Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 March 22

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

March 22

What is this on the sculpture

Hello. In Antonio Frilli's sculpture of a veiled lady there are these peculiar, well dots or orbs that line the veil. What is this supposed to be exactly? Are these some sort of French beauty mocuhes? I would appreciate insight into this fashion detail

• note if link doesn't work search antoino frilli veiled lady sculpture with hat should bring the sculpture in question into view

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6206635 link to sculpture, please also note it seems this sculpture desgin has been cast and recreated many times

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:7830:DE40:E0CE:1AE3:7144:FDD6 (talk) 07:37, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the technical terms, but in actual period photos from, and (for example) in period costume films set in, the Victorian and Edwardian eras when veils were fashionable in Western culture, such veils (usually black) were often 'strewn' or 'sown' with small dots of various shapes in just this way. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.213.229.59 (talk) 08:49, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Maybe like this or this. Alansplodge (talk) 09:06, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Some images of hat veils adorned with dots: [1], [2], [3].  --Lambiam 15:14, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a specific term for them but they are probably Keshi pearls. Just google "veil Keshi pearls" images. 41.165.67.114 (talk) 12:08, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

thank you all for your help 2600:1700:7830:DE40:C438:3FA5:592C:12AA (talk) 16:52, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

American casualties in WW2

What was the bloodiest front for the United States in WWII? 198k died in general in the war with Germany on all fronts (most of them on the Western Front), 161k in the war with Japan. It is also said that almost 40k soldiers died for non-combat reasons already in continental America. Correctly, I understand that these are the soldiers who died there due to accidents, and those who died from diseases received at the front. If so, can it be said that most diseases are caused by the Pacific Front because of their fauna? Also in 2010, 74k Americans went missing, are they counted among the dead or are they considered separately? In this source, you can see 6k "declared dead" correctly, I understand that they are missing, who turned out to be dead. If so, it turns out 407 thousand soldiers died + 73k missing. If so, most of the missing on the Pacific front or not? https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/Casualties/Casualties-2.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.145.61.199 (talk) 10:50, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

You seem to have a few different questions here, some of which are beyond my knowledge. I'll do my best on a few of them at least. Easiest first: yes, personnel listed as Missing in action are generally included in the count of Killed in action; in many cases, those considered MIA have likely been killed outright by bombing, shelling, etc., and there is nothing to recover or identify. In terms of location, this page suggests that about half of MIAs from WWII were in the Pacific theatre. I can't find a quick response to the question about diseases in the Pacific, but in general tropical regions do have higher incidences of disease. Hope this helps! Tony Fox (arf!) 17:10, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

And somewhere you can read about the Japanese losses in the war with the United States. Interested in the ratio of losses to the buoy 37.145.61.199 (talk) 06:16, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

The article World War II casualties offers a pretty detailed breakdown. Tony Fox (arf!) 01:33, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Sir Wawain and the Wreen Knight?

I recently purchased Tolkein's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It's been an interesting read so far, but I have a question. Twice so far, Tolkein has referred to the main character as "Wawain", once in stanza 16 and once in 24. Both times, the line it occurred in had other W-sounds, so this could be an example of highlighting the alliteration, but our article doesn't list this among the many other options provided. Is Wawain an accepted variant or was Tolkein kind of stretching the point? FWIW, the book was not published until after his death, so there's a (remote) possibility that this was going to be later changed.

Also, I'm broadly aware of the G/W connection as you find here (apparently) and in William and elsewhere; do we have an article that talks about that? Matt Deres (talk) 22:15, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

The Middle English text has "Wawan" in both the instances you cite, and these lines indeed alliterate on w- words. His name is also spelled "Gawan" or "Gawen" or "Gawayn", et sim, in the poem when alliteration on g- words is required or when no alliteration is needed (there's an instance in the wheel of stanza 15, just before your first example). Spellings like "Wa(l)wain(e)" and "Wawein(e)" also occur in other ME texts; as you're no doubt aware, spelling could be quite variable in those days. Here's a thread about the topic on a Tolkien message board, in which the penultimate post, by "jallan", seems particularly relevant. Deor (talk) 22:41, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Matt_Deres -- The main "G/W connection" in initial position in English words is due to the fact that when Medieval French borrowed words beginning in a "w" sound from Germanic languages, the "w" was changed into a hard "g" sound. When some of those French words were then borrowed a second time into English, it resulted in doublets such as "warranty"/"guarantee", "ward"/"guard" etc. I can't find any mention of this in Phonological history of French, but of course it was a process which only occurred when borrowing foreign words into French... AnonMoos (talk) 23:23, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

It isn't strictly French, it is likely some older Vulgar Latin process, as the "G/W" connection exists in other Romance languages. See, for example "War" in English which is cognate to "guerre" in French, but also "guerra" in Spanish and Italian and Portuguese. William is Guillermo in Spanish as well. --Jayron32 14:44, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

To complicate matters, I remember reading somewhere or other that (at least according to conjecture) the name Gawain comes from Welsh Gwalch-gwynn. —Tamfang (talk) 03:18, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you all for the commentary/links! I haven't gotten to the post-story essay in the book, where it might be discussed, but I guess my confusion came from the topic not being mentioned by either JRR in the introduction nor Christopher in the preface and the Wawain version not being included in our article (though admittedly there are other W variants in there). As any LOTR fan can tell you, neither were averse from discussing the minutiae of names changes. Matt Deres (talk) 13:33, 24 March 2022 (UTC)