fact these are richer people doing it for personal preference means it's bad, simply that the argument over poor people falls apart when that isn't really the reason. I do agree there tends to be a "Chinese are weird" generally with negative connotations arising from this. Generally ignoring the fact that conspicuous consumption etc is hardly unique to the Chinese even if the specifics may differ. E.g. although there is increasingly a backlash, you of course have plenty of people often from the West, especially the US wanting to kill lions etc at most for a trophy and to be able to know or say they did. And well, Instagram.

As for "bush meat" vs other hunted meat, that's also complicated. Zoonosis are a concern whenever there is strong contact between humans and other animals including butchering. So it arises in farming and in any case where animals are hunted for consumption. However there are specific concerns that arise with "bushmeat". One of them is with primate consumption especially of the great apes given our strong genetic similarity and so the increase likelihood that something can successfully infect humans.

Another is that many of these animals have probably rarely been hunted in the numbers and level they are in modern times. I mean I'm sure some people ate pangolin centuries ago, and they were also killed for their scales (which likely also has similar risks) as our article shows, but it's unlikely it was at anything like modern levels. Also this was happening in a much less interconnected world. (Yes I'm aware that SARS-CoV-2 probably didn't come from pangolins.) In other words, while there are risks from hunting deer, ducks etc, and farming, the fact that this has been happening for a long time at fairly significant levels and not just in the West, means the concerns are different. (But we shouldn't downplay the risks. E.g. new strains of influenza often involve farmed animals. There there is stuff like the Nipah virus where one of the outbreaks came from farming, although fortunately it doesn't seem to spread from human to human,)

This is not to say I disagree with the general point, a good example of this is views towards eating cats and dogs, or even whales and dolphins. (For the later 2, arguments about intelligence, difficult of killing, etc may come into play, but it seems clear this isn't the only reason.)

A related example, probably in part due to my Malaysian heritage, I tend to find all many "palm oil is evil" views simplistic. Let's use soya bean oil from Brazil instead? Or do we restrict our farming to developed countries who've already turned a lot of their country into farmland, well it's fine since it happened centuries ago. And let's not worry so much about ongoing actions to support that farmland or other stuff harming the environment like mining and the risk to world heritage coral reefs. But developing countries? Nah they have to keep their land intact and hope they can somehow make it work via ecotourism or climate change payments. Yet it's also somewhat true that tropical rainforests in particular have been a haven for biodiversity before human civilisation, and also we can't get back what's been destroyed very easily. So as an environmentalist I also hate the ongoing loss. And, as happens in a lot of the world, those benefiting most from such development in developing countries tends to be disproportionately those who are already well off.

I mention the above semi-rant because it semi ties into the issue. While zoonosis may be one concern, and especially significant at the moment, a bigger concern with the trade is the environmental impact. It's clear that poaching for human consumption and Chinese traditional medicine is often unsustainable and placing populations at significant risk. Yet even among those who recognise this, there often tends to be a "evil Chinese" etc, while ignoring or recognising but not really doing anything about the stuff that they are doing that is harmful. E.g. seafood, their use of rare earth minerals, fuel, water, sustainability issues surrounding farming. (And yes, I'm as guilty of that as many.)

Nil Einne (talk) 13:10, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Who said it first?

• Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882):

— “Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Mark Twain - (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910):

— “Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.” - Mark Twain ...

  Question:  Which one said it first? Did the second quote the first without attribution? 

72.242.221.33 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:55, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

When discussing Mark Twain quotes, you have three major problems:

1. Many quotes attributed to Mark Twain were never written or said by him.
2. Mark Twain was well-read and often used existing quotes, altered to fit his needs.
3. Mark Twain regularly performed talks, which were then written down to create books, but the talks were verbal and the quote sources were obviously not cited.

So, it is possible that Mark Twain never made the quote, or Mark Twain took the quote and twisted it to fit his needs, or Mark Twain used the quote on stage and it was not cited. 135.84.167.41 (talk) 12:19, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

The oldest occurrence of the phrase in a Google Books search is from 1942, which makes it likely it was made up around that time.  --Lambiam 18:59, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Since two dates over 30 years earlier have already been established, that is clearly not the case. ——SN54129 15:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

What two dates? If you're referring to Emerson's and Twain's dates of death, that is relevant only if it can be established that one of them definitely said the original quote, but that is the very thing that has NOT been established. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:52, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

UEFA Euro 2020 cancelled?

This site says that UEFA Euro 2020 would be cancelled because of the coronavirus epidemic and moved to 2021. The Wikipedia article UEFA Euro 2020 does not mention this. Is this true? JIP | Talk 19:20, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

The article the OP linked simply speculates that a decision to postpone will be made next week. No such decision has been made yet. Xuxl (talk) 19:22, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Indeed it happened today [6], UEFA Euro 2021 so clearly did not happen last week. Nil Einne (talk) 14:57, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

March 14

Transport managers exams in 1989

Hi I am trying to find out when transport manager exams were sat in 1989, two, three or four times a year and what months i think they were conducted by the RSA then and were merged with OCRS IN 2000 I am asking this as i am trying to trace information on my familys history and my father knows he took an exam in Hereford in 1989 the but cant remember what month — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C5:EC05:C200:2086:5B6A:978F:A90 (talk) 13:37, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Travel and transport in Hereford, UK is in the domain of Herefordshire Council. My guesses of the OP's abbreviations lead to websites that can be contacted for further information:

• RSA = Road Safety Association - nearest website in Ireland
• OCRS = Operator Compliance Risk Score (Vehicle & Operator Services Agency; Ministry for Transport; UK) described here. DroneB (talk) 16:07, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

March 15

Online orders in New Zealand

Do New Zealand's new border restrictions in response to COVID-19 affect online orders in New Zealand? Can people in New Zealand still order things from other countries? How can things be delivered to New Zealand, given the rules about people visiting the country having to self-isolate? Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 03:09, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Cargo ships and planes are still allowed. The crews of ships and planes do not have to self-isolate. What you need to know-gadfium 03:19, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

While this is a bit WP:CRYSTAL, I think it's expected that the border restrictions will significantly reduce the number of people coming to NZ. Therefore the number of passenger flights to NZ is also likely to be significantly reduced, maybe even stop completely from some places. A large percentage of NZ's air cargo comes via such flights so there's a reasonable chance of capacity problems and air cargo needing to taking longer more complicated routes. And it isn't just NZ, flights between other destinations have also been affected by the numerous restrictions etc. [7] [8] Pure OR anecdote, but during Air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, I bought something from eBay. I think it was sent via regular Deutsche Post air parcel service to Auckland and ended up taking something like 3 months to arrive whereas I expect it would normally take about a month or less. (The disruption had long ended by the time it had arrived, I suspect it either ended up taking a very circuitous route or got semi lost in some backlog.) Nil Einne (talk) 04:38, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes. I suspected that something like this would be true. Hence the question. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 09:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Is the Vietnamese kiem related to the jian?

I want to end the ongoing dispute with SimeonManier regarding jian (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jian&diff=945108100&oldid=944245559). Did the jian influence the Vietnamese kiem? SpinnerLaserz (talk) 19:28, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

There is little doubt that the terms are related; see 劍 on Wiktionary. One theory (see the etymology section there under the heading "Chinese") is that the words in Chinese and Vietnamese came from the native language of Wu. If that is the case, both may also have imported this double-edged sword type from Wu, after which each had its own independent development. This is of course speculative. Unless there is contemporary documentation, this may be hard to establish, but it is probably equally hard to establish that this was definitely not the case. The way Wikipedia works is that we base what we write on reliable sources. If there are reliable sources that state it is likely that the forging technologies of Vietnam originated with the sword smiths of China, we can report that, referencing the sources. (An issue is then what is meant by "China" in the historical context.) If other reliable sources favour different theories, we should report these as well – while not giving undue attention to fringe theories. If we have no sources for any theory regarding the connection, we should stay mum and not invent one ourselves.  --Lambiam 20:27, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, is there is a section on Wikipedia where can I request anyone to find a good source on how the kiem is related to jian? SpinnerLaserz (talk) 21:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

This here is by itself not a bad spot for such a request. Perhaps others are more successful, but I have been able to find only one usable source. If you click "Download this PDF file" on web page http://www.eastm.org/index.php/journal/article/view/93/81 you get an article that appeared in the journal East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, no. 21, from 2003. It contains, on page 18, the following sentence: "Besides importing the sword, the Vietnamese also imported its name; given the Vietnamese transliteration of Chinese, they are the same word: Chinese jian, Vietnamese kiếm." That is all it states about the relationship, but at least it is a reliable source. If it is really important to you, you might consider contacting the author of the article through her contact page.  --Lambiam 03:21, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

March 17

Which fictional characters are either directly or indirectly named after real life historical figures?

Which fictional characters are either directly or indirectly named after real life historical figures? So far, I can think of Garfield the Cat, who was named after Jim Davis's grandfather James Garfield Davis, who in turn was named after US President James A. Garfield. 68.96.93.207 (talk) 05:40, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

We do have List of comic and cartoon characters named after people, which includes your example. -- ToE 08:57, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Possibly also of interest is Category:Fictional characters based on real people. -- ToE 09:06, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Merci beaucoup! Futurist110 (talk) 20:24, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

As an Australian, I immediately thought of John West from Power Without Glory by Frank Hardy. Our article describes the book as a historical novel, and a fictional tale. However, anyone with a knowledge of the history of Melbourne in the first half of the 20th century instantly recognised that West was very closely modelled on John Wren, described in our article as an Australian bookmaker, boxing and wrestling promoter, Irish nationalist, land speculator, newspaper owner, racecourse and racehorse owner, soldier, pro-conscriptionist and theatre owner. Funnily enough, there were suggestions that some of his activities were not 100% legal. It was interesting times. HiLo48 (talk) 09:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

James Bond (the fictional spy) is named after James Bond (an ornithologist). Iapetus (talk) 10:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

There are several from Fleming, Goldfinger perhaps the most famous. One got him into trouble with MI6 (He implied something about someone within 6, which was public knowledge within the office, but officially they weren't asking and no-one was telling.) Andy Dingley (talk) 19:12, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I expect there could be a lot of them. One that comes to mind is in the book Superfolks, in which the hero's name is David Brinkley, originally from the planet Cronk, so of course he fears the element Cronkite. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Ha! From that article I learned of the relevant article Tuckerization. -- ToE 21:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Harry S Truman of twin peaks Temerarius (talk) 18:39, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The character John Malkovich in the film Being John Malkovich.  --Lambiam 19:54, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Playing a fictionalized version of himself. As with Jerry Seinfeld on Seinfeld. Or Drew Carey on The Drew Carey Show. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:27, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Note that the real John Malkovich is named John Gavin Malkovich, while the fictional character is named John Horatio Malkovich, so the actor is not playing himself. I strongly suspect that the similarity is not coincidental, but that the character was named, with an easily overlooked alteration, after the actor.  --Lambiam 04:09, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Or Lucy Ricardo in I love Lucy. Though I'm sure that's way before your time Bugs. HiLo48 (talk) 01:15, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Au contraire! But that's just a first name. As with Mary Richards in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show. [Or Bob Hartley in The Bob Newhart Show.] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:25, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

But Lucy's surname, Ricardo, presumably came from her real life husband. HiLo48 (talk) 03:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

In the show, her maiden name was McGillicuddy. And the name "Ricardo" appears nowhere in Desi Arnaz's full name. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:31, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, you're bringing back memories. Interestingly, what you say contradicts the lead of our article on the show. HiLo48 (talk) 05:12, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The lead looks fine, so I don't follow what you're getting at. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:23, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Golden Age comedy teams such as Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, Burns and Allen, etc. often used their real names in their acts, albeit fictionalized versions of themselves. In contrast to W.C. Fields or the Marx Brothers, who usually played characters under different names, although sometimes with names close to their own nicknames, such as Chico playing "Chicolini". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:45, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

(And probably straying a bit from the OP's original premise.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:30, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The name Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four "is usually taken to come from Winston Churchill". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:28, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Sony DADC UK - releasing DVDs

How long does it take for Sony DADC in the UK to release DVDs? 86.135.188.254 (talk) 21:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Question about pain

Yesterday evening I accidentally pushed a ballpoint pen with the tip erect right into my thumb, breaking the skin and bruising a blood vessel. What is amazing here is that I did not even feel it, there was no pain. I only noticed the whole thing when my thumb started bleeding. How does such a thing happen? Why was there no pain? JIP | Talk 23:11, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

It's possible to get bangs and bruises without much sensation, depending on where they happen. But that generalization doesn't rule out the possible need to see your doctor. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:29, 18 March 2020 (UTC)