text:
Talk:Engrish

Japlish
Does Japlish have an established meaning? (Some use it as "mixed usage of Japanese and English" and others use it as "Engrish". But very few seem to use it as "Gairaigo" as described in the article.)Jirou (talk) 09:35, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Gairaigo has a clear meaning, but the practice is a little more ambiguous. Speaking from experience, it often happens that a Japanese person believes that a loan word is actually correct English, rather than a loanword that has been adopted into Japanese. The "cool" image of English makes presentations of it seem an example of Engrish to native English speakers, although this is not helped by anglophones resident in Japan in particular often speaking poor Japanese, and so themselves not knowing what is an attempt at English, and what is a loan word. VsevolodKrolikov 12:43, 3 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by VsevolodKrolikov (talk • contribs)

I've never heard the term Engrish - suspect it is someone's racist idea of a joke. However, the word Japlish is in the Oxford English Dictionary I believe. I suggest this page is renamed accordingly.--Hontogaichiban (talk) 15:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Google reports "[a]bout 2,870,000 results" and delivers 232 of them, with www.engrish.com at the head. See their FAQ.

and ive never heard "Japlish" before, and its MUCH more racest than "engrish" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.236.57.130 (talk) 16:45, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the two entries above are both grasping for the truth, which is that this entire "Engrish" thing is a recent bogosity, a bit of phoney politesse motivated by the equally bogus notion that there's anything racist about "Japlish." Japlish is an obvious portmanteau of Japanese and English, and it can no doubt be used to express racist ideas.  So can the wicked words "a" and "the."

 * David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 08:59, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

 * I can't remember seeing "Japlish" in the wild. "Engrish" is the usual term, and a popular Internet meme (see Know Your Meme).
 * Considering that bizarre English signage in East Asia is not usually used to insult East Asians nor adduced as evidence for stupidity and inferiority, but mostly shared purely for good-natured amusement, I think it is not particularly harmful, if at all. At least I haven't seen Asian people complain about it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:42, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Planning to add some new photos
I felt like some of the photos were a little generic - they were just notices in bad English. I've tried to replace them with more interesting ones showing non-functional English text applied decoratively. Hope that's OK. Blythwood (talk) 22:26, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Is that Japanese pronunciation real?
Because it seems perfectly accurate to the stereotype: [ĩŋɡu͍ɽiɕːu͍] Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 13:32, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the question. Of course it is accurate to the stereotype, because stereotypical Engrish is pronounced in the Japanese fashion. Japanese people (unless they are truly bilingual) usually pronounce English and other foreign languages this way, adapted to Japanese phonology and phonotactics. Not only loanwords, but also longer utterances. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:28, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Well sure, but I meant that without a source someone could have easily inserted the "Engirisu" pronunciation jokingly. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 10:38, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe, though the Wikipedian who inserted the pronunciation here seems to have acted in good faith, as he has added pronunciations to many other articles. True, Engrish is an English, not Japanese word, but in principle it can be used in Japanese as a loanword, and the pronunciation can be predicted accurately because there are precise rules for "Japanification" of foreign languages. So at worst it's a tiny bit of OR and not really germane to the article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:02, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 one external links on Engrish. 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/20140801044152/http://east-asia.haifa.ac.il/staff/kovner/(16)Kowner2003b.pdf to http://east-asia.haifa.ac.il/staff/kovner/(16)Kowner2003b.pdf
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.fahruz.org/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 14:58, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

/* undefined */ new section
This term is clearly Japanese related. Why does it say Chinglish is a part of it? That should be a related term. Japanese is not the main language in Asia. Legacypac (talk) 06:10, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Tshirt Image
That tshirt image isn't a good example. It still makes sense. It just has some grammatical errors instead. Highfalutin is a real English word too. Gune (talk) 18:53, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * You are interpreting arbitrariness in a literal manner seeking causality. As religious people do with any phenomenon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4118:9000:4C77:F3DA:72BE:22F9 (talk) 10:32, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you have any idea what you're talking about? 2605:A601:5A5:F100:D4C7:DD48:2065:964 (talk) 06:38, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

sorry, many small thoughts
I first encountered Engrish in Monty Python, where my impression was they were NOT poking fun at any Asians, but rather at the shallow stereotype manner in which Orientals were portrayed in media, particularly pantomime (roughly the UK equivalent of vaudeville/burlesque).

For what it's worth, a '90s BBC Overnight (radio) segment was presented on how "BBC English" has changed the language, particularly the suppression (perhaps erasure) of [r]. It was introduced as a piece about "the disappearance of the British 'r'" which of course sounded like "the disappeawance of the Bwitish 'ah'." They brought in a speech therapist who tried (with limited success) to correct this. I should highlight that this is likely the diametric opposite of Engrish, being a fiat "official" English sometimes called received pronunciation.

Actual Japanese usage is hardly so crude. When searching Japanese websites for older LPs by Bill Nelson (musician), I'm basically seeking the characters that make up Bi-ru Ne-ru-so-na (ビル・ネルソン).

I cannot recall ever hearing any person of any Asian race substitute "l" for "r".

As a sometime singer, I find it a fantastic exercise to turn lyrics into Engrish — swapping every "r" and "l" — in realtime. Weeb Dingle (talk) 16:30, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

The article's point of view is not general
The article seems to only talk about Japanese pronunciation of English. But the first section said Engrish refer to Asian pronunciations of English. So can the article be more general? 117.82.186.61 (talk) 14:45, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

losing its way
This article is slowly circling the proverbial drain. It even begins poorly: the header says it's
 * about mistakenly broken english

but Broken English is about intentionally broken English. How the heck can THAT be true, when (for instance) Monty Python probably didn't use Engrish on accident?

And as I mentioned at Talk:Broken English: I see how the ostensible topic morphs from "comedic form of broken English" (i.e., intentional) to "random misspellings and grammatical errors of English that have appeared in Japan, oh and among other Asian cultures too" without any clear supporting connection. That not only directly contradicts the headnotes of both Engrish and Broken English, but looks like synthesis. Weeb Dingle (talk) 16:20, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

 * I don't see the problem. Engrish originated as misspoken or mistranslated English, but was then parodied for comedic effect. Doctorhawkes (talk) 22:46, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

"Ingurisshu" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Ingurisshu. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. signed,Rosguill talk 19:17, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Pejorative
Looking through the talk archives I see that this page has been called offensive several times. To me the existance of the page certainly isn't offensive, but I'm surprised to find no mention that the term may be considered pejorative, at least. I'll do some sourcing and add this unless someone else beats me to it. Retswerb (talk) 08:07, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Pronunciation is a part of English education in Japan
The line "the correct pronunciation of the romaji letters is not taught" is highly suspect. I recognize that my anecdotes don't amount to much, but I had the dubious distinction of being employed as an assistant language teacher in Japanese public schools and half the reason I was there was to help teach pronunciation. Reading and writing is certainly emphasized, but pronunciation isn't neglected nearly to the extend the "Other suggested roots" section implies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnInfiniteArc (talk • contribs) 19:01, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

"Offensive" claim
Can we find more sources that consider this word offensive? I feel like one magazine article isn't enough to validate such a broad claim for a term that's so commonly used. Glades12 (talk) 16:44, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

 * This it really "widely used"? I would also like sources on that.
 * I never heard of anyone outside of obscure internet forums using it. RKGMPhaild (talk) 11:30, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

 * Asking for other sources for a prominent claim based on one 8-year-old opinion (and therefore biased) piece is not unreasonable. Additionally, placing "offensive" first in the lead (before "slang" and any other description) contravenes WP:UNDUE, and requires the claim to be moved either within the lead, or to a section in the main article; other articles with more evidence and justification manage this. (It could also be argued that, using 's comment above, the single source for the "offensive" claim is an obscure internet forum, and thus not a WP:RS.) Bazza (talk) 09:05, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I should have added a link to this Japanese-published article on the subject which shows the term is not as obscure as claims; it does not consider it offensive. Bazza (talk) 09:20, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

"Perceived"
I'm sorry, what are you talking about? The article goes on to describe it as "defective Asian English" that "may often be meaningless or grammatically incorrect", with "emphasis...not put on coherence or correctness". By whose standards is Engrish correct? Esszet (talk) 23:10, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

 * I feel that this is a much more objective, encyclopedic phrasing. I did however remove the internal link to language change, as that is not mentioned anywhere in the article and could be debated as to whether that's a valid connection to draw.--Megaman en m (talk) 03:00, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

 * What? The examples given are objectively bad English, "Lovey-Dovey Night Highfalutin" doesn't make sense in any language. Esszet (talk) 14:02, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

 * That's only if you view it as a way of communicating. It can also be viewed as mere decoration or a way to denote status, just like Europeans might use incorrect Japanese kanji in movies or as tattoos without caring about whether it's correct or not. If you go to the maker of that shirt in the lead and tell them how it's bad English, they're not going to care, the English is just decorative.--Megaman en m (talk) 17:25, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

 * Exactly, that's why it's bad, they don't care. Esszet (talk) 17:02, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * And of course, a lot of them aren't decorative at all. Esszet (talk) 17:13, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Not to be confused with Jinglish
If 'Engrish' is not to be confused with 'Jinglish'(as the page says), then why does the page 'Jinglish' redirects to the page 'Engrish'? Mranmolv1 (talk) 16:05, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

"Japenglish" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Japenglish and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 10 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. — Ⓜhawk10 (talk) 04:32, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Engrish/Japanglish vowels
Example: Standard japanese english vowels, ‘[a]’ ‘[i]’ ‘[ɯ]’ ‘[e̞]’ and ‘[o̞]’ Juidzi (talk) 10:52, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Engrish


text:
Pyramid scheme

A pyramid scheme is a business model which earns primarily by enrolling others into the scheme, however rather than earning income (or providing returns-on-investments) by sale of legitimate products to an end consumer, it mainly earns by recruiting new members with the promise of payments (or services). As recruiting multiplies, the process quickly becomes increasingly difficult until it is impossible, and most members are unable to profit; as such, pyramid schemes are unsustainable and often illegal.

Pyramid schemes have existed since at least the mid-to-late 19th century in different guises. Some multi-level marketing plans have been classified as pyramid schemes.

Concept and basic models
In a pyramid scheme, an organization compels individuals who wish to join to make a payment. In exchange, the organization promises its new members a share of the money taken from every additional member that they recruit. The directors of the organization (those at the top of the pyramid) also receive a share of these payments. For the directors, the scheme is potentially lucrative—whether or not they do any work, the organization's membership has a strong incentive to continue recruiting and funneling money to the top of the pyramid.

Such organizations seldom involve sales of products or services with value. Without creating any goods or services, the only revenue streams for the scheme are recruiting more members or soliciting more money from current members. The behavior of pyramid schemes follows the mathematics concerning exponential growth quite closely. Each level of the pyramid is much larger than the one before it. For a pyramid scheme to make money for everyone who enrolls in it, it would have to expand indefinitely. When the scheme inevitably runs out of new recruits, lacking other sources of revenue, it collapses. Since the biggest terms in this geometric sequence are at the end, most people will be in the lower levels of the pyramid; accordingly, the bottom layer of the pyramid contains the most people. The people working for pyramid schemes try to promote the actual company instead of the product they are selling. Eventually, all of the people at the lower levels of the pyramid do not make any money; only the people at the top turn a profit.

People in the upper layers of the pyramid typically profit, while those in the lower layers typically lose money. Since most of the members in the scheme are at the bottom, most participants will not make any money. In particular, when the scheme collapses, most members will be in the bottom layers and thus will not have any opportunity to profit from the scheme; still, they will have already paid to join. Therefore, a pyramid scheme is characterized by a few people (including the creators of the scheme) making large amounts of money, while subsequent members lose money. For this reason, they are considered scams.

The "eight ball" model

Many pyramids are more sophisticated than the simple model. These recognize that recruiting a large number of others into a scheme can be difficult, so a seemingly simpler model is used. In this model each person must recruit two others, but the ease of achieving this is offset because the depth required to recoup any money also increases. The scheme requires a person to recruit two others, who must each recruit two others, and so on.

Prior instances of this scheme have been called the "Airplane Game" and the four tiers labelled as "captain", "co-pilot", "crew", and "passenger" to denote a person's level. Another instance was called the "Original Dinner Party" which labeled the tiers as "dessert", "main course", "side salad", and "appetizer". A person on the "dessert" course is the one at the top of the tree. Another variant, "Treasure Traders", variously used gemology terms such as "polishers", "stone cutters", etc. One version called the Abundance Fractal uses the four elements as the names of tiers: "Fire", "Air", "Earth", and "Water". A more recent variation known as the Living Workshop takes the names of plants, calling the tiers "seed", "sapling", "blossom", and "lotus".

Such schemes may try to downplay their pyramid nature by referring to themselves as "gifting circles" with money being "gifted". Others focus on sharing circles or educational themes around "abundance" to divert attention away from the unsustainable structure. Popular schemes such as "Women Empowering Women" do exactly this.

Whichever euphemism is used, there are 15 total people in four tiers (1 + 2 + 4 + 8) in the scheme—with the Airplane Game as the example, the person at the top of this tree is the "captain", the two below are "co-pilots", the four below are "crew", and the bottom eight joiners are the "passengers".

The eight passengers must each pay (or "gift") a sum (e.g., $5,000) to join the scheme. This sum (e.g., $40,000) goes to the captain, who leaves, with everyone remaining moving up one tier. There are now two new captains so the group splits in two with each group requiring eight new passengers. A person who joins the scheme as a passenger will not see a return until they advance through the crew and co-pilot tiers and exit the scheme as a captain. Therefore, the participants in the bottom three tiers of the pyramid lose their money if the scheme collapses.

If a person is using this model as a scam, the confidence trickster would take the majority of the money. They would do this by filling in the first three tiers (with one, two, and four people) with phony names, ensuring they get the first seven payouts, at eight times the buy-in sum, without paying anything themselves. So if the buy-in were $5,000, they would receive $40,000, paid for by the first eight investors. They would continue to buy in underneath the real investors, and promote and prolong the scheme for as long as possible to allow them to skim even more from it before it collapses.

Although the "captain" is the person at the top of the tree, having received the payment from the eight paying passengers, once they leave the scheme they are able to re-enter the pyramid as a "passenger" and hopefully recruit enough to reach captain again, thereby earning a second payout.

Blessing Loom

Similar to the eight ball model, the Blessing Loom tricks potential investors by claiming to turn $100 into $800. This scheme has a circular structure, as increases in new recruits pushes individuals closer to the center of the circle, hence the "Loom" in the name. Each participant needs to recruit two people without providing them with any service or product. The scam often resurfaces online across the globe, under different aliases such as "loom circle" or "fractal mandala". The Blessing Loom scheme has been ruled as illegal in multiple US cities.

Franchise fraud
Franchise fraud is defined by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation as a pyramid scheme. The FBI website states:

"Pyramid schemes—also referred to as franchise fraud or chain referral schemes—are marketing and investment frauds in which an individual is offered a distributorship or franchise to market a particular product. The real profit is earned, not by the sale of the product, but by the sale of new distributorships. Emphasis on selling franchises rather than the product eventually leads to a point where the supply of potential investors is exhausted and the pyramid collapses."

Matrix schemes
Matrix schemes use the same fraudulent, unsustainable system as a pyramid; here, the participants pay to join a waiting list for a desirable product, which only a fraction of them can ever receive. Since matrix schemes follow the same laws of geometric progression as pyramids, they are subsequently as doomed to collapse.

Such schemes operate as a queue, where the person at head of the queue receives an item such as a television, games console, digital camcorder, etc. when a certain number of new people join the end of the queue. For example, ten joiners may be required for the person at the front to receive their item and leave the queue. Each joiner is required to buy an expensive but potentially worthless item, such as an e-book, for their position in the queue. The scheme organizer profits because the income from joiners far exceeds the cost of sending out the item to the person at the front. Organizers can further profit by starting a scheme with a queue with shill names that must be cleared out before genuine people get to the front. The scheme collapses when no more people are willing to join the queue.

Schemes may not reveal, or may attempt to exaggerate, a prospective joiner's queue position, a condition that essentially means the scheme is a lottery. Some countries have ruled that matrix schemes are illegal on that basis.

Relation to Ponzi schemes
While often confused with each other, pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes are different. Pyramid schemes are based on network marketing, where each person in the pyramid is tasked with bringing in their own subordinates and in turn profiting from their sales or recruitments. This fails because it essentially requires an infinite number of people to join the company. In a Ponzi scheme, however, participants are promised returns on "investments", supposedly into stocks or goods, but which are actually paid for by new investors, while a central leading figure takes a portion as profit.

Connection to multi-level marketing
Some Multi-level marketing (MLM) companies operate as pyramid schemes and consumers often confuse legitimate multi-level marketing with pyramid schemes.

According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission legitimate MLM businesses are distinguished from pyramid schemes by participants making money primarily from product sales, rather than recruitment:

"Not all multi-level marketing plans are legitimate. If the money you make is based on your sales to the public, it may be a legitimate multilevel marketing plan. If the money you make is based on the number of people you recruit and your sales to them, it's probably not. It could be a pyramid scheme."

In contrast, pyramid schemes "may purport to sell a product", but often "simply use the product to hide their pyramid structure". While some people call MLMs in general "pyramid selling",   others use the term to denote an illegal pyramid scheme masquerading as an MLM.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission warns against becoming involved "in plans where the money you make is based primarily on the number of distributors you recruit and your sales to them, rather than on your sales to people outside the plan who intend to use the products."

Some commentators contend that MLMs in general are nothing more than legalized pyramid schemes. There are different laws in every state, and they take different actions toward pyramid schemes, but multi-level-marketing is legal. Multi-level marketing lobbying groups have pressured US government regulators to maintain the legal status of such schemes.

Legality
Pyramid schemes are illegal in many countries or regions including Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mexico, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Singapore, Spain, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Notable cases
The 1997 Albanian civil unrest was partially motivated by the collapse of Ponzi schemes; however, they were widely referred to as pyramid schemes due to their prevalence in Albanian society.

In 2003, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) disclosed what it called an Internet-based "pyramid scam." Its complaint states that customers would pay a registration fee to join a program that called itself an "internet mall" and purchase a package of goods and services such as internet mail, and that the company offered "significant commissions" to consumers who purchased and resold the package. The FTC alleged that the company's program was instead and in reality a pyramid scheme that did not disclose that most consumers' money would be kept, and that it gave affiliates material that allowed them to scam others.

WinCapita was a scheme run by Finnish criminals that involved about €100 million. The scheme started in 2005.

In early 2006, Ireland was hit by a wave of schemes with major activity in Cork and Galway. Participants were asked to contribute €20,000 each to a "Liberty" scheme which followed the classic eight-ball model. Payments were made in Munich, Germany, to skirt Irish tax laws concerning gifts. Spin-off schemes called "Speedball" and "People in Profit" prompted a number of violent incidents and calls were made by politicians to tighten existing legislation. Ireland has launched a website to better educate consumers to pyramid schemes and other scams.

On 12 November 2008, riots broke out in the municipalities of Pasto, Tumaco, Popayán and Santander de Quilichao, Colombia, after the collapse of several pyramid schemes. Thousands of victims had invested their money in pyramids that promised them extraordinary interest rates. The lack of regulatory laws allowed those pyramids to grow excessively for several years. Finally, after the riots, the Colombian government was forced to declare the country in a state of economic emergency to seize and stop those schemes. Several of the pyramid's managers were arrested, and are being prosecuted for the crime of "illegal massive money reception."

The Kyiv Post reported on 26 November 2008 that American citizen Robert Fletcher (Robert T. Fletcher III; aka "Rob") was arrested by the SBU (Ukraine State Police) after being accused by Ukrainian investors of running a Ponzi scheme and associated pyramid scam netting US$20 million. (The Kyiv Post also reports that some estimates are as high as US$150 million.)

In the United Kingdom in 2008 and 2009, a £21 million pyramid scheme named 'Give and Take' involved at least 10,000 victims in the south-west of England and South Wales. Leaders of the scheme were prosecuted and served time in jail before being ordered to pay £500,000 in compensation and costs in 2015. The cost of bringing the prosecution was in excess of £1.4 million.

A number of authorities around the world declared TVI Express to be a pyramid scheme in 2010 and 2011, including the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, the Bank of Namibia, and the Central Bank of Lesotho. TVI Express, operated by Tarun Trikha from India, has apparently recruited hundreds of thousands of "investors", very few of whom, it is reported, have recouped any of their investment.

BurnLounge, Inc. was a multi-level marketing online music store founded in 2004 and based in New York City. By 2006 the company reported 30,000 members using the site to sell music through its network. In 2007, the Federal Trade Commission sued the company for being an illegal pyramid scheme. The company lost the suit in 2012, and lost appeal in June 2014. In June 2015, the FTC began returning $1.9 million to people who had lost money in the scheme.

In August 2015, the United States FTC filed a lawsuit against Vemma Nutrition Company, an Arizona-based dietary supplement Multi-Level Marketing firm, accused of operating an illegal pyramid scheme. In December 2016, Vemma agreed to a $238 million settlement with the FTC, which banned the company from "pyramid scheme practices" including recruitment-focused business ventures, deceptive income claims, and unsubstantiated health claims.

In March 2017, Ufun Store registered as an online business for its members as a direct-sales company was declared operating a pyramid scheme in Thailand. The Criminal Court handed down prison terms totaling 12,265 to 12,267 years to 22 people convicted over the scheme, which conned about 120,000 people out of more than 20 billion baht.

The Airplane Game scheme resurfaced in 2020 as a savings club by the name of the Blessing Loom, Blessing Circle, Sending Flower, Gifting Flower, and so on. It is also misrepresented as a Sou-Sou, a legitimate savings club model where the number of people paying into the pot is fixed and each person gets a payout on regular basis. This is distinct from the pyramid scheme variation making use of the hierarchical flower model, where new members are continually recruited into the group by people at the edges of the flower. This re-imagining of the old Airplane/8-ball model is making a resurgence on social media platforms such as Instagram and Zoom.

title: Pyramid scheme


text:
Ragnar Lodbrok

Ragnar Lodbrok ("Ragnar hairy-breeches") (Old Norse: Ragnarr loðbrók), according to legends, was a Viking hero and a Swedish and Danish king.

He is known from Old Norse poetry of the Viking Age, Icelandic sagas, and near-contemporary chronicles. According to traditional literature, Ragnar distinguished himself by conducting many raids against the British Isles and the Carolingian Empire during the 9th century. He also appears in Norse legends, and according to the legendary sagas Tale of Ragnar's Sons and a Saga about Certain Ancient Kings, Ragnar Lodbrok's father has been given as the legendary king of the Swedes, Sigurd Ring.

Icelandic sagas
According to the Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, Tale of Ragnar's Sons, Heimskringla, Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum, and many other Icelandic sources, Ragnar was the son of the king of Sweden Sigurd Ring. Nearly all of the sagas agree that the Danish king Randver was Sigurd's father, with the Hervarar saga citing his wife as Åsa, the daughter of King Harald of the Red Moustache from Norway. The accounts further tell that Randver was a grandson of the legendary Scandinavian king Ivar Vidfamne by his daughter Aud (whom the Hervarar saga calls Alfhild). After the death of King Ivar Vidfamne, Aud's eldest son by the Danish king Hrœrekr Ringslinger, Harald, conquered all of his grandfather's territory and became known as Harald Wartooth. Harald's nephew Sigurd Ring became the chief king of Sweden after Randver's death (Denmark according to the Hervarar saga), presumably as the subking of Harald. Sigurd and Harald fought the Battle of the Brávellir (Bråvalla) on the plains of Östergötland, where Harald and many of his men died. Sigurd then ruled Sweden and Denmark (being sometimes identified with a Danish king Sigfred who ruled from about 770 until his death prior to 804). He sired a son with the princess Alfhild of the petty kingdom of Álfheimr, Ragnar Lodbrok, who succeeded him. Eysteinn Beli, who according to the Hervarar Saga was Harald Wartooth's son, ruled Sweden sometime after Sigurd until he was slain by the sons of Ragnar and Aslaug.

In their accounts of his reign, the fornaldarsǫgur (Legendary sagas, or sagas of scandinavian prehistory), tell more about Ragnar's marriages than about feats of warfare. According to the Sögubrot, "he was the biggest and fairest of men that human eyes have seen, and he was like his mother in appearance and took after her kin". He first killed a giant snake that guarded the abode of the Geatish jarl Herrauð's daughter Thora Borgarhjort, thereby winning her as his wife. The unusual protective clothes that Ragnar wore when attacking the serpent, earned him the nickname Lodbrok. His sons with Thora were Erik and Agnar. After Thora died, he discovered Kráka, a woman of outstanding beauty and wisdom living with a poor peasant couple in Norway, and married her. This marriage resulted in the sons Ivar the Boneless, Björn Ironside, Hvitserk, Ragnvald, and Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye. Kráka was later revealed to actually be Aslaug, a secret daughter of the renowned hero Sigurd Fafnesbane. As the sons grew up to become renowned warriors, Ragnar, not wishing to be outdone, resolved to conquer England with merely two ships. He was however defeated by superior English forces and was thrown into a snake pit to die in agony. The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, Tale of Ragnar's Sons, and Heimskringla all tell of the Great Heathen Army that invaded England at around 866, led by the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok to wreak revenge against King Ælla of Northumbria who is told to have captured and executed Ragnar.

Danish sources
The Chronicon Roskildense (c. 1138) mentions Lodbrok (Lothpardus) as father to the utterly cruel Norse King Ywar (rex crudelissimus Normannorum Ywar) and his brothers, Inguar (a double of Ywar), Ubbi, Byorn and Ulf, who rule the northern peoples. They call on the various Danish petty kings to help them ruin the realm of the Franks. Ywar successfully attacks the kingdoms of Britain, though not as an act of revenge as in the Icelandic sagas. The chronicle of Sven Aggesen (c. 1190) is the first Danish text that mentions the full name, Regnerus Lothbrogh. His son Sigurd invades Denmark and kills its king, whose daughter he marries as he takes over the throne. Their son in turn is Knut, ancestor of the later Danish kings.

Neither of these sources mentions Ragnar Lodbrok as a Danish ruler. The first to do so is Saxo Grammaticus in his work Gesta Danorum (c. 1200). This work mixes Norse legend with data about Danish history derived from the chronicle of Adam of Bremen (c. 1075). Here Ragnar's father Sigurd Ring is a Norwegian prince married to a Danish princess, and different from the victor of Brávellir (who had flourished about thirteen generations earlier). Sigurd Ring and his cousin and rival Ring (that is, Sigfred and Anulo of recorded history, d. 812) are both killed in battle, whereupon Ragnar is elevated to the Danish kingship (identified by Saxo with Ragnfred, d. 814 ). His first deed is the defeat of the Swedish king Frö, who has killed Ragnar's grandfather. Ragnar is assisted in this by a ferocious shield-maiden named Ladgerda (Lagertha), whom Ragnar forces to marry him, after killing a bear and a great hound to win her hand. In this marriage he sires the son Fridleif and two daughters. Ragnar later repudiates his marriage to Ladgerda and marries Thora Borgarhjort, a daughter of the Swedish king Herrauðr, after killing two venomous giant snakes that guard Thora's residence. His sons with Thora are Radbard, Dunvat, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, Björn Ironside, Agnar and Ivar the Boneless. From a non-marital relationship with an unnamed woman (described only as a daughter of a man named Esbjørn), Ragnar fathered Ubbe. Another, final marriage, to Svanlaug (possibly another name for Aslaug) produces another three sons: Ragnvald, Eric Weatherhat and Hvitserk.

The sons were installed as sub-kings in various conquered territories. Ragnar led a Viking expedition to England and killed its king, Hama, before killing the earls of Scotland and installing Sigurd Snake-in-the Eye and Radbard as governors. Norway was also subjugated, and Fridleif was made ruler there and in Orkney. Later on, Ragnar with three sons invaded Sweden where a new king called Sörle had appeared and withheld the heritage of Thora's sons. Sörle and his army were massacred and Björn Ironside was installed on the throne. Some time later Björn was put in charge of Norway, while Ragnar appointed another son, Eric Weatherhat, as ruler in Sweden; he was subsequently killed by a certain Eysteinn. One of the sons, Ubbe, revolted against his father at the instigation of his maternal grandfather Esbjørn, and could only be defeated and captured with utmost effort. Saxo moreover tells of repeated expeditions to the British Isles, one of which cost the lives of Dunvat and Radbard. Ælla, son of Hama, with the help of allies known collectively as the Galli – possibly a group of Norse-Gaels (who were known in Old Irish as Gall-Goídil), expelled Ragnar's sub-ruler Ivar the Boneless from England and remained a persistent enemy. Finally, the Scythians were forced to accept Hvitserk as their ruler. In the end Hvitserk was treacherously captured by the Hellespontian prince Daxon and burnt alive with his own admission. Hearing this, Ragnar led an expedition to Kievan Rus' and captured Daxon who was spared and exiled.

Unlike the Icelandic sources, Saxo's account of Ragnar Lodbrok's reign is largely a catalog of successful Viking invasions over an enormous geographical area. Among the seaborne expeditions was one against the Bjarmians and Finns (Saami) in the Arctic north. The Bjarmian use of magic spells caused foul weather and the sudden death of many Danish invaders, and the Finnish archers on skis turned out to be a formidable foe. Eventually these two tribes were put to flight and the Bjarmian king was slain. The historical king Harald Klak is by Saxo (based on a passage in Adam's chronicle) made into another persistent enemy of Ragnar, who several times incited the Jutes and Scanians to rebel, but was regularly defeated. After the last victory over Harald, Ragnar learned that King Ælla had massacred Ragnar's men on Ireland. Incensed, he attacked the English king with his fleet but was captured and thrown to his death in the snake pit - the fate ascribed by tradition to the early Burgundian king Gunnar, as recounted in the Icelandic sagas. In spite of all his praise for Ragnar Lodbrok, Saxo also considers his fate as God's rightful vengeance for the contempt he had shown the Christian religion.

Poetic and epigraphic sources
While the narrative Norse sources date from the 12th and 13th centuries, there are also many older poems that mention him and his kin. The Ragnarsdrápa, ostensibly composed by Bragi Boddason in the 9th century, praises a Ragnar, son of Sigurd, for a richly decorated shield that the poet has received. The shield depicts the assault on Jörmunrek, the Hjaðningavíg tale, the ploughing of Gefjon, and Thor's struggle with the Midgard Serpent. Recent scholarship has suggested that the poem is in fact from c. 1000 and celebrates the Norse reconquest of England. The four tales depicted on the shield would then symbolize four aspects of the Lodbrok saga (the initial defeat of the sons of Lodbrok in England due to recklessness, Ivar the Boneless's deceitful approach to King Ælla, Ivar's cunning snatching of land from Ælla, Ragnar's struggle against the giant serpent in order to win Thora). The Knutsdrapa of Sigvat Thordarson (c. 1038) mentions the death of Ælla at the hands of Ivar in York, who "carved the eagle on Ælla's back". From this the story of the atrocious revenge of Lodbrok's sons already seems to be present. The reference to a "blood eagle" punishment has however been much debated by modern scholars. Another lay, Krakumal, put in the mouth of the dying Ragnar in the snake pit, recounts the exploits of Ragnar and mentions battles over a wide geographical area, several relating to the British isles. The poem's name, "Kráka's lay", alludes to Ragnar's wife's Kráka, though modern philologists commonly date it to the 12th century in its present form.

There is one runic inscription mentioning Lodbrok, carved on the prehistorical tumulus of Maeshowe on Orkney in the early 12th century. It reads: "This howe was built a long time before Lodbrok's. Her sons, they were bold; scarcely ever were there such tall men of their hands". The expression "her sons" has given rise to the theory that Lodbrok was originally thought of as a woman, mother of the historically known sons.

Frankish accounts of a 9th-century Viking leader
The Siege of Paris and the Sack of Paris of 845 were the culmination of a Viking invasion of the kingdom of the West Franks. The Viking forces were led by a Norse chieftain named "Reginherus", or Ragnar. This Ragnar has often been tentatively identified with the legendary saga figure Ragnar Lodbrok, but the accuracy of this is disputed by historians. Ragnar Lodbrok is also sometimes identified with a Ragnar who was awarded land in Torhout, Flanders, by Charles the Bald in about 841 but eventually lost the land as well as the favour of the King. Ragnar's Vikings raided Rouen on their way up the Seine in 845 and in response to the invasion, determined not to let the royal Abbey of Saint-Denis (near Paris) be destroyed, Charles assembled an army which he divided into two parts, one for each side of the river. Ragnar attacked and defeated one of the divisions of the smaller Frankish army, took 111 of their men as prisoners and hanged them on an island on the Seine to honour the Norse god Odin, as well as to incite terror in the remaining Frankish forces. Ragnar's fleet made it back to his overlord, the Danish King Horik I, but Ragnar soon died from a violent illness that also spread in Denmark.

Later continental accounts
Among the oldest texts to mention the name Lodbrok is the Norman history of William of Jumièges from c. 1070. According to William, the Danish kings of old had the custom to expel the younger sons from the kingdom to have them out of the way. It was during the time this practice was in fashion that King Lodbrok succeeded his unnamed father on the Danish throne. After gaining power he honoured the said custom and ordered his junior son Björn Ironside to leave his realm. Björn thus left Denmark with a considerable fleet and started to ravage in West Francia and later the Mediterranean. Roughly contemporary with William is Adam of Bremen whose history of the Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen contains many traditions about Viking Age Scandinavia. In a passage referring to the Viking raids of the late 9th century, he mentions the Danish or Norse pirates Horich, Orwig, Gotafrid, Rudolf and Inguar (Ivar). This Ivar is in particular seen as a cruel persecutor of Christians, and a son of Lodbrok (Inguar, filius Lodparchi).

Anglo-Saxon and Irish accounts of the father of Ivar and Halfdan
According to the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Asser's Life of Alfred, in 878 the "brother of Hingwar and Healfden", with a naval fleet, a contingent of the Great Heathen Army invaded Devon in England and fought the Battle of Cynwit. There the Vikings lost, their king slain and many dead, with few escaping to their ships. After the battle the Saxons took great plunder, and among other things the banner called "Raven". The early 12th century Annals of St Neots further state that "they say that the three sisters of Hingwar and Hubba, daughters of Lodebroch (Lodbrok), wove that flag and got it ready in one day. They say, moreover, that in every battle, wherever the flag went before them, if they were to gain the victory a live crow would appear flying on the middle of the flag; but if they were doomed to be defeated it would hang down motionless, and this was often proved to be so." This is among the earlier references to the legendary hero Ragnar Lodbrok.

The Irish Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib from the 12th century, with information deriving from earlier annals, mentions king Halfdan (d. 877) under the name "mac Ragnaill". The form Ragnall may refer to either Ragnvald or Ragnar, and the entry is a strong indication that the name of Ivar's and Halfdan's father was really Ragnar or a similar name. The early 11th century Three Fragments contains a passage that gives a semi-legendary background to the capture of York by the Vikings in 866. The two younger sons of Halfdan, King of Lochlann, expelled the eldest son Ragnall who sailed to the Orkney islands with his three sons and settled there. Two of the sons later raided the English and Franks, proceeding to plunder in the Mediterranean. One of them learnt from a vision that Ragnall had fought a battle where the third son had been slain and in which he himself had most likely perished. The two Viking sons then returned home with a lot of dark-skinned captives. It has been hypothesized that this is an Irish version of Ragnar Lodbrok's saga, the Mediterranean expedition being a historical event taking place in 859-61.

Ragnar's sons
The Great Heathen Army is said to have been led by the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok, to wreak revenge against King Ælla of Northumbria who had previously executed Ragnar by casting him into a pit full of venomous snakes. Among the organizers were at least some of the brothers: Ivar the Boneless, Ubba, Halfdan, Björn Ironside, Hvitserk, and Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, all of whom are known as historical figures, save the slightly more dubious Hvitserk. Ivar the Boneless was the leader of the Great Heathen Army from 865 to 870, but he disappears from English historical accounts after 870. The Anglo-Saxon chronicler Æthelweard records Ivar's death as 870. Halfdan Ragnarsson became the leader of the Great Heathen Army in about 870 and he led it in an invasion of Wessex. A great number of Viking warriors arrived from Scandinavia, as part of the Great Summer Army, led by King Bagsecg of Denmark, bolstering the ranks of Halfdan's army.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Danes battled the West Saxons nine times, including the Battle of Ashdown on 8 January 871, where Bagsecg was killed. Halfdan accepted a truce from the future Alfred the Great, newly crowned king of Wessex. After Bagsecg's death Halfdan was the only remaining king of the invading host. He may also have been a King of part of Denmark (Jutland?), since a co-ruler Halfdan is mentioned in Frankish sources in 873. According to late sagas Björn Ironside became King of Sweden and Uppsala, although this presents chronological inconsistencies. Björn had two sons, Erik and Refil Björnsson. His son Erik became the next king of Sweden, and was succeeded in turn by Erik Refilsson, the son of Refil. Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye is perhaps the same person as Sigfred, brother of Halfdan, who was king in Denmark together with Halfdan in 873. According to the sagas Sigurd became King of Zealand, Skåne and the lesser Danish Isles. Sigfred-Sigurd possibly succeeded his brother Halfdan as King of entire Denmark in about 877, and may be the Viking king Sigfred who was killed in West Francia in 887.

Sources and historical accuracy
Whereas Ragnar's sons Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan Ragnarsson, Björn Ironside, Ubba and Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye are historical figures, opinion regarding their father is divided. Contemporary academia regards most of the stories about him to be fiction. According to Hilda Ellis Davidson, writing in 1979,

"Certain scholars in recent years have come to accept at least part of Ragnar's story as based on historical fact."

The most significant medieval sources that mention Ragnar include:
 * Book IX of the Gesta Danorum, a 12th-century work by the Christian Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus
 * the Tale of Ragnar's sons (Ragnarssona þáttr), a legendary saga
 * the Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, another saga, a sequel to the Völsunga saga
 * the Ragnarsdrápa, a skaldic poem of which only fragments remain, attributed to the 9th-century poet Bragi Boddason
 * the Krákumál, Ragnar's death-song, an old and mysterious skaldic poem

In her commentary on Saxo's Gesta Danorum, Davidson notes that Saxo's coverage of Ragnar's legend in book IX of the Gesta appears to be an attempt to consolidate many of the confusing and contradictory events and stories known to the chronicler into the reign of one king, Ragnar. That is why many acts ascribed to Ragnar in the Gesta can be associated, through other sources, with various figures, some of whom are more historically tenable.

The candidates scholars like to associate with the "historical Ragnar" include:
 * the Reginherus or Ragnar who besieged Paris in 845
 * the Danish King Horik I (d. 854)
 * King Reginfrid (d. 814), a king who ruled part of Denmark in tandem with his brother Harald Klak, but was expelled by Horik I and his brothers and later fell in a battle against them
 * possibly the Ragnall (Ragnvald or Ragnar) of the Irish Annals

Attempts to reliably associate the legendary Ragnar with one or several of those men have failed because of the difficulty in reconciling the various accounts and their chronology. But the tradition of a Viking hero named Ragnar (or similar) who wreaked havoc in mid-9th-century Europe and who fathered many famous sons is remarkably persistent, and some aspects of it are strengthened by relatively reliable sources, such as Irish historical tradition and, indirectly, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

In literature and media
Ragnar Lodbrok features prominently in the following works:
 * Edwin Atherstone's 1830 novel Sea-Kings in England.
 * Edison Marshall's 1951 novel The Viking.
 * "Ragnar le Viking", a 1955 comic book feature written by Jean Ollivier with art by Eduardo Teixeira Coelho, that ran in the French Vaillant magazine up to 1969.
 * Richard Parker's 1957 historical novel The Sword of Ganelon explores the character of Ragnar, his sons, and Viking raiding culture.
 * The 1958 film The Vikings based on Marshall's novel, in which Ragnar, played by Ernest Borgnine, is captured by King Ælla and cast into a pit of wolves; a son named Einar [sic], played by Kirk Douglas, vows revenge and conquers Northumbria with help from half-brother (and sworn enemy) Eric (played by Tony Curtis), who also had much to avenge upon King Aella.
 * Harry Harrison's 1993 alternative history novel The Hammer and the Cross depicts Ragnar being shipwrecked, captured and executed, as well as his sons' revenge.
 * History's 2013 TV series Vikings features Australian actor Travis Fimmel playing Ragnar Lodbrok.
 * The 2020 release of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Valhalla features Ragnar's children continuing to reign, plunder, and settle eastern England during the 9th century. Ragnar himself is briefly seen in a flashback of his execution.

title: Ragnar Lodbrok


text:
Talk:Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The reason this should not be simply redirected is that the person who goes to an article called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone might not immediately understand that the page has been redirected, and when reading about HP and the Philosopher's Stone might very well be confused. It's just generally a good idea to take the opportunity to explain, as this article does, what relation the topic name in question has to the topic name where most of the info is filed.

This is true of many other redirections which I've undone in the past. For example, one might very well redirect materialism to physicalism in philosophy--except that, in fact, they don't mean exactly the same thing, and even if most of the information one might have about materialism is in the physicalism article (or vice-versa), the place to explain the nuances of meaning and history of the jargon is in the page about the jargon itself.

I'm pretty sure there's something about this in naming conventions (and if there isn't, there should be). --Larry Sanger

Thank you for this... I wrote a VERY brief entry for the book just saying it was the American title etc, and somebody else turned it into a redirect. I spelt the title wrong but my intentions were good :) Anyway, I agree. KJ

I confess: I did that redirect. I was motivated by the desire to avoid redundancy, but I hadn't read the naming conventions article first.

In the U.S., where I live in work, the movie was "Sorcerer's Stone", and I bought the book with the same title. I sure would have been confused if the bookstore only had "Philosopher's Stone".

I gather the "real" title for the book is "Philosopher's Stone" regardless of what we Yanks on this side of the pond choose to call it. Ed Poor
 * Actually, I guess they're BOTH titles for it... though if you mean 'real' as in originally thought of by the author then it's Philosopher... I think that if a subject has two different names then the one should have a line or two of explanation and a link to click manually rather than being a simple redirect - it avoids the confusion. The other way to do it is to have the very first sentence of the article being 'also known as' or 'originally known as' so that people know why they've been redirected. KJ

As long as we're talking about REAL titles, the "Philosopher's Stone" was the name used historically by alchemists for the reagent to turn lead into gold (or to grant immortality, depending on who you listen too) whereas I know of no provenance for the "Sorceror's Stone". Not that that matters much, but I figured it might interest someone. --Dante Alighieri

Is this page really necessary? There are loads of things in the Wikipedia that have alternative names, and we don't have stubs for all of the alternatives, just saying, "This is an alternative name," do we? I can't find a naming convention on this. Is there really one, or can we just make this a redirect again? -- Oliver P. 15:48 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

 * Agreed. a redirect is better. -- Tarquin 15:51 14 May 2003 (UTC)