Hello and Welcome! I hope you like the place. --mav

I hope this is the correct way of responding, Thank you for your input and thank you for not deleting my work without explanation as some have done. I am new to this group and will strive to learn to be a positive participant as i go. BVC2000

Thanks for the welcome. I've been using it for about a year now, and I thought during a bored moment that I'd add some things I knew about. -- Ihcoyc

Welcome from me too. I have made an update at Talk:Vicar on the distinction from rector. I would be grateful if you could check whether I have been misled. Thanks -- Alan Peakall 16:41 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

Like I said there, if you can expand on vicar go for it. The article as it stands is little more than a slightly expanded stub. I made it because it might be a concept that calls for elaboration. I checked in Blackstone, also, and he doesn't have much about the distinction between vicars and other clergy. ---User:Ihcoyc

I gather you plan on banning the word "casket" from the Wikipedia. Why do you want to dictate that people must use your word choice? Changing "casket" to "coffin" in the Emperor Norton article, for example, completely ruined the flow and sense of the paragraph in which you changed it. -- Someone else 17:27 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

A casket is a small chest or box, like for jewelry and such. A coffin is a box to put a dead human body in. To habitually use casket for coffin is bad English usage, and as a euphemism more annoying than most, given that it comes from a marketing campaign. I have only changed those caskets where it seemed obvious from the context that it actually meant coffin. I kept some of the "caskets" I have found, even when they seemed somewhat dubious, like in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or the casket for Van Eyck's arm. Those might be smaller than coffins. If you think it spoils the Emperor Norton article, I will change it back on that one. I do prefer that coffin be used when coffin is meant. --Ihcoyc
Casket certainly does have as one of its meanings "fancy coffin". It's a perfectly good word, its use is not wrong, and generally I think it's a good idea to let the words people use stand rather than insist they use the words you think are right, especially when the dictionary supports them. -- Someone else 17:43 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)
There is a long history of usage commentators who would side with me on this: the Fowlers, the Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, all condemn the use of "casket" for coffin. Nathaniel Hawthorne called it "a vile modern phrase," and I am more old fashioned than he. The 4th edition of H. L. Mencken's The American Language points out that this usage got started in a marketing campaing by undertakers. --Ihcoyc
Yeah, I say "coffin" too. Other people use "casket". I see no reason to systematically purge all uses in WikiPedia, even if there was marketing involved in popularizing the word. Why not just point out the suggestion of proscriptive linguistic commentators (as you have) in the article and have done with it? -- Someone else 19:49 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)
The pages I changed were, IIRC: the Emperor Norton page, which I changed back; a paragraph on Maori traditions; a paragraph about some Jewish terrorist; and three or four boxer biographies that mentioned pallbearers with the phrase "casket carriers." I doubt that Maori traditions prescribe all the upholstery that the misusage you cite associates with "casket," and if the Jewish fellow was buried in accordance with the traditions, his did not qualify either, even if we assume the word has validity. This leaves the boxer bios; and all of these were improved, IMO, by the change I actually made. If somebody wants to change them back, I will leave it alone.
I was going to change the Tomb of the Unknowns, too; the only reason I did not was that I was uncertain if there was enough left of any one of the Unknowns to need a whole coffin. Now one of the risks of writing here is that clueless sods like myself might mess up your deathless prose. I have also made a redirect at casket that sends you to coffin; in case anyone wishes to link on using "casket," when it means "casket," they'll have to address that at that time.
Is there some code you use to put in the date and time in UTC? ---Ihcoyc

Yes, at last I can be helpful, which I would (really) rather be. Apologies if my terseness was obnoxious, I would not have reacted as strongly were someone not busy purging "American" from wikipedia at the same time. (For the record, none of the prose you changed was mine). Forthwith, my good deed: use "~~~" to insert your name, and "~~~~" to insert your name, date and time. -- Someone else 20:27 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

Well, that's a task so daunting I wouldn't undertake it even if I thought it were a good idea. :) And thanks; I probably should not have changed Emperor Norton. --IHCOYC 20:34 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for starting Stagger Lee! Kingturtle 18:58 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC) and Joe Hill!!!! Kingturtle 19:08 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

No problem. I thought I'd add Marie Laveau to the American folklore page after adding her for the List of occultists, and found that page had even more holes in it than the one I started. -- IHCOYC

Excellent start on Burned-over district. Mkmcconn

You're welcome. I had encountered the phrase before, and became curious on seeing it again, where it came from. -- IHCOYC

Hello Ihcoyc Not a bad piece on Browne at all which has been my speciality for some time now.. I see you are interested in the more morbid side of Urn-Burial. I hope my additions on Browne are of interest to you. One v.v. small criticism what exactly is 'curious learning' a good answer to this can be found in the 1711 Auction sales catologue of Browne and his son's libraries, where you will see that modern scientific works are listed side by side with more esoteric material. What is to us 'curious' was in Browne's mind merely learning and knowledge which is today debunked, rightly or wrongly. -Norwikian


Sorry about snooty comment, but you would be surprised how often a US context is assumed rather than stated.

There is another use of covenant in English law, in which donations to charities can be made under deeds of covenant by taxpayers. This enables the charity to claim back tax on the sum, thereby increasing the value of the donation, courtesy of the Inland Revenue, but I don't know if there is a similar US use. jimfbleak 16:51 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I did need to make it clearer that seals were obsolescent throughout the common law tradition, and that the UCC was not the only factor.
Elaborate transactions to maximize tax deductability are bo no means unknown in US law, but AFAIK "deeds of covenant" are not used by that name. -- IHCOYC 18:03 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Your expansion to Trial by ordeal is cut at the end. ²¹² 14:21 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I enjoy your input too. As for merging Greek and Roman mythology into one, as on a Rococo ceiling, a good example of why not is at Rhea.

Caught it -- thanks! -- IHCOYC 14:31 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hello; Eloquence has contacted me to take a look to your article Greek religion, and we reached the conclusion that it should be merged with Roman mythology and Greek mythology (on the corresponding part of each one, maybe making some reference to the animal sacrifices and the difference between Greek mythology in Greece and Asia Minor), and create some cross-links like see also Greek mythology, List of deities and see also Roman mythology, List of deities. He has suggested me to put the article in the list of Wikipedia:Duplicate articles to be merged. I think it is a good idea, so the subject could be more clarified for users that have no idea on that topic. I don't want to disturb you, I'm just accomplishing a petition, and hope you understand this is not a critic to your work. Thanks. The Warlock 05:36 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That might be a good idea. After all, the Romans were latecomers who assimilated their native religion to the Greek one almost as soon as the contact was made, and the practices involved were essentially similar. The mythology pages might be harder to merge, given that they are mostly partial lists of mythological topics. You also get into the complicated story of the continuing use of Greco-Roman mythology in literature and sculpture in the Christian world; this is the chief reason why "Greek mythology" seems different from "Greek religion." -- IHCOYC 11:38 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Greetings. The article is going well. I should also point out that the ancient Greek religion was also called Hellênismos, particularly by the neo-Platonists and also by the Emperor Julian ("Julian the Apostate"). Wikipedia has a page entitled Hellenismos but that used to only link to the DMOZ links. I note that someone has added a sentence to it. It would be good if something more meatier could be added. If you need assistance I would be glad to help. -- Leanne

I've put up a bit more of a stub there at Hellenismos, linking to Julian, classical antiquity, and so forth. That too might be fleshed out a bit more; Julian's problem was that he discovered that pagans didn't have an organisation, like the Bolshevik-style Christianity that rose to power under Constantine did. Attempting to organize them to defend their faith was rather like herding cats. Hellenismos was an attempt to provide an ism for a religion that hardly had a consistent theology. -- IHCOYC 15:58 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I have successfully herded cats. All you need is a pair of boots and two sheets of cardboard. You stamp your boots and cats really hate that sound. You use the two sheets of cardboard to stop them from running back in your direction. I managed to get Giggles and Eric off my bed and out of my room using this method. Julian could well have had his slaves wear heavy pairs of caliga and scuta to do the same -- Leanne


Thanks for your help with Monstrous Regiment and the subsequent move/rewrite! Your suggestion on its talk page was a good one: hope you don't mind my jumping right in and taking it! :-) Jwrosenzweig 19:55, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Thanks for the compliment on Norse Saga. Fine with me if we merge with sagas or disambiguate saga -- user:dino


Hi Ihcoyc (whatever that means), I just wanted to say that I enjoyed reading your two new articles, Femme Fatale and Damsel in Distress. I think they are excellent. All the best, --KF 19:52, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Re Sapphic stanza/Sapphic meter - I'll merge now, if you like. Which should go where, stanza->meter or meter->stanza? Tx Dysprosia 14:20, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I suspect Sapphic stanza is the technically more accurate title, so I think that one should be the final one; it's a stanza, the meter is of the individual lines. May as well copy some of the parts about it from Meter in poetry as well. -- Smerdis of Tlön 14:28, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Voila. Sapphic stanza, all merged like :) Dysprosia 14:42, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Subject edit

I have read in recent memory, a supposedly well known Latin term for "no law shall cause a wrong", yet I have not been able to relocate this term. I was hoping to find it on this page.

I am not familiar with this as a maxim of equity. In Latin that would be nulla lex iniuriam faciat.