Talk:Short, sharp shock

Latest comment: 11 months ago by Ssilvers in topic Letter in external link

Untitled edit

Heh. Found this the other day. Could be B-class - It's a small subject. Adam Cuerden talk 21:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

I'd say it's just a start, even though I put in some more stuff. -- Ssilvers 23:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

Letter in external link edit

The letter itself doesn't mention 'Short, sharp shock' at all - only the editorial header mentions that. The letter desciribes the kind of treatment known as a short, sharp shock without actually using the term. As the only mention fo the term has been inserted by an editor at the archives, I wonder how relevant it is to include it here. It doesn't really illuminate the term, which is the subject of the article. 86.133.241.140 (talk) 09:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

It shows that the term is used to describe legal punishment. Even though the term is not used in the 1820 letter, the reference shows that when *discussing* the letter, the editor decided to use the term. So, it shows that the term is in use to describe the subject. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

Hi - the phrase "short, sharp shock" appears in Conington's translation of Horace's Satires, published in 1869 and therefore 16 years before the debut of the Mikado. In light of this fact I am not sure that G&S can be given full credit for coming up with the phrase. citation http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?pageno=7&fk_files=1459356 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.27.242.231 (talk) 18:04, 19 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

Just noting that the article has been expanded to explain all this and to state that the use of the phase in The Mikado "popularised" the term. -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:50, 25 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Attribution edit

It's unclear to me why Sullivan would be credited with this phrase in any case since it was Gilbert who was the lyricist. David (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Sullivan is not credited separately from Gilbert. Sullivan wrote the music for the song in which those lyrics appeared. If Sullivan had not composed The Mikado, those words very likely would not have become noteworthy, since no phrases from Gilbert's non-Sullivan works have become famous. So, you can't totally separate the lyrics from the music. Similarly, "Hail, Hail the Gang's All Here" is sung to the tune of a song from The Pirates of Penzance, but you wouldn't say that it's a Sullivan song, you'd say that it's to the tune of "Come Friends Who Plough the Sea" from Pirates by G&S. -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:59, 1 March 2018 (UTC)Reply