Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 May 29

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May 29

Net worth of billionaires

When we say that the net worth of a billionaire is US$50 billions, what does this figure include? Does it mean the billionaire has this money in the form of readily available cash, or does it include the value of their homes, movable assets (cars, aircraft, yachts etc), shares etc? If the second is correct, the amount of readily available cash will be much smaller, right? --123Wosd (talk) 00:17, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

The articles Net worth and Wealth (economics) go over this a bit. And yes, it includes houses, cars, etc. Dismas|^(talk) 00:36, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

"Readily available cash" means things that are easily liquidated. The balance sheet for a corporation will have a separate line for this called "cash and cash-equivalents" or the like, yet the "worth" of the company will be different. Similarly, a measure of "worth" can be defined differently, so it depends on the source's definition of "worth." Generally, "worth" does NOT exclusively mean "cash and cash-equivalents," so in all probability the answer to your question is "it includes more than the form of readily available cash."76.218.9.50 (talk) 03:12, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Right. A lot of billionaires are really "paper billionaires," as their net worth is primarily in the equity of their companies, such as Larry Ellison's 22% or so stake in Oracle. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:20, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Prince El Darago of Italy

Who was Prince El Darago of Italy who visited Hawaii with Prince Oscar Bernadotte in 1884.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:38, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

El Darago doesn't sound like a common Italian name. Are you sure it isn't something like del Drago? --151.41.134.156 (talk) 12:12, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I assume this is your source? Gabbe (talk) 12:19, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

It was Giovanni del Drago, who wrote "Vingt jours à Honolulu". There does not seem to be an article on him in any of the Wikipedias (although there is a similarly-named guy who was a Catholic cardinal around the same time...not sure if it's the same person). Adam Bishop (talk) 09:50, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

How is he a prince?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 17:34, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Probably because he was a grandson of Queen Christina[1] MilborneOne (talk) 17:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

MilborneOne has your man, though he died in 1956, not 1946 (New York Times obit, May 4, 1956). His second wife, heir to the Lion Brewery fortune, was worth millions. His son Marcello was Italian ambassador to Japan in 1955-56.--Cam (talk) 13:03, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's his portrait.--Cam (talk) 13:12, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Nevada

Is Nevada the most libertarian state? --DHOD 1234 (talk) 03:41, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

According to this, South Dakota is the "most libertarian" though I don't know if they define it the same way that you would since "most libertarian" is vague. Dismas|^(talk) 03:48, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

copyrights

i thought of this after seeing a question about copyrights in the archives. if you buy an album , it become your property rite? So why cant you dispose of the content s of the album as you please? Why is it that we are bound by copyright laws?

or is it implicit that when we buy an album we r telling these guys that we wont copy it . is there some sort of an agreement between the company and the consumer? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.135.77.108 (talk) 04:33, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

You should probably read our Intellectual property article. But yes, when you buy an album, you are usually buying the right to play it, not to make multiple copies of it to pass on. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:05, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

In oral arguments before the Supreme Court in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., Don Verrilli, representing MGM stated: "And let me clarify something I think is unclear from the amicus briefs. The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their Website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod. There is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward." Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. (3/29/05), 04-480

And that was from years ago. It shows that they almost expect people to upload/copy it in some fashion. As for the why, imagine this scenario - You have a good idea for a song, which you decide to produce and sell for 1 dollar. Now imagine someone pays you 1 dollar for your song, then turns around and sells 1000 copies at 10 dollars a piece. Wouldn't you be upset that someone else was making tons of money from your work? Copyright laws exist to prevent this. (How well they do that is up to debate.) ^Avic_ennasis @ 07:11, 25 Iyar 5771 / 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Intellectual property is an abstract concept, different from physical property. It recognizes that forms of authorship are themselves a form of property right that transcend the medium they are printed on. So when you buy a book, you are not really buying a wad of paper, ink, and glue. You're buying a piece of authorship — what matters most are the order of the words on the pages, not the fact that there are pages. Now, with physical books and CDs, there is a thing called the first-sale doctrine, which says, if you bought it, you can do what you want with it, within the limits of copyright. So you could lend it to a friend, or sell it on eBay, or use it to decorate your house. Copyright law says, well, you bought the physical book, but you don't own the intellectual material inside the book. So you can't start your own printing press and make your own copies of the book, much less sell them.

This makes good sense for most of us, who buy the argument that indeed, if everyone could be their own printing press and sell an author's work without giving any money to the author, you'd be severely reducing incentives for authors to write new books. We also generally recognize the unfair nature of, say, a press producing books by an author without giving them a cut of the royalties. (There are some who say, "well, there would be some authors who would write for the pure joy of it, even if they didn't get paid." This may be true, especially when the bar for new content creation is low. But I challenge those advocates to watch someone else get very rich off of their own creations, and not feel a bit irked about it.)

The queasy and difficult bits comes in when we start talking about information completely independent of any static medium — such as on a computer. The ease of reproduction, in particular the way in which copying or "sharing" data does not reduce any physical commodity makes us feel that it is somehow different from, say, a physical book. If I "shared" with you my physical book, there would still only be one book in circulation. If I share an MP3, there are now two in circulation. This means that generally speaking, the only property that comes into play is intellectual property, divorced of its physical manifestation. Exactly what rights the content producers have, versus the content users, with regards to paid for intellectual property are still being worked out, and no doubt this area of law is going to continue to evolve for many decades to come, as the stakes have gotten very high all of the sudden.

So, to answer. You "own" a physical book, or CD, or poster. Your purchase, however, was only for the physical medium, not for the song or text or image itself. Those rights are still held by the author (or, more likely, their publisher). That does not mean you completely lack any rights there — see fair use, for example — but you do have limitations. The goal of this system is to enrich authors and publishers, with the hope that this will make authors want to be authors, and thus produce more culture. A great primer on all of this which discusses many of the benefits and pitfalls of intellectual property systems, is Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture, which you can download free from his website. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:47, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

We have an article, History of copyright law, that will be good for answering the question of "why". To answer your question about an implicit agreement with the author, no, there is no implicit agreement; just a law that you have to follow. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:02, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Property in general is a socially contested issue. In relation to information property, this has gone through various forms. Currently, capitalist property forms are the general social form of property. However, some other relationships still apply. A junior research assistant in the sciences may find their work in part directly subsumed by a power relation: expropriated by force of hierarchy in either an unmediated (slavery) or bound-tenure (you're working my lab) form. Primitive communist production of intellectual property may be directly subsumed by force against such a community (Deep_Forest#Controversy may be enlightening here). Attempts at producing socialist property (such as the USSR's voiding copyright) may be pulled back into the capitalist system (were they a Great Patriotic War veteran?). Similarly, other attempts at producing socialist property (GNU and Linux) may have mixed and uneven results—consider the disputes in capitalist law over free software licensing and code availability. However, in general, for most intellectual property producers their relationship is either that of the petit bourgeois self-producer who is exploited by suppliers and consumers (the Author and the Publishing House), or are wage labourers (the studio technician and the Recording Studio). At the end of the day, however, capitalist courts both in national and international law are likely to mediate attempts at producing intellectual property other than capitalist intellectual property. Attempts to evade capitalist property (from Levellers through to software piracy) may result in capture, prosecution, persecution and death. Attempts to directly take on capitalism in general have, until now, most often fared similarly. Whether this is desirable or not is a matter for moral philosophy. Whether this is the actual state of the world often depends on your theory of history. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Tallest building in the US

On an old episode of QI, Stephen Fry said that, until the building of the Washington Monument, the tallest building in the US was in Baltimore. Could somebody say what it is? 216.93.212.245 (talk) 06:16, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

This page says it was the Phoenix Shot Tower in Baltimore (234 ft). However the Phoenix Shot Tower page says it was replaced as the tallest in the US in 1846, by the third Trinity Church (Manhattan), at 281 feet. Since the Washington Monument wasn't finished until 1884 there could well be other buildings ranking tallest in the US between Trinity Church and the Washington Monument. Pfly (talk) 07:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Another page that might answer the question is List of tallest buildings in the United States#Timeline of tallest buildings. Neither the Phoenix Shot Tower nor the Washington Monument are listed—I'm guessing they are not counted as "buildings". Still, St. Michael's Church, Old Town, Chicago, 1869, was the tallest at 290 feet. Pfly (talk) 08:06, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I am shocked that Stephen Fry got something wrong. Thanks, guys. 216.93.212.245 (talk) 19:49, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Black Saturday Bushfires

What lessons have been learned regarding the disaster and what changes have been made? 220.233.83.26 (talk) 08:53, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

We have a policy not to do people's homework for them. Read Black Saturday bushfires and its associated sources, and you will learn what you need to learn for your assignment. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 08:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Name of the philosopher

moved from WT:PHILO. Skomorokh 10:29, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, what's the name of the philosopher who ~3k years ago, he said something like that the humankind was recent, opposed to the view that it always existed. He argued that in 20 years he saw humanity evolve a lot, and that it implied it had to be recent, because otherwise technology would be much more advanced in his time. I read this argument long time ago I don't remember where, and now I want to see the article about this philosopher. Thanks! José Henrique Campos (talk) 09:04, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Please elaborate. By writing "~3k years ago" do you mean a philosopher who lived more than 3000 years ago? --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:00, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure about it being 3000 years ago, as opposed to 2500 years ago ? From our article at ancient philosophy, we don't have any listed quite that far back. (I assume there were philosophers back then, but, since that predated writing in most places, they left no record.) StuRat (talk) 18:27, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Also such an application of the Idea of Progress to technology as well as human evolution doesn't seem readily applicable to any of the philosophers of pre-modern times. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:03, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the date. I read it long time ago, and now I can't find it anywhere. If I remember well he argued something about some improvement on the ships used in his time. Maybe I'm just confusing things. Thanks guys! José Henrique Campos (talk) 00:24, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure I remember this too, he was saying about how each thing had to be invented at some point, and each thing had to have an inventor, and then how there can only be so far back you can go before nothing had been invented, so presumably if people had been around thousands of years already, everything would have been done. I suspect he was Greek, but I could be entirely wrong. It might be something of a new idea to look at progress in that way, but the Greeks were known for thinking up pretty much every idea anyone ever has, even if they paid little attention to many of them at the time. 148.197.121.205 (talk) 08:01, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Was bush sr the last US president to have any sons?

May ur first child be a masculine one lol just kiddimg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.137.139.10 (talk) 14:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Almost certainly Yes. Danny Williams is alleged to be son of Bill Clinton but this is just a a colorful story that [http://www.stormfront.org/truth_at_last/danny.htm is unlikely]. George W. Bush has only twin daughters Barbara and Jenna. Barack Obama has only daughters Malia Ann and Natasha of whom at least one is not the twin of the other. May all your children be born naked. Just kidding. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:48, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

CL3 — Stormfront is not a reliable source one way or another, to say the least. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:21, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that was part of CL3's point Nil Einne (talk) 23:25, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Castilian Spanish, revisited

Hey all, I asked a question on the language desk a few weeks ago (archive) about what a Latin American would think upon hearing Castilian; I've been away from technology for the past 4 weeks and just got back. I notice that the responses I got were mostly about comprehensibility, which really wasn't the point (I already was pretty sure they were comprehensible); this is really a culture question. Additionally, there is another factor that I did not bring up last time: I am of Korean descent, and Spanish has practically no presence in East Asia (besides the Philippines). While I studied in Spain, I got strange looks when I spoke Spanish with the proficiency that I do- and this was from educated Spaniards, who had gone to college, who had traveled the world, and who spoke several languages themselves! - and I was speaking their dialect! I know that I will mostly be dealing with signficantly less educated American speakers, so my question is really, what would be a Latin American speaker's reaction; i.e., would they be less comfortable dealing with me in Spanish, etc.? Thank you. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 16:41, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Two advices: statements about "signficantly less educated American speakers" are a bit unwise. My second advice is not to use the English language wiki for such a matter; try rather the Spanish language wiki. They know probably more about the issue and can probably provide you with better answers. Flamarande (talk) 16:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I don't understand the above question. "Less comfortable" than what? I think you may be alluding to your looking Asian yet speaking Spanish, and you may actually be asking How will a Latin American Spanish speaker react to me, an Asian, speaking Castilian Spanish to them, but that's a guess on my part. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Flamarande that it would be better to ask this question on the Spanish Reference Desk, since there are few, if any, native Spanish speakers from the United States on this desk. However, since Spanish-speaking Latin Americans in the United States would not generally expect a person of Asian descent in the United States to speak any Spanish, I expect that they will be pleased that you speak any version of their language and will just assume that you learned it in Spain. However, I would suggest that you not make any assumptions about the level of education of Latin Americans that you may encounter. Some may be as well educated as you are. Also, I would suggest that you always ask whether U.S. Latin Americans would prefer to speak Spanish or English instead of presuming that they all prefer Spanish. Many U.S.-born Latinos are more comfortable speaking English. Marco polo (talk) 20:09, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Foreigners in Japan during WWII

What happened to the foreginers in Japan during WWII? I know there where Koreans in Japan, but Kora was a Japanese colony at the time - I am referreing to foreign citizents. Does wikipedia have an article about this? I haven't found one. Where they put in prison camps, or repatriated by force? Thank you --Aciram (talk) 16:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

There were about 5,000 Americans in "Japan, occupied China, Manchuko,Thailand and French Indo-China" in December 1941. The Japanese treatment of foreign nationals was widely condemned. Foreigners were threatened with beheading by Japanese officials demanding confessions of espionage.Per the same AP story written when the prisoners were returned to the US, the Japanese threatened that bad things would happen to their wives and children if they did not confess. Americans and Canadians suffered from beri-beri and pellegra due to starvation by Japanese authorities. Some foreign prisoners lost 60 pounds. The average loss in captivity was 20 pounds. Prisoners often were allowed no heat in the winter. Priests were threatened with execution. Prisoners were beaten and choked when they refused to sign statements. US citizens in Japan were for the most part imprisoned and abused severely after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war. Some US spouses of Japanese citizens lived lives much like those of the average Japanese citizen. Some foreign religious workers led unmolested lives if from neutral countries. US diplomats and American journalists who had written articles critical of Japanese policy were severely punished, even though the articles had been approved by Japanese censors. Japanese diplomats in the US were treated far better prior to the exchange. By international agreement, US and Japanese journalists and diplomatic personnel were exchanged by passage on the Swedish ship "Gripsholm" in 1942.The ship first picked up Americans stranded in Sweden and East Africa. US prisoners in Japan were transported on a neutral ship to that same location, at which time the Japanese were allowed passage back home. The Gripsholm carried more than 1100 North and South Americans back home. There was no trust by the Allied powers that the Japanese would keep their word with respect to exchange of citizens. .Edison (talk) 19:40, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't deny the Japanese treatment of prisoners wasn't good but the article you refed doesn't mention general starvation. Instead it mentions a food shortage in HK and that prisoners held there (no mention of dietary related problems elsewhere) suffered from those conditions and the weight loss. It also mentions how the aforementioned priests were held for 3 days with insufficient food or water. It's not clear how this compared to the general non Japanese non prisoner population in HK and whether there was any intentional campaign of starvation of either the prisoners or the whole of HK (barring the Japanese population). Also it's a newspaper article from during the war so probably isn't the greatest ref. Nil Einne (talk) 23:21, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

You apparently read the article through exculpatory glasses. "Isn't the greatest ref?" So find a better one regarding the treatment of foreigners by the Japanese government in WW2. And we are not even talking about the atrocities performed upon prisoners of war, or Chinese civilians. Edison (talk) 04:06, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, do we have an article? The best I could do is List of concentration and internment camps#Japanese World War II Camps in Asia. Alansplodge (talk) 09:25, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

You're missing the point. You're the one who said 'due to starvation by Japanese authorities' which would seem to imply an intentional campaign, but provided no ref to support the claim. Therefore the question of whether this was an intentional campaign is relevant. And when the ref itself says there was a food shortage in HK at the time questions of whether there was simply not enough food for either the prisoners or the general population is an obvious consideration. And whether that food shortage arose from an intentional campaign or simply a lack of concern for the non Japanese and a lack of food in war time conditions (perhaps compounded by poor management and a lack of trust for locals meant their activities including farming were restricted) is another relevant question. None of which is answered your ref.

And there's no question no where is it said in the ref that there was starvation or other conditions arising from a poor diet other then HK. Again I'm not saying that this didn't happen, simply that you provided no ref for it. Actually reading what a ref says rather then just dumping a ref and then making claims you believe to be true but which aren't supported by the ref isn't reading the ref with 'exculpatory glasses'. This is after all a reference desk.

Also, unless I misunderstood something, the OP was primarily interested in civilian internees a category usually considered distinct from prisoners of war in both modern and WW2 contexts (e.g. List of Japanese-run internment camps during World War II). To be honest, I had thought that was mostly what you were talking about too until you said you wanted to talk about PoWs (but no mention of civilian internees). This is important because various sources agree civilian internees were treated marginally better then PoWs (or at least different) by the Japanese although the death rates may have been the same e.g. [2] [3] [4].

There are I presume plenty of refs written hopefully by professional historians or at least someone capable of finding and evaluating sources with a critical eye. Which would likely include recognising newspaper articles from during a war particularly WW2 were the's no question propaganda was rife even amongst newspapers who were nominally supposed to be neutral, should be read with caution. It's not necessary for me to find other sources to mention that you're source isn't the greatest of sources for most of what you said. Particular since it's not even clear if the conditions is something the OP wanted to know about.

But anyway, a simple search leads me to Category:World War II civilian prisoners held by Japan which leads me to Category:Internees at the Weixian Internment Camp which leads me to The Weihsien Compound which links to [5] which would likely be useful for finding out about the conditions of one set of captives including those in HK. And also likely far better then a newspaper article from during the war. And which may actually describe starvation conditions in places other then HK rather then simply describing them in one area which we are then supposed to accept happened in other areas despite the fact the source didn't actually say that.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:30, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

You are on quite the personal attack campaign, falsely claiming that I did not read the reference. The reference was specifically about the Japanese treatment of civilian prisoners. Edison (talk) 13:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

"Forgotten captives in Japanese-occupied Asia" (2008) by Hack and Blackburn says (p4) that there were 130,000 European civilians interned by the Japanese as "hostile aliens," including all the conquered areas. Internee death rates were far lower than the 16% to 36% death rates among POWs of various European nationalities and Australia, running from 3% to 13% depending on the country(p 5). Civilian internees were not worked as hard as POWs. The viewable sections of the book do not appear to show details for internees resident in Japan at the outbreak of war. This book cites "Prisoners of the Japanese in World War II (by van Waterford, 1994, which might have info directly on the OP's point. P114 says that some Allied civilians captured in the Phillipines were in fact transported to Japan to do labor. There is some discussion of treatment of civilians on p 116. More seems to be in the following pages, which are not viewable online. Another promising book which has most of its content nonavailable online is "Japanese-American civilian prisoner exchanges and detention camps, 1941-45" by Bruce Elleman. A 1995 book reasserts reports similar to those in the news article I cited above from 1942, as to reports by news reporters that they had been brutalized during their imprisonment in Japan before the ship exchanges. I hope this will not also be rejected by Nil Einne as mere wartime US propaganda. "Hong Kong internment, 1942 to 1945: life in the Japanese civilian camp at Stanley" (2008) by Geoffrey Charles Emerson (partly available online) gives a detailed account of foreign civilians' treatment at that Hong Kong camp. Severe weight loss and malnutrition were common. Edison (talk) 19:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers. My question was specificially about the foreign civilian citizents in Japan itself - that is, the present day Japan - during WWII; and of course regarding citizents of nations whith whom Japan was at war. I have not been able to find any information here on wikipedia. Perhaps there should be an article? Where there all interned? I have the impression, that although these people where interned in the areas occupied by Japan, there was no such camps in Japan itself. Is this correct? --Aciram (talk) 16:44, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

is it easier to do laundry if all your clothes are dark/colored?

Is it easier to do laundry if all your clothes are dark/colored (without any reds/pinks)? Is this hard to accomplish? 79.122.104.75 (talk) 17:58, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

P.s. I mean all the clothes you own - making a choice to get rid of anything else, and just have clothes like that. 79.122.104.75 (talk) 18:05, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I assume you mean to do laundry without having any colors run. Having all whites would be the easiest, I suppose, as you could also use bleach without concern about fading colors. However, I have a mixture of colors and whites, and don't bother separating my laundry, unless I have a new, colorful item which is likely to bleed. I do have some whites which suffer from this practice, but they then become things to wear around the house, with better clothes that don't do this reserved for going out. StuRat (talk) 18:15, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I know people who limit their wardrobes (professional and casual) to one, two or three colours: one, now dead, wore only white, changing the fabrics to suit the season; black and white only for one; beige, cream and brown for another. I know others, like StuRat, who wash everything together, regardless of colour. There is no need to throw what you own out; just limit your on-going purchases. Bielle (talk) 18:22, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

What happens to the clothes I own that don't match my new scheme if I don't wear them? Will they die by themselves after a while of not being worn? 79.122.104.75 (talk) 19:06, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

They are not likely to be alive, hence they are not likely to die. Clothes, left undisturbed, can hang for hundreds of years in a closet. How long has a Cardinal's hat hung in the rafters of a cathedral after his death? Edison (talk) 19:34, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

There are issues with moths and things, though. If you know you aren't going to wear something again, just give it to a charity shop. --Tango (talk) 21:02, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I noticed that clothes start to stink after a while in the closet. Presumably there are dust mites crapping all over them, so I give them another wash before wearing them again. StuRat (talk) 06:01, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Even if you wear (say) all black, you will find that after some time they will all turn different shades of grey which looks naff (IMHO). My preferred modus operandi was to pick a colour (purple) and stick to all shades of that, from the palest lilac to the deepest plum. They all go together, and all I do to sort the laundry is into light and dark. Works for me! Oh and I agree with Tango - if you're not going to wear anything again give it to charity. It's worth far more to them than it is to you. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

norwegian book

what does Skriftetaler mean or what is it about? Author Skaar and Thyrgesen, published in Christiania 1868 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.36.216.166 (talk) 23:58, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

"Skriftetale" means "scripture lesson", I think, and the book is therefore presumably a collection of those. "Skaar" might be bishop Johannes Nilsson Skaar (1828 - 1904), or of course it could be some other priest with the same name.--Rallette (talk) 10:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that translation is correct, but you should be aware that "skrifte" can also mean Confession (or rather "confess", the verb). "Tale" can mean "sermon", but probably also more general "lesson" (in the simplest form, it means simply "speech"). However, Catholicism was not very widespread in Norway in the 1800s, so the previous point here - "sermons / lessons about the Scripture" is probably correct - I would expect it to contain interpretations of, or thoughts about, various Biblical passages. If you have a link to some text we could say for sure. Jørgen (talk) 13:59, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

See [6] and [7]. Complete title "Skriftetaler af norske Geistlige." (Agree that "skriftetaler" probably means sermons or lectures about the scriptures), "af norske Geistlige" means by Norwegian clergymen. "Samlede og udgivne ved J. N. Skaar og T. Thygesen" means collected and published by J. N. Skaar and T. Thygesen. The second link confirms that the first author is Johannes Nielsen Skaar. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)