Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 April 16

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April 16

Why do the phrases 'fat chance' and 'slim chance' both mean 'little chance'?

It seems like a bit of a linguistic contradiction. Perhaps the first phrase is said sarcastically, however.--In the midst of a dream (talk) 13:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Yep. You're onto it. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bu NBXCNKZHBVGXCJKZBHBJKzSBHxdJgsaMJHVZJTCF6MHAD6TQ7YGH23UK67AUYUI6A7STRG6 ATY3NFGA&^s&FDGHAVZSXCRTYUAUXDYCRA WSEIRSLFIYSAT7WEIVuisadhaWJDBWQGHDAGTIRAGRJVADJCFLA3GHRUI

gs|carrots]] 13:42, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there's any sarcasm involved. If there was, it would be possible to use 'fat chance' nonsarcastically to mean a large chance, but no such usage exists. Algebraist 14:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps such non-sarcastic usage is lost or archaic, and all that remains is the sarcastic usage? It wouldn't be the first orphaned phrase in our language. This is pure, 100%, unfounded speculation, however. APL (talk) 17:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Surely on that basis slim-chance is the 'real' saying and 'fat chance' is the sarcastic version of it? That's how i'd have read it anyways. ny156uk (talk) 16:19, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Try the language desk. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:19, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The OED says this use of fat started as a fat lot, meaning a lot, but always used ironically with the first quote A fat lot I care (i.e. I don't care) from 1892. Fat chance is first recorded in 1906. Slim has been used figuratively to mean slight or poor since the 1670s in the phrase slim benefit (i.e. very little benefit) and they quote a 1862 letter with the sentence The chances of your getting this [letter] are slim. meltBanana 23:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

This article, on the Massachusetts Negative Positive implies that similar usages, where one uses the negative to mean the positive in a completely non-ironic way, are common in certain dialects. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Cf "I could care less" and flammable. BrainyBabe (talk) 01:20, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Am I right to assume that you intentionally messed that up, since the correct phrase is, "I couldn't care less"? --Scray (talk) 01:39, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I wrote what I intended to. The phrase makes logical sense with "couldn't" but is very common with "could". (2.1 million google hits v 1.3m ghits.) Likewise, "flammable" and "inflammable" are used interchangeably. (6.3m v 5.6m) Prescriptivists can argue "correctness" as much as you wish; linguists tend to be descriptivists, and as such track usage. BrainyBabe (talk) 02:05, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I've been hearing "I could care less" to stand for "I couldn't care less" since the 1960s, and it didn't make sense then either. "Flammable" is a fake word made up to help those who confuse "Inflammable" with "Non-flammable". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 02:25, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Words which are used that commonly aren't "fake". Every word has to start somewhere, and once it has become part of the common lexicon, it doesn't really matter where it came from. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

"Coined" is probably the better term. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

In what way is the word fake? The online dictionaries I consulted say the known uses of the word goes back to (at least) 1813. 173.49.18.189 (talk) 09:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: Flammable and Inflammable were never opposites and one was not 'made up' to avoid confusion. The root words that make them up each have different meanings. You might say that the infected insect bite on your arm was "inflamed" - you'd never say it was "flamed". The difficulty is that the 'in' prefix has more than one sense. "Incompressible" means "Not compressible" but "Invigorated" doesn't mean "Not Vigorated", it means "Having Vigor"...which is why "Inflammable" means "Having Flammability" and not "Not Flammable" as some people naively expect. Certainly it's unfortunate - but that's what you get from having a language with so much richness and complexity that derives from so many other linguistic traditions. SteveBaker (talk) 22:15, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Although it's not made up, the word inflammable is generally discouraged when marking items etc to avoid confusion Nil Einne (talk) 11:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

To invigorate is to put vigor in; inflammable means something can be enflamed. The problem is that Latin has two prefixes īn– (cognate to English un–) and ĭn–, not distinguished in English. A fallible test is whether or not you can think of a cognate with en-, because high short vowels become mid vowels in Romance. —Tamfang (talk) 05:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Longest discussion page

Sometimes I enjoy reading the discussion page more than the article itself. Which Wikipedia article has the longest discussion page?83.104.128.107 (talk) 14:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Wikipedia records, Talk:Jesus has the "most archives of one Article talk page" (currently at 107 archived talk pages). But I don't claim this to be the final answer. The records page doesn't seem to be updated that frequently. The discipline "Biggest use of Article talk page" doesn't have an entry, currently. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:46, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The technical answer (i.e. the longest individual talk page) is Talk:Spanish Empire (646199 bytes) (or Talk:Ukrainian Insurgent Army/Archive 02 (1534002 bytes) including archives themselves). I can't load that page at the moment, but I'm assuming that it's because that page has never been archived. I know, useless stats, but there you go. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 16:06, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Disraeli didn't go far enough. What he should have said was: There are four kinds of lies - lies, damned lies, statistics, and useless statistics.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 20:04, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Historical value of sterling

Does anybody know how much £3,500 in 1974, would be worth in today's sterling value? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.50.3 (talk) 14:43, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

This site (http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/result.php?use%5B%5D=CPI&use%5B%5D=NOMINALEARN&year_late=1974&typeamount=3500&amount=3500&year_source=1974&year_result=2009) Suggests that £3,500 in 1974 is the equivilent of around £26,000 (using Retail Price Index) and £42,000 (using Average earnings). ny156uk (talk) 16:23, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Gunshot wounds

Are there places on the body where you be shot with minimal effect (blood loss, organ damage)? Also, what is the record number of gunshot wounds that a victim has survived? I'm not planning to shoot anyone, if that's what you're thinking. This question was inspired by Sydney Bristow being shot on Alias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.60.28.57 (talk) 17:42, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's true that YOU are not about to use any information gathered here to shoot anyone - BUT - how can we - or YOU - be sure that there isn't a nutter out there who might use such information at some time in the future? Maybe you should just experiment on yourself and tell us what happened?92.23.148.223 (talk) 18:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

92.23. Wikiepdia's reference desk is about distributing already existing information. The danger you describe does not exist. There is no reason not to answer this person's question. APL (talk) 18:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Does Amy Winehouse's beehive count?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Joseph Guzman survived either 16 or 19 shots in the Sean Bell shooting incident. Clarityfiend (talk) 18:39, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's a brief article on the topic. Not exactly what you were asking, but I hope it helps. APL (talk) 18:43, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

It would also depend how you define "gunshot wound". When Dick Cheney peppered Harry Whittington he inflicted something on the order of 200 wounds, but that's nothing compared to the nine wounds inflicted on 50 Cent. LANTZY^TALK 18:49, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

That is true, there is going to be a major difference in the amount of blood drawn between getting hit with a .22 used to shoot rabbits vs a .50 cal in the same spot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.121.141.34 (talk) 18:54, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Though there is a lot more to it than calibre. A .22 MIGHT leave a small hole, hit no organs, and go right in and out. OR it might travel along your bones, unable to escape your body, and tear you all up inside. In which case some larger calibre weapons might actually do less damage, as they'll just punch a simple hole in you. Anyway... bullet wounds are fairly complicated. There are elaborate forensic anthropology books that describe all of the many ways in which you can die from them quite well. At the same time there are those rare people who manage to get a dozen bullets inside them but survive anyway, and those people who get shot from some stray, low-power .22 and are dead on the spot. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

It is in relation to energy. A .50cal is going about 3x faster then the .22 and is a lot more weight, so the energy is at least an order of magnitude higher. All else being equal, You are better off getting hit with less energy. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 14:52, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Safer places to be shot would be in the hair, or toenail, at least some part of the body that is dead (like an artificial leg) Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm getting an immense sense of dejavu with this answer... ;-) Gosh darn it someone removed the duplicate post making my comment look silly now... grrrrr hehe Gazhiley (talk) 08:24, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Isn't the foot the traditional place to shoot yourself if you want to get out of a draft? Of course you might be permanently damaged by such an act. As a semi-related question, what is the penalty for a mother, say, shooting her son in the foot on purpose to get him out of a war? If the son didn't know she was going to do it? Is the mother guilty of cowardice or whatever the charge is? TastyCakes (talk) 14:59, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Assault would be the charge, but I believe that in most jurisdictions the son would have to make a complaint. Perhaps the Humanities desk would know if there was a specific wartime crime for "doing something to keep someone else out of the war". I'm sure some jurisdiction had such a rule. By the way the chief advantage of the foot as one's target was that it could plausibly be an accident, and it was disabling. --Polysylabic Pseudonym (talk) 20:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I know of a possible record for surviving gunshot wounds - Wenseslao Moguel see [1] was supposedly shot ten times (including in the head) by a firing squad but survived. There's a good song about him too. Smartse (talk) 16:39, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's an interesting case of a woman who was shot in the head with a moderate sized round (.380) the other day. An excellent example of the truly random nature of gunshots. Tobyc75 (talk) 15:45, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Chris Burden had someone shoot him in the left arm, which seems like a good place if you are just trying to get shot FOR ART and not be disabled or anything. Recury (talk) 19:59, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Which state has the most boats?

Which state, in the USA, has the most boats? - Vikramkr (talk) 22:07, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

As of 2002, the answer was Michigan, if you're counting registered recreational vessels. It is the only state with more than a million. Listed below are the top twenty states ranked by number of boats registered in 2002. Some surprising things about this list: Pennsylvania and Tennessee are in the top twenty, but no New England state is. A list of all oceangoing vessels or all merchant vessels would probably look a lot different, but I can't find such a list.

1. Michigan 1,003,947

2. California 957,463

3. Florida 902,964

4. Minnesota 826,048

5. Texas 621,244

6. Wisconsin 575,920

7. New York 526,190

8. Ohio 414,658

9. South Carolina 382,072

10. Illinois 369,626

11. Pennsylvania 359,525

12. North Carolina 353,560

13. Missouri 335,521

14. Georgia 327,026

15. Louisiana 322,779

16. Mississippi 300,970

17. Alabama 262,016

18. Washington 260,335

19. Tennessee 256,670

20. Virginia 240,509

These statistics come from the National Marine Manufacturers Association, via this news article. LANTZY^TALK 00:11, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Can Cubans legally emigrate from Cuba?

Does Cuba allow its citizens to legally leave the country? - Vikramkr (talk) 22:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Our article: Human rights in Cuba says that not only is emigration illegal in Cuba - but even discussing emigration will land you in jail for six months. Hence the people taking phenomenal risks to get to the US on tiny little rafts, etc, etc. SteveBaker (talk) 02:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Wet feet, dry feet policy discusses a 20,000 per year quota admitted into the U.S. and mentions U.S. negotiations with Cuba over the matter. The article isn't very clear on who these 20,000 a year are or if Cuba actively participates. Rmhermen (talk) 03:17, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Also see Mariel boatlift. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Weren't a lot of those folks criminals that Cuba was cynically sending our way just so they wouldn't have to deal with them anymore? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

"Sending our way"? Does Wikipedia now accept immigrants? BrainyBabe (talk) 12:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, the servers are based in Florida, so the rafts are in a sense floating in our direction. LANTZY^TALK 13:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Not only that, many of them went on to become system engineers here. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

The servers were moved to San Fransisco a while back, if I recall correctly. ~AH1^(TCU) 00:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)