Misplaced Pages

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• Talk for 2001
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Lowlands

Hello Derek

Thanks for the additions re the Scottish Lowlands article. I was aware of the northeast but was trying to simplify (or oversimplify?) things. It's good to have someone contribute who's actually lived there!

Bruce, aka Agendum 22:45, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Nice of you to say so, Bruce. In my turn, I'd like to thank you for adding the article. I'm always pleased to see people contributing articles about Scotland and I hope that you continue to do so. Many more are needed. Also, congratulations on deciding to become a "named" editor! I hope that you get as much enjoyment out of contributing to the Misplaced Pages as I have. -- Derek

Henry George

Hi Derek, I put some minor additions into your article on Henry George. randall_burns@yahoo.com

Feel free Randall. That's what Misplaced Pages is all about. -- Derek

Laocoon

Hi Derek. With regard to our discussion of the acuity of translations on Laocoon, I just heard the following quote: "Translations (like wives) are seldom faithful if they are in the least attractive." (from South African poet Roy Campbell) . How true. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:48, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

<grin>, I can't argue with that! -- Derek

Irish Dancing

Hi Derek,

I would like you to consider undoing the changes you made to the irish dancing page. You put everything in the context of "step dancing" and did a re-direct. I have made comments on the step dance talk page as to my concerns. If you do a google search on step dancing it will lead you to pages that discuss "irish dancing". Please consider the other following points:

Dance schools are named Trinity school of Irish Dance, O'Hare school of Irish Dance, World Academy of Irish dance. They teach dance as developed in ireland and still taught there today. The world commission I titled the World Commission of Irish Dancing. I do not know anything about scottish dance traditions, however when I have seen shows where scottish dance is demonstrated it is clearly different from the irish dance that I know. If you will look at the history of the irish dance page, you will observe that much of the content of the page was developed by me, with suggestions from others as to additional materials which could be included. The focus I developed for the page was for irish dance, not dance done in ireland, or dance styles which have roots common to irish dance.

In summary, I really object to the change in focus of the article and the re-direct. Please change it back. Addition of a link to another page with discusses commonalities of irish and scottish dance traditions would be perfectly appropriate, but I am not qualified to write such a page, I am sure others are.

greybeard 16:53, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The Scottish dance which is normally demonstrated is Highland dancing, or less commonly, set dancing. Scottish step dancing is rarely demonstrated, since it is social rather than competitive, so you are unlikely to have seen it outside a Scottish ceilidh. However I have certainly attended ceilidhs at which it has taken place, so I can assure you that it exists and that it is fairly similar to Irish step dancing with a more relaxed upper body posture. If, as you are suggesting, you have developed the article to discuss Irish dance used as a technical term for Irish step dancing, then you should remove the discussions of set dancing and other non-step forms from within the article since it leads to confusion about the subject matter of the article. People who are unfamiliar with the technical meaning of the term will think that the article is about all forms of dance in Ireland, or worse will think that step dancing is the only type of dance, danced in Ireland. -- Derek

Thanks for the info on Highland dancing. At competitions, shows and ceili's, the dancers will perform jigs, reels, slipjigs, treble jigs, hornpipes and treble reels as well as set dances. These would all be forms of "step dances". They will also perform "figure" dances with teams of 2,3,4,or 8 dancers on a team. Finally, larger groups of 16 or more dancers will sometimes perform coreography dances and dance dramas (which have a narrated script to describe the action). Each of this would fall under the umbrella of "irish dance". I can imagine that there could be a distinction made in a "step dancing" page that could sort out the differences between Irish and Scottish flavors of step dance. Or separate Irish and Scottish dance pages which both include relevent information on step dancing.

Note that in what you call "figure dances", the team formed by the dancers has a special name: we say that the dancers form a "set" rather than a "team". That is why these types of dance are also known as "set dances". I wouldn't consider set dances as a type of step dance since the figures making up a dance are far more important than the steps (outside the specialised world of competitive dancing at any rate). -- Derek Ross

I did a little research on this and found something that I was not aware of. The clue was in the world of competitive dancing. In Competitive dancing there are "traditional set dances" and "non-traditional set dances". These are strictly solo, hard shoe step dancing. In competitive dancing, figures are something done by "teams". I found sources which discuss the more common usage which you explained above. I will need to think about this for a little while and re-cast the article to highlight the differences. greybeard 02:06, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well there *is* a big difference between competition dancing and social dancing. I realise that you don't get so much social dancing in North America but it forms the majority of the traditional dancing in Scotland and Ireland. In fact it's the type that ordinary people dance rather than trained dancers, so set dances (in the sense that I was using the term) form a much bigger part of everyday dancing than the solo exhibition dances like hornpipes and jigs which form the major part of competitions. -- Derek

With respect to people being confused the term irish dance, is not addressing all forms of dance in Ireland, I think that would be handled by an article titled "Dance in Ireland". I'm sure that polkas are danced at social events in Ireland, but I would not think that anyone would believe that the polka is an "irish" dance. Discussion of dance such as ballet should be properly covered in a Ballet page which addresses the stage of that art form in various areas of the world. Just my thoughts and opinions. Thanks for your time. greybeard 15:50, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Poll

Talk:Atheism/Godvrs.god poll Please come participate Sam Spade 03:54, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hoarding

If the word hoarding is more associated with the fearful response to scarcity, can we move the "sign" meaning to Billboard (advertising)? I won't do this on my own, since I'm American and don't want to impose my brand of English on my 'friends across the pond'. --Uncle Ed 20:45, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

A redirect would seem fine to me, Ed. I basically added the extra meaning to make the original author think. I'll do the redirect if you want to avoid accusations of chauvinism. -- Derek

River Tweed

At the moment, the rivers are listed by the nation in which the mouth of the river can be found, placing the Tweed under England. If you can rephrase this in some way so that the Tweed is in Scotland, that's fine, but under current criteria I've had to move it back into England. Warofdreams 18:56, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

First you took Berwick-upon-Tweed; Now you've taken the whole river. :-)

Okay, if that's the criterion that you're using I'll go with it, but it's a bit arbitrary -- why not country where the river rises ? or country containing the majority of the river ? -- plus it means that all the Tweed's Scottish tributaries have suddenly become English rivers too. This is why I prefer talking about Britain when it comes to geographic features rather than England/Scotland/Wales. -- Derek

Pound Sterling

Derek, don't bother trying to fix Yomher's edits to Pound sterling -- he systematically vandalised all the devaluation dates by 10 years, as well as changing Wilson's government to Eden's! I have reverted the entire article. -- Arwel 20:41, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Understood. I spotted the 100 cents but not the date vandalisation (except that it produced the wrong decade for Wilson). Good call on your part. -- Cheers, Derek

Ah yes, I hadn't twigged that it was you who'd changed the government to match the new dates! :) Cheers, Arwel

Talk:Raven paradox

I have replied to your post. Cheers, Cyan 08:19, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Cyan. You've certainly given me a lot to think about. It'll take me a little time to check through the formulae and work out the interpretations in plain English, so I won't give an immediate response. -- Cheers, Derek.

Linguistics

Derek, could you rewrite Stevertigo's piece in colorless green ideas sleep furiously as you did for Chomskybot? Mikkalai 21:20, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with the CGISF article, Mikkalai. It correctly asserts that good syntax does not ensure good semantics. That was not (quite) the case with the Chomskybot article. Why do you think that the CGISF article needs rewriting? -- Derek Ross

Only an intro phrase inserted by Stevertigo, whose English is apparently under the influence of Chinese. "The phrase offered proof that grammar was not the valid structure underlying language (as was thought at the time), rather that words are symbols with associated properties that will not function if they are not properly used". This sentence and the next one in the article are theselves a live proof that correct grammar does not ensure meaningful semantics. :-) I don't dare fixing them myself. Mikkalai 22:19, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Jacobites

Derek, The Stuart motto I mentioned showed their disdain for the authority of Parliment. At the end of the so-called Glorious Revolution Parliment passed the Bill of Rights of 1689 which declared that the king was an official chosen by and subject to Parliment. A power Parliment used in 1701 by passing the Act of Settlement. -- Anon

Ahh, now I understand what you meant in Talk:Jacobitism. Thanks for explaining. If it was clearly worded perhaps you might want to add that to the article. Cheers -- Derek

Thanks for restoring the "pleasant reference to mortality" comment

That was from a portion of the article I contributed and I was a little miffed by having it removed, but didn't want to get into an edit war over it. Thanks for your comments and for toning it down and putting it back.

Not at all. Don't mention it. Your contributions to the Lear article have improved it tremendously and, while your original sentence may not have been strictly NPOV, it was a very nicely worded sentiment. I think that it was quibbling to remove it and that's really why I put it back. However the current result is acceptable. -- Derek

Now, of course, I need to check whether Moriori, who changed the word Cow from capitalized to all-lower-case was correcting a typo in my transcription of the limerick, or officiously correcting Lear's usage. Dpbsmith 20:11, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Must admit that I wondered about that too but unfortunately I don't have a Lear collection to check it in so I just left it. -- Derek

Auld alliance

See Talk:Wars of Scottish Independence. Gdr 14:22, 2004 May 4 (UTC)

Time marches on

It happens to us all, Derek :-) I'm forty - er, fifty-seven, but feel no older than I did thirty years or so ago... apart from a few aches and pains. Anyway, if it was your birthday recently, belated congratulations!

Agendum 20:30, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Agendum! It was actually at the beginning of April but I only noticed that my age was wrong today. I know what you mean about feeling no older than twenty, thirty years ago, though. It's true despite the fact that I now seem to have a woman and various teenagers living with me and continually reminding me that I'm losing my hair, putting on weight, getting dafter, etc., etc. Where did they come from anyway ? -- Derek Ross 04:59, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Featuring "History of Scotland"

Derek, User:Raul654 (who takes care of the featured article of the day on the main page) wants to feature History of Scotland (of which, in the dim bowels of prehistory, you are the primary author). At his request, I've added a bunch of images to it, although I confess I struggled to find decent ones (and ones with decent articles behind them) for several sections. A disproportionate number are my own, born more of desperation than egoism (honest). I'd be very grateful if you could take another glance over the article again - are you happy with the copy, and can you suggest superior substitutions for images (ironically, it was the modern part with which I had the most difficulty). Thanks. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:47, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I saw you starting to add images earlier, Finlay, and I'm quite happy with the result -- they are nice images and nicely sized. Good job, man! Unfortunately I'm in a hotel in Houston at the moment so I'm not well placed to help out. As for the copy, the only thing that really worries me is that there's still a big gap between the early 1300s, and the late 1500s during which several events of interest happened, in particular the disastrous (for the Scots) battle of Flodden. If Raul wants to make this an article of the day, I suppose that I'll have to add something to cover the period. But don't worry about the pictures. They look really good and improve the article no end. Cheers. -- Derek

There's no hurry. If you could fill in the flodden gap once (if) you return from the boiling pit of Texas, that would be great (I'm afraid all those noble but doomed battles are but a blur for me). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:52, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well I don't have access to my history books but I've started on some Internet research instead. It's another two weeks before I head back home, so Misplaced Pages should benefit from a little more of my activity than it has lately -- at the weekends at any rate. -- Derek

Wealth of Nations

Thankyou for your contribution to the discussion page on Wealth of Nations.

Censorship

I had noticed your comment on Template_talk:Feature regarded the use of the Bulger case in our featured articles. I can understand why someone could object to using it, but I also think that we should never ever self-censor. If we start down that path, we are doomed, IMHO. You just have to observe the US "news" networks to see the end result. I hope you can understand this position, as it seems no one responded to your comments earlier. Burgundavia 21:49, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)

We already self-censor pretty continuously (the concept of Featured Article in itself is a form of self-censorship since by definition it excludes the majority of articles) so your hope is very much wishful thinking. I'm quite happy for the article to exist -- it's a good article. I just didn't think that it was very sensitive to put it on the Main page. As for self-censorship and the path it leads to, we can choose to censor significant material in favour of insignificant and become like the tabloids, the US "news" networks or the old Soviet news agencies, or we can choose to censor insignificant material in favour of significant material and become like an encyclopedia. The choice is ours. If we avoid making the choice consciously, censorship will still happen unconsciously because of people's natural fascination with certain subjects at the expense of others. -- Derek

Note

Why did you remove the note on Mary Stuart? She is a well-known actress and people need to be redirected to the name if they go there not expecting to see Mary, Queen of Scots. Mike H 19:30, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)

I've never heard of her or the TV series that she appeared in but I take your word for it that she's a well-known actress in some part of the world. My reason for moving (not removing) the note is that the confusion lies in "Mary Stuart", not in Mary I of Scotland, so I thought that it was more appropriate for the note to appear in an article entitled Mary Stuart than in one entitled "Mary I of Scotland" which is obviously not about an actress. -- Derek

I'll remove her note from Mary I and make a disambig page. Mike H 19:38, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)

That sounds good. Cheers -- Derek

B, Bon and BCPL

Hi Derek, refer the discussions Talk:C programming language#B origin from Wombat encyclopedia and Talk:C programming language#B from Bon or BCPL ? on Talk:C programming language. And lets settle the origin of B. Jay 06:23, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Okay I'll put the reasons for my edits there. -- Derek

sub bases

I hesitate to comment, but "Since the Cold War Scotland has hosted British and American nuclear submarine bases" perhaps implies present tense; on monday the holy loch looked nice and empty -they left feb, 1992 - did the u.s. have another base? Faslane and Coulport still there, sadly. dave souza 21:47, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)