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January 4[edit]

S S C[edit]

What is the origin of the game "scissors, paper, stone", aka "rock, paper, scissors"? I ask having read the following last night in Don Bosco's Madonna, 25 (12) (April 2023), Bombay Salesian Society, Mumbai:

...there was a carpenter's workshop...

...all his tools held a great council...

It was a question of excluding a certain number of members..."We must expel our sister the Saw, because she bites..."

...brother Hammer...has a temperament, to bash everything...

What about the Nails? Can one live with such prickly people?...

And the File and the Plane too. To live with them is constant friction. And let us also expel chisel, whose only raison d'être seems to be to scratch others!...

The Hammer wanted to expel the file and the plane, these in turn wanted the Nails and Hammer expelled...

The meeting was...interrupted by the arrival of the carpenter...

The man took a plank and sawed it with the Biting Saw. He smoothed it with the Plane that strips everything it touches. Sister Axe that...wounds cruelly, sister File with its rough tongue, sister Chisel that scrapes and scratches, went into action...

Then the carpenter took the brothers Nails for their prickly character and the Hammer that bashes.

He used all his bad-tempered tools to make a cradle.

A beautiful cradle to welcome a baby that was about to be born. To welcome Life.

Orthodox Christmas is on Sunday. 2A00:23C7:FBA0:B701:FCE0:A139:4B50:9D6F (talk) 15:11, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't Theophany (also called Epiphany), the day after the Twelve Days of Christmas, traditionally celebrated on 6 January, which this year is a Saturday? In the Greek Orthodox Church Christmas is called Χριστούγεννα and celebrated on 25 December, but is a lesser feast compared to Theophany. Likewise in the Russian Orthodox Church, where Christmas is called Рождество Христово. --Lambiam 23:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lambiam, the last time you made this point you claimed the Greeks don't celebrate Christmas on 25 December and Veverve put you right. I don't speak Russian, but I know the Russian word for Sunday translates as "Resurrection". The issue is discussed on the Reference desk from time to time, e.g. here Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 July 31#A Scottish Christmas. 31.113.52.197 (talk) 18:54, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I could discover, Veverve has made only one edit to the Reference desk, unrelated to Christmas. If I said Greeks don't celebrate Christmas on 25 December I was wrong, but at least where I have been around that time, the festivities of 6 January – not celebrating the Nativity by itself but generally considered the end of the Christmas festivities – were the more obvious. The Russian name for Sunday is connected to Easter Sunday celebrating the resurrection of Christ; I don't see what this has to do with Christmas. --Lambiam 22:15, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Rock paper scissors#History. Deor (talk) 16:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Additional information: The source cited there states that a 17th-century Chinese book, Wuzazu, mentions that Han warlords played a game called hand command.^[1] But can we be certain that this was the same game? Some 14 centuries separate the warlords from the book. Even if it was the same game, we cannot know if it was the origin. The three hand shapes of the game do not need to be based on technological inventions; in a paleolithic society it could have been played with hand shapes representing a stick (which pierces a leaf), a leaf (which wraps a stone) and a stone (which breaks a stick).

Curiously, the Chinese Wikipedia only mentions the theory that the game originated in Japan, the earliest documented record being from the early 19th century. The Japanese Wikipedia even calls it "a Japanese game" (日本の遊戯). --Lambiam 22:41, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why are two unrelated discussions interleaved in this section? —Tamfang (talk) 00:00, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Both arose from the original post, but I have refactored this section to reduce the interleaving. --Lambiam 08:31, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vague memories of a film from 1983[edit]

When I was very small girl, I recall one of the first movies I ever saw on the Movie Channel around 1985 (the movie I think had come out about two years earlier) and all I remember is that this boy was running through the woods trying to get away from some kind of problem. There had been this man who everyone thought was his friend, who kept saying he was with the FBI. Eventually the man found him in the woods and that's all I remember. Any ideas? -KTcup82 (talk) 17:54, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Style of guitar playing in song[edit]

I'm hoping to find out more information about the guitar playing from about 1:42 to 1:50 in the song Mrs. All American by 5 Seconds of Summer (at least I'm pretty sure it's a guitar being played). it occurs a few times in the song, but this is the example where its most clearly heard. Is there a certain musical technique used to get this trilling sound? Are there other songs that have this type of sound? User:Heyoostorm^_talk! 21:24, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They're using an electronic effect to create the sound, a fast tremelo or vibrato, maybe even a slicer. --Wrongfilter (talk) 21:49, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]