Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 March 19

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.

March 19

James Lind's "spreadsheet"

In James Lind (naturalist), I read: in 1789 Lind also visited Soho Square to draft an important spreadsheet that cross-referenced Chinese plants from Chinese texts and Latin texts (Lind also spoke Chinese, in addition to his knowledge of Latin previously used to write his dissertation) which enabled botanists to place accurate orders of exotic flora.

What was this document? What source describes it? Is spreadsheet really the best word for something made in 1789?  Card Zero  (talk) 04:13, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

The cited source, which is accessible via the Wiley access at The Wikipedia Library calls Lind's creation a "a kind of spreadsheet", so our article may be overly literal. I don't think I have the context to tell you more about what the document is, but hopefully this is a push in the right direction. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:24, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Even I can remember when a spreadsheet was a large piece of paper, but perhaps table might be better understood nowadays. Alansplodge (talk) 11:06, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh, if that term works, for any sort of tabulated data, then I'll leave it as it is. I had the impression that the historical meaning of "spread-sheet" was limited to accounting.  Card Zero  (talk) 15:15, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

User:Card_Zero, a quick Google suggests that you may be right, spreadsheet or spread-sheet may well have been accounting jargon. You used to be buy paper in large pads pre-printed with rows and columns and with total bars at the bottom; the rest was done with a pencil. But "table" might be a better description since most people (including Wikipedia) now only associate the word with computing. Alansplodge (talk) 15:50, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

OED has "A document consisting of columns and rows, in which data is recorded and organized; (originally) such a document drafted or printed on a sheet of paper (now rare); (in later use) an electronic document of this kind; (also) a computer program used for creating such a document, typically capable of performing calculations automatically as data is entered." Earliest citation 1907. DuncanHill (talk) 23:05, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Wiktionary lists a sense, "A sheet of paper, marked with a grid, in which financial data is recorded and totals calculated manually", but labels it as dated. As already noted above, the source cited in the article described the document as a kind of spreadsheet – it was not actually a spreadsheet, which was used for accounting calculations. Replacing the term by table may be less confounding but does not quite get the sense across that Lind used a large sheet of paper. The info that Lind was visiting "Soho Square" is a bit strange, as if he was drafting the document sitting on a park bench. But Lind was staying at the time as a guest with Joseph Banks,^[1] who owned a large house at 32 Soho Square.  --Lambiam 16:17, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Maybe "large table" with a wikilink to table (information), lest anyone think it was a dining table. 19:08, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

E. M. Forster

What did E. M. Forster mean by the aristocracy of the sensitive? Viriditas (talk) 06:23, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

See What I Believe. In his view, the truly aristocratic are not those who inherit rank or titles, but those who are sensitive to the needs of others. Alansplodge (talk) 10:59, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Further reading here and here. Alansplodge (talk) 11:02, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, that is helpful. Viriditas (talk) 22:02, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Forster indicates himself he is uncertain aristocracy is the right word, but I suppose it is what Wiktionary lists as a third sense: "A class of people considered (not normally universally) superior to others".  --Lambiam 11:52, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Lambiam: how is it that you know me better than myself? Yes, I didn’t account for that tertiary usage. Viriditas (talk) 22:02, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Veils in Saudi Arabia

I have heard, that before the 1979 Qatif Uprising, there was not yet a law that required women to wear a veil in Saudi Arabia, and that it was not until after 1979 that the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Saudi Arabia) started to enforce the veil. I was told that before 1979, some Saudi women did not veil in public, that Queen Iffat wore Western clothing, and that there were female news anchors without veils. In short, that Saudi Arabia was starting to become a bit more liberalised in the 1970s but that this development stopped after the Islamic revolution in neighboring Iran. Is this true? I know that the law requiring Saudi women to vear weils was dropped in 2018, but I can't find any year for when it was first put in place. Were there Saudi women not wearing veils in Saudi Arabia prior to 1979, and was it legal? The article Women's rights in Saudi Arabia does not really describe this, it mostly describe the development since the 2010s. Thanks.--Aciram (talk) 18:20, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

It is possible some of the sources at Hijab by country#Saudi Arabia cover this. At least one of them is from 1979 I think. (The article it self doesn't seem to cover anymore than you already know.) Nil Einne (talk) 02:41, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

A personal account at The Transformation of Our Generation. Alansplodge (talk) 15:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)