Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 April 7

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April 7

Sexual assault

I've been looking through the state's sex offender database. There are a number of entries where, under the convictions, it lists "VOP" and then there isn't a date of conviction. What does VOP stand for? Dismas|^(talk) 02:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I found some that do have a conviction date. So that doesn't seem to help. Is it Violation of Probation? Dismas|^(talk) 02:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Might it help for us to know which "state" you're talking about? Which country, even? -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 03:09, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm usually better about that. I'm in the US state of Vermont. Dismas|^(talk) 05:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Violation of parole, maybe? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 05:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Good guess. It's "violation of probation", according to this. —Kevin Myers 09:26, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Names for Different Positions in Companies

I've been given a research assignment, but I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, (and my boss isn't helping to explain it when I ask him questions). I need to find the Chief Human Resources Director and the Chief Research Officer for a few different life sciences companies. What are some other names for these positions? Is the "Chief Director" of Human Resources also the "Vice President" of Human Resources? Thank you for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.16.95.123 (talk) 10:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and I would expect the name would change with the size of the company, from Supervisor or HR, to HR Manager, HR Director, HR Chief, VP in Charge of HR, and President in Charge of HR. StuRat (talk) 10:48, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It may be that some of the companies in question use the older term 'Personnel' rather than 'Human Resources'. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 11:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

And "research" is often paired with "development", as R&D. StuRat (talk) 13:32, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Table for comparing religions - similarities and differences

Is there a table available anywhere that 1) has the religions as columns (such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam) and the religious texts as rows, to show which texts are common to more than one religion? 2) Similarly, with kinds of beliefs as rows - things like one god only, heaven, and so on? Thanks 78.149.173.243 (talk) 11:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Like this? I Googled "comparison religions" and that's the first thing that came up. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:44, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

See The Association of Religion Data Archives. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Mr 98s link is relevant to Question 2. Wavelengths link is an index to a large site - where can I find a table please? 78.149.173.243 (talk) 14:58, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I have been unable to find a table on that website. I apologize for any inconvenience. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

See this page. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Belief Comparisons of the World's Religions has religions in rows and beliefs in columns. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:45, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

As to the first question, I don't think a table would be useful or easy to find, because few of the more prominent religions have holy scriptures in common. When several religious groups share some of their holy books, they are more commonly considered sects of a single religion. The case of Christianity, which managed to incorporate the entire holy scripture of another religion and yet to become clearly distinct from that religion, is more of an exception than a norm.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 20:11, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

See The Book of Mormon and the King James Bible (which has no table). -- Wavelength (talk) 21:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

See Biblical narratives and the Qur'an (which has no table). -- Wavelength (talk) 22:51, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Comparative religion has a link to The God Contention - Comparing Religions, Faiths and Worldviews (which has religions in columns).

-- Wavelength (talk) 23:18, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Someone might start the Wikipedia article Table of beliefs and religions, based on information gleaned from the official websites of various religions. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

That would be very hard! Most religions (and many religious denominations) aren't unified under one earthly organization to have an official website. Even Scientology has practitioners who are not organizationally affiliated with the Church of Scientology. It's also very hard to chart out what religions believe. For example, Christian doctrine (typically) asserts that Christianity is monotheistic. But the Qu'ran may assert that Christianity is polytheistic. Paul (Stansifer) 04:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I found a collection of links to official websites. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:18, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Those are the websites of local organizations, of which there are multitudes. (And even the larger organizations don't necessarily correspond to theological boundaries.) For that matter, plenty of religious people don't have an official organization larger than their congregation (see Baptist and Congregational church). Even when there is a large organization that actually does assert a doctrine, many of the people who belong to it consider themselves free to disagree with it, and their beliefs and practice shouldn't be ignored. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are many large groups of people with common beliefs who are strongly opposed to trying to delineate who is in and who is out. Therefore, finding out what they believe is something like an anthropological challenge. Paul (Stansifer) 18:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

See Religions Summary - Compares Major Religions. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:45, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

If the original poster is asking for the purpose of examining different faiths and choosing one to adopt, he or she might be able to speed up the process by praying for divine guidance in the matter. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:15, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, but should they pray, meditate, or go look in the woods for some tablets that only they can decifer ? StuRat (talk) 18:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Name for economic concept ?

I would like to describe an economic/regulatory concept, then have you tell me the name, and point me to any articles we have related to it. First, let me start with some examples:

1) Ships are allowed to register in any nation, so choose the nation with the lowest fees and least regulations.

2) In the US, credit card companies were originally required to abide by the laws where each customer lived, which led to fairly restrictive laws against usury (absurdly high interest rates). Then, a decision was made to allow them to operate across state boundaries, and to apply the laws from their home state to wherever they did business. This led to them all moving to where they could get the best terms, which seemed to be Delaware. Thus, they were able to charge much higher interest rates than before the decision.

3) Free trade allows businesses to relocate to where the taxes, wages, benefits, and environmental regulations are lowest, effectively forcing all those items lower everywhere.

So, there are two parts to this economic concept, that competition will result in businesses (and consumers) choosing the "lowest common denominator", but also that every other nation or state will then be forced to lower it's standards to compete. So, do we have a name for this concept ? Do we have any articles ? StuRat (talk) 17:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Generally, the economic term associated with moving around to find a more advantageous environment is "mobility," as in "labor mobility." You might use the term "jurisdictional mobility" to refer to behaviors like those you list. A related concept is regulatory shopping, where parties have some choice in regulator, although that's not necessarily associated with physical location. -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Race to the bottom. Hipocrite (talk) 17:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Recent work in location theory, a branch of economic geography, addresses these issues. Marco polo (talk) 17:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I, too, would say "race to the bottom". (Side note: Flag of convenience is phenomenon #1.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It strikes me that you're starting from the assumption that this phenomenon is an economic concept in the first place. My interpretation of what you've described is that it conflates a number of issues. Each of the things that you describe contributes to strategic choice for business leaders.

Essentially the cost of regulation is a cost to the business, but leaders need to make a decision about whether they are aiming at cost leadership, quality or a Niche market. Businesses aiming at a cost leadership position may choose to reduce the cost of regulation, but have to balance that with the cost of relocation and service delivery at range. The type of service delivered is apposite, in the example you mention there is little cost of distance.

Your extension to that assumption is that regulatory authorities, governments, will also make choices about their cost of regulation as a means of attracting business to trade. That can be done in two ways, minimise the regulation or maximise the efficiency of the regulatory framework.

Add to that the customer facing element, your assumption is that the cost leader will also price gouge. In the customer facing sphere not every service provider will take a price leadership position.

Put simply, the concept you're after is competition, but you're then applying that to the strategic environment.

ALR (talk) 08:05, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers so far, looks like some good stuff here. StuRat (talk) 14:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Your third point is different from your first two. As a country devlops its lower sectors will typically move abroad while higher sectors flourish. for example during hte Industrial revolution there was quite a decline in agricultural production in the affected countries. Nowadays western countries are losing their manufacturing industries but have a booming services and R&D sector with ridiculously high GDPs. This counters the impacts of your first two points greatly.--92.251.166.223 (talk) 00:26, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree. Lots of services are also leaving the high cost nations, for low cost nations, such as India. This includes "high end services" like computer programming and maybe medical diagnosis. Growth rates are also much higher in low cost nations such as China and India, leading to an evening out of GDP. StuRat (talk) 00:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a fairly standard product/ service lifecycle, with development and early delivery generally being a high cost activity and as the product or service matures delivery becomes commoditised. In terms of production the cost of production and the cost of movement start to reach an balance where the cost of production becomes the marginal component of the overall cost structure. In the case of services where information is a key component the low cost of international communications tends to lead to that stage in the lifecycle very quickly. The two examples that you mention; software and diagnosis, are both commoditised, essentially low cost low return services, the total cost of the service to the client needs to take into account those elements insourced and those outsourced or offshored. In the case of software development, in my experience, the majority of creative, architecting and design work takes place physically close ot the client, the grunt work of typing code can be outsourced.

In all honesty the cost of regulation is a very small component of the pricing structure anyway. Even if production is in an economy where the controls mentioned are quite light the regulations around the point of sale tend to apply anyway. A pertinent point in the information arena would be the difference between US and European privacy regulation, government clients in the EU cannot use certain US based providers unless the infrastructure is removed from the US and housed in a compliant region, which impacts on cost. Another example would be manufacturing in China, the products have to comply with the environmental and toxicity regulations of the consuming economy, so despite the relative laxity of these regulations in the China consumer marketplace manufacturers have to comply with higher standards to sell into North America and Europe.

There is an argument that these retail based regulations can form an implicit trade barrier that gets around the agreements that form the World Trade Organisation, but that has only been successful in a couple of cases where the regulations were clearly discriminatory and not founded on rigorous evidence.

I'd also note that there is a difference between rates of activity growth and rates of economic growth. Whilst the examples that you cite have reasonably rapid growth in their market activity their revenues aren't reflecting that in GDP growth.

ALR (talk) 11:10, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. This chart shows that China's GDP growth is the fastest, by far, and India's is about 4th: [1]. Regarding your point about environmental regulations of the consuming nation, that only applies to the product, and most pollution occurs in the water, air, and earth during manufacturing. Similarly, disposal of products containing toxic substances can involve shipping them to a nation with lax laws, where they won't have to worry about proper disposal. StuRat (talk) 11:33, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

It's entirely up to you to disagree, but it appears that you're picking on very specific points and not really addressing the whole of the discussion.

The point of my last paragraph was that rates of GDP growth in developing countries don't really reflect growth in economic activity. Anyway, that's a very minor point in this discussion, when you seem to b asking a question about management decision making at the business and national level. There are a number of reasons why GDP growth is quite rapid in a developing economy, because small changes have a large effect, whereas in more mature economies the same stimulus will have a much more muted effect. To usefully use that chart we'd need to ask a number of questions about the situation in country, for example Ireland shows a very significant increase as well, but a lot of that was the injection of European Union subsidy to fund infrastructure development, that did support some economic generation, but their economy has fallen quite significantly as the EU funding ended at around the same time as the global economic downturn was really kicking in.

With respect to pricing structures, that does depend on what we're talking about being manufactured. The cost of environmental regulation is only a small part of the cost of a product. In my experience the biggest cost driver is usually headcount, closely followed by the capital cost of infrastructure and the cost of finance.

Generally if I'm advising a professional client about an outsourcing or offshoring decision the main issues to think about are cost of personnel, cost of finance, cost of transport and the cost of control. Countries generally don't try to compete on the cost of their regulation, except in the financial services area where mobility can be quite high, although as we've seen the industry as a whole tends to be a little conservative. Dubai was emerging as a financial hub but when things got difficult and they looked vulnerable then there was a consolidation on London, New York and Singapore.

Anyway, as I see it your initial question has been answered, there is no specific economic theory that pertains to what you described. There are, however, a range of commercial and business operating theories that govern decision making.

ALR (talk) 14:33, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

After a brief WikiBreak, I might point out that free trade would be the economic condition that would most discourage companies from relocating business abroad. It is generally harder to work abroad than at home, and in many cases, more risky. Exporting is far easier and safer. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Hemidemisemiquaver

Please see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment#Hemidemisemiquaver. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

effect of monopoly power on price discrimination

In The Armchair Economist, Steven Landsburg considers why popcorn costs so much at the movies. He explains that the obvious answer is wrong, that is, cinemas don't charge because they have a captive audience. This strategy wouldn't work, because patrons know the price of popcorn anyway, and can include it in the cost of going to the movies. He suggests instead that this is an example of price discrimination - poor people will be happy to just see the movie, richer ones will pay for the enhanced experience of movie plus popcorn. The problem, in his estimation, is that this only works if there is a monopoly, so the retailer can set prices. Otherwise, a competing cinema could simply charge a bit less for the popcorn, and the same price for the movie. He uses the analogy of wheat pricing - farmers can't charge $2 a bushel for regular customers and $1 a bushel for senior citizens, because in the perfectly competitive market of wheat production, a rival could easily start selling for $1.90 a bushel to everyone, and take most of the market, minus the senior citizens.

I don't quite get this argument. I know it would work if there were no fixed costs, but everyone knows the cost of just opening a business is so high that it can run at a loss for several years as it recovers the cost of equipment. In the wheat example, if someone were to start giving a seniors discount, the assumption is that the sale price for each bushel is still above its marginal cost, but there is no assumption that $1.90 a bushel would be above the average cost, because this would depend on many factors, including the number of bushels sold. Competitors would drop their prices, destroying profits, and the one who started the price war might be the first to go bankrupt.

Can anyone tell me whether price discrimination in the form of expensive popcorn depends on monopoly power? The article on p.d. states that high fixed costs are a cause of price discrimination, even in the presence of competition, but it doesn't give any further details. Are the fixed costs for running a cinema unusually high, or is the cinema market best seen as mono/oligo-polistic? Thanks, It's been emotional (talk) 19:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

First, as I understand it, movie theaters only get a very small portion of ticket sales, and there is also an oversupply of theaters, such that most of the seats are empty for most showings. Thus, the theaters need to charge a lot for concessions to make any money. Therefore, no theater can offer cheap popcorn, or they would go out of business (there are exceptions for theaters which show non-first run movies, etc.).

Now, price discrimination is certainly more effective if you have a monopoly (or price fixing), but still works without it. Just offering the convenience of getting the popcorn there versus waiting until they get home or smuggling some in makes some people willing to pay the high prices, to avoid the inconvenience. StuRat (talk) 19:34, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I once read about this at howstuffworks.com -- theaters make almost no money off of the movies and almost all of their money off concessions. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 03:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the way to think about this is to consider a movie theater that has a counter that sells popcorn, but the movie theater also contains 2 competing, non-colluding popcorn vendors that are not owned by the movie theater. These vendors would compete in the normal fashion and popcorn prices would fall dramatically; and this was only possible because the movie theater abandoned its monopoly on the selling of popcorn within the theater. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:25, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

But maybe movie theaters don't assume that their patrons are completely rational. Factoring in the cost of popcorn before going to a movie sounds like a great example of something that people don't do, even though rational choice theory says they would. After all, marketing sweepstakes to sell soda and stuff make no rational sense: you'd prefer that the cost of the soda just be lower, rather than have a big contest with all the administrative overhead that entails. Unless you actually are aware of the relative popcorn prices of multiple theaters in your area, and think about that ahead of time, I'd say that each movie theater has its own sort-of monopoly on concessions by virtue of being aware of some simple cognitive biases. (By the way, why isn't there a rationality (economics) article?) Paul (Stansifer) 21:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

To that last question, clearly the economists have finally come to the realisation that there is no such thing --Polysylabic Pseudonym (talk) 07:24, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Price discrimination is difficult in markets with considerable competition for a number of reasons. In a perfectly competitive market the long-run price will equal the marginal cost of production. So if a firm was to price discriminate they would either need to sell some goods at above the market price (which would lead to nobody buying them) or below the market price (which would be lower than marginal cost, so they would be losing money on each sale. Obviously the assumptions of perfect competition are unrealistic, but they provide some insight as to why competition makes price discrimination difficult. Cinemas exhibit the common attributes of a natural monopoly, that is low marginal costs (getting another person into a cinema costs nothing but the price of printing the ticket and perhaps a bit more cleaning time) and high fixed costs (cinemas are expensive to build and maintain). It would stand to reason then that there is fairly limited competition in the cinema market of any area (and indeed in alot of places there is only one cinema within close proximity, often with many screens). This kind of price discrimination is similar to, say the Star Wars edition of Monopoly. Sure, it costs them a bit more to make and license it, but basically you are charging people a tonne more for the same thing. Popcorn costs almost nothing to make but they charge huge prices for it. It is effectively a method for a monopolist to capture a greater sellers surplus by selling tickets at a price that is below the price that would normally maximise their profit then making up the difference by selling popcorn to all those who can afford it. It doesn't exactly fit the textbook definition of price discrimination, but in a way, they are charging some people more for (essentially) the same service based on their willingess to pay.Jabberwalkee (talk) 09:33, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Also note that there is a huge price discrimination in the price of the movie, itself. That is, you can pay some $10 per person in the US to see it as a first-run release in a movie theater, or wait a couple months and have your whole family see it for under $1, at home, via Netflix, often with "extras". So, some families may be willing to pay 30 times or more to see it in theaters, but there's just so much more they could get away with charging before large numbers of people would choose to watch at home. StuRat (talk) 11:57, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

business law

i am 13 years old and i would like to know, what does a business lawyer do? thanks x —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pagedanny1234 (talk • contribs) 20:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The exact nature of their work will vary somewhat from one country (and system of laws and legal codes) to another. We have an article, Commercial law, which provides an introduction. If you wish to read more, many subtopics of business law are listed at Index of business law articles. See Contract, Tort and Corporate law. You might find Intellectual property and Property law interesting. Tax law is a specialty. In many countries, preparation for a career in business law requires Law school following a four year college undergraduate degree, then usually have to pass a Bar exam before being authorized to practice law. People with many types of undergraduate degree enter law school, but Pre-law is a particular course of preparation for later law study. Business lawyers (in the U.S.) may or may not go to court, in large firms, where there are specialized litigators. In very small firms or solo practices, one lawyer may do business law one day, and criminal law the next, defending someone against charges, but specialization is common. Edison (talk) 21:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Lots of business lawyers don't work in regular law firms or appear in court, but they work for an ordinary company (or own or run the company) and they take care of protecting the company from legal problems. They make sure that the way the company hires and fires people is legal, that the company complies with all the complicated financial reporting regulations and environmental regulations. And they write, read, argue about, check, and occasionally agree to contracts that the company gets into - they make sure that the contracts are favourable for the company (and yes, again that the contracts are legal). So if you were the business lawyer for a car company, you'd write the contract with the tire supplier, and you'd worry about what happens if the tires you ordered don't come on time (who pays for the delay - you built all those cars, but you can't sell them because they've got no tires), or about what happens if the tires explode and the car tips over on the freeway killing the people in it. You'd worry about what happens if the dealer staff go on strike, or if the delivery company sends the cars to the wrong dealers. And you'd worry about what company gets paid what, and when, and how much they don't get paid if something goes wrong. And because a lot of these things are negotiable, the business lawyers often take the lead in the negotiations. A really good, and really easy to read and understand, book about this subject is Mark McCormack's What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School. Although a lawyer by profession, McCormack worked as an agent for lots of very successful golfers and other sports players - he negotiated the sponsorship deals they had with sportswear companies. And he took care of clearing up if problems happened - what happened if a player was injured and couldn't show off the company's clothes on the golf course like he'd agreed to, or if a tennis player found that his sponsor's racquets didn't suit his style of play and wanted to change to another brand. Much of it isn't about lawsuits or threats of lawsuits, but about how he dealt with all the different companies and people and agents, and how he managed to fix things up so everyone got a deal that they were reasonably happy with. You should be able to find What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School at the library - in addition to being easy to read for normal people, it's also nice and short. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:52, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree it's an interesting read, but I didn't think of it as particularly pertaining to a law career. It's been a while, though. I agree with Finlay McWalter: in my experience, most of the work that's done by a business lawyer who works at a company is about contracts. The lawyer spends a lot of time reading these very long documents and imagining ways to poke holes in the logic. It's analytical work and requires some imagination and the ability to concentrate for a long time on detail that many others find mind-numbing. To randomly pick a contract, here is a software licensing contract between AT&T and the University of California (found on Groklaw). This is a really short contract (I'm surprised it's only 8 pages). Probably a general business agreement was reached between the business managers at AT&T and at the UC — those managers may or may not have been lawyers — and then the business lawyers employed by each side hammered out all of the details, and this contract is the result. Business lawyers do a lot of other work, but I think contracts must be far-and-away the most common employment for them. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

As someone a bit older, who is one of those [in a vague way], I'd suggest you figure out what you like to do. That's the most important. When I was 13 there's no way I would have known I'd want to be a lawyer. I wasn't in my 20s until I had that thought. Instead, figure out generally what it is you like. A good indication is, when you have free time, what do you like to do?

As a practical matter, very few people in the legal profession will ever describe their practice as "business law". The better distinction would be "transactional" and "litigation". If you like business, then take economics or some business version as a major. Pre-law is a waste; you don't need to know anything about the law before law school.

I'm analytical. I like computer programing, math, but I also like history and philosophy. Certain areas of law are perfect for that. Tax law, ERISA, etc. There are plenty of technical areas for lawyers that are incredibly rewarding intellectually. If that's something you're interested in, then you should go for it, but I wouldn't expect you to know it right now. The worst thing you could do is to make up your mind now, and never change it. Instead, right now, you should figure out what you like, what you do intellectually when you're bored. Those are the things that you'll want to do day in day out. Shadowjams (talk) 07:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Heir whatsoever?

An heir general is the heir according to male-preferance cognatic primogeniture and an heir male is the heir according to agnatic primogeniture, but what does heir whatsoever mean? For example, it is said that the Dukedom of Hamilton descends to the heirs male of the 1st Duke's eldest daughter and, if they all die out, to nearest heirs whatsoever of the 1st Duke. Who exactly would become Duke of Hamilton if all legitimate agnatic descendants of the 3rd Duchess die? Would nearest heir whatsoever mean geneaologically closest descendant of the 1st Duke (something like proximity of blood?

What does heir whatsoever mean anyway? Surtsicna (talk) 20:47, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The peerages were created with remainder to the heirs whatsoever of his body, which means that the titles can be passed on through both male and female lines.

This is what I've just read in a Wikipedia article. It suggests that heir whatsoever is actually heir general? Is that true? If it is, the Dukedom of Hamilton would pass to the heir general of the 3rd Duchess after the death of her last legitimate agnatic descendant, right? Surtsicna (talk) 20:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

There's a nice explanation here - it means the same as "heir", and was originally used in documents to more clearly distinguish this, general, use from other classes of heir. Judging by the eighteenth and nineteenth century legal texts referring to disputes over the term, it singularly failed in this aim. Warofdreams talk 10:42, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The way I read that last quote is that in this particular case "whatsoever" means "both sexes included", and "of the body" means "direct descendants only". "Whatsoever" seems to mean simply that "something that usually goes without saying does not apply". Could it be then that "nearest heirs whatsoever" in the Hamilton stipulation means males are not preferred, as opposed to "heirs general" among whom males would indeed be preferred? I should note that I am not a lawyer and most certainly not an expert in English or Scottish inheritance law.--Rallette (talk) 10:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)