text:
Chinese dominoes

Chinese dominoes are used in several tile-based games, namely, tien gow, pai gow, tiu u and kap tai shap. In Cantonese they are called, which literally means "bone tiles"; it is also the name of a northern Chinese game, where the rules are quite different from the southern Chinese version of tien gow.

History
Ming author Xie Zhaozhe (1567–1624) records the legend of dominoes having been presented to Song Emperor Huizong in 1112. However the contemporary Li Qingzhao (1084 – c. 1155) made no mention of dominoes in her compendium of games.

In China, early "domino" tiles were functionally identical to playing cards. An identifiable version of Chinese dominoes developed in the 12th or 13th century.

The oldest confirmed written mention of dominoes in China comes from the Former Events in Wulin (i.e. the capital Hangzhou) written by the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) author Zhou Mi (1232–1298), who listed "pupai" (gambling plaques or dominoes) as well as dice as items sold by peddlers during the reign of Song Emperor Xiaozong ((r. 1162 – 1189)). Andrew Lo asserts that Zhou Mi meant dominoes when referring to pupai, since the Ming author Lu Rong (1436–1494) explicitly defined pupai as dominoes (in regards to a story of a suitor who won a maiden's hand by drawing out four winning pupai from a set). Tiles dating from the 12th to 14th centuries have survived. Unlike most modern tiles they are white with black and red pips.

The earliest known manual written about dominoes is the Manual of the Xuanhe Period (《宣和牌譜》) written by Qu You (1341–1427), but some Chinese scholars believe this manual is a forgery from a later time. In the Encyclopedia of a Myriad of Treasures, Zhang Pu (1602–1641) described the game of laying out dominoes as pupai, although the character for pu had changed, yet retained a similar pronunciation.

During the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the suits known as "Chinese" and "barbarian" were renamed to "civil" and "military" respectively to avoid offending the ruling Manchus. Tiles with blank ends, like those found in Western "double-six" dominoes, once existed during the 17th century. These games employed two sets of "double-six" tiles. It is possible that these were the types of dominoes that made it to Europe the following century. However, the 32-piece Chinese domino set, made to represent each possible face of two thrown dice and thus have no blank faces, differs from the 28-piece domino set found in the West during the mid 18th century. Chinese dominoes with blank faces were known during the 17th century. Each domino originally represented one of the 21 results of throwing two six-sided dice (2d6). One half of each domino is set with the pips from one die and the other half contains the pips from the second die. Chinese sets also introduce duplicates of some throws and divide the tiles into two suits: military and civil. Chinese dominoes are also longer than typical European ones.

Traditional Chinese domino games include Tien Gow, Pai Gow, Che Deng, and others.

Deck composition and ranking
Each tile pattern in the Chinese domino set is equivalent to a single outcome when two six-sided dice are thrown. Each combination is only used once, so there are 21 unique possible patterns. Eleven of these 21 unique patterns are repeated to make a total of 32 tiles in a Chinese dominoes set. The 32-tile set is divided into two "suits" or groups called "military" and "civil". There are no markings on the tiles to distinguish these suits; a player must simply remember which tiles belong to which group. There are two each of the eleven civil suit tiles (6-6, 1-1, 4-4, 1-3, 5-5, 3-3, 2-2, 5-6, 4-6, 1-6, 1-5) and one each of the ten military suit tiles (3-6, 4-5; 2-6, 3-5; 2-5, 3-4; 2-4; 1-4, 2-3; 1-2).

Civil suit
Each civil tile also has a Chinese name (and common rough translation to English):
 * 6-6 is tin (天 heaven)
 * 1-1 is dei (地 earth)
 * 4-4 is yan (人 man)
 * 1-3 is ngo (鵝 goose or 和 harmony)
 * 5-5 is mui (梅 plum flower)
 * 3-3 is cheung (長 long)
 * 2-2 is ban (板 board)
 * 5-6 is fu (斧 hatchet)
 * 4-6 is ping (屏 partition)
 * 1-6 is tsat (七 long leg seven)
 * 1-5 is luk (六 big head six)

The civil tiles are ranked according to the Chinese cultural significance of the tile names, and must be memorized. The hendiatris of Three talents (天地人) dates back for over two thousand years while the harmony (和) of the three have been in dice and domino games since at least the Ming dynasty. Remembering the suits and rankings of the tiles is easier if one understands the Chinese names of the tiles and the symbolism behind them.

Military suit
The military tiles are named and ranked according to the total pips or points on the tiles. For example, the "nines" (3-6 and 4-5) rank higher than the "eights" (2-6 and 3-5). The rankings of the individual tiles are similar in most games. However, the ranking of combinations of tiles is slightly different in Pai Gow and Tien Gow.

Since there is only one of each military tile, these are usually grouped in four mixed "pairs" of equivalent total points: nines, eights, sevens, and fives; for example, the 3-6 and 4-5 tiles "match" because they have same total points (nine) and both are in the military suit. Among the military tiles, individual tiles of the same pair rank equally, such as 1-4 and 2-3, each totaling five.

The 2-4 (six) and 1-2 (three) military tiles also are paired together in many games despite the nominal difference in total points. They are the only tiles in the entire set that have no corresponding tile in the military suit, considering sums. In Pai Gow both of these tiles may be scored as three or six, depending on which is more advantageous. This pair when played together is considered a suit on its own, called the gi jun (至尊 supreme). It is the highest ranking pair in the game of Pai Gow, though the tiles rank low individually (in their normal order). When either tile of this pair is played individually in the game of Tien Gow, each takes its regular ranking according to the total points among the other military suit tiles.

Physical characteristics
Stewart Culin stated that traditional dominoes are made of Chinese ebony with measurements of 2+5/8 in long, 7/8 in wide, and 3/8 in thick.

Values are marked with white and red pips. Using the same coloring scheme as traditional Chinese dice, every half-domino with 1 or 4 pips has those pips colored red; for example, the 4-5 domino has four red pips and five white pips. The only exception is the pair of 6-6 tiles. Half of the pips on the 6-6 domino are colored red to make them stand out as the top ranking tiles.

Typically, one of the short edges is marked with a single red pip, and the backs may be marked with three pips, arrayed diagonally white-red-white.

Variants
There are also sets with where the tiles have Xiangqi characters next to the pips. As Xiangqi also has 32 pieces, these dual use sets can be used to play Giog.

Variant sets include the Digging Flowers (挖花) game, which use the same 21 patterns generated by the 2d6 combination; some tiles have flowers or frames printed on them while others have their values duplicated. In addition, a Digging Flowers set may include several bonus tiles from mahjong, including flower, season, and blank tiles.

Dominoes from Korea also come in a set of 32 and bear markings schematically identical to Chinese dominoes, based on the throw of two dice, although the tiles are closer in size and shape to those used in mahjong, measuring 3/4 ×, and the pip size may vary, especially for the 1- and 4-pip halves. The pairings for the "military" suit also differ: 1-2 and 4-5; 1-4 and 2-3, 2-4 and 3-4, 2-5 and 3-5, and 2-6 and 3-6.

Chinese Dominoes may also appear in a card format (zh:纸骨牌). 15 Lake Cards have the 21 patterns (from the 2d6 combinations) quadruplicated to form an 84-card deck. Si Chuan Cards may have the 21 patterns plus two additional cards (the "listen - use" and the "god of wealth") duplicated up to 5 times to form a 115-card deck.

Bone tiles game
The eponymous game of Bone Tiles (gǔpái in Mandarin) is played in northern and central China and as far south as Hunan. The name suggests that it is or became the default game played with dominoes in those regions. It is a trick-taking game similar to Tien Gow but has been simplified. In single-tile tricks, the civil and military suits have been merged into a single suit. In double-tile tricks, there is a new ranking order similar to Pai Gow. Triple-tile and quadruple-tile tricks are not allowed as in older versions of Tien Gow. Scoring has been simplified to number of stacks won.

title: Chinese dominoes


text:
Cenozoic

The Cenozoic (lit. 'new life') is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, birds, conifers, and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three geological eras, preceded by the Mesozoic and Paleozoic. The Cenozoic started with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, when many species, including the non-avian dinosaurs, became extinct in an event attributed by most experts to the impact of a large asteroid or other celestial body, the Chicxulub impactor.

The Cenozoic is also known as the Age of Mammals because the terrestrial animals that dominated both hemispheres were mammals – the eutherians (placentals) in the northern hemisphere and the metatherians (marsupials, now mainly restricted to Australia and to some extent South America) in the southern hemisphere. The extinction of many groups allowed mammals and birds to greatly diversify so that large mammals and birds dominated life on Earth. The continents also moved into their current positions during this era.

The climate during the early Cenozoic was warmer than today, particularly during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. However, the Eocene to Oligocene transition and the Quaternary glaciation dried and cooled Earth.

Nomenclature
Cenozoic derives from the Greek words kainós ( 'new') and zōḗ ( 'life'). The name was proposed in 1840 by the British geologist John Phillips (1800–1874), who originally spelled it Kainozoic. The era is also known as the Cænozoic, Caenozoic, or Cainozoic.

In name, the Cenozoic (lit. 'new life') is comparable to the preceding Mesozoic ('middle life') and Paleozoic ('old life') Eras, as well as to the Proterozoic ('earlier life') Eon.

Divisions
The Cenozoic is divided into three periods: the Paleogene, Neogene, and Quaternary; and seven epochs: the Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene. The Quaternary Period was officially recognised by the International Commission on Stratigraphy in June 2009. In 2004, the Tertiary Period was officially replaced by the Paleogene and Neogene Periods. The common use of epochs during the Cenozoic helps palaeontologists better organise and group the many significant events that occurred during this comparatively short interval of time. Knowledge of this era is more detailed than any other era because of the relatively young, well-preserved rocks associated with it.

Paleogene
The Paleogene spans from the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, 66 million years ago, to the dawn of the Neogene, 23.03 million years ago. It features three epochs: the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene.

The Paleocene Epoch lasted from 66 million to 56 million years ago. Modern placental mammals originated during this time. The devastation of the K–Pg extinction event included the extinction of large herbivores, which permitted the spread of dense but usually species-poor forests. The Early Paleocene saw the recovery of Earth. The continents began to take their modern shape, but all the continents and the subcontinent of India were separated from each other. Afro-Eurasia was separated by the Tethys Sea, and the Americas were separated by the strait of Panama, as the isthmus had not yet formed. This epoch featured a general warming trend, with jungles eventually reaching the poles. The oceans were dominated by sharks as the large reptiles that had once predominated were extinct. Archaic mammals filled the world such as creodonts (extinct carnivores, unrelated to existing Carnivora).

The Eocene Epoch ranged from 56 million years to 33.9 million years ago. In the Early-Eocene, species living in dense forest were unable to evolve into larger forms, as in the Paleocene. Among them were early primates, whales and horses along with many other early forms of mammals. At the top of the food chains were huge birds, such as Paracrax. Carbon dioxide levels were approximately 1,400 ppm. The temperature was 30 degrees Celsius with little temperature gradient from pole to pole. In the Mid-Eocene, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current between Australia and Antarctica formed. This disrupted ocean currents worldwide and as a result caused a global cooling effect, shrinking the jungles. This allowed mammals to grow to mammoth proportions, such as whales which, by that time, had become almost fully aquatic. Mammals like Andrewsarchus were at the top of the food-chain. The Late Eocene saw the rebirth of seasons, which caused the expansion of savanna-like areas, along with the evolution of grasses. The end of the Eocene was marked by the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, the European face of which is known as the Grande Coupure.

The Oligocene Epoch spans from 33.9 million to 23.03 million years ago. The Oligocene featured the expansion of grasslands which had led to many new species to evolve, including the first elephants, cats, dogs, marsupials and many other species still prevalent today. Many other species of plants evolved in this period too. A cooling period featuring seasonal rains was still in effect. Mammals still continued to grow larger and larger.

Neogene
The Neogene spans from 23.03 million to 2.58 million years ago. It features 2 epochs: the Miocene, and the Pliocene.

The Miocene Epoch spans from 23.03 to 5.333 million years ago and is a period in which grasses spread further, dominating a large portion of the world, at the expense of forests. Kelp forests evolved, encouraging the evolution of new species, such as sea otters. During this time, perissodactyla thrived, and evolved into many different varieties. Apes evolved into 30 species. The Tethys Sea finally closed with the creation of the Arabian Peninsula, leaving only remnants as the Black, Red, Mediterranean and Caspian Seas. This increased aridity. Many new plants evolved: 95% of modern seed plants families were present by the end of the Miocene.

The Pliocene Epoch lasted from 5.333 to 2.58 million years ago. The Pliocene featured dramatic climatic changes, which ultimately led to modern species of flora and fauna. The Mediterranean Sea dried up for several million years (because the ice ages reduced sea levels, disconnecting the Atlantic from the Mediterranean, and evaporation rates exceeded inflow from rivers). Australopithecus evolved in Africa, beginning the human branch. The isthmus of Panama formed, and animals migrated between North and South America during the great American interchange, wreaking havoc on local ecologies. Climatic changes brought: savannas that are still continuing to spread across the world; Indian monsoons; deserts in central Asia; and the beginnings of the Sahara desert. The world map has not changed much since, save for changes brought about by the glaciations of the Quaternary, such as the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Baltic Sea.

Quaternary
The Quaternary spans from 2.58 million years ago to present day, and is the shortest geological period in the Phanerozoic Eon. It features modern animals, and dramatic changes in the climate. It is divided into two epochs: the Pleistocene and the Holocene.

The Pleistocene lasted from 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago. This epoch was marked by ice ages as a result of the cooling trend that started in the Mid-Eocene. There were at least four separate glaciation periods marked by the advance of ice caps as far south as 40° N in mountainous areas. Meanwhile, Africa experienced a trend of desiccation which resulted in the creation of the Sahara, Namib, and Kalahari deserts. Many animals evolved including mammoths, giant ground sloths, dire wolves, sabre-toothed cats, and Homo sapiens. 100,000 years ago marked the end of one of the worst droughts in Africa, and led to the expansion of primitive humans. As the Pleistocene drew to a close, a major extinction wiped out much of the world's megafauna, including some of the hominid species, such as Neanderthals. All the continents were affected, but Africa to a lesser extent. It still retains many large animals, such as hippos.

The Holocene began 11,700 years ago and lasts to the present day. All recorded history and "the Human history" lies within the boundaries of the Holocene Epoch. Human activity is blamed for a mass extinction that began roughly 10,000 years ago, though the species becoming extinct have only been recorded since the Industrial Revolution. This is sometimes referred to as the "Sixth Extinction". It is often cited that over 322 recorded species have become extinct due to human activity since the Industrial Revolution, but the rate may be as high as 500 vertebrate species alone, the majority of which have occurred after 1900.

Tectonics
Geologically, the Cenozoic is the era when the continents moved into their current positions. Australia-New Guinea, having split from Pangea during the early Cretaceous, drifted north and, eventually, collided with Southeast Asia; Antarctica moved into its current position over the South Pole; the Atlantic Ocean widened and, later in the era (2.8 million years ago), South America became attached to North America with the isthmus of Panama.

India collided with Asia creating the Himalayas; Arabia collided with Eurasia, closing the Tethys Ocean and creating the Zagros Mountains, around.

The break-up of Gondwana in Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic times led to a shift in the river courses of various large African rivers including the Congo, Niger, Nile, Orange, Limpopo and Zambezi.

Climate
In the Cretaceous, the climate was hot and humid with lush forests at the poles, there was no permanent ice and sea levels were around 300 metres higher than today. This continued for the first 10 million years of the Paleocene, culminating in the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum about. Around Earth entered a period of long term cooling. This was mainly due to the collision of India with Eurasia, which caused the rise of the Himalayas: the upraised rocks eroded and reacted with in the air, causing a long-term reduction in the proportion of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Around permanent ice began to build up on Antarctica. The cooling trend continued in the Miocene, with relatively short warmer periods. When South America became attached to North America creating the Isthmus of Panama around, the Arctic region cooled due to the strengthening of the Humboldt and Gulf Stream currents, eventually leading to the glaciations of the Quaternary ice age, the current interglacial of which is the Holocene Epoch. Recent analysis of the geomagnetic reversal frequency, oxygen isotope record, and tectonic plate subduction rate, which are indicators of the changes in the heat flux at the core mantle boundary, climate and plate tectonic activity, shows that all these changes indicate similar rhythms on million years' timescale in the Cenozoic Era occurring with the common fundamental periodicity of ~13 Myr during most of the time. The levels of carbonate ions in the ocean fell over the course of the Cenozoic.

Life
Early in the Cenozoic, following the K-Pg event, the planet was dominated by relatively small fauna, including small mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. From a geological perspective, it did not take long for mammals and birds to greatly diversify in the absence of the dinosaurs that had dominated during the Mesozoic. Some flightless birds grew larger than humans. These species are sometimes referred to as "terror birds", and were formidable predators. Mammals came to occupy almost every available niche (both marine and terrestrial), and some also grew very large, attaining sizes not seen in most of today's terrestrial mammals. The ranges of many Cenozoic bird clades were governed by latitude and temperature and have contracted over the course of this era as the world cooled.

During the Cenozoic, mammals proliferated from a few small, simple, generalised forms into a diverse collection of terrestrial, marine, and flying animals, giving this period its other name, the Age of Mammals. The Cenozoic is just as much the age of savannas, the age of co-dependent flowering plants and insects, and the age of birds. Grasses also played a very important role in this era, shaping the evolution of the birds and mammals that fed on them. One group that diversified significantly in the Cenozoic as well were the snakes. Evolving in the Cenozoic, the variety of snakes increased tremendously, resulting in many colubrids, following the evolution of their current primary prey source, the rodents.

In the earlier part of the Cenozoic, the world was dominated by the gastornithid birds, terrestrial crocodiles like Pristichampsus, large sharks such as Otodus, and a handful of primitive large mammal groups like uintatheres, mesonychians, and pantodonts. But as the forests began to recede and the climate began to cool, other mammals took over.

The Cenozoic is full of mammals both strange and familiar, including chalicotheres, creodonts, whales, primates, entelodonts, sabre-toothed cats, mastodons and mammoths, three-toed horses, giant rhinoceros like Paraceratherium, the rhinoceros-like brontotheres, various bizarre groups of mammals from South America, such as the vaguely elephant-like pyrotheres and the dog-like marsupial relatives called borhyaenids and the monotremes and marsupials of Australia. Mammal evolution in the Cenozoic was predominantly shaped by climatic and geological processes.

Cenozoic calcareous nannoplankton experienced rapid rates of speciation and reduced species longevity, while suffering prolonged declines in diversity during the Eocene and Neogene. Diatoms, in contrast, experienced major diversification over the Eocene, especially at high latitudes, as the world's oceans cooled. Diatom diversification was particularly concentrated at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. A second major pulse of diatom diversification occurred over the course of the Middle and Late Miocene.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Cenozoic


text:
Talk:Chinese dominoes

Untitled
I understand the games, but I've seen each of these Chinese terms spelled many ways, and I know nothing about proper transliteration of Chinese. I would appreciate it if someone (we do have at least one Wikipedian who seems to know this well) would edit this to make all the transliterations consistent. I believe the Cantonese names are the most commonly used in American casinos (I only know about the tiles from Pai Gow), but I imagine Mandarin Tien Gow players might use different ones. --LDC

Since Tien Gow and Pai Gow are games mostly played in southern China, the terms used should be transliterated according to the Cantonese dialect. In Hong Kong, the game of Tien Gow is refered to as Tin Kau in official papers; Pai Pow is refered to as Pai Kau. And you already know what American Casinos use. It is impossible to unify the spelling because I don't know if there is any formal transliteration standards for Cantonese.

I know that Mandarin has at least three very formal transliteration standards known as Pinyin (Mainland China), Zhuyin (Taiwan) and Wade-Giles systems (historical). Many well known old words were transliterated using the Wade-Giles system developed in the 19th century. That explains the different spellings of Peking vs. Beijing and Ching Dynasty vs. Qing Dynasty etc. As long as every reader understands that all these terms are written phonetically, then they need not insist on consistent spelling.

The Chinese dominoes are used in northern Chinese games also. Gwat Pai is an example. If we go by its local name, then we should transliterate it to Goo Pai in Mandarin or something else in Hu-nan dialect. But then one may argue that Gwat Pai should be used just to be consistent with other Cantonese on the same page. Who decides what is right? If these pages are transliterated in Cantonese, the Mandarin speaking readers will object. Same case vice versa. There are countless dialects used in China, and most Chinese games are regional and their terms are expressed usually in local dialects. We can never please everyone at once. You'll have inconsistency whatever you pick. If this is a book, the author decides whatever he likes. But this Wikipedia is co-authored by writers around the world. What should be the standard or policy?

In my opinion, we should not put too much effort in formal transliteration due to all the controversy mentioned above. Besides, how many westerners really know Pinyin or how to pronounce Qing and Xing correctly?

Instead I would suggest that we can add links to dictionary entries that present the Chinese terms graphically and audibly. Such external references would eliminate any confusions.

Try the following links http://charts.unicode.org/unihan/unihan.acgi$0x5929 Tien and http://charts.unicode.org/unihan/unihan.acgi$0x4E5D Gow to see them in Chinese writing. Try http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/canton-new.pl?query=%a4%d1# Tien and http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/canton-new.pl?query=%a4%45# Gow to listen to how the words are pronounced in Cantonese. Try http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%a4%d1&category=wholerecord# Tain and http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%a4%45&category=wholerecord# Jiu to listen to the same two words in Mandarin.

''To our Chinese scholar above, while I agree that convtroversy is inevitable, I disagree that we should therefore give up. I've seen, for example, 3 or 4 spellings of "Gee Joon"/"Jee Joon"/"Gee June". I usually use "Gee Joon" because that's the name of the Chinese restaurant in Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas, but I otherwise have no clue. If we could at least settle on a few spellings for things like this (and tile names like "cheong"/"chong", "luk"/"look", etc.), WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THESE ARTICLES, then at least they'd be more searchable and easier to cross-reference with related articles, and we'd have a reliable system of naming the pages an creating links. If that annoys some Mandarin speakers, tough. Let them create Mandarin redirects into the Cantonese-named pages.''

 * I spelled the word inconsistently because I myself do not know a consistent transliteration method for Cantonese. I basically transliterate on the fly.  It is not the case for an English speaking writer.  For example, you know the word "Gee Joon" by its spelling hence you spell it the same way everytime.  For me, I know the word by its sound, so I may not spell it the same way everytime.

 * Other reason why the results differ everytime is that there is no one-to-one mapping of the Cantonese sounds to the English language. If I were a scholar who use a formal system, then my transliteration may be more consistent.  But I just pick an English spelling that sounds closest to the original.  For example, the Gee in Gee June sounds between G, J and Z.  I am not a linguist, and I sometimes pick J and something pick G.  I believe this problem is not unique to me, if you look around in Las Vegas, you'll probably see inconsistent Chinese transliterations from casino to casino.  As I pointed out earlier, the Hong Kong government uses a different spelling from American Casinos. Try an experiment, click this link http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/canton-new.pl?query=%a4%45# Gow and listen to the pronounciation.  Transliterate the best you can and ask someone else to read it back to you.  Just notice how different the original sound and the transliterated sound are. In your example, Luk vs. Look, both are incorrectly because the pronounciation of SIX does not have the K sound.  So to be precise, the pronounciation is Look in the sixth tone but drop the K ending sound.  However, if you write it as Loo, you get the sound as in Loose.

 * Another issue is the common spelling vs. systemetic spellings. The research project at the Chinese University of Hong Kong has come up with a very systemetic way for http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton2/syllabary phonetic notation in Cantonese. For example, Tien Gow should be spelled as Tin1 Gau2 in the phonetic system. If one adopts the formal spelling, then many readers who are used to the common spelling will found the text difficult to read.  If we use the common spelling, then we need to face the problem of multiple versions of common spelling for the same word.

 * I agree with you that there is a need to unify the spelling for easy search and wiki linking. But the issue of multiple-authoring still exists.  I can change all the spelling in a consistent way within my pages, but then another author would add some text differently.  So I think the "write first, clean up later" approach is necessary here.

LDC,

I disagree with your changes in this page. You have been changing the ranking of the 2-4 tile incorrectly. 2-4 is a six, 1-2 is a three, they are never ranked the same as you have indicated. In the game of Pai Gow, tiles are always played in pairs, hence the ranking of individual tiles is never come into consideration except to decide the ranking of civilian pairs. Since 2-4 and 1-2 are military tiles, their ranking are based on number of points, as in 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 3 in the game of Tien Gow. Again, the ranking of these two individual tiles are irrelevant in the game of Pai Gow because they will never be played individually and when they are played together they become Gee June.

''You're right--I just looked up as many references as I could find, and my understanding of Pai Gow was wrong. The Pai Gow hand (1-4 2-4) does in fact beat the hand (2-3 1-2); I previously thought they were tied, because they both count 8 (under the "wild card" rule), and the "five" tile is the higer ranking tile in each pair, and those tiles tie (individual ranks are used to break ties). But the 2-4 does in fact outrank the 2-3, so it wins. Thanks for forcing me to look that up.''

I hope you didn't lose money at the Pai Gow table due to the misunderstanding of the game rules. The playing strategy changes when the rules are different. I don't know Pai Gow that well. However, your example does not illustrates the tie-breaking rule clearly. (1-4 2-4) results in a ONE (11 mod 10), (2-3 1-2) results in an EIGHT according to my rule where the 2-4 is counted as a SIX; the tie breaking rule does not apply. But they tie according to yours where the 2-4 is counted as a THREE.

''OK, then I'm still unclear about the precise rank of the 2-4 tile with respect to the fives in Pai Gow. Are you saying that it ranks as a three when played as a three, but as a six when played as a six (and presumably the same for the 1-2 tile)? Fortunately, this rule never influences the strategy of the game, since the only way the rank of 2-4 would matter is if it were the higher tile; that can only happen with a five or 1-2, and in either case the tile would never be played as a six--with a five it would always be played as a three, and with 1-2 it's a pair. So it's not possible that I've lost any money by not understanding the rule. Indeed, I've never seen it come into play. But I do want to get it right. Of course I've lost money at this game for many other reasons (like Martinis:-).''

 * You are the expert in Pai Gow. I never spent a penny on Pai Gow gambling.  i.e. I have never paid my tuition.  So I cannot speak with authority.

 * My understanding is that the 2-4 is always played as a SIX, the 1-2 is always played as a THREE. In other words, the ranking order is 6, 5, 3, same as in Tien Gow.  I didn't know the two tiles are interchangable (wildcard rule) until you mentioned it.  You are the expert, you tell me!

 * Some casino webpage says the 2-4 is ranked as a SIX. Some casino webpage says the 2-4 and 1-2 are lowest in ranking (i.e both always a THREE as ranking) and they can interchange (play as SIX or THREE).  I guess the house rules are different from casino to casino.

 * Whatever the outcome of this discussion, we only settle on the exception rule in the game of Pai Gow. However the ranking of the domino set should go by the rule of thumb, rank by its points.  I am glad that you have changed the webpage to reflect the general rule.  I don't object if you emphasize the difference in Pai Gow ranking if you can confirm what it actually is.

I have zero familiarity with Chinese dominoes, but I do have a question: The article right now says that "The tile set contains two each of eleven civilian suit tiles (6-6, 1-1, 4-4, 1-3, 5-5, 3-3, 2-2, 5-6, 4-6, 1-6, 1-5) and one each of ten military suit tiles (3-6, 4-5; 2-6, 3-5; 2-5, 3-4; 2-4; 1-4, 2-3; 1-2)." It further says that for the civilian tiles that the order given is the traditional order (for lack of a better term). Is the same also strictly true for the military tiles (i.e. do I break the traditional listing order by, using the nines as an example, putting 4-5 and then 3-6)?
 * The civilian suit tiles are listed in the traditional ranking order, e.g. 6-6 beats 1-1, 1-1 beats 4-4 etc. The number of pips on the tiles plays no role in the ranking. The military suit tiles are ranked according to the total pips on the tiles. i.e. the 9s beat the 8s, the 8s beat the 7s etc.  For any piece in equal rank, the tile played first beat the tile that follows. Hence, 4-5, 3-6 and 3-6, 4-5 are both valid order. Note the use of semi-colon and comma in the list.  Kowloonese 17:42, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I think I understand the reason for the order now. 67.10.111.125 03:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC) (Forgot the tildes when I first asked)

Chinese domino
Its a good 197.229.3.159 (talk) 14:32, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

External resource for Chinese Dominoes
Is it according to Wikipedia policies to add this as an external resource? https://gupai.wordpress.com/ I acknowledge that this is my creation, but this is not a blog, but a website, I combined information from many sources, included some games which do not exist on other places and tried to present information in a simple way for Chinese Dominoes newcomers. Navpil (talk) 09:15, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: ESL Workshop
— Assignment last updated by Oumashu04 (talk) 14:08, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Chinese dominoes


text:
Talk:Comic strip

SYSTEM FZDGDRAYDGFBTHSB BGFZDHTFRZ HNGB FC GV VCB VC V CBVCB H HGFD HGF NB GGD GC G G DRS ERS GDS G TRY WRFG FDS GF GGFBFXVFXDGXGFD Grfdrsgv gfgfz gf gfgfd g bgbbvcvvvvv vvvv jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj                                j

FUCK

Name of a comic strip fame?
Could someone tell me what is the preferred term for a single frame, pane, or cell of a comic strip (i.e., that which there are typically three of in most Sunday funnies)? Thanks. — Jeff Q 09:33, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I just looked in a half-dozen books of comic strip criciticisim. They all use the word "panel" to describe a single image, usually surrounded by a frame line, representing an instant of action. Gwil 06:41, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks a bunch! — Jeff Q (talk) 08:29, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

French interwiki link
I am a Wikipedia newbie, and would like to conform to the rules. Not long ago, I added an interwiki link to the Comic strip article, leading to the French Wikipedia article "Bande dessinée". It was quickly removed, with the comment "removed interwikis to comics, not comic strips". Now, in French, "bande dessinée" is the most common phrase for either "comic book" or "comic strip". If you want to learn what French Wikipedia has to say about comic strips, the "bande dessinée" article is the place to start. That article even says, "Some specialists consider that the first bande dessinée in the world was Yellow Kid...". So my question is, must interwikis link to exact synonyms, or can they link to the best matching article even if it's a broader term? Gwil 05:16, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Pehr Nordquist
I removed the paragraph "As early as 1801 established Swedish fine artist artist Pehr Nordquist, dead i Napels 1805, draw a two-page eight panel comic strip.", and I suppose it behooves me to explain why.

There are many possible precursors to the modern comic strip. Pehr Nordquist, Willem Bilderdijk, Rodolphe Töpffer, Christophe (Georges Colomb), William Hogarth, Caran d'Ache (Emmanuel Poiré), A. B. Frost, Richard Doyle, Gustave Doré, Wilhelm Busch, Benjamin Rabier, and W. Fletcher Thomas have all been cited as forerunners. They all created sequential graphic narratives before the Yellow Kid. Most of these narratives had captions under the pictures. As far as I know, none of them had speech balloons, and none of them was published on a regular schedule. Comics authority Thierry Groensteen, preparing an exhibition in Angoulême, chose Rodolphe Töpffer as the most important originator of the comic-strip form. E. Wiese titled his reprint of two Töpffer works "Enter: The Comics". Pehr Nordquist, by contrast, isn't even mentioned in the Swedish Wikipedia. According to the same account of Groensteen's choice, Nordquist's works remained confidential and unpublished (vertraulich und unveröffentlicht blieben).

Why do we distinguish Wilhelm Busch from all the others, by mentioning Max and Moritz? Because he had a clearly demonstrable influence on the earliest American comic strips. If Pehr Nordquist had even the slightest influence, I haven't heard about it. Gwil 04:29, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Just because you haven't heard of it, doesn't mean there wasn't any influence. 199.175.128.1 16:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * If it was unpublished and confidential, how can it have been influential? Fram 18:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

European comics
Nothing about European comics here. I started to look around a bit, and found articles Comic book, Comic strip, European comics and American comics. A bit confusing. Is "comic strip" the sum of "European comics" and "American comics" (and possibly others like Manga)? In that case this article should mention this and most of the information should be moved to "American comics". Any comments? Piet 11:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, the base article is at Comics. But your ideas aren't without merit and there is a similar plan at WikiProject Comics/organization but it is yet to implemened. The problem this article suffers is that the term comic strip means something different in the U.S. than to us Europeans. The Americans have concentrated the meaning only on Newspaper strips. Hiding talk 14:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree: this is almost entirely about US comic strips. Diomedea Exulans (talk) 07:08, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

The comic strip, like jazz, is an American artform. A few European and South American newspapers picked up the idea, and they created a few major strips, such as "Modesty Blaise", "Agatha", and "The Perishers". Modesty Blaise is mentioned in the article, The Perishers is in the list of comic strips and has its own article. I've added "Agatha" to the list. She really should have an article of her own. But most comic strips, even in European newspapers, are American. The European comic album is really a different artform, though there are similarities -- long stories told a page or two at a time. Of course, with the advent of internet comic strips, the strip has become totally international. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * "most comic strips, even in European newspapers, are American." and the rest of your post seems to equate Europe with the UK. Many comic strips in Western Europe, outside the UK, are Franco-Belgian comics, with things like (in the early days) Tintin, and later Spike and Suzy (over 20O million copies sold in book form). At least for France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, most of the comic strips in newspapers were and are local, although in recent decades the number of comic strips has diminished. But e.g. the best sold comics in Flanders are still books with complete stories of local newspaper comic strips. Fram (talk) 16:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

No, I have newspapers with original strips from both continental Europe and South America, but the ones I have usually run mostly American strips, with a small number of non-US strips. Still, this article would certainly benefit from more about non-US comic strips. I hope you will contribute. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Mergers
I guess I lean rather weakly to keeping an article on the newspaper comic strip, since the term comic strip is not used to define the newspaper comic strip in many parts of the world. That said, I concede these articles need work to express the differences, and would not oppose a merger on the understanding that such a merger could be undone in the future when the articles merited it. Hiding talk 16:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Web 2.0 comics?
Web based comicstrip generators have been around for a while, long before any web 2.0 hype. This renders the section regarding web 2.0 comics pretty much meaningless, and I suggest it be removed.

How to Resolve Excess Length of Page
I have recently started reviewing a book indicating which comic strips were available for publication from syndicates through 1995, with the intention of including those strips which had been available from these syndicates for at least ten years. I have to date added all those listed in the book which qualify by this 10-year rule whose titles begin with "A" or "B", and found that the page as it now exists is already longer than is desired. I would suggest possibly that, as is the case with the list of DC Comics and others, the individual entries be shortened to include only the name of the strip itself, the years in which it ran, and possibly the Reuben Award status and country of origin, dropping all the data about creators. Badbilltucker 19:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

UK Newspaper comics?
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/jong003were01_01/jong003were01_01_0002.htm

Could anybody help me with an issue involving British newspaper comics? The link goes to the start of the first (important) Dutch daily newspaper comic (1922), scroll down until the heroes meet a sort of an elf and a pig coming out of the London Evening News office in Fleetstreet. That elf-pig combination had its own comic in the London Evening News in that time, but I cannot find any indication what their names and the name of their series were. It is of some importance for the development of the history of Dutch (newspaper) comics, as it was the first comic series published in a Dutch newspaper.ThW5 09:30, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

 * You could try asking the British Library:

British Library Newspapers The British Library Newspapers Colindale Avenue London NW9 5HE United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7353 Fax: +44 (0)20 7412 7379 Email: newspaper@bl.uk
 * I'm not sure when I could get up there and look at a copy, I don't get much free time. If the Library themselves won't help you could try asking on the UK noticeboard or mailing list for someone to pop in and have a look at a 1922 edition of the paper. Hiding Talk 19:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge Newspaper comic strip with comic strip
I think Newspaper Comic Strip and Comic Strip could be merged, they are essentially the same thing. Dragon Expert 14:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Why not not? The only difference is the prefix "Newspaper", which really serves no real significant purpose. I agree -- merge the thing! -- Jason Palpatine 02:40, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I'd have to agree with the merging, possibly add wording into this article if it doesn't already exist. | Chris 01:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

 * They're not the same thing depending on what country you live in, but the articles may not have the depth as yet to justify existing apart. In Europe a comic strip can exist other than in a newspaper, whilst in the US the terms are synonymous. Hiding Talk 16:13, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Well, that information can always be added to this article if it doesn't already exist at this point. Chris 01:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Uppercase only?
Does anyone know why most comic strips use uppercase only? There's gotta be a reason for such conformity. Xiner 22:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

 * When comics were all lettered by hand, and printed on cheap paper, the all uppercase improved readability. Some modern comics use other cases. Sandman is a good example. But Sandman is often hard to read. Rick Norwood 12:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

 * Mainly it's because all uppercase letters are the same height. Some lowercase letters... g, j, p, q, and y... have tails that drop below the baseline. When you're printing by hand, you have to allow extra space between the lines to prevent the tails from bleeding into the line below. But by printing all in uppercase, you don't have to worry about tails. You can reduce the space between the lines, and fit more words into a balloon. WaxTadpole (talk) 21:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

 * Does anyone have a reference for this? It's great info that should be included in the article.   C üRly T üRkey  Talk Contribs 00:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Genre?
Can someone who knows more than me flesh out the genres section a bit? For example, I remember Bill Watterson mentioning that he originally wasn't keen to do a kid strip because of Peanuts' dominance. There must be plenty of other genres. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TimNelson (talk • contribs) 06:03, 8 September 2007 (UTC) AND NONE OF THIS IS TRUE — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.64.236.145 (talk) 22:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I would think these would be appropriate breakdowns of comic strips:

1. Political

2. Parady/Satire

3. Family Life/Children (Family Circle)

4. Adventure Story

5. Superhero/Sci-Fi (Superman)

6. Mystery/Detective

7. Anthropomorphic

8. Romance/Soap

9. Workplace (Dilbert, Cathy)

10. Slice Of Life

Same Ideas, Same Day: Coincidence?
I notice every once in a while that different daily strips will have similar themes on the same day. For instance, "The Family Circus" and "Wizard of Id" will both reference top hats.

Is this just a coincidence or is there some kind of comic writers' "book of ideas" that creators can refer to for certain days? Has anyone else ever seen these similarities? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.23.49.39 (talk) 18:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Coincidence. The same thing happens in many other areas -- there will be two tv shows on the same night both about elephants, and so on. The number of comic strips is large, the number icons not as large as you might think. This is a version of what statistiticans call the "birthday paradox". If you have, say, thirty people in the same room, the odds are very good that two of them will have the same birthday.

 * On the other hand, if Family Circus runs a gag and, six months later a lesser strip runs an almost idintical gag, that's probably plagerism. Many examples of this have been reprinted side by side. Rick Norwood 19:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

In the past comic authors have been known to post the same very obvious joke, even switching characters with each other on holidays including April 1st. If it's a small joke, it's not likely intentional. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.16.31.83 (talk) 19:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Sources?
I see this article has been tagged for over a year... please do something about it. Or shall we nominate this article for deletion? Shinobu (talk) 14:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Single panel "comic strips"?
Wonderful though Gary Larson's work is and was, it was not a "comic strip". He drew single panel cartoons, aka gag cartoons. I think we might remove references to him and other artists who do only these single panel things. After all these are not sequential art, which this article is supposed to be about. Invertzoo (talk) 12:21, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

 * While you are technically correct, virtually all books about comic strips have included panel cartoons. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

 * Beyond that scholars disagree. McCloud says panel cartoons are not sequential art, R.C. Harvey says they are.  Since the comic strip is a form of cartoon, being a strip cartoon, it seems they technically are related. Hiding T 13:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

proof sheets
I added a paragraph about proof sheets, with a quote from an article on when King Features donated their's to MSU and Ohio State U. Do syndicates still use proofs or has electronical means supplanted them? Does the reference need any tweaking? I was surprised a Google of the term didn't readily find a good online definition or description, and it seemed to be appropriate to include it in this entry. Dgabbard (talk) 04:07, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Comics B-Class Assesment required
This article needs the B-Class checklist filled in to remain a B-Class article for the Comics WikiProject. If the checklist is not filled in by 7th August this article will be re-assessed as C-Class. The checklist should be filled out referencing the guidance given at Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/B-Class criteria. For further details please contact the Comics WikiProject. Comics-awb (talk) 16:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Mutt and Jeff
Removed this section on "the first daily comic strip." 1) It simply wasn't. 2) It claimed it was the first "successful" daily comic strip-- by whose standards? 3) Wasn't, as claimed, the first strip to use speech baloons-- Katzenjammer Kids did that before Mutt & Jeff 4) Simply put, the section was VERY short on information, and half of what was there was misleading or incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leisurely historian (talk • contribs) 15:03, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:30, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

 * The only daily comic strip to precede Mutt & Jeff was A. Piker Clerk, which was canceled after less than seven months. Mutt & Jeff ran for 75 years. That's a pretty reasonable standard of success. (The Katzenjammer Kids wasn't a daily strip at the time Mutt & Jeff debuted. It ran on Sundays only.) Source: http://www.toonopedia.com and others. WaxTadpole (talk) 21:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

 * There's actually little documentary evidence that A. Piker Clerk was daily. The only thing that really suggests it is Moses Koenigsberg's account. As Alan Holtz has pointed out in the introduction to "The Early Years of Mutt & Jeff," Bill Blackbeard's file just shows 20-odd "Piker" strips appearing sporadically. Moreover, check out Holtz's article "The Daily Show" in Hogan's Alley v3 no4, where he points out that "Mr Peewee," which ran for around a year (1903-1904), ran daily for a good chunk of time-- a few months of which there were actually two DIFFERENT "Mr Peewee" strips in competing papers on a daily basis. Mutt and Jeff also took frequent hiatuses for the first ten years of its run. If you want a strip that ran every day from the get go and didn't take the breaks, you'd have to look as late as 1910 with "Us Boys." These things evolve over time, and it's often a matter of how you define what, which gets to be "first." Given the debatability of the claim, as well as the relative lack of substance in the section, I think it's a valid edit. (Not to mention that the standard for a strip's success shouldn't be matching one of the five-to-ten longest running strips in history. Was Calvin and Hobbes not a "success?")  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leisurely historian (talk • contribs)01:11, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Lead
I've got some issues with the lead. A comic strip is a sequence of cartoons that tells a story, often humorous, though action-adventure. science fiction and soap opera-like dramas are also prevalent. The phrasing "sequence of cartoons" sound weird, and there probably needs to be at least some mentioning of comics somewhere early on. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be a consensus about really what the article should contain. To some people comic strip is just a synonym to the comic medium itself, to others, it's comics in strip format, etc. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:30, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

 * Note more focused rewrite. Pepso2 (talk) 15:44, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It's better now. Feel free to discuss my other points. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Newspapers shedding comic strips
There's an article at ABC News about newspapers reducing the number of comics strips they have recently, some papers (The Washington Times) dropping the comics section entirely. I thought it would be good to add to the article, but the way the article is currently organized, I can't see where it would fit.  C üRly T üRkey  Talk Contribs 00:05, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 12:06, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Comic strip. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100212185537/http://specialcollections.lib.msu.edu/html/materials/collections/comicart_coll.jsp to http://specialcollections.lib.msu.edu/html/materials/collections/comicart_coll.jsp
 * Added tag to http://www.ripleys.com/cartoons/%2C
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101029215002/http://wbng.org/stories/ruler.html to http://wbng.org/stories/ruler.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 06:44, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Comic strip. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090516174406/http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003973207 to http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003973207

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 09:41, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

"Longest running"
If "Thimble Theatre" and "Popeye" are included together, shouldn't "Fritzi Ritz" and "Nancy" also appear? 2002:620D:3AF:0:2010:764F:9259:A55 (talk) 04:47, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

way too american (USA)-centered
I feel that the article, in its current state, is incredibly american-centered. For example, Mafalda is not mentioned ONCE in the entirety of the article, and other famous latin-american are not even acknowledged to exist. I am not really sure how i would personally make a change (i don't really edit Wikipedia myself), but seeing the article in it's current state makes me think that it could be improved a lot. Or also, Asterix is not mentioned in the article either, even though it is a notable french comic strip. SanaeKochiya727 (talk) 14:31, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Comic strip