Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 January 24

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January 24

Public Primary State schools in Ogba Lagos

A comprehensive write up on ohow to locate Public Primary State schools in Ogba Lagos? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.58.24.12 (talk) 10:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I imagine we are talking Nigeria here ... while some Wikipedia articles are "how to", it is not a major emphasis of this project. We don't as much content as we should in African areas. It would probably take someone in Nigeria and with access to print sources to do it.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

List of schools in Nigeria#Lagos State has a list of schools in Lagos State, but only a couple have any further links. You could try the Lagos State Government, which runs state schools, and Yell Nigeria which lists schools. Astronaut (talk) 12:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

making an demostration of play

machine-translated nonsense removed — Lomn 19:21, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Original responses

OK, some general advice, speaking from the perspective of a one-time professional text editor . . . . This story is of course not your original creation, it is a paraphrased version of the very well-known English legend of The Lambton Worm, so it would be of no interest on the grounds of being a new and original story. You appear not to be a native English speaker, and the piece would need very considerable editing by a competent English speaker to render it acceptable for a performance of any kind. It's so poorly written that I can only follow much of it because I am already familiar with the legend in various forms, both spoken and sung. It strikes me as suspiciously like something that might have been created by pushing the text of the Wikipedia article linked above through multiple iterations of Google Translate and then chopping out the more extreme sections of resulting gobbledegook. Even allowing for corrected grammar, vocabulary, and so on, this rendition still seems to me very inadequate in its general structure and presentation, with many chunks of necessary storyline missing. However well written, any piece intended for public performance will only be successful if it is well performed, and the quality of the performance is the most important factor. A really skilled performer may be able to present even an indifferently good piece entertainingly, at least in his/her own language. Do you have such performance skills? If all of the above problems were adequately addressed, there are in the UK a number of theatrical and folk-music festivals, County shows, and similar events where a well-written, interestingly presented and well-performed rendition of The Lambton Worm might be welcome, but I will leave it to others more familiar with such events' organisations, and umbrella arts bodies that might be relevant, to exercise AGF and comment further if they choose. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.103 (talk) 14:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC) Anybody can stage a play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world's largest arts festival.[1] You will have to pay the costs of staging the work, but registration is still open for August this year: see here for information. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Chinese zodiac

Why isn't there a panda? --108.225.115.211 (talk) 23:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Have you read Chinese_zodiac#Zodiac_origin_stories? The twelve signs of the zodiac seem to relate to 12 time periods in the day, with an animal associated with them. Evidently, pandas weren't seen as doing anything significant enough at a particular time of day to merit inclusion? In any case, the list is seemingly arbitrary, and there are other animals (real or imaginary) that failed to get included. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:09, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

You may also want to read Giant panda#Uses and human interaction particularly the last sentence which says:

The comparative obscurity of the giant panda throughout most of China's history is illustrated by the fact that, despite there being a number of depictions of bears in Chinese art starting from its most ancient times, and the bamboo being one of the favorite subjects for Chinese painters, there are no known pre-20th-century artistic representations of giant pandas

In other words the panda wasn't really that significant in Chinese culture until recently, so there's no real reason to expect there would be a panda. Nil Einne (talk) 05:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

A good point, though I'm not sure that the relationship between 'obscurity' and lack of cultural significance is always that straightforward. Unless we've got something fundamentally wrong in our understanding of Chinese fauna, the dragon seems to have achieved a great deal of significance for a creature that takes its level of 'obscurity' to the extreme of not actually existing. Not that this is exceptional - the UK has taken the lion and the unicorn as its emblems, despite the lack of the former amongst British wildlife, and the lack of the latter anywhere except in imagination. I think the lesson here is that in a mythological context we have a bestiary of real and imagined species to construct our tales around, and we select the ones that most suit our purposes... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Dragons may not exist, but they are in no way obscure. They are well-known in a number of cultures, so they may well be based on long-ago-distorted memories of something real (and dangerous). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Wise-cracking carrot-munching rabbits likewise exist in a number of cultures (along with other creatures, including Coyotes that actually exhibit cunning, rather than stupidity). This tells us little about the intelligence of real rabbits. Instead, it illustrates how we construct our imaginary world with whatever is at hand, real or mythological. I see no more reason why our ancestors should be assumed to lack the imagination to construct 'dragons' out of thin air than we are to construct your namesake, Bugs... AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:01, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes as even the article panda notes, dragons have been significant in Chinese culture for a long time, they can't really be consider obscure in Chinese culture. (As BB said, the fact they are fictious doesn't mean they are obscure.) Our article on dragons notes there are depictions of dragons in China dating back to the 16th century BC. (This obviously compares to what I linked above which our article notes on the panda.) I didn't mention earlier but our article also mentions they may have been thought of as 'rare and noble creatures' and how the mother of an emperor was buried with a skull and how pandas may have been given to Japan by someone else. But otherwise it conveys the impression that historically, pandas just weren't really that important even if some people may have known about them and there may have been legends and postive views of them etc. Nil Einne (talk) 12:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)