Talk:John Harington (writer)

Harrington vs. Harington

Like Sleepyasthesouth I believe that the correct spelling of Harrington is with two r's not one. If you Google the key words John, Harrington, and toilet you get 146,000 hits. If you Google the key words John, Harington, and toilet you only get 706 hits. The History Channel also recognizes the inventor of the flush toilet and godson to Queen Elizabeth I as John Harrington, with 2 r's. Dancindoug 17:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

An overwhelming preponderance of easily accessible scholarly and historical evidence is against making the change that Dancindoug recommends. John Harington of Kelston consistently spelled his surname with one "r" in manuscripts written throughout the course of his lifetime. His burial monument in Bath Cathedral does so as well. Harington's bibliographic entries in the British Library and his biographical entry in the Dictionary of National Biography appropriately refer to him as "Sir John Harington of Kelston." Readers only distantly acquainted with Harington's often difficult to find works have often refered to him, as some of his contemporaries did for the same reason, with two "r"s. There has been a great deal of confusion about Harington over the centuries since his death. The History Channel got a lot of things wrong in their account of Harington and the origins of the flush toilet. No comment on Google results.--Tomascicero 03:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Name Spelling

Sir John Harrington is my great great great great great great great great great great grandfather (That's TEN greats!) and I am positive that his name is spelled with two Rs - just like my name & just like my whole family tree!! Could somebody fix it so that the RR spelling is the defualt?--Sleepyasthesouth

Read this: "RE:Harrington vs. Harington" .....it's under THIS conversation.It's the second conversation counting from the bottom. I replied to "Harrington vs. Harington" by Dancindoug making a new conversation. Reseacher1996

Actually, I don't know how to change the page's name. I know how to edit it IN the page, but how do you edit its name???

If you find out how, let me know.

Reseacher1996

Ireland

I think there's a lot more to be said about his Irish involvement. I would need to find out more, but let somebody contribute in the meantime.--shtove 01:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

• There are about 3 pages in Ian Grimble's book (see refs), with quotes from John's letters & verses while in Ireland. Then there are a few pages which show how he placated his godmother, Queen Elizabeth, after he got back to England. I will try and write a sentence or two. However, interesting as it is, I doubt it merits more in this article. Also, I dont see there is much to be added to the article Tudor re-conquest of Ireland. I could write a few sentences summarising Grimble's account of Essex's venture against Tyrone, but it seems to me there is already a better summary in the Essex article. -- Op. Deo 08:00, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

project

Some sources I found said it was spelled with one R ans some said it was spelled with two R's. I don't know. I'm doing a report about toilets, and John Harrington was the first inventor of the flush toilet. I can't find any pictures of his toilet. Can anyone recommend some sites?

Reseacher1996

RE: project

From Dancindoug: Because of copyright infringement laws I can't show you a picture of his flush toilet. However if you go to http://www.sewerhistory.org/articles/privbath/toilets.htm and look on that page for Jon C. Schladweiler, "1300’s – Late 1500’s: Sir John Harrington’s New Ajax (The True Roots of the Modern Day Flush Toilet) with Impetus Provided to John Harington by Queen Elizabeth, 'The Schoole of Salerne,' and 'The Englishmans Doctor'," 2004 you will find a downloadabe PDF file called school_of_salernum.pdf. That PDF file contains a 1595 drawing of John Harrington/Harington's flush toilet.

Good Luck to you with your research. Dancindoug 04:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Um, I'll look at it.

Reseacher1996

Insert non-formatted text here== RE: Harrington vs. Harington ==

Harrington, I think is correct, but there are alot of sites that say its spelled Harington. Actually, when I do a search on Google for John Harington, usually it will say: Did you mean John Harrington?

Actually, when I do John Harington, there are no results at all! So obviously Google knows how it's spelled.

I'm sure Yahoo! and MSN have the same results.

Reseacher1996

I'm sorry

I'm sorry. I need to ask. I don't know how to reply to a conversation without starting a new one. Can someone please tell me how? To reply, do you just click edit on that section/ Or is there something special to do? Thanks.

Reseacher1996

RE: I'm sorry

I'm new to this too. This is the first time I have posted at Wikipedia so, like you, I'm just getting my learner's permit. I did what you did. I just edited the page. Dancindoug 05:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. So im not the only one. Thanks for telling me what you do.

Reseacher1996

Hmmmmmmm...

Dancindoug, Im doing OK on the project. the link you gave me was one i alredy had looked at, but thanks anyway. Its due very soon. I need to know how it works. Can you suggest anything for this? I really need to know.

Reseacher1996

Project due

Its due very very soon. I need to know how it works. Can anybody help me? It's very important.

Thanks alot.

Reseacher1996 This is copied from my talk

I finished it!!!!!!!! But my teacher wasn't there and winter breack started yesterday. Today's Saturday. So now I don't have to PRESENT it until January. So I'm OK. But I FINISHED IT!!!!!!!! I'm so HAPPY! NOW I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT GETTING IN MY WAY!!!!

Reseacher1996

Oh no!

Uh!!!:( He said that we had to give it AGAIN to give it to him for him to correct it AGAIN and now I have to make all these corrections and changes and edits.

Also,Sleepyasthesouth, when I was reading the Who? part to revise it, I realised that I had written Harrington with only one r so I changed it.

Reseacher1996

The Hittites' toilet

Even before John Harrington there were the Hittites. And they used toilets, too. Does anyone know about their toilet and/or how it worked? What it looked like, etc. It's not a nessesary part of my project, but I have already put it in my report. My teacher wanted more details about their toilet, as my only sentence about it was "The first toilet was made by the Hittites." I feel that if I cut it out now, he will know that I do not have enough info about it, and it could possibly lower my grade, since I already talked about it. Any suggestions? Also, notice my earlier question wanting to know more.

Thanks sooooooooooo much,

Reseacher1996

Harrington

Harrington is the correct spelling. I am also a desendant like Reseacher1996 and my grandmothers maidon name was still Harrington which had been passed down right back from Sir John Harrington.

Harrington was made Queen Elizabeths godson but he got sent away to Ireland. My grandmother whos maidon name was Harrington, came from ireland because Harrington stayed there and married an irish woman. jenzy

Harington with a single "r" is in fact widely used by many present day descendants. Ian Grimble's authoriative book on the family uses one "r". Spelling was rather variable in the past so it is probably impossible actually to decide a RIGHT one. Op. Deo 22:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Harrington's Children

The paragraph about Harrington's children looks bogus, particularly its last part (added separately and marked in the history as 'looks like vandalism'). I believe it is worthy of more than the {{fact}} tag, but should be deleted. If not for arguably being completely imaginary, then for substandard writing. Danga 14:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree it looks false. It unlikely to be consistent with Ian Grimble's book which says on page 136 that according to a letter he wrote in in 1603 he had "nine children, seven of whom had survived." Six more children after 20 years of marriage to Mary Rogers seems rather unlikely. This whole article seems to often attract a lot of spurious additions, and it needs quite a bit of work on it. Op. Deo 11:21, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The introductory section is very poorly constructed and does not follow style guidelines. I think a good way to proceed is to introduce additional sections then transfer material to these, and finally to edit the individual sections to improve their quality. I will suggest some section headings, but please edit them if you can see how to better organise the material.Op. Deo 11:56, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I have made a start. Much more work needed on most sections. I have added a ref to ODNB article which contains useful info. I will do more later, but in the meantime others please have a go. -- Op. Deo 13:03, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

'John' as slang for 'toilet' derives from his name--source?

Currently, the article says:

Around this time, Harington also devised Britain's first flushing toilet – called the Ajax (i.e. "a jakes"; jakes being an old slang word for toilet) – installed at his manor in Kelston, and which was reputed to have been current with the queen herself. Indeed, the American utilisation of the word 'John' as a euphemism for toilet, or bathroom, derives from Harington's invention.

Is there any source for the claim that this usage of "john" derives from his name? Googling turns up many assertions of this, but nothing authoritative that I can find. In my experience, these sorts of etymologies are usually invented after the fact. In English, "John" (being such a common name) is used in all kinds of slang ways. Merriam-Webster Online (m-w.com) suggests "john" is shortened from "johnny house", and the "Online Etymology Dictionary" (whatever that may be) at dictionary.com suggests that this use of "john" is derived from "jakes".

I've put in a "cite needed" tag for now, but if someone doesn't come up with a source, I'll just remove this claim.

Oh, and by the way, I'm fairly sure his name was spelled with three Rs, and a silent Q. -- Narsil (talk) 17:39, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Hearing no objections, and seeing no substantiation, I'll remove that claim. -- Narsil (talk) 19:45, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

South Park just referenced this page

On the March 14, 2012 episode Reverse Cowgirl (South Park), a shady lawyer looks up the inventor of the toilet and finds the John Harrington page on a mock up of Wikipedia named "Wickie", complete with the same image and the lead section being "Family Life". --184.97.157.48 (talk) 23:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

And here cometh the vandalism. Mbarbier (talk) 01:48, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

A user keeps inserting a section about the appearance in South Park. The content has been reverted by multiple editors on the basis that the only information provided is that Harington's ghost appeared in one episode of the show and as such the content is mere trivia and does not merit mention in this article. The editor has repeatedly inserted and refused to discuss here, despite several notices on the users talk page. -- The Red Pen of Doom 14:45, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I've reverted it again; the only references being used are descriptions of what happened in the entire episode. This verifies that it happened; not that it's relevant to this article, or that this detail is itself notable in any way. - SudoGhost 10:32, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

and who exactly decides what's relevant and what isn't? just look at any other page with a pop culture section. i see nothing wrong with this one. Shanedoe (talk) 11:51, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Reliable sources decide this, and this section is decidedly lacking in such sources, as explained above. - SudoGhost 13:06, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Your two "reliable sources" are reviews of the South Park episode in question. Just because an episode review exists (which, of course, episode reviews exist for every episode of every American TV show) doesn't mean that it's appropriate to include mention of that TV show in every topic that it mentions. Wikipedia:"In popular culture" content, while it is not a policy, is a useful reference for what popular culture inclusions might be important. Most notably, "If a cultural reference is genuinely significant it should be possible to find a reliable secondary source that supports that judgment." In other words, if this cultural reference matters and deserves to be included, you should be able to find a reliable source that mentions it other than just an episode review. For instance, Trapped in the Closet (South Park) is widely discussed by people who have nothing to do with reviewing TV shows - the relevance of Trapped in the Closet to the topic of Scientology is well established by reliable sources. --B (talk) 14:39, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

KCB?

I deleted the "KCB". The Order of the Bath was established after Harington's death. signed James Dow Allen — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.77.210.85 (talk) 10:30, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

In an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Feb 19, 2014, it was stated that John Harington is an ancestor for Kit Harington. Can someone find out the truth of this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.212.139.102 (talk) 05:53, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Epigrams

Harington is also remembered for his book of epigrams, posthumously published in 1615 and 1618, and in scholarly editions since. This is principally because of one epigram, still often quoted: 'Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.' (Meaning that the successful traitor becomes ruler, and does not welcome any talk about how he got into power.) https://www.historytoday.com/archive/death-sir-john-harington See also JM and MJ Cohen, The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, Penguin, London, 1960, ISBN 0-14-051016-8, p.183. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:10, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Jakes

As it happens, the term 'jakes' didn't die out in the seventeenth century. James Joyce, in Ulysses (Shakespeare & Co, Paris, 1922; The Bodley Head, London, 1936; Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1969, rev edn 1971, ISBN 0 14 00.3000 X, p.70), refers to the backyard privy at 7 Eccles Street, Dublin, Mr Bloom's house, as 'the jakes' -- 'He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes.' Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:10, 19 October 2019 (UTC)