Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 June 26

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.

June 26

How to find publishing information about a book

I'm working on improving the article for Alberto Moravia's The Conformist by adding the Book Infobox to it. However, I'm stuck on where to find a reliable source for this information (e.g., Page numbers, IBSN, publisher, etc.). I own an English translation, but I'm trying to find information about the original Italian edition (perhaps importantly, I don't speak Italian). My copy says that the book was originally published in 1951 by Bompiani, but that's all I have to go on. C. A. Struck (talk) 06:03, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't think ISBN numbers existed in 1951. AnonMoos (talk) 06:28, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

This might be a starting point: OCLC 3356490 (392 pages) 136.54.99.98 (talk) 06:49, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

This second-hand book source has "398 pp." for the hardcover edition. The same number is given at goodreads for the paperback edition. Basically any number from 390 to 398 can be found stated somewhere.  --Lambiam 10:10, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Reporting of numbers of pages is unfortunately not standardised. Some people count only the actual Arabic-numbered pages (which may or may not include the last page of text, on which publishers often used to omit any number). Others add the prelims, which may or may not have lower-case Roman numerals. Still others may also include any pages after the end of the text, which may be blank, or may carry ads for other books, or the book's printing and publisher details.

One solution might be to borrow a copy of this first edition via an inter-library loan. Or you might place a query on Italian Wikipedia's equivalent of this desk (assuming there is one) where it is more likely to be seen by someone who actually owns a copy. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.177.243 (talk) 14:53, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

An image of the book jacket of the first edition can be found here. Using it as a thumbnail in a Book infobox should fall under the fair-use exemption. (The young man in the image is actually Renoir's depiction of Georges Durand-Ruel, who worked as an art dealer in Paris, so very little original work was invested by the book jacket's designer.)  --Lambiam 10:35, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Here's the book's catalog entry from the Italian National Library (which is actually a grouping of major Italian public libraries and not a single institution, as is the case in many other countries). Xuxl (talk) 12:55, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

C. A. Struck, in general, WorldCat is a great place to search. As a librarian, I use it virtually every day to find publication information, especially when I'm cataloguing books. An "OCLC number", like the one 136.54.99.98 suggested, is the number for a particular book's record in WorldCat; OCLC is the organisation that operates WorldCat. Nyttend (talk) 21:56, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

News of the world

A report on page 22 of Wednesday's Daily Express headed "Freedom for Ukraine" ends somewhat abruptly. The last sentence reads:

He claimed their forces had come

To the right is a picture of what appears to be four men in army fatigues in a bunker [1]. The caption reads: caption: is in 8.5pt helvetica bold except when it's. Who are the men? A larger picture above shows a man in a crater, around the rim of which are several wheeled vehicles. The caption reads: caption: is in 9 pt helvetica black except. In some editions the words "when it's" follows the word "except". What is the location? 2A02:C7C:38C1:3600:8EE:598:5D80:94C4 (talk) 13:52, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

It might be better to ask the Daily Express than to have us make a guess. Your link is behind a paywall requires an account. Alansplodge (talk) 15:46, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

White Antelope

Why is White Antelope named after an old-world animal? How much would Plains Indians of that era know about antelopes? Or is that just a translation artifact? If his Cheyenne name means something slightly different, what "should" it be, and where did the English name come from? — Aᴋʀᴀʙʙıᴍ ^talk 15:13, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

The pronghorn is colloquially known as the American antelope, the pronghorn antelope, or the prairie antelope. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:39, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

An online Cheyenne-English dictionary spells the name Vó'kaa'e Ȯhvó'komaestse; just vó'(k)aa'e is glossed as "antelope", while vó'(k)om- means "white". Apparently the English term "antelope" was used for an antelope-like animal whose range overlapped with the Cheyenne area – as that of the pronghorn did before it was extirpated from Minnesota. Many names are of the form *** Ȯhvó'komaestse: Aénohe Ȯhvó'komaestse = "White Hawk"; Éše'he Ȯhvó'komaestse = "White Moon"; He'heēno Ȯhvó'komaestse = "White Blackbird". Clearly, the colour attributes do not form fixed combinations with the words for the animal or object that are the second parts of such names. Conversely, there are the names Vó'kaa'e Ȯhma'aestse = Red Antelope", Vó'kaa'e Ȯhtameméoestse = "Running Antelope" and Vó'kaa'e Ȯhvovó'haestse = "Spotted Antelope". For what it is worth, the same dictionary glosses the common noun vóhpevó'aa'ee as "white antelope".  --Lambiam 21:06, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Census figure

I am in the process of updating the census portion of the 'Demographics' section of a U.S. city article, and one of the figures I'm updating is the number of 'families'. Unfortunately while I can find what the Census Bureau defines as a 'family', it doesn't appear as if that number is given plainly - rather, it's broken down into numbers of 'married couple household' and 'cohabitating couple household', etc. etc. While I think I'm adding the correct figures, I'm coming up with a number significantly smaller than the number I'm updating (from the 2000 census) even though the city has gained population. Does anyone know just what figures need to be tallied to come up with an accurate family count? Or am I better off just removing that statistic? Thanks in advance. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 18:31, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I think the information you are looking for is listed as "households", not "families".--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:38, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Which is a reasonable thought to have, except that the city I'm working on along with many others list 'households' and 'families' separately. According to the Census Bureau, a 'household' is any dwelling with at least one person. A 'family' is two or more people related by birth, marriage, or adoption and living together. I'm trying to find out which datasets in this table constitute a 'family'. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 19:08, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

After further research, it appears as if my initial figure was actually correct. While the city is gaining population, the demographics are shifting such that there are more young people and fewer families. No further assistance needed, thanks again. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 20:20, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, DrOrinScrivello, "household" and "family" are different; in the 2020 census I reported as a single-person household, and obviously that doesn't count as a family. I don't know if it still does, but when I was frequently editing US geography articles and looking at Census demographics frequently (more than a decade ago!), the Census website reported families separately; you didn't have to guess. Finally, note that some people don't live in households, e.g. inmates of university dormitories or of prisons. For an extreme example, check the statistics for Jenks Township, Forest County, Pennsylvania, where a prison opened in the 2000s; although you won't see it in the article's demographics (which are from 2000), the number of households stayed roughly the same from 2000 to 2010, despite the population tripling. Nyttend (talk) 22:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)