Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 September 4

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September 4

The way of all flesh: origin

I've just posted a query @ Talk:The Way of All Flesh, but I have a different (if not unrelated) query for my esteemed colleagues at the Ref Desk.

We say Samuel Butler took the phrase "The way of all flesh" from the Douay–Rheims Bible, specifically 1 Kings. I note that the first part of the DRB Old Testament, in which 1 Kings is located, was published in 1609.

However, the phrase appeared in John Webster's play Westward Hoe [sic], published in 1607.

• I saw him even now going the way of all flesh, that is to say towards the kitchen.

Webster is not in Category:Translators of the King James Version (pub. 1611), so I presume he wasn't (known to be) involved in that. But could he have been involved in the Douay-Rheims version (1609), and perhaps there re-used an expression he had coined for his 1607 play? Our article doesn't mention any individual translators, there's no Category:Translators of the Douay-Rheims Bible, and google produces no results.

Or perhaps another translator had seen or read Webster's play and stole the words for the DR Bible. Is there anything known about such a connection? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:27, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Most of the translators were outside England, in France. AnonMoos (talk) 00:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

"The most noble and myghty prince Ferdinandus the Romayne Emperour, for whose Funeral this preparation and concourse is here made, hath entred the way of all fleshe" E. Grindal, Serm. Funeral Prince Ferdinandus sig. C.ii. 1564. "Compare post-classical Latin via universae carnis the way of all flesh (from 11th cent. in British and continental sources". OED. DuncanHill (talk) 00:44, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Ferdinandus being of course Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor. DuncanHill (talk) 01:05, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, so for me that makes it even less likely that Butler got it from the DR Bible. It seems to be an expression that had been bandied about for centuries; then it found its way into the DR Bible. Curious. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:16, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

The Vulgate generally uses (ingredior) viam universae terrae, "(I enter) the way of all earth", but Genesis 6:19 has (animantes) universae carnis, "(living creatures) of all flesh.^[1] Onulf of Haumont (11th century) uses (ingredior) viam universae carnis.^[2] Thomas Aquinas (13th century) refers to Genesis 6:19 when writing finis universae carnis, "the end of all flesh". ^[3]  --Lambiam 09:49, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

There is a much earlier use of (ingredior) viam universae terrae, to wit by Alcuin (8th century).^[4] Also one by an unknown author but ascribed to Gregory of Tours (6th century).^[5]  --Lambiam 10:41, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Wycliffe's Bible of 1382 has "the weie of al erthe". [6]

The Great Bible of 1539 has "the waye of all the worlde". [7]

The Bishops' Bible of 1568 has "the way al the earth". [8]

The King James Version of 1611 has "the way of all the earth". [9]

Alansplodge (talk) 18:33, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

• Thank you, all. I've taken this as far as I can for now, by adding a "citation required" tag to the claim in the WOAF article.-- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:50, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

So, I found Michael J. Lewis "Unearthing the Entitled: 1 Kings, Douay-Rheims, and Samuel Butler's THE WAY OF ALL FLESH", doi: 10.1080/00144940.2014.962451, pub. Taylor and Francis Online, available through WP Library. Lewis cites Shaheen, Naseeb. “Butler’s Use of Scripture in The Way of All Flesh.” Essays in Literature vol 5 No. 1 (1976), which is also available through WP Library. Shaheen (p. 42 [pdf 4]) shows that Butler tended to consistently use the KJV - his dad was a CoE vicar, and Butler was especially familiar with the Psalter and the BCP. His note 9 mentions the Dekker/Webster quote you give in your OP, also the title could be patterned after Congreve's The Way of the World. Shaheen doesn't mention the Douai-Rheims at all, but mentions a list of 500 quotes from the Bible found in TWOAF. Lewis says "...the title’s biblical allusion is notable in that it references a verse found in only one English translation of the Christian Bible: the 1609 Douay-Rheims Old Testament." Lewis (p. 267, [pdf 2]) says "It is from within this Catholic context, wherein the impossibility of error is guaranteed despite multiple instances of institutionally approved translations, that Butler drew the ironic title for his Anglican-focused, “Authorized Version”–infused novel.[4] - n4: See Tyndale." So there is no agreement on the exact source of the title, but plenty of refs and reading. Personally I would be expect Butler to have been familiar with Douai, he was very erudite: but like Butler I lost any faith I once had and am now an Olympian. HTH, MinorProphet (talk) 16:19, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The mention of Westward Hoe reminds me of the only place name in the British Isles that ends in an exclamation mark. MinorProphet (talk) 18:29, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your research, Minor Prophet. That's very much appreciated.

So, the essential point for WP purposes is "there is no agreement on the exact source of the title". I'll copy your response to Talk:The Way of All Flesh, for general erudition. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

No worries. Incidentally, this site compares many (but not all) Bible versions, verse by verse. MinorProphet (talk) 14:51, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Pulp character

There was a series of pulp novels whose main hero refused to kill his opponents, but would sometimes shoot them in such a way that the bullet grazed their skulls, knocking them unconscious. No need to point out that this is unrealistic; I understand that.

What I was wondering is whether anyone knows the name of the character. I think it might have been Avenger (pulp-magazine character), but I don't see that detail in the article. --Trovatore (talk) 01:03, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, the Avenger article you linked does say (at the end of the the "Gadgets" subsection) that "Benson could shoot someone so that his bullet just touched their heads and knocked them out". Deor (talk) 15:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks; I missed that. Also the article for the first story mentioned, Justice, Inc., mentions it in the plot summary. --Trovatore (talk) 21:08, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it's either that or the Green Hornet. Abductive (reasoning) 19:05, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

It reminds me of the Lone Ranger. Part of his personal code was Whenever he was forced to use guns, he never shot to kill, but instead tried to disarm his opponent as painlessly as possible. Cullen328 (talk) 06:50, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Ah, is that where that idea comes from? An unfortunate number of people seem to think you can "shoot to disarm" or at least "shoot to wound". Maybe I have some responsibility, having raised the point, to point out that you really can't do that; if you shoot at someone you take full responsibility for killing them (and very well may do so), and so you should never fire at a person unless you are actually justified in killing them.

See also Jeff Cooper's four rules, the second of which is "never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy". --Trovatore (talk) 02:10, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

At midnight, on the 12th of August...

"At midnight, on the 12th of August, a huge mass of luminous green gas erupted from Mars and sped towards Earth..." does the Narrator mean Midnight at night or Midnight in the morning? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 01:11, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that's genuinely ambiguous. One of the advantages of the 24-hour clock is it makes this clear; you can say 2400 on 11 August or 0000 on 12 August, to indicate the same instant. --Trovatore (talk) 01:13, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

What is the year for the event he's describing? Or is that a line from War of the Worlds? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:00, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems to be a paraphrase of a passage in Chapter 1: "As Mars approached opposition, Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred towards midnight of the 12th, and the spectroscope, to which he had at once resorted, indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an enormous velocity torwards this earth. This jet of fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve." (The War of the Worlds, Book One: The Coming of the Martians, 1 The Eve of the War). The year is 1894; since the narrator is in England and the subject is astronomical, the time will be in GMT (which was renamed for astronomical purposes Universal Time (UT) only in 1928). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.83.137 (talk) 12:14, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Sort of, but you missed a step. It looks like it's more directly from a song by Jeff Wayne called "The Eve of the War", which in turn appears to be based on War of the Worlds. (We'll see if either of those links comes up blue.) --Trovatore (talk) 21:05, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's where it's from. DuncanHill (talk) 18:04, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Then that answers the OP's question. The only way to go "toward" the midnight of the 12th is from the 12th. So "midnight of the 12th" would mean the point between the 12th and the 13th. "Midnight in the morning" would simply mean the earliest point in the morning, of the 13th in this case. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Plus, "midnight on Earth" is time-zone specific. Or it could mean midnight on Mars! Dekimasuよ! 05:24, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I said, what time is it, what time is it on Earth? Can you tell me that without an exercise in Euclidean geometry? --Trovatore (talk) 21:03, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

What the heck is "midnight in the morning"? Clarityfiend (talk) 09:47, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Midnight in the morning of 5 September is 2024:09:05::00:00:00.  --Lambiam 09:52, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that struck me as a really odd way of phrasing it. In my somewhat limited experience of life, midnight always happens at night! I think the question is really asking whether it means the midnight that marks the end of the 11th and the start of the 12th, or the midnight that marks the end of the 12th and the start of the 13th. AndyJones (talk) 12:52, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Conventionally we say 12:00 a.m. to mean the start of a new day. "Midnight of the morning", so to speak. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:30, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Any day can be said to have two midnights. One in the morning, one at night. I've often used the phrase "midnight in the morning" and never known anyone struggle to understand it before. DuncanHill (talk) 18:04, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

In Wells's time, I believe, astronomers reckoned dates from noon. I don't know whether they were half a day ahead or half a day behind their neighbors. —Tamfang (talk) 18:02, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but they do this in the Proleptic Julian calendar counting in days (only) from noon on Monday, January 1, 4713 BC (it avoids possible confusions and mathematical complications from changing the date halfway through a night's observations), and it was and is only used within observational notes and calculations, not in announcements or articles for the general public, so in this case (a story related by a non-Astronomer) it wouldn't feature.

For similar reasons, Astronomers use a Year zero between AD 1 and 1 BC (which they call –1) when calculating event dates and orbits stretching that far back, and have to take this into account when correlating with ancient records of, e.g. eclipses whose dates have been converted to the ordinary Gregorian calendar. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.83.137 (talk) 08:07, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm not sure what FKA meant here exactly, but astronomers don't call 1 BC "−1". Rather 1 BC is their year 0, as explained at our astronomical year numbering article. Their −1 would be 2 BC.

Astronomers are impressive in their way, but they can't change the past (though they can rename it), and they don't interpose a fictional year that never existed. --Trovatore (talk) 19:34, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

This is why I trust historians over astronomers: "It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence" (Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited, 1901). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:46, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

What we have on noon dating is at Epoch (astronomy) (see dates ending in ".5"). Of course, astronomers' telescopes are in use at midnight, but not at noon (with rare exceptions such as the McMath-Pierce solar telescope). Not sure this would have affected H.G. Wells... AnonMoos (talk) 18:49, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Hiroshima atomic bomb dome

wp:deny
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Who were all the people inside that dome killed by the bomb? Who was its last director? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.207.117.137 (talk) 21:30, 4 September 2024 (UTC) Block evasion. Dekimasuよ! 00:50, 5 September 2024 (UTC) What are you talking about? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:08, 5 September 2024 (UTC) The Hiroshima Peace Memorial. DuncanHill (talk) 00:12, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Abolition of Turkish para

For much of the 20th century, stamps of the Republic of Turkey stamps were denominated in para or kuruş, and while 100 kuruş equalled a lira, the larger unit sometimes wasn't used on denominations: for example, the 1950 stamp series had values of 10p, 20p, 1k...100k, 200k. After a while, inflation caused everything to be denominated in a larger number of kuruş, and then eventually everything went to lira only, but technically the kuruş still existed as a subdivision, even though the lira was worth so little that a basic postage stamp cost hundreds of thousands of lira.

With this in mind: when was the para formally abolished as a subdivision of the kuruş? Like the kuruş, did it formally exist long after it ceased to be a meaningful amount of money? I know that it hasn't existed since the revaluation of the Turkish lira in the 2000s, but I'm unsure if it were abolished before then. Our article on the para doesn't mention anything specific after 1844, except for mentioning that the new lira doesn't have para. The Turkish lira article doesn't even mention the para. Nyttend (talk) 22:15, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

The Russian Wikipedia says that the last para coin was minted in 1942. Abductive (reasoning) 08:25, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Doesn't help solve the question, but the same situation existed with the Cypriot pound, although it was redenominated in 1955. CMD (talk) 06:36, 10 September 2024 (UTC)