Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 June 8

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June 8

Buying used car in NJ to drive in NY

I'm going to be a NY state resident and saw a used car from a NJ dealership that I would like to purchase. I looked from the DMV website, but I'm still unsure what the exact process is. Overall, how much of a hassle is it to make it my car drivable in NY (ie. get it plated with NY license plates and all the other necessary stuff)? How much will it cost to do all this? Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 03:05, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Just a general point, people buy cars from neighboring states all the time. It's not especially more complicated than buying a car in-state. I can't answer you about NY/NJ specifically, but the DMV for your local state is your best resource for that question. Shadowjams (talk) 14:13, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Also, when buying a used car from a dealer, so I need to show proof of residency in the form of a rent agreement or something? I plan on arriving a week before the start date of my lease and living in a hotel until my rent begins. Would I still be able to buy a car before the start date of my rent? Acceptable (talk) 17:06, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

This page seems to answer at least some of your questions. For the rest, I'd ask the dealer. Since NJ is rather smallish, they probably deal with New Yorkers coming over the border to buy cars all the time. They should know the process. The link I provided seems to suggest that if you don't pay enough sales tax in NJ, you'll have to pay the remainder of the tax to NY. Vermont, where I live, has a similar system. Let's say you pay 6% in NJ and the NY tax is 7%. You'd be responsible for the extra 1% that you didn't pay. If it's the other way around, you generally don't get any money back from the state. But again, the dealer would know more than we likely do. They should still be open right now, why not call them? Dismas|^(talk) 17:53, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

• This amounts to legal/professional advice, and we don't have all the relevant details from you in any case. Ask the NJ dealer, who is a professional. You can't drive the car without some state's registration. If you have NJ plates and registration, you should call the NYS DMV and find out how long you have to switch the plates and registration to NY. You'll also have to apply for a NYS driver's license. If you had one from NJ all that was necessary in the 90's was to take the written test, not the driving test, and pay the fee. That may have changed; again, ask the NYS DMV. μηδείς (talk) 18:11, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Aromatic Tobacco

How do aromatic tobaccos such as Amsterdamer get a vanilla aroma within it? Is it a very chemical process or is it just adding a small amount of natural vanilla essence in some form? Thank you for any response 178.166.30.203 (talk) 14:53, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Types of tobacco suggests that aromas are added during the curing process. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:42, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

There's no chemical difference between purified real vanilla extract and chemically produced vanillin. Natural extract will just have some impurities, but the active ingredient is the vanillin. μηδείς (talk) 16:08, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

True, but the OP may have had in mind artificial vanillin, which, according to the article is "made either from guaiacol or from lignin". This certainly implies that true vanilla is at least sometimes used, however. Matt Deres (talk) 17:47, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

And to be fair, the "impurities" add significant taste difference between natural vanilla extract and pure vanillin; even to the point where different varieties of vanilla and different growing locales (i.e. Terroir) will have recognizably different flavor profiles. --Jayron32 17:58, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I am aware of that, but the OP seemed to be contrasting real and chemical vanilla as if the active ingredient were fake (like margarine is fake butter). Just wanted t make clear the active ingredient is the same, which I believe I did. μηδείς (talk) 19:08, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Nitpick: artificial vanilla extract is a pure version of vanillin, which is not the only flavour compound in real vanilla extract. Jayron alluded to terroir above, but it's a bit more complex than that, as in vanilla there are something like 240 different aromatic compounds (see Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking). — The Potato Hose 19:50, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we could get back to nitpicking the OP's question, now that it has been said six times that the essential ingredient in natural and artificial vanilla is the same chemical? I don't smoke, I can't even smell it, so someone else will have to opine on aromatic tobacco. μηδείς (talk) 21:24, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Drinking from dirty glasses

In various works of fiction, people going to the bar have tried to show a "tough guy" image by asking the bartender to skip washing the glass and serve the drink out of a dirty glass. I've never understood what is the idea behind this. Is it to show "I'm tough enough that bacteria don't scare me, so I'll save you the trouble of washing the glass" or something? JIP | Talk 22:18, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I hazard a guess that this is just a meme that spread from one fiction writer to another.--Aspro (talk) 22:38, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

JIP should provide a link to such a meme YT or a quote, or some source. μηδείς (talk) 23:28, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Yea I've never heard of it either. Hot Stop 23:30, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I think I have heard it, but I don't remember where, and it seems JIP does. μηδείς (talk) 23:31, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

A very, very old joke, something like this: A guy walks into a bar and orders milk. The tough guys start laughing at him and calling him a sissy or whatever. He says to the bartender, "Oh, yeh? Put it in a dirty glass!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:39, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's one of the places I have heard it from. What I've not understood is how putting it in a dirty glass is supposed to make the guy tougher or the bartender's job easier, or the whole situation more acceptable. JIP | Talk 03:05, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Bring me a whiskey, in a dirty glass! Drinking Whiskey From A Dirty Glass. Bus stop (talk) 03:16, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't know whether this is the documented origin, but a lot of the film versions seem to refer back to Bob Hope in Road to Utopia, see for example "... and put it in a dirty glass!" (snopes) or "Drink Order" (TV Tropes). (So, yeah it's a joke, the ridiculous attempt of the customer to show how tough he is. Has nothing to do with making the bartender's job easier). ---Sluzzelin talk 03:25, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Bob Hope also used it in Son Of Paleface (1952) where, having caused derision among cowboys in a saloon by ordering milk, Hope quickly adds "in a dirty glass". In another picture, when told in court that "anything you say might be held against you," Hope replies, "Jane Russell" [1]. From a psychology point of view: A 'hard man' reinforces his power on those around him by exercising it. He demands something better (always) than those around him get. Bob Hope took the satirical route by getting the 'hard man' roll arse about face. Thus, "in a dirty glass" became a popular meeme with fiction writers.--Aspro (talk) 14:03, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Bob Hope, and presumably his writers, were veterans of vaudeville, so it's possible the "dirty glass" joke was already old by the time it appeared in his films. Likewise with the double meaning of "held against you" (which also turned up decades later in Monty Python's "Hungarian phrase book" sketch). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:17, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

The stereotype is that tough guys don't worry about germs while "weaklings" do. For an example of the 2nd stereotype, look at Niles Crane from Frasier, who insisted on cleaning restaurant chairs before he would sit on them. There is a possible reason for this, in that the Niles Crane types are the result of over-protective parents, which keep them spotlessly clean as children. Unfortunately, this level of cleanliness prevents their immune systems from being exposed to, and developing resistance to, various microbes. The result is that such people really are more susceptible to those microbes as adults. Also, the "weaklings" might act like a minor cold is much more of a problem than the "tough guy", so they appear even more sickly than they are. StuRat (talk) 14:47, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

This sounds plausible, but what still puzzles me is why the "tough guy" would insist on a dirty glass. Surely a clean glass wouldn't be of any more trouble? And what if the bartender had already washed all his glasses? The only way I could see this being plausible is the bartender replying "Sorry, you'll have to wait, I haven't done the dishes yet", and the "tough guy" replying "It's OK, I can stand drinking from a dirty glass". JIP | Talk 19:30, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

It was mentioned above that any perceived effort by the bartender is probably irrelevant. The most plausible scenario seems to one where someone is grasping at straws to extricate himself from a faux pas, and while he cannot reverse himself, seeks to negate the effect (even if mainly intended by the scriptwriters to have a comedic effect, because it fails so terribly). Being seen as trying to be considerate to the bartender would usually not help a "tough guy" image, to the extent that the scriptwriters would not mean this interpretation. — Quondum 00:17, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

A tough guy probably wouldn't ask specifically for a dirty glass either in fiction or in real life. The only example that has been provided in this thread of this being used in popular culture is in the milk joke. This is corroborated by the first link Bus Stop provided above (the Wordpress one) which states that they haven't been able to find any actual examples of it either. As such it seems to be a mythical trope, not an actual one. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:37, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

The toughness (at least in the joke) isn't from not caring whether the glass is dirty. It's from challenging the germs (real or imagined). By specifying, he's showing he knows the danger, however slight. Likewise, any idiot can get lost in the woods and eaten by a bear. But it takes a "real man" to be eaten by the bear he sought out to fistfight. Sort of the same kind of toughness here as Milhouse has, though the joke there is somewhat inverted. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:17, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe the dirty glass meme comes from those old movies about grizzled PIs Private Investigators getting themselves grogged with whiskey out of dirty glasses. It is a device the writers use to convey to the audience how haggard and rundown is the PI, or that he just doesn't care about taking the time/effort to procure a clean glass. It could also be a visible symptom of mild clinical depression ( a common malady among hardboiled PIs who handle the most unsavory casework), and the dirty glass visually conveys that to the audience.Wikkileaker (talk) 10:25, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

• To finalize: people (of a certain age) may appreciate the context of MILK in this era. Nellie Wallace and others, recorded Let's have a tiddley at the milk bar long before vinyl was invented. Lyrics are Safe-For-Work ! --Aspro (talk) 22:44, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Could not find what I was looking for in the article "starling"

(The page I was viewing [starling] did not have a place for feedback, and I actually could not find an easier way to provide feedback on this article except contacting you this way, since it was evidently one of your articles that did not have your new feature about feedback available. I love Wikipedia and have donated in the past, but KEEP ADDING that feedback feature to more articles :-) For such an amazing bird [the starling], I was surprised not to find more of the very interesting things that the starling can do, like "nesting behavior". Are they similar to the cuckoo bird in that they can lay their eggs in another species' nest and have that mother take over feeding of the newborn starling? I observed a starling and a chestnut-backed chickadee on a fence near to the chickadee's nest, and the starling inched over to the male and finally forced him to fly away. The mother was in the nest and making a lot of noise. (Earlier I had seen a starling come out of the nest with a piece of grass. He shook his head very hard like he had been pecked in the head by birds in the nest, but he definitely had been on the nest.) I just do not have the time to find an ornithologist to communicate with or find an article on this bizarre behavior to quote, but I would seriously like to see more from someone who is an authority on starlings. Being such an overly common bird (thanks [or NOT] to Eugene Schieffelin and Shakespeare), I think more on starling behavior is almost overdue :-) Thank you - Terry Powell Vortexswmr (talk) 22:22, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Please ask this at Wikipedia:Help_desk. As just mentioned on another thread, we provide links to references, not help with articles. μηδείς (talk) 23:30, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

But as well as some very constructive criticism of Wikipedia, for which thanks, there is a well defined question. Does the starling lay eggs in another bird's nest? I have no idea. Maybe one for the Science desk? Itsmejudith (talk) 23:42, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

According to our article, the Common Starling is an intraspecific brood parasite -- meaning that the females sometimes lay eggs in the nests of other Common Starlings, but not in the nests of other types of birds as the cuckoo does. Looie496 (talk) 23:50, 8 June 2013 (UTC)