Humanities desk
< August 23	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	August 25 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 24

Force Majeure - means what in the village?

If a simple and understandable definition of the legal term 'force majeure' reads: "an event that no human foresight could anticipate or which, if anticipated, is too strong to be controlled. Depending on the legal system, such an event may relieve a party of an obligation to perform a contract" (or any similar definition) ... I'm searching for a metaphor (a picture worth a thousand words) that could be used to illustrate the concept for people unaccustomed to legalese or contractual written language. If there were an African metaphor, all the better. Suggestions? Thanks if you can help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.210.155.173 (talk) 09:47, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In legal questions, metaphors tend to confuse rather than clarify. Better to give examples - and there are plenty in the Force majeure article. Wymspen (talk) 10:17, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also see "act of God".--WaltCip (talk) 13:08, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, as the OP, I appreciate the link to the Force Majeure article, which I've read. But in reference desk questions, well meaning opinions or advice that doesn't actually directly address the exact inquiry ... tends to frustrate the OP (at least when its me). Better to give specific references or direct links that accord with the advice/information that is asked for, when possible. It's my pet peeve with Wikipedia - that I think 50% or more of the time I try to craft a specific, concrete question asking for help finding specific information - someone here thinks that if I ask for a picture of a hammer, I really want to be using some other tool. In my 25 years training and teaching in African townships and villages - an appropriate metaphor, or sometimes an African fable, is invaluable in working with people to understand legal or other abstract concepts. Thanks if you understand my point (small rant...). Cheers. I mainly post this so that readers might not assume the discussion is closed, as I'm still interested in any useful metaphors (or African fables!)...that would help illustrate the basic concept of a Force Majeure (which, in this case, was the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.210.155.173 (talk) 18:47, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The links provided by the first two responders do include two suggestions: rain on a picnic in Force majeure and a tornado in Act of God. Some other suggestions via google: The sea. A sandstorm. Being mugged. Some of Aesop's Fables, including this one. Another European fable ("He will make you believe that hares lay eggs"). European fairy tales Jack and the Beanstalk or Goldilocks. [1] (Natural forces in general). Heroes chosen by fate to save others (such as King Arthur) (is there a mythological king in the culture you're working with?). A new government regulation.

Another approach you could try is to look for the wikipedia article on "specific country you're working in" mythology (see collapsible table at the end of African mythology), to see if you can turn up any fables, then see if the fables apply. Our coverage of this area is poor, though.184.147.128.95 (talk) 11:28, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

1967 Milwaukee riot

I did a good deal of expansion on this article over the past week or so. Unfortunately, although multiple sources say that riot lasted more than a week, following 1 Aug I haven't been able to find much at all. Any help would be appreciated. TimothyJosephWood 13:06, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, this source says the Milwaukee riot lasted three days. 184.147.128.95 (talk) 11:36, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What is a "barn-door-fowl flight of learning"

Oliver Wendell Holmes in "The Autocrat of the breakfast table" (1891 collected works) wrote (p67) "Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries who make barn-door-fowl flights of learning in 'Notes and Queries!' — ye Historical Societies, in one of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend the stream of time, while other hands tug at the oars !" This was quoted by Temperance and suffragette figure Frances Willard in 1891 (p62) to describe her teaching science to young women: "I led the young women in what Oliver Wendell Holmes called 'barn-door flights' of natural science." What would someone in 1891 have meant by a "barn door flight" or a "barn-door fowl flight?" One educated and seemingly rational person fluent in English wrote it and the second thought it made sense and quoted it. Edison (talk) 22:51, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I speculate. A barndoor fowl is a chicken [2] and chickens are pretty useless at flying. So the phrase is disparaging and reads to me as education or learning which does not amount to very much. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:01, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Similar but different speculation:fowl flush when startled, i.e. take off as quickly as possible, in a fairly random direction. Chickens are not so much poor flyers as flyers who are best equipped for short bursts of speed. So, the later quoter might have meant that she led her students on short, rapid flights of inquiry, not that such learning was poor in quality. We don't have that sense "flush" covered at our DAB page, but it is implicitly used at flushing dog. SemanticMantis (talk) 23:37, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think SemanticMantis may be close. Alfred Herbert Palmer also used the phrase in 1891 in The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher in a letter dated 1872: My Dear Herbert. Independently of their divine pathos, the 13th to the 16th verse of Sunday morning's second lesson seem to me, in our version, to be a flawless gem of narrative English. From this brief, barn-door-fowl flight I drop at once to lower but not base matters. In this context, it seems to mean a short flight. In another context the phrase might imply superficiality, but not necessarily. older ≠ wiser 01:40, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To simplify the above, I interpret the expression as denoting a cursory attempt at something (chickens may attempt to fly, but don't try very hard, and give up easily). 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:1821:CD59:E35A:CB68 (talk) 19:06, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've known a lot of barnyard chickens. Typically, when startled they squawk loud and fast and flap their wings rapidly, while rising just a few feet and travelling just a few feet along the ground.Only a few chickens I knew could fly over a fence 6 feet high.Those high flyers would get the flight feathers on one wing trimmed with shears, so when they took off they quickly came down in a ground loop. A "real bird" would take off swiftly and with little vocalization and rise quickly to a high and distant safe tree limb. At first I suspected Willard's "barn door flight" referred to a child swinging on a barn door, through a small arc, an exciting event that doesn't get you very far, but then I found the source of the Holmes phrase she imperfectly cited and thought it might refer to a fowl flying through the barn door, with unclear implication. Thanks. Edison (talk) 16:33, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]