Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 May 9

Humanities desk
< May 8	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	May 10 >

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.

May 9

Republican resignations

Is there any reason why all sane Republican candidates suddenly resigned from presidential race, leaving Trump as the only choice for Republican electorate or it's rather a coincidence? I mean the sequence is amazing: Rubio, Cruz, then Kasich all voluntarily resigned effectively surrendering the party of Abe Lincoln and Reagan to Trump, not mentioning other candidates. 93.174.25.12 (talk) 09:22, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

It became mathematically impossible for any of them to win enough delegates to defeat Trump at the convention, based on the states that Trump had already won. And, the inevitable BLP violation, none of them were sane. Trump is probably the sanest of the lot of them. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:48, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

The featured article on pt:wp, today, if anyone's interested, is Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton. 92.23.52.169 (talk) 11:46, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

• According to Republican Party presidential primaries, 2016, there are currently only 585 delegates left who are unpledged. As none of the remaining Non-Trump candidates could lock-up the nomination (1237 total needed) even WITH all 585 of those, the best they could hope for was keeping Trump from getting there himself, then pooling their delegates to overcome his lead. As Trump only needs 213 of those delegates remaining to guarantee himself the nomination (only 36% of the remaining delegates) and prevent that from happening, the other candidates likely saw it highly unlikely they could keep him off of the 1237 he needed. He's polling well above 36% of the total vote in the remaining primary contests yet to be decided. --Jayron32 12:02, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

• I think SNL said it best, when Kasich and Cruz decided to work together in an attempt to deny Trump the nomination: "It's a good strategy, with a real chance of success, provided, of course, they go back in time and start 2 months ago." That is, the remaining candidates just waited too long to decide to cooperate. They either needed to have all but one of them drop out, so the remaining non-Trump vote would go for the one guy left (possibly doing as Cruz did, but far earlier, and picking a running mate to hopefully get more of their delegates), or they needed to do as Kasich and Cruz attempted, but far earlier. But, they did the worst possible thing, splitting the anti-Trump vote so many ways that Trump was guaranteed to win. StuRat (talk) 14:29, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Has there ever been a system anywhere in the world where a voter could choose to vote against a specific candidate, thereby reducing that candidate's score by one vote, rather than voting for any of the others? I think that would have made the primaries very different, not only by reducing the split vote effect, but also by reducing voter apathy. Oh, here's the inevitable article: Disapproval voting. It claims it's functionally identical to the positive form of voting, but I don't think so, since a voter would be able to say of several candidates "I hate them all equally, but especially that one."  Card Zero  (talk) 17:45, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

The best way to accomplish the goal of preventing somebody from winning who doesn't have the support of the majority is a run-off election, where the 2 top candidates go up against each other (you also need to use popular votes, not an electoral college or delegates). The US general election does work as a de facto run-off election, as long as no strong 3rd party candidate runs. The good news is, it doesn't look like Bernie Sanders intends to run, so the Democrats should be somewhat united, or at least more united than Republicans, so Trump doesn't have much of a chance, based on how hugely unpopular he is with most Americans. But if Bernie and Hillary both ran, Trump could win anyway. StuRat (talk) 04:15, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Why exactly two, rather than (say) enough from the top of the list that the leftovers' votes are outnumbered by the frontrunner's? Remember when France had a runoff between Jean-Marie Le Pen and someone that most people didn't like much better? I guess your definition of "support of the majority" includes the nose-holding kind of "support". For those of us who prefer more affirmative support, there's approval voting. —Tamfang (talk) 08:22, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

If you have 3 or more, then you have exactly the current situation, where somebody can win without getting the majority of votes, because votes against that candidate are split among the rest. StuRat (talk) 17:30, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

More than 2 candidates has a chance for a spoiler effect, where two or more candidates share similar views and split the vote that could be potentially consolidated to one candidate. One of the most popular examples is Ralph Nader, a left-wing Green Party presidential candidate that ran in 2000 against Al Gore and George W Bush. His 97,000 votes in Florida were in part people who would have more likely voted for Al Gore given only two options. uhhlive (talk) 20:55, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Another option is an exhaustive ballot, which will if necessary run until only two candidates remain, but if an absolute majority emerges for one candidate at an earlier stage, they win then. However, the many rounds of voting which could potentially be needed make this impractical for a national election. Warofdreams talk 19:58, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Francis Lathom

Hello,

I recently read the article on Francis Lathom and I noticed it gives a specific birth date of 14th July 1774. But I can't find the source for this date. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states he was born in 1777. I emailed them to query this and although they said the 1774 date was possible, they said there was no evidence for it. Can you tell me if it's possible to establish where this date came from? JamesEdwardLeigh (talk) 19:23, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

The IP editor who edited this date first does not seem to be active anymore, however I found this page about Francis Lathom, with a date in July 1774 ( a circular reference from Wikipedia seems to me improbable ). --Askedonty (talk) 19:41, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I searched for "Francis Lathom" 1774|1777 in Google Books, and the second hit was on a 2005 edition of The Castle of Ollada. In a foreword, editor James D. Jenkins gives Lathom's year of birth as 1774 and includes this explanatory footnote:

Montague Summers states that Francis Lathom was born in 1777 at Norwich, but historical evidence unearthed by Franz Potter suggests that he was in fact born at Rotterdam in 1774, during one of his father's business excursions there. The Lathoms apparently returned to Norwich around 1777 with their infant son, which must have given rise to Summers's error.

This doesn't provide evidence for the specific date in 1774 but at least it does seem to indicate that the 1777 date is wrong.

--69.159.61.172 (talk) 23:51, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Posted from talk page Matt Deres (talk) 01:06, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Secret Six

Was any legal action taken against the Secret Six (aiding and abetting, for example)? If not, how come? 2A02:582:C64:9300:41C3:5652:F6CC:3AB8 (talk) 21:53, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

If you read the article you linked, it discusses various legal troubles, and various means by which some of the men attempted to avoid such legal trouble. --Jayron32 08:18, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Source of a quotation - dim religious light

Reading A Night at the Carn and Other Stories by A. L. Rowse, I came across the following quoted lines of verse

" the high embowèd roof,

With antick pillars massy proof,

And storied windows richly dight,

Casting a dim religious light - "

which struck me as rather good, but I don't know where they are from. Can anyone identify the source for me please? DuncanHill (talk) 23:46, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Milton! Il Penseroso (OK, I had to look up just which poem it was as I'm old and senile, but the style is Milton's unmistakably trowel-like imagery) Andy Dingley (talk) 00:07, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Ah thank you - I don't know as much Milton as I probably should. DuncanHill (talk) 00:40, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I reformatted to make the verse appear in four lines, as DH appeared to intend; hope you don't mind. — Do I remember right that Fowler's Modern English Usage grumbles about writers who can't resist inserting "religious" whenever they describe a dim light? —Tamfang (talk) 08:26, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks - I couldn't remember how to make the block quote thing actually output a block! Burchfield's edition of Fowler mentions it as an "irrelevant allusion" - "one of the frailties to which we are all prone from time to time". DuncanHill (talk) 16:28, 11 May 2016 (UTC)