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Jian

The jian ( Mandarin Chinese:, , English approximation: , Cantonese: ) is a double-edged straight sword used during the last 2,500 years in China. The first Chinese sources that mention the jian date to the 7th century BCE, during the Spring and Autumn period; one of the earliest specimens being the Sword of Goujian. Historical one-handed versions have blades varying from 45 to 80 cm in length. The weight of an average sword of 70 cm blade-length would be in a range of approximately 700 to 900 grams (1.5 to 2 pounds). There are also larger two-handed versions used for training by many styles of Chinese martial arts.

Professional jian practitioners are referred to as jianke ( or "swordsmen"; a term dating from the Han dynasty).

In Chinese folklore, it is known as "The Gentleman of Weapons" and is considered one of the four major weapons, along with the gun (staff), qiang (spear), and the dao (sabre). These swords are also sometimes referred to as taijijian or "tai chi swords", reflecting their current use as training weapons for tai chi practitioners, though there were no historical jian types created specifically for tai chi.

Parts of the jian
A guard or hilt protects the hand from an opposing blade. Guard shapes varied, but often had short wings or lobes pointing either forward or backward, the latter sometimes having an "ace of spades" appearance. Early jian often had very small, simple guards. From the Song and Ming periods onward guards could feature zoomorphic shapes, or have crossbars and quillons. A minority of jian featured the disc-shaped guards associated with dao.

The jian's hilt can accommodate the grip of both hands or one hand plus two or three fingers of the other hand. Two-handed jiàn of up to 1.6 m in length, known as shuangshou jian, existed but were not as common as the one-handed version. The longer two-handed handle could be used as a lever to lock the opponent's arm if necessary. Grips are usually of fluted wood or covered in rayskin, with a minority being wrapped with cord.

The end of the handle was finished with a pommel for balance, to prevent the handle from sliding through the hand if the hand's grip should be loosened, and for striking or trapping the opponent as opportunity required—such as in "withdrawing" techniques. The pommel was historically peened onto the tang of the blade; thereby holding together as one solid unit the blade, guard, handle, and pommel. Most jian of the last century or so are assembled with a threaded tang onto which the pommel or pommel-nut is screwed.

Sometimes a tassel is attached to the hilt. During the Ming Dynasty these were usually passed through an openwork pommel, and in the Qing through a hole in the grip itself; modern swords usually attach the tassel to the end of the pommel. Historically these were likely used as lanyards, allowing the wielder to retain the sword in combat. There are some sword forms which utilize the tassel as an integral part of their swordsmanship style (sometimes offensively), while other schools dispense with sword tassels entirely. The movement of the tassel may have served to distract opponents, and some schools further claim that metal wires or thin silk cords were once worked into the tassels for impairing vision and causing bleeding when swept across the face. The tassel's use now is primarily decorative.

The blade itself is customarily divided into three sections for leverage in different offensive and defensive techniques. The tip of the blade is the jiànfeng, meant for stabbing, slashing, and quick percussive cuts. The jiànfeng typically curves smoothly to a point, though in the Ming period sharply angled points were common. Some antiques have rounded points, though these are likely the result of wear. The middle section is the zhongren or middle edge, and is used for a variety of offensive and defensive actions: cleaving cuts, draw cuts, and deflections. The section of blade closest to the guard is called the jiàngen or root, and is mainly used for defensive actions; on some late period jian, the base of the blade was made into a ricasso. These sections are not necessarily of the same length, with the jiànfeng being only three or four inches long.

Jian blades generally feature subtle profile taper (decreasing width), but often have considerable distal taper (decreasing thickness), with blade thickness near the tip being only half the thickness of the root's base. Jiàn may also feature differential sharpening, where the blade is made progressively sharper towards the tip, usually corresponding to the three sections of the blade. The cross-section of the blade is typically lenticular (eye-shaped) or a flattened diamond, with a visible central ridge; ancient bronze jian sometimes have a hexagonal cross-section.

Materials
Jian were originally made from bronze, then steel as metal technology advanced. There are some, perhaps ceremonial, jian which are carved from a single solid piece of jade.

Traditional jian blades are usually of sanmei (three plate) construction, which involved sandwiching a core of hard steel between two plates of softer steel. The central plate protrudes slightly from its surrounding pieces, allowing for a sharp edge, while the softer spine protects the brittle core. Some blades had wumei or five plate construction, with two more soft plates being used at the central ridge. Bronze jian were often made in a somewhat similar manner: in this case an alloy with a high copper content would be used to make a resilient core and spine, while the edge would be made from a high-tin-content alloy for sharpness and welded onto the rest of the blade.

The sword smiths of China are often credited with the forging technologies that traveled to Vietnam, Japan and Korea to allow sword smiths there to create such weapons as the katana. These technologies include folding, inserted alloys, and differential hardening of the edge. While the Japanese would be more influenced by the Chinese dāo (single-edged swords of various forms), the early Japanese swords known as ken are often based on jian. The Korean version of the jian is known as the geom or gum, and these swords often preserve features found in Ming-era jian, such as openwork pommels and sharply angled tips.

In martial art schools wooden swords are used for training, so most martial arts students' first experience with a jian in modern times is with one of those weapons. Before schools were a formal way of passing on sword knowledge, students may begin with a simple wooden stick when training with their teacher. In some religious Taoist sects, those wooden practice swords have come to have an esoteric ritual purpose. Some claim that these wooden swords metaphorically represent the discipline of an accomplished student.

Contemporary jian versions are often forged (shaped with heat and hammer) and assembled by mostly traditional methods for training of practitioners of Chinese martial arts around the world. These jian vary greatly in quality and historical accuracy.

Contemporary jian are also sometimes forgeries (artificially aged and misrepresented as original antiques), for sale to tourists and collectors who cannot distinguish them from true antiques.

Historical use
Originally similar to bronze double-edged daggers in varying lengths, jian reached modern lengths by roughly 500 BC. Though there is significant variation in length, balance, and weight of the jian from different periods, within any given period the general purpose of the jian is to be a multipurpose cut and thrust weapon capable of stabbing, as well as making both precise cuts and slashes, as opposed to specializing in one form of use. Although the many forms and schools of swordsmanship with the jian vary as well, the general purpose and use is still not lost.

During the Qin and Han dynasties, the first two dynasties which united China, jian from the by then defunct Chu dynasty were very highly regarded. Chu became particularly famous for its swords after conquering the state of Yue, who had previously been famous for their swords, and who credited their sword techniques to a southern woman of unknown ancestry referred to as Yuenü.

Among the Terracotta warriors in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, figures representing officers were originally armed with jian made from an alloy of copper, tin, and other elements including nickel, magnesium, and cobalt. Several double-edged bronze swords have been recovered by modern archaeologists, but most were stolen centuries ago along with the polearms and bows of the enlisted men.

Historical jian wielders would engage in test cutting called shizhan, practicing their skills on targets known as caoren, or "grass men". Such targets were made from bamboo, rice straw, or saplings. Though similar to the Japanese art of tameshigiri, shizhan was never formalized to the extent that the latter art was.

Today many Chinese martial arts such as tai chi and their martial artists still train extensively with jian and expertise in its techniques is said by many of them to be the highest physical expression of their kung fu. Famous jian forms include Sancai Jian (三才劍), Kunwu Jian (崑吾劍), Wudang Xuanmen Jian (武當玄門劍), and taijijian (太極劍). Most jian today are flexible tai chi or wushu jian used mainly for ceremonial or performance purposes and not for actual combat. These swords have extremely thin blades or a high degree of flexibility compared to historical battlefield quality jian, properties intended to add auditory and visual appeal to a wushu performance. These same properties render them unsuitable for historically accurate combat.

Military use
Since 2008, officers in the Chinese navy are issued with ceremonial swords resembling the traditional jian. Each sword has the owner's name engraved on the blade after graduation from the military academy.

Taijijian and sword drill
At present, the taijijian forms are normally practiced for exercises purposes just like tai chi. The trainings are less on the physical form of the weapon and more on gaining greater balance and co-ordination through performing the slow movements. So the tai chi swords for everyday exercises are normally different from the swords mentioned above. Generally speaking, they are not dangerous, round edged without sharp blade, retractable for the convenience in use.

Mythology and legacy
There are several Taoist immortals who are associated with the jian. One example is Lü Dongbin. The bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (Ch: 文殊 Wénshū) is often depicted holding a jian, which is then referred to as the "sword of wisdom".

Jian frequently appear in wuxia fiction and films. The swords or the techniques used to wield them may be effectively or explicitly supernatural, and the quest for such swords or techniques may be a major plot element.

title: Jian


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Talk:Hui people

To add to article
Basic information to add to this article: in which provinces of China they live, with a breakdown by approximate percentage of the total Hui population for each province. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 18:06, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Article organisation
Hey all, I started editing part of the Ancestry subsection before realising much of the information contained in it is either duplicating other subsections or would be better located within them, and generally have come to the conclusion the whole article is pretty confusingly organised. I'm going to start reorganising aspects of it, initially to make the 'definition' and 'history' sections more relevant to their headings, as well as to try to keep things better organised within subsections. I'm not broadly well-read on the subject so I'll do my best not to change or remove text itself except where it's plainly redundant or I have actually been able to dig properly into the sources on them, and I'll go through in stages to try to make each aspect clear to any editors looking over the history. Initially I'm going to be aiming to reduce the size of the definition section, moving significant chunks of it to history, and moving history up to immediately follow definition, as well as some reorganisation within subsections of each. I am a bit torn on where to include 'Genetics' (though I'll be trying to consolidate most of 'ancestry' with it) but my plan for now is to move it to be within the History section. It might be more appropriate to give it its own section (or do something completely different!) so any feedback on its placement is appreciated. If anybody disagrees or has concerns with any of my decisions or what I've foreshadowed please let me know, it feels like a lot for somebody relatively inexperienced as an editor to bite off so I'm happy to have some help to chew! Chaste Krassley (talk) 08:42, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

 * Hey, good on you! If you need any help, let me know. Remsense  诉  09:24, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Hui people


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Mifepristone

Mifepristone, also known as RU-486, is a medication typically used in combination with misoprostol to bring about a medical abortion during pregnancy and manage early miscarriage. This combination is 97% effective during the first 63 days of pregnancy. It is also effective in the second trimester of pregnancy. It is taken by mouth.

The more common adverse effects include abdominal pain, feeling tired, and vaginal bleeding. Serious side effects may include heavy vaginal bleeding, bacterial infection, and birth defects if the pregnancy does not end. If used, appropriate follow-up care needs to be available. Mifepristone is an antiprogestogen. It works by blocking the effects of progesterone, making both the cervix and uterine vessels dilate and causing uterine contraction.

Mifepristone was developed in 1980 and came into use in France in 1987. It became available in the United States in 2000. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Mifepristone was approved in Canada in January 2017.

Abortion
Mifepristone followed by a prostaglandin analog (misoprostol or gemeprost) is used for medical abortion. Medical organizations have found this combination to be safe and effective. Guidelines from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists describe medication abortion using mifepristone and misoprostol as effective and appropriate at any gestational age. The World Health Organization and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommend mifepristone followed by misoprostol for first- and second-trimester medical abortion. Mifepristone alone is less effective, resulting in abortion within 1–2 weeks in anywhere from 54% to 92% of pregnancies, according to review of 13 studies.

Cushing's syndrome
Mifepristone is used for the medical treatment of high blood sugar caused by high cortisol levels in the blood (hypercortisolism) in adults with endogenous Cushing's syndrome who also have type 2 diabetes mellitus or glucose intolerance and have failed surgery or cannot have surgery. In a Phase III trial, it improved glycemic control, increased insulin sensitivity, and reduced body weight regardless of the cause of CS.

Medical management of early pregnancy loss
Mifepristone combined with misoprostol is the preferred medication regimen for management of early pregnancy loss. While misoprostol alone can be used, the addition of a dose of mifepristone twenty-four hours before misoprostol administration improves treatment efficacy.

Other uses
Mifepristone at low doses has been used for emergency contraception. Mifepristone has also been used to treat symptomatic leiomyoma (uterine fibroids) and endometriosis. As elevated cortisol levels have been implicated in psychotic depression, mifepristone has been used as a treatment.

Side effects
Serious complications with mifepristone are rare with about 0.04%–0.09% requiring hospitalization and 0.05% requiring blood transfusion.

Nearly all women using the mifepristone/misoprostol regimen experienced abdominal pain, uterine cramping, and vaginal bleeding or spotting for an average of 9–16 days. For most women, the most severe cramps after use of misoprostol last for less than 6 hours and can generally be managed with ibuprofen. Up to 8% of women experienced some type of bleeding for 30 days or more. Other less common side effects included nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, fatigue, and fever. Pelvic inflammatory disease is a very rare but serious complication. Excessive bleeding and incomplete termination of a pregnancy require further intervention by a doctor (such as a repeat dose of misoprostol or a vacuum aspiration). Mifepristone is contraindicated in the presence of adrenal failure, long-term oral corticosteroid therapy (although inhaled and topical steroids are not contraindications), hemorrhagic disorders, inherited porphyria, and hemophilia or anticoagulant use. Women with an intrauterine device in their uterus should remove the IUD prior to medication abortion to avoid unnecessary cramping. Mifepristone is not effective in treating ectopic pregnancy.

A postmarketing summary found, of about 1.52 million women who had received mifepristone until April 2011 in the United States, 14 were reported to have died after application. Eight of these cases were associated with sepsis; the other six had various causes such as drug abuse and suspected murder. Other incidents reported to the FDA included 612 nonlethal hospitalizations, 339 blood transfusions, 48 severe infections, and 2,207 (0.15%) adverse events altogether.

No long-term studies to evaluate the carcinogenic potential of mifepristone have been performed. This is in accord with ICH guidelines, which do not require carcinogenicity testing in nongenotoxic drugs intended for administration for less than six months.

Pregnancy
Mifepristone alone results in abortion within 1–2 weeks in 54% to 92% of pregnancies. The effectiveness increases to greater than 90% if misoprostol is given after the mifepristone. There is no evidence that the effects of mifepristone can be reversed, although some anti-abortion groups claim that it can be reversed by giving progesterone. Researchers in the United States initiated a trial of the so-called "reversal" regimen in 2019, but stopped prematurely due to serious safety concerns about using mifepristone without follow-up misoprostol. Giving progesterone has not been shown to halt medication abortion, and not completing the combination regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol may cause serious bleeding.

In those who continue pregnancy after use of mifepristone together with misoprostol for termination, birth defects may occur. Exposure to a single large dose of mifepristone in newborn rats was not associated with any reproductive problems, although chronic low-dose exposure of newborn rats to mifepristone was associated with structural and functional reproductive abnormalities. Studies in mice, rats, and rabbits revealed developmental abnormalities for rabbits, but not rats or mice.

Pharmacodynamics
Mifepristone is a steroidal antiprogestogen (IC50 = 0.025 nM for the PR), as well as an antiglucocorticoid (IC50 = 2.2 nM for the GR) and antiandrogen (IC50 = 10 nM for the AR) to a much lesser extent. It antagonizes cortisol action competitively at the receptor level.

In the presence of progesterone, mifepristone acts as a competitive progesterone receptor antagonist (in the absence of progesterone, mifepristone acts as a partial agonist). Mifepristone is a 19-nor steroid with a bulky p-(dimethylamino) phenyl substituent above the plane of the molecule at the 11β-position responsible for inducing or stabilizing an inactive receptor conformation and a hydrophobic 1-propynyl substituent below the plane of the molecule at the 17α-position that increases its progesterone receptor binding affinity.

In addition to being an antiprogestogen, mifepristone is also an antiglucocorticoid and a weak antiandrogen. Mifepristone's relative binding affinity at the progesterone receptor is more than twice that of progesterone, its relative binding affinity at the glucocorticoid receptor is more than three times that of dexamethasone and more than ten times that of cortisol. Its relative binding affinity at the androgen receptor is less than one-third that of testosterone, and it does not bind to the estrogen receptor or the mineralocorticoid receptor.

Mifepristone as a regular contraceptive at 2 mg daily prevents ovulation (1 mg daily does not). A single preovulatory 10-mg dose of mifepristone delays ovulation by three to four days and is as effective an emergency contraceptive as a single 1.5-mg dose of the progestin levonorgestrel.

In women, mifepristone at doses greater or equal to 1 mg/kg antagonizes the endometrial and myometrial effects of progesterone. In humans, an antiglucocorticoid effect of mifepristone is manifested at doses greater or equal to 4.5 mg/kg by a compensatory increase in ACTH and cortisol. In animals, a weak antiandrogenic effect is seen with prolonged administration of very high doses of 10 to 100 mg/kg.

In medication abortion regimens, mifepristone blockade of progesterone receptors directly causes endometrial decidual degeneration, cervical softening and dilatation, release of endogenous prostaglandins, and an increase in the sensitivity of the myometrium to the contractile effects of prostaglandins. Mifepristone-induced decidual breakdown indirectly leads to trophoblast detachment, resulting in decreased syncytiotrophoblast production of hCG, which in turn causes decreased production of progesterone by the corpus luteum (pregnancy is dependent on progesterone production by the corpus luteum through the first nine weeks of gestation—until placental progesterone production has increased enough to take the place of corpus luteum progesterone production). When followed sequentially by a prostaglandin, mifepristone 200 mg is (100 mg may be, but 50 mg is not) as effective as 600 mg in producing a medical abortion.

'Contragestion' is a term promoted by Étienne-Émile Baulieu in the context of his advocacy of mifepristone, defining it as inclusive of some hypothesized mechanisms of action of some contraceptives and those of mifepristone to induce abortion.

"adj. Capable of preventing gestation, either by preventing implantation or by causing the uterine lining to shed after implantation. —n. A contragestive drug or agent.""Also contragestant, abortion pill. A substance called mifepristone, or RU-486, which was developed by Dr. Etienne Baulieu and the Roussel-Uclaf company. The contragestive blocks progesterone receptors in the endometrium (uterine lining), preventing its buildup by progesterone; hence the uterus cannot sustain a pregnancy. It does not prevent fertilization or implantation, so technically it is an ABORTIFACIENT rather than a contraceptive." Baulieu's definition of a 'contragestive' included any birth control method that could possibly act after fertilization and before nine-weeks gestational age.

Pharmacokinetics
The elimination half-life is complex; according to the label: "After a distribution phase, elimination is at first slow, the concentration decreasing by a half between about 12 and 72 hours, and then more rapid, giving an elimination half-life of 18 hours. With radio receptor assay techniques, the terminal half-life is of up to 90 hours, including all metabolites of mifepristone able to bind to progesterone receptors." Metapristone is the major metabolite of mifepristone.

Chemistry
Mifepristone, also known as 11β-(4-(dimethylamino)phenyl)-17α-(1-propynyl)estra-4,9-dien-17β-ol-3-one, is a synthetic estrane steroid and a derivative of steroid hormones like progesterone, cortisol, and testosterone. It has substitutions at the C11β and C17α positions and double bonds at the C4(5) and C9(10) positions.

1980–1987
In April 1980, as part of a formal research project at the French pharmaceutical company Roussel-Uclaf for the development of glucocorticoid receptor antagonists, endocrinologist Étienne-Émile Baulieu and chemist Georges Teutsch synthesized mifepristone (RU-38486, the 38,486th compound synthesized by Roussel-Uclaf from 1949 to 1980; shortened to RU-486), which was discovered to also be a progesterone receptor antagonist.

In October 1981, Étienne-Émile Baulieu, a consultant to Roussel-Uclaf, arranged tests of its use for medical abortion in 11 women in Switzerland by gynecologist Walter Herrmann at the University of Geneva's Cantonal Hospital, with successful results announced on 19 April 1982. On 9 October 1987, following worldwide clinical trials in 20,000 women of mifepristone with a prostaglandin analogue (initially sulprostone or gemeprost, later misoprostol) for medical abortion, Roussel-Uclaf sought approval in France for their use for medical abortion, with approval announced on 23 September 1988.

1988–1990
On 21 October 1988, in response to antiabortion protests and concerns of majority (54.5%) owner Hoechst AG of Germany, Roussel-Uclaf's executives and board of directors voted 16 to 4 to stop distribution of mifepristone, which they announced on 26 October 1988. Two days later, the French government ordered Roussel-Uclaf to distribute mifepristone in the interests of public health. French Health Minister Claude Évin explained: "I could not permit the abortion debate to deprive women of a product that represents medical progress. From the moment Government approval for the drug was granted, RU-486 became the moral property of women, not just the property of a drug company." Following use by 34,000 women in France from April 1988 to February 1990 of mifepristone distributed free of charge, Roussel-Uclaf began selling Mifegyne (mifepristone) to hospitals in France in February 1990 at a price (negotiated with the French government) of US$48 1990 per 600-mg dose.

1991–1996
Mifegyne was subsequently approved in Great Britain in July 1991, and in Sweden in September 1992, but until his retirement in April 1994, Hoechst AG chairman Wolfgang Hilger, a devout Roman Catholic, blocked any further expansion in availability. Soon after becoming U.S. President in 1993, Bill Clinton ordered the U.S. Health and Human Services Department to investigate mifepristone's potential as an abortion medication, and also pressured Hoeschst to make the RU-486 medication available in the United States. On 16 May 1994, Roussel-Uclaf announced it was donating without remuneration all rights for medical uses of mifepristone in the United States to the Population Council, which would then sponsor clinical trials for mifepristone between September 1994 and September 1995. In September 1995, The Population Council licensed mifpristone to Danco Laboratories and entered into a manufacturing agreement with Hungarian drug manufacturer Gedeon Richter. In 1996, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conditionally licensed RU-486 for early trimester abortion, pending a resolution on some remaining technical and manufacturing issues.

1997–1999
On 8 April 1997, after buying the remaining 43.5% of Roussel-Uclaf stock in early 1997, Hoechst AG (US$30 1996 billion annual revenue) announced the end of its manufacture and sale of Mifegyne (US$3.44 1996 million annual revenue) and the transfer of all rights for medical uses of mifepristone outside of the United States to Exelgyn, a new single-product company immune to antiabortion boycotts, whose CEO was former Roussel-Uclaf CEO Édouard Sakiz. In 1997, Gideon Richter would withdraw from efforts to manufacture mifepristone in the United States following opposition from pro-life groups, which led to Danco filing a breach of contract lawsuit. In 1999, Exelgyn won approval of Mifegyne in 11 additional countries, and in 28 more countries over the following decade.

2000–present
On September 28, 2000, mifepristone made by the Danco Laboratories, a sub-licencee of the Population Council which was now officially launched as a new single-product company and was also immune to antiabortion boycotts, received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as Mifeprex.

In 2019, the first generic form of mifepristone in the United States became available, manufactured by GenBioPro.

Society and culture
Mifepristone is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Since 2019, it has been included on the core list, with misoprostol, with a special note "where permitted under national law and where culturally acceptable".

Economics
Cost and availability limit access in many parts of the world.

United States
Medication abortions voluntarily reported by 33 U.S. states to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have increased as a percentage of total abortions every year since the approval of mifepristone: 1.0% in 2000, 2.9% in 2001, 5.2% in 2002, 7.9% in 2003, 9.3% in 2004, 9.9% in 2005, 10.6% in 2006, and 13.1% in 2007 (20.3% of those at less than 9 weeks gestation).

A Guttmacher Institute survey of abortion providers estimated that medication abortions accounted for 17% of all abortions and slightly over 25% of abortions before 9 weeks gestation in the United States in 2008 (94% of nonhospital medication abortions used mifepristone and misoprostol, 6% used methotrexate and misoprostol). Medication abortions accounted for 32% of first trimester abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics in the United States in 2008. Considering abortions performed in non-hospital facilities, medication abortions accounted for 24% in 2011 and 31% in 2014. In 2014, facilities that provided a relatively small number of abortions (fewer than 400 procedures per year) were more likely to perform them with medication. Medication abortions accounted for 39% of all U.S. abortions in 2017, and 54% in 2020.

Europe
In France, the percentage of medication abortions of all abortions continues to increase: 38% in 2003, 42% in 2004, 44% in 2005, 46% in 2006, 49% in 2007 (vs. 18% in 1996). In England and Wales, 52% of early abortions (less than 9 weeks gestation) in 2009 were medication-based; the percentage of all abortions that are medication-based has increased every year for the past 14 years (from 5% in 1995 to 40% in 2009) and has more than doubled in the last five years. In Scotland, 81.2% of early abortions in 2009 were medication-based (up from 55.8% in 1992 when medication abortion was introduced); the percentage of all abortions that are medication-based has increased every year for the past 17 years (from 16.4% in 1992 to 69.9% in 2009). In Sweden, 85.6% of early abortions and 73.2% of abortions before the end of the 12th week of gestation in 2009 were medication-based; 68.2% of all abortions in 2009 were medication-based. In Great Britain and Sweden, mifepristone is licensed for use with vaginal gemeprost or oral misoprostol. As of 2000, more than 620,000 women in Europe had had medication abortions using a mifepristone regimen. In Denmark, mifepristone was used in between 3,000 and 4,000 of just over 15,000 abortions in 2005.

In the United States
Mifepristone was approved for abortion in the United States by the FDA in September 2000. , it was legal and available in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico. It is a prescription drug, but was not initially available to the public through pharmacies; its distribution is primarily restricted to specially qualified licensed physicians, sold by Danco Laboratories under the brand name Mifeprex. As of September 2021, in 32 states, the drug could only be provided by a licensed physician, and in 19 states, the prescribing clinician was required to be physically in the room with the patient while they are taking the drug.

Roussel Uclaf did not seek U.S. approval, so in the United States legal availability was not initially possible. The United States banned importation of mifepristone for personal use in 1989, a decision supported by Roussel Uclaf. In 1994, Roussel Uclaf gave the U.S. drug rights to the Population Council in exchange for immunity from any product liability claims. The Population Council sponsored clinical trials in the United States. The drug went on approvable status from 1996. Production was intended to begin through the Danco Group in 1996, but they withdrew briefly in 1997 due to a corrupt business partner, delaying availability again.

In 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone, to end a pregnancy through 70 days gestation (70 days or less since the first day of a woman's last menstrual period). The approved dosing regimen is 200 mg of mifepristone taken by mouth (swallowed). 24 to 48 hours after taking mifepristone, 800 mcg (micrograms) of misoprostol is taken buccally (in the cheek pouch), at a location appropriate for the patient.

Mifepristone tablets have a marketing authorization in the United States for the treatment of high blood sugar caused by high cortisol levels in the blood (hypercortisolism) in adults with endogenous Cushing's syndrome who have type 2 diabetes mellitus or glucose intolerance and have failed surgery or cannot have surgery.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, safe access to mifepristone was a concern, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists among other groups filed a lawsuit to relax the FDA's rule as to allow mifepristone to be acquired from mail-order and retail pharmacies. While the Fourth Circuit had granted a preliminary injunction to allow this distribution, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a stay order in January 2021 to retain the FDA's rule pending the results of the ongoing litigation.

On 16 December 2021, the FDA voluntarily adopted a new rule permanently relaxing the requirement that the pill be obtained in person, allowing it to be sent through the mail. A prescription is still required, so that a doctor can screen for risk factors that would make taking the pill unsafe for the mother. In January 2023, the FDA further relaxed rules, allowing any retail pharmacy to become certified to fill mifepristone prescriptions.

After regulations on abortion early in pregnancy were ruled constitutional by the 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, some states enacted restrictions on abortions and abortion pills. In January 2023, the United States Department of Justice issued an interpretation of the Comstock Act that it was legal for United States Postal Service employees to deliver the pills in any state, because they could not know whether the pills would be used for an abortion or other purposes.

In January 2023, GenBioPro filed suit to overturn state laws that prohibit sale of mifepristone, claiming that such laws are invalid because it is a federally approved drug.

The argument that state laws seeking to ban or restrict the use of mifepristone are preempted by the FDA's decision to make the drug available is supported by a number of Supreme Court decisions, including opinions by the traditionally more conservative Justices.

In March 2023, Wyoming became the first US state to ban the pill.

In April 2023, in a lawsuit brought by 17 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, federal district judge Thomas O. Rice issued a temporary injunction that the FDA should not reduce access to mifepristone in these states and the district.

In May 2024, the state of Louisiana classified mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances, with penalties for possession without a prescription. The move follows concerns over coerced abortion and has drawn criticism from over 240 doctors in the state.

FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine
In April 2023, in the FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine lawsuit, federal district judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk issued a preliminary injunction suspending the 2000 approval of mifepristone, which would take effect a week later. The Fifth Circuit reversed parts of Kacsmaryk's injunction, but placed a temporary injunction on the 2016 REMS change to mifepristone. On appeal to the Supreme Court, the Court stayed both injunctions on 21 April 2023, with only Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas stating their dissent. The stay allowed mifepristone to remain legally available while the lower courts consider the merits of the case.

In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned judge Kacsmaryk's Fifth Circuit decision on the grounds that the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine had no standing to challenge the FDA's regulations of mifepristone. The Supreme Court ruled that Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine did not demonstrate that they would suffer harm to warrant standing. The Court did not rule on the substance of mifepristone, abortion, or the FDA's procedures.

Subsection H
Some drugs are approved by the FDA under subsection H, which has two subparts. The first sets forth ways to rush experimental drugs, such as aggressive HIV and cancer treatments, to market when speedy approval is deemed vital to the health of potential patients. The second part of subsection H applies to drugs that not only must meet restrictions for use due to safety requirements, but also are required to meet postmarketing surveillance to establish that the safety results shown in clinical trials are seconded by use in a much wider population. Until December 2021, Mifepristone was approved under the second part of subsection H. The result is that women could not pick the drug up at a pharmacy, but were required to receive it directly from a doctor. Due to the possibility of adverse reactions such as excessive bleeding, which may require a blood transfusion, and incomplete abortion, which may require surgical intervention, the drug was only considered safe if a physician who is capable of administering a blood transfusion or a surgical abortion is available to the patient in the event of such emergencies. The approval of mifepristone under subsection H included a black box warning.

European Union
Outside the United States, mifepristone is marketed and distributed by Exelgyn Laboratories under the brand name Mifegyne. It was approved for use in France in 1988 (initial marketing in 1989), the United Kingdom in 1991, Sweden in 1992, then Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland in 1999. In 2000, it was approved in Norway, Russia and Ukraine. Serbia and Montenegro approved it in 2001, Belarus and Latvia in 2002, Estonia in 2003, Moldova in 2004, Albania and Hungary in 2005, Portugal in 2007, Romania in 2008, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Slovenia in 2013. In Italy, clinical trials have been constrained by protocols requiring women be hospitalized for three days, but the drug was finally approved on 30 July 2009 (officialized later in the year), despite strong opposition from the Vatican. In Italy, the pill must be prescribed and used in a clinical structure and is not sold at chemists. It was approved in Hungary in 2005, but as of 2005 had not been released on the market yet, and was the target of protests. Mifepristone is licensed in Ireland for use of abortions up to 12 weeks since it was legalised in 2018. Mifepristone is not available in Poland, where abortion is highly restricted.

Mifepristone 200 mg tablets (Mifegyne, Mifepristone Linepharma, Medabon) have marketing authorizations in the European Economic Area from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for:
 * Early first trimester medication abortion when followed by a prostaglandin analog (misoprostol or gemeprost) through 63 days gestational age
 * Second trimester medication abortion when followed by a prostaglandin analog
 * Cervical softening and dilation prior to first trimester surgical abortion
 * Induction of labor after fetal death in utero when prostaglandin analogs and oxytocin are contraindicated

Other countries
Mifepristone was banned in Australia in 1996. In 2005, a private member's bill was introduced to the Australian Senate to lift the ban and transfer the power of approval to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). The move caused much debate in the Australian media and among politicians. The bill passed the Senate in February 2006, and mifepristone is legal in Australia. It is provided regularly at several specialized abortion clinics per state. Mifepristone 200 mg tablets have marketing authorizations in Australia from the TGA for early first trimester medication abortion when followed by the prostaglandin analog misoprostol through 63 days gestational age and second trimester medication abortion when followed by a prostaglandin analog.

In New Zealand, pro-abortion rights doctors established an import company, Istar, and submitted a request for approval to Medsafe, the New Zealand pharmaceutical regulatory agency. After a court case brought by Right to Life New Zealand failed, use of mifepristone was permitted.

Mifepristone was approved in Israel in 1999.

Clinical trials of mifepristone in China began in 1985. In October 1988, China became the first country in the world to approve mifepristone. Chinese organizations tried to purchase mifepristone from Roussel Uclaf, which refused to sell it to them, so in 1992 China began its own domestic production of mifepristone. In 2000, the cost of medication abortion with mifepristone was higher than surgical abortion and the percentage of medication abortions varied greatly, ranging from 30% to 70% in cities to being almost nonexistent in rural areas. A report from the United States Embassy in Beijing in 2000 said mifepristone had been widely used in Chinese cities for about two years, and that according to press reports, a black market had developed with many women starting to buy it illegally (without a prescription) from private clinics and drugstores for about US$15 2000, causing Chinese authorities to worry about medical complications from use without physician supervision.

In 2001, mifepristone was approved in Taiwan. Vietnam included mifepristone in the National Reproductive Health program in 2002.

Mifepristone is approved in only one sub-Saharan African country—South Africa, where it was approved in 2001. It is also approved in one north African country—Tunisia, also in 2001.

Mifepristone was approved for use in India in 2002, where medication abortion is referred to as "medical termination of pregnancy". It is only available under medical supervision, not by prescription, due to adverse reactions such as excessive bleeding, and criminal penalties are given for buying or selling it on the black market or over-the-counter at pharmacies.

Medication induced abortion used to be available in Canada but on a limited basis using methotrexate and misoprostol. Clinical trials were done in 2000 in various Canadian cities comparing methotrexate to mifepristone, after approbation by the federal government. While both drugs had overall similar results, mifepristone was found to act faster. Health Canada gave approval to mifepristone in July 2015. Initially, its use was limited to seven weeks into a pregnancy, but this was changed to nine weeks in 2017. The previous requirement of written consent from the woman was also ended at the same time. It can be dispensed directly to a patient by a pharmacist or a prescribing health professional. Women are required to have an ultrasound to ensure the pregnancy is not ectopic.

Mifepristone was registered for use in Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan in 2002, in Guyana and Moldova in 2004, in Mongolia in 2005, and in Armenia in 2007.

Low dose mifepristone tablets for emergency contraception are available directly from a pharmacist without a prescription and with a prescription in China.

Low dose mifepristone tablets for emergency contraception are available by prescription in Armenia (Gynepriston), Russia (Agesta, Gynepriston, Mifepristone 72, Negele), Ukraine (Gynepriston), and Vietnam (Mifestad 10, Ciel EC).

Controversy
Many anti-abortion groups in the United States actively campaigned against the approval of mifepristone  and continue to actively campaign for its withdrawal. They cite either ethical issues with abortion or safety concerns regarding the drug and the adverse reactions associated with it.

Religious and anti-abortion groups outside the United States have also protested mifepristone, especially in Germany and Australia.

A court case that originated in Texas in 2023 argued that mifepristone was unsafe and women should no longer be able to order it by mail. This case was won in Texas but was appealed, and on June 13, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on that case to keep mifepristone available.

Research
The original target for the research group was the discovery and development of compounds with antiglucocorticoid properties.

Use of mifepristone as a cervical ripening agent has been described. The medication has been studied as an antiandrogen in the treatment of prostate cancer. Mifepristone showed no detectable anti-HIV activity in clinical trials.

Mifepristone showed initial promise in psychotic major depression, a difficult-to-treat form of depression, but a phase-III clinical trial was terminated early due to lack of efficacy. It has been studied in bipolar disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and anorexia nervosa.

title: Mifepristone


text:
Knaster–Tarski theorem

In the mathematical areas of order and lattice theory, the Knaster–Tarski theorem, named after Bronisław Knaster and Alfred Tarski, states the following:

 * Let (L, ≤) be a complete lattice and let f : L → L be an order-preserving (monotonic) function w.r.t. ≤ . Then the set of fixed points of f in L forms a complete lattice under ≤ .

It was Tarski who stated the result in its most general form, and so the theorem is often known as Tarski's fixed-point theorem. Some time earlier, Knaster and Tarski established the result for the special case where L is the lattice of subsets of a set, the power set lattice.

The theorem has important applications in formal semantics of programming languages and abstract interpretation, as well as in game theory.

A kind of converse of this theorem was proved by Anne C. Davis: If every order-preserving function f : L → L on a lattice L has a fixed point, then L is a complete lattice.

Consequences: least and greatest fixed points
Since complete lattices cannot be empty (they must contain a supremum and infimum of the empty set), the theorem in particular guarantees the existence of at least one fixed point of f, and even the existence of a least fixed point (or greatest fixed point). In many practical cases, this is the most important implication of the theorem.

The least fixpoint of f is the least element x such that f(x) = x, or, equivalently, such that f(x) ≤ x; the dual holds for the greatest fixpoint, the greatest element x such that f(x) = x.

If f(lim xn) = lim f(xn) for all ascending sequences xn, then the least fixpoint of f is lim f n(0) where 0 is the least element of L, thus giving a more "constructive" version of the theorem. (See: Kleene fixed-point theorem.) More generally, if f is monotonic, then the least fixpoint of f is the stationary limit of f α(0), taking α over the ordinals, where f α is defined by transfinite induction: f α+1 = f (f α) and f γ for a limit ordinal γ is the least upper bound of the f β for all β ordinals less than γ. The dual theorem holds for the greatest fixpoint.

For example, in theoretical computer science, least fixed points of monotonic functions are used to define program semantics, see  for an example. Often a more specialized version of the theorem is used, where L is assumed to be the lattice of all subsets of a certain set ordered by subset inclusion. This reflects the fact that in many applications only such lattices are considered. One then usually is looking for the smallest set that has the property of being a fixed point of the function f. Abstract interpretation makes ample use of the Knaster–Tarski theorem and the formulas giving the least and greatest fixpoints.

The Knaster–Tarski theorem can be used to give a simple proof of the Cantor–Bernstein–Schroeder theorem.

Weaker versions of the theorem
Weaker versions of the Knaster–Tarski theorem can be formulated for ordered sets, but involve more complicated assumptions. For example:

 * Let L be a partially ordered set with a least element (bottom) and let f : L → L be an monotonic function. Further, suppose there exists u in L such that f(u) ≤ u and that any chain in the subset $$\{x \in L \mid x \leq f(x), x \leq u\}$$ has a supremum. Then f admits a least fixed point.

This can be applied to obtain various theorems on invariant sets, e.g. the Ok's theorem:

 * For the monotone map F : P(X ) → P(X ) on the family of (closed) nonempty subsets of X, the following are equivalent: (o) F admits A in P(X ) s.t. $$A \subseteq F(A)$$, (i) F admits invariant set A in P(X ) i.e. $$A = F(A)$$, (ii) F admits maximal invariant set A, (iii) F admits the greatest invariant set A.

In particular, using the Knaster-Tarski principle one can develop the theory of global attractors for noncontractive discontinuous (multivalued) iterated function systems. For weakly contractive iterated function systems the Kantorovich theorem (known also as Tarski-Kantorovich fixpoint principle) suffices.

Other applications of fixed-point principles for ordered sets come from the theory of differential, integral and operator equations.

Proof
Let us restate the theorem.

For a complete lattice $$\langle L, \le \rangle$$ and a monotone function $$f\colon L \rightarrow L$$ on L, the set of all fixpoints of f is also a complete lattice $$\langle P, \le \rangle$$, with:
 * $$\bigvee P = \bigvee \{ x \in L \mid x \le f(x) \}$$ as the greatest fixpoint of f
 * $$\bigwedge P = \bigwedge \{ x \in L \mid x \ge f(x) \}$$ as the least fixpoint of f.

Proof. We begin by showing that P has both a least element and a greatest element. Let $x ≤ f(x)\}$ and $x ∈ D$ (we know that at least 0L belongs to D). Then because f is monotone we have $f(x) ≤ f(f(x))$, that is $f(x) ∈ D$.

Now let $$u = \bigvee D$$ (u exists because $D ⊆ L$ and L is a complete lattice). Then for all $x ∈ D$ it is true that $x ≤ u$ and $f(x) ≤ f(u)$, so $x ≤ f(x) ≤ f(u)$. Therefore, f(u) is an upper bound of D, but u is the least upper bound, so $u ≤ f(u)$, i.e. $u ∈ D$. Then $f(u) ∈ D$ (because $f(u) ≤ f(f(u)))$ and so $f(u) ≤ u$ from which follows f(u) = u. Because every fixpoint is in D we have that u is the greatest fixpoint of f.

The function f is monotone on the dual (complete) lattice $$\langle L^{op}, \ge \rangle$$. As we have just proved, its greatest fixpoint exists. It is the least fixpoint of L, so P has least and greatest elements, that is more generally, every monotone function on a complete lattice has a least fixpoint and a greatest fixpoint.

For a, b in L we write [a, b] for the closed interval with bounds a and $b: \{x ∈ L$. If a ≤ b, then $⟨[a, b], ≤⟩$ is a complete lattice.

It remains to be proven that P is a complete lattice. Let $$1_L = \bigvee L$$, $W ⊆ P$ and $$w = \bigvee W$$. We show that $f([w, 1_{L}]) ⊆ [w, 1_{L}]$. Indeed, for every $x ∈ W$ we have x = f(x) and since w is the least upper bound of W, $x ≤ f(w)$. In particular $w ≤ f(w)$. Then from $y ∈ [w, 1_{L}]$ follows that $w ≤ f(w) ≤ f(y)$, giving $f(y) ∈ [w, 1_{L}]$ or simply $f([w, 1_{L}]) ⊆ [w, 1_{L}]$. This allows us to look at f as a function on the complete lattice [w, 1L]. Then it has a least fixpoint there, giving us the least upper bound of W. We've shown that an arbitrary subset of P has a supremum, that is, P is a complete lattice.

Computing a Tarski fixed-point
Chang, Lyuu and Ti present an algorithm for finding a Tarski fixed-point in a totally-ordered lattice, when the order-preserving function is given by a value oracle. Their algorithm requires $$O(\log L)$$ queries, where L is the number of elements in the lattice. In contrast, for a general lattice (given as an oracle), they prove a lower bound of $$\Omega(L)$$ queries.

Deng, Qi and Ye present several algorithms for finding a Tarski fixed-point. They consider two kinds of lattices: componentwise ordering and lexicographic ordering. They consider two kinds of input for the function f: value oracle, or a polynomial function. Their algorithms have the following runtime complexity (where d is the number of dimensions, and Ni is the number of elements in dimension i): The algorithms are based on binary search. On the other hand, determining whether a given fixed point is unique is computationally hard: For d=2, for componentwise lattice and a value-oracle, the complexity of $$O(\log^2 L)$$is optimal. But for d>2, there are faster algorithms:

 * Fearnley, Palvolgyi and Savani presented an algorithm using only $$O(\log^{2\lceil d/3 \rceil} L)$$ queries. In particular, for d=3, only $$O(\log^2 L)$$ queries are needed.
 * Chen and Li presented an algorithm using only $$O(\log^{\lceil (d+1)/2 \rceil} L)$$ queries.

Application in game theory
Tarski's fixed-point theorem has applications to supermodular games. A supermodular game (also called a game of strategic complements ) is a game in which the utility function of each player has increasing differences, so the best response of a player is a weakly-increasing function of other players' strategies. For example, consider a game of competition between two firms. Each firm has to decide how much money to spend on research. In general, if one firm spends more on research, the other firm's best response is to spend more on research too. Some common games can be modeled as supermodular games, for example Cournot competition, Bertrand competition and Investment Games.

Because the best-response functions are monotone, Tarski's fixed-point theorem can be used to prove the existence of a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium (PNE) in a supermodular game. Moreover, Topkis showed that the set of PNE of a supermodular game is a complete lattice, so the game has a "smallest" PNE and a "largest" PNE.

Echenique presents an algorithm for finding all PNE in a supermodular game. His algorithm first uses best-response sequences to find the smallest and largest PNE; then, he removes some strategies and repeats, until all PNE are found. His algorithm is exponential in the worst case, but runs fast in practice. Deng, Qi and Ye show that a PNE can be computed efficiently by finding a Tarski fixed-point of an order-preserving mapping associated with the game.

title: Knaster–Tarski theorem


text:
Pete Postlethwaite

Peter William Postlethwaite, (7 February 1946 – 2 January 2011) was an English actor best known for his work as a character actor.

After minor television appearances including The Professionals, Postlethwaite's first major success arose through the British autobiographical film Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988). He had a breakthrough in Hollywood when he portrayed David in Alien 3 (1992) and his international reputation was further solidified when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for In the Name of the Father. Following this role, he portrayed the mysterious lawyer Mr. Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects and went on to appear in a wide variety of films.

On television, Postlethwaite played Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in Sharpe. Director Steven Spielberg called him "the best actor in the world". He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 New Year Honours list. Less than one month after his death, he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance as Fergie Colm in The Town (2010).

Early life
Peter William Postlethwaite was born into a working-class Catholic family at 101 Norris Street in Warrington on 7 February 1946, the son of Mary Geraldine (née Lawless; 1913–2000) and cooper, wood machinist, and school caretaker William Postlethwaite (1913–1988). He had an older brother named Michael (1944–2006) and two older sisters named Patricia and Anne. He would later portray Irish characters on multiple occasions, leading some to mistakenly believe that he was of Irish descent.

Postlethwaite attended St Benedict's RC Junior School and a seminary, then joined West Park Grammar School in St Helens, where he enjoyed sports including rugby union. He spent an extra year re-sitting some of his O-levels, and then took four A-levels in English, history, geography, and French. Before his acting career, he trained as a teacher at St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill where his chosen subjects were physical education and drama (where he became the first male drama teacher), before training as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

He initially trained to be a Catholic priest, but later settled on a career in acting. He trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1970.

He was a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company and other acting companies. On 13 January 1981, he took the leading role in a BBC TV black comedy by Alan Bleasdale, The Muscle Market, which was a spin-off from Boys from the Blackstuff; it was part of the Play for Today series.

After other early appearances in small parts for television programmes such as The Professionals, Postlethwaite's first film success came with the film Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in In the Name of the Father in 1993. He is well known for his role as mysterious lawyer Mr. Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects. He made appearances in several other successful films, including Alien 3, Amistad, Brassed Off, The Shipping News, The Constant Gardener, Inception, James and the Giant Peach and as Friar Lawrence in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.

Career
Early in his career, Postlethwaite was advised to adopt a new surname for his acting work by his first agent and by peers who quipped that his name "would never be put up in lights outside theatres because they couldn't afford the electricity". He rejected the advice. He started his career at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where his colleagues included Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Antony Sher, Matthew Kelly, and Julie Walters, having an intimate relationship with the latter during the mid-to-late 1970s.

In 2003, he toured Australia and New Zealand in a 90-minute one-man play, Scaramouche Jones, in which he played a clown trying to find out why he is who he is before he dies at midnight, receiving a nomination for the TMA Award for Best Actor and winning the Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Solo Performance. This was directed by Rupert Goold, who would also direct his Lear in 2008, in which Postlethwaite played every character. As well as Australia, the play toured Canada, New Zealand and the UK to great acclaim.

In The Art of Discworld (2004), Terry Pratchett wrote that he had always imagined Sam Vimes as 'a younger, slightly bulkier version of Pete Postlethwaite'.

Steven Spielberg, who directed Postlethwaite in 1997's The Lost World: Jurassic Park, called him "the best actor in the world". Postlethwaite quipped: "I'm sure what Spielberg actually said was, 'The thing about Pete is that he thinks he's the best actor in the world.'" Postlethwaite next starred in a Liverpool stage production of King Lear in 2008 at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, and at the Young Vic, London. He appeared in the climate change-themed film The Age of Stupid, which premiered in March 2009.

One of his more notable roles was Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in ITV's Sharpe series. The actor said this was one of his favourite roles and that he and fellow actor Sean Bean played well off each other because of their mutual love and respect. Bernard Cornwell, the author and creator of the Sharpe series, specifically wrote Hakeswill's character in later novels to reflect Postlethwaite's performance as the character in the TV series. Postlethwaite co-starred with Bean in When Saturday Comes.

Terminally ill, Postlethwaite made a return to Hollywood in three 2010 films, first as Spyros in Clash of the Titans. He next appeared in the blockbuster hit Inception as Maurice Fischer, an industrialist who is slowly dying. Lastly, his performance in The Town as florist and crime boss Fergus "Fergie" Colm was well received by critics, which would earn him a posthumous nomination for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and making several publications' lists of Oscar predictions for Best Supporting Actor. His final appearance on screen was in Nick Hamm's film Killing Bono, based on the memoir of Neil McCormick. The role was written specially for Postlethwaite to accommodate his illness. The film was released on 1 April 2011. He was scheduled to be in the BBC series Exile, but had to pull out because of ill health and was replaced by Jim Broadbent.

Activism
Postlethwaite appeared as a taxi driver in a political broadcast for the Labour Party during the 1997 general election, and marched in London against the Iraq War in 2003.

Postlethwaite was active in calling for action on climate change, and installed a wind turbine in his garden; he wrote in The Sun, "The stakes [of climate change] are very, very high. They're through the roof. How could we willingly know that we're going into extinction ... and let it happen?" At the UK premiere of The Age of Stupid in 2009, he told then-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband that he would return his OBE and vote for any party other than Labour if the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station was given the go-ahead by the Labour government.

Personal life
Postlethwaite lived in West Itchenor before moving near Bishop's Castle. He was a lifelong supporter of Liverpool FC. He began a relationship with former BBC producer Jacqueline Morrish in 1987, and they were married in 2003 at St Nicholas' Church in West Itchenor. They had a son, actor Billy Postlethwaite (born 1989), and a daughter, Lily Postlethwaite (born 1996).

Health issues and death
Postlethwaite was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1990, and had his right testicle removed. A life-long smoker since he was 10, he said during a 2009 interview with Scotland on Sunday, "We've got to hope the next generation will do things differently. I'm sure that in 20 years' time the kids will say: 'Can you believe that people actually used to smoke – put these funny little things in their mouths, lit them and sucked all that crap into their lungs?"

Postlethwaite was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March 2009, and continued acting for the next year and a half, showing clear signs of weight loss during his last performances. On 2 January 2011, at the age of 64, he died at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in Shrewsbury. In his final two years, he worked on his memoir A Spectacle of Dust with writer Andy Richardson, which was published in June 2011.

Awards
Postlethwaite was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 New Year Honours list and received an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of outstanding contribution to the dramatic arts by Liverpool John Moores University in 2005 and an honorary degree from the University of Liverpool in 2006. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role In the Name of the Father and was posthumously nominated for a BAFTA Award for his performance in The Town.

title: Pete Postlethwaite


text:
Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut (, ; also Machau and Machault; c. 1300 – April 1377) was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the ars nova style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to separate the ars nova from the subsequent ars subtilior movement. Regarded as the most significant French composer and poet of the 14th century, he is often seen as the century's leading European composer.

Machaut, one of the earliest European composers on whom considerable biographical information is available, has an unprecedented amount of surviving music, in part due to his own involvement in his manuscripts' creation and preservation. Machaut embodies the culmination of the poet-composer tradition stretching back to the traditions of troubadour and trouvère. His poetry was greatly admired and imitated by other poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer and Eustache Deschamps, well into the 15th century.

Machaut composed in a wide range of styles and forms and was crucial in developing the motet and secular song forms (particularly the lai and the formes fixes: rondeau, virelai and ballade). Among his only surviving sacred works, Messe de Nostre Dame, is the earliest known complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer. Other notable works include the rondeaux "Ma fin est mon commencement" and "Rose, liz, printemps, verdure" as well as the virelai "Douce Dame Jolie".

Life
Guillaume de Machaut was born around 1300, one of seven children, and educated in the region around Reims. His surname most likely derives from the nearby town of Machault, 30 km northeast of Reims in the Ardennes region. He was employed as secretary to John I, Count of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia from 1323 to 1346, and also became a canon (1337). He often accompanied King John on his various trips, many of them military expeditions around Europe (including Prague). He was named the canon of Verdun in 1330, Arras in 1332, and Reims in 1337. By 1340, Machaut was living in Reims, having relinquished his other canonic posts at the request of Pope Benedict XII. In 1346, King John was killed fighting at the Battle of Crécy, and Machaut, who was famous and much in demand, entered the service of various other aristocrats and rulers, including King John's daughter Bonne (who died of the Black Death in 1349), her sons Jean de Berry and Charles (later Charles V, Duke of Normandy), and others such as Charles II of Navarre.

Machaut survived the Black Death that devastated Europe, and spent his later years living in Reims composing and supervising the creation of his complete-works manuscripts. His poem Le voir dit (probably 1361–1365) purports to recount a late love affair with a 19-year-old girl, Péronne d'Armentières, although the accuracy of the work as autobiography is contested. He died in 1377.

Music
Machaut's music comprises a wide variety, from complex masses to short songs, and despite the differences of genre, most still contain "typical Machaut motifs". He lived after the flowering of both the secular troubadour and trouvère song movements and the ars antiqua church style. The musicologist Gilbert Reaney notes that "before [Machaut], composers either wrote songs or church music. Machaut did both, though it could be said that he neglected the area of liturgical church music." Besides his mass, Hoquetus David and a few Latin motets, Machaut's surviving output is exclusively secular. Regardless, Reaney notes that his unique mastery of both secular and sacred Western music is only precedented by the work of Adam de la Halle.

Secular music
The lyrics of Machaut's works almost always dealt with courtly love. A few works exist to commemorate a particular event, such as M18, "Bone Pastor/Bone Pastor/Bone Pastor." Machaut mostly composed in five genres: the lai, the virelai, the motet, the ballade, and the rondeau. In these genres, Machaut retained the basic formes fixes, but often utilized creative text setting and cadences. For example, most rondeau phrases end with a long melisma on the penultimate syllable. However, a few of Machaut's rondeaux, such as R18 "Puis qu'en oubli", are mostly syllabic in treatment.

Machaut's motets often contain sacred texts in the tenor, such as in M12 "Corde mesto cantando/Helas! pour quoy virent/Libera me". The top two voices in these three-part compositions, in contrast, sing secular French texts, creating interesting concordances between the sacred and secular. In his other genres, though, he does not utilize sacred texts.

Sacred music
Machaut's cyclic setting of the Mass, identified in one source as the Messe de Nostre Dame (Mass of Our Lady), was composed in the early 1360s probably for Rheims Cathedral. While not the first cyclic mass – the Tournai Mass is earlier – it was the first by a single composer and conceived as a unit. Machaut was probably familiar with the Tournai Mass since Machaut's Mass shares many stylistic features with it, including textless interludes.

Whether or not Machaut's mass is indeed cyclic is contested; after lengthy debate, musicologists are still deeply divided. However, there is a consensus that this mass is at best a forerunner to the later 15th-century cyclic masses by the likes of Josquin des Prez. Machaut's mass differs from these in the following ways: (1) he does not hold a tonal centre throughout the entire work, as the mass uses two distinct modes (one for the Kyrie, Gloria, and Credo, another for Sanctus, Agnus and Ite missa est); (2) there is no extended melodic theme that clearly runs through all the movements, and the mass does not use the parody technique; (3) there is considerable evidence that this mass was not composed in one creative act. The fact that the movements were placed together does not mean they were conceived as such.

Nevertheless, the mass can be said to be stylistically consistent, and certainly the chosen chants are all celebrations of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Also adding weight to the claim that the mass is cyclic is the possibility that the piece was written or assembled for performance at a specific celebration. The possibility that it was for the coronation of Charles V, which was once widely accepted, is thought unlikely in modern scholarship. The composer's intention that the piece be performed as one entire mass setting makes the Messe de Nostre Dame generally considered a cyclic composition.

Poetry
Guillaume de Machaut's lyric output comprises around 400 poems, including 235 ballades, 76 rondeaux, 39 virelais, 24 lais, 10 complaintes, and 7 chansons royales, and Machaut did much to perfect and codify these fixed forms. Some of his lyric output is embedded in his narrative poems or "dits", such as Le remède de fortune ("The Cure of Ill Fortune") which includes one of each genre of lyric poetry, and Le voir dit ("A True Story"), but most are included in a separate, unordered section entitled Les loanges des dames. That the majority of his lyrics are not set to music (in manuscripts, music and non-music sections are separate) suggests that he normally wrote the text before setting some to music.

Other than his Latin motets of a religious nature and some poems invoking the horrors of war and captivity, the vast majority of Machaut's lyric poems reflect the conventions of courtly love, and involve statements of service to a lady and the poet's pleasure and pains. In technical terms, Machaut was a master of elaborate rhyme schemes, and this concern makes him a precursor to the Grands Rhétoriqueurs of the 15th century.

Guillaume de Machaut's narrative output is dominated by the "dit" (literally "spoken", i.e. a poem not meant to be sung). These first-person narrative poems (all but one are written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets, like the romance, or "roman" of the same period) follow many of the conventions of the Roman de la rose, including the use of allegorical dreams (songes), allegorical characters, and the situation of the narrator-lover attempting to return toward or satisfy his lady.

Machaut is also the author of a poetic chronicle of the chivalric deeds of Peter I of Cyprus, (the Prise d'Alexandrie), and of poetic works of consolation and moral philosophy. His unusual self-reflective usage of himself (as his lyrical persona) as the narrator of his dits yields some personal philosophical insights as well.

At the end of his life, Machaut wrote a poetic treatise on his craft (his Prologue). This reflects on his conception of the organization of poetry into set genres and rhyme schemes, and the ordering of these genres into distinct sections of manuscripts. This preoccupation with ordering his oeuvre is reflected in an index to MS A entitled "Vesci l'ordonance que G. de Machaut veut qu'il ait en son livre" ("Here is the order that G. de Machaut wants his book to have").

The poem below, Puis qu'en oubli, is his 18th rondeau.

Principal works

 * Le remède de fortune ("The Cure of Ill Fortune") (c. 1340s, before 1357) – The narrator is asked by his lady whether the poem she has found is by him; the narrator flees from her and comes to a garden where "Hope" consoles him and teaches him how to be a good lover; he returns to his lady.
 * Jugement du roy de Behaigne ("Judgement of the King of Bohemia") (before 1346) – The narrator hears a debate between a lady (whose lover is dead) and a knight (betrayed by his lady); in order to proclaim one or the other the most unhappy, the narrator seeks out the advice of the King of Bohemia who consults allegories, and the unhappy knight is declared the winner.
 * Dit du Lyon ("Story of the Lion") (1342) – The narrator comes to a magical island and a lion guides him to a beautiful lady; an old knight comes to the narrator and reveals the meaning of what he sees and gives him advice for being a better lover.
 * Dit de l'Alérion aka Dit des quatre oiseaux ("Story of the 4 Birds") (before 1349) – A symbolic tale of love: the narrator raises four different birds, but each one flees him; one day the second (and preferred) bird comes back to him.
 * Jugement du roy de Navarre ("Judgement of the King of Navarre") (1349) – Following up on the Jugement du roy de Behainge, a lady blames the narrator for awarding the prize to the knight: the King of Navarre is consulted and condemns the poet.
 * Confort d'ami (1357) – Dedicated to Charles II of Navarre (who was a prisoner in France), this poetic consolation gives biblical and classical examples (exempla) of fortitude.
 * Dit de la fontaine amoureuse aka Livre de Morpheus ("Story of the Amorous Fountain") (1361) – The narrator meets a hopeless lover who must separate from his lady; the two men come to a magical fountain and fall asleep, and in a dream the lady consoles her lover.
 * Le voir dit ("A True Story") (c. 1362–65) – Often seen as Machaut's masterpiece, this poem is an early example of meta-fiction, and tells of the sadness and separation of the narrator from his lady, and of the false rumors that are spread about him. The narrative is stuffed with prose letters and lyric poems that the narrator claims were in truth exchanged by the unhappy lovers and put in the book at the behest of his lady. The work is, however, highly satirical, and mocks the conventional paradigm of medieval courtly literature by presenting himself as an old, ill, impotent poet who becomes the lover of a young and beautiful maiden, who falls in love with him from his reputation as a poet alone. Though the work is called a voir dit or true story, Machaut includes many inconsistencies which force the reader to question the truthfulness of his story.
 * Prologue (c. 1372) – written at the end of his life as a preface to his collected works, this allegory describes Machaut's principles of poetry, music and rhetoric, as imparted to him by Nature and Love.
 * Prise d'Alexandrie ("The Capture of Alexandria") (after 1369) – poetic retelling of the exploits of Peter of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem and of Cyprus.

Legacy
When he died in 1377, other composers such as F. Andrieu wrote elegies lamenting his death.

Machaut's poetry had a direct effect on the works of Eustache Deschamps, Jean Froissart, Christine de Pizan, René d'Anjou and Geoffrey Chaucer, among many others. There exists the hypothetical (though improbable) possibility that Chaucer and Machaut could have met when Chaucer was taken prisoner near Reims in 1359, or in Calais in 1360, with both poets on official business for the ratification of the Treaty of Brétigny (Machaut with his patron Jean de Berry, who was departing for England, and Chaucer as a messenger to Prince Lionel).

According to food historian William Woys Weaver, fourteenth century nobles at the French-speaking Lusignan court in Nicosia, Cyprus, often listened to narrations of Machaut's Prise d’Alexandrie for entertainment during royal banquets. Tales like Machaut's, about heroic Crusader figures, reinforced the self-image that Lusignan courtiers cultivated as long-distance claimaints to Jerusalem.

Early recordings

 * 1936 – Guillaume de Machaut. Messe de Notre-Dame, dite du sacre de Charles V. Les Paraphonistes de St-Jean des Matines (choir and brass); Guillaume de Van, dir. Standard-groove recording, 2 discs: 78 rpm, 12 in., monaural. Anthologie sonore 31: AS 74; AS 75; AS 76; AS 77; [Paris]: L'Anthologie Sonore.
 * 1938 – Guillaume de Machaut. Hoquetus David. Jean Archimbaud (soprano); André Lafosse (bass trumpet); Tudesq (trombone); Guillaume de Van, dir. Standard-groove recording, 1 disc: 78 rpm; 12 in., monaural. Éditions de l'Oiseau-Lyre OL 3; 1059; M6-91643; 1063. M6-91647. [Paris]: Éditions de l'Oiseau-Lyre.
 * 1938 – Guillaume de Machaut. Quant Theseus (double ballade); Je puis trop bien (ballade); De tout sui si confortée (virelai). Henriette Guermant, soprano; La Société Pro Musica Antiqua de Bruxelles; Safford Cape, director. Standard-groove recording, 1 disc: 78 rpm, 12 in., monaural. (Anthologie sonore 67 (AS-140, AS-135). [France] : L'Anthologie sonore, 1938.
 * 1943 – Guillaume de Machaut. Si je soupire; Douce dame jolie; He! Dame de vaillance. Pierre Deniau, tenor; instrumental accompaniment. Standard-groove recording, 1 disc, 78 rpm, 10 in., monaural. Lumen XC 462; XC 463; 33405; France: Lumen.
 * Guillaume de Machaut. Rose lys; Anon (Montpellier no. 189, 13th century). A la clarté. Anon (Montpellier no. 184, 13th century). Hui main. Anon (14th century). Amour que vous ai-je fait. Anon (15th century). Trop penser. Simone Gebelin, voice; H. Akoka, clarinet; G. Bon, flute; P. Hongne, bassoon. Standard-groove recording, 1 disc: 78 rpm; 312 in., monaural. BAM 44. [N.p.]: Boîte à Musique, 1948.
 * 1956 – Guillaume de Machaut. Messe de Notre Dame: dite "du Sacre de Charles V". Jean Archimbaud, soprano; Pierre Deniau, haute-contre, Georges Cathelat, tenor; Eugène Bousquet, baritone; Marcel Vigneron, bass; l'Ensemble Vocal er Instrumental, Roger Blanchard, dir. LP recording, 1 disc: 33 rpm. 10 in., monaural. Ducretet Thomson 270C085. [Paris]: Ducretet Thomson.

title: Guillaume de Machaut


text:
Oramics

Oramics is a drawn sound technique designed in 1957 by musician Daphne Oram. The machine was further developed in 1962 after receiving a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation. The technique involves drawing on 35mm film strips to control the sound produced. Oramics was also the name used by Oram to refer to her studio and business interests generally.

Oram's composition machine consisted of a large rectangular metal frame, providing a table-like surface traversed by ten synchronised strips of clear, sprocketed 35mm film. The musician drew shapes on the film to create a mask, which modulated the light received by photocells. Although the output from the machine was monophonic, the sounds could be added to multitrack tapes to provide more texture and create polyphony.

The original machine was exhibited at the Science Museum in London between 2011 and 2015.

Related techniques
The Oramics machine, which creates music from graphic elements uses similar principles to the various methods of Graphical sound production appearing in the 1930s, e.g. Yevgeny Sholpo's "Variophone", which produces sound by reading shapes cut into and drawings on cardboard. Canadian filmmakers Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart have made films that feature sounds created by drawing or printing various patterns, such as triangles and circles, along the optical soundtrack area of the film.

In 2016 Tom Richards, a PhD Student at Goldsmiths, University of London, re-imagined and built a working Mini-Oramics machine.

title: Oramics


text:
Lord Mayor of Dublin

The Lord Mayor of Dublin (Ardmhéara Bhaile Átha Cliath) is the honorary title of the chairperson (Cathaoirleach ) of Dublin City Council which is the local government body for the city of Dublin, the capital of Ireland. The incumbent, since June 2024, is councillor James Geoghegan. The office holder is elected annually by the members of the council.

Background

The office of Mayor of Dublin was created in June 1229 by Henry III. The office of Mayor was elevated to Lord Mayor in 1665 by Charles II, and as part of this process received the honorific The Right Honourable (The Rt Hon.). Lord mayors were ex-officio members of the Privy Council of Ireland, which also entitled them to be addressed as The Right Honourable. Though the Privy Council was de facto abolished in 1922, the Lord Mayor continued to be entitled to be addressed as The Right Honourable as a result of the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840, which granted the title in law. The Local Government Act 2001 finally removed the title as a consequence of the repeal of the 1840 act.

Functions
The office is largely symbolic and its responsibilities consist of chairing meetings of the city council and representing the city at public events. Apart from a few reserved functions, which are exercised by the city council as a whole, executive power is exercised by the chief executive, a council official appointed by the Public Appointments Service (formerly by the Local Appointments Commission). Except on a handful of occasions where the city government has been suspended for not striking a rate (a level of local tax), Dublin has had a mayor for nearly eight hundred years.

The Lord Mayor resides in the eighteenth-century Mansion House on Dawson Street.

A privilege enjoyed by the Lord Mayor is to receive the first car registration number in Dublin for each new year. Since 2018, each new Lord Mayor is presented with an official bicycle by the Dublin Cycling Campaign. Nial Ring was the first recipient.

Chain of office
The chain is the outward sign of the office of the Lord Mayor and is worn within the city when performing official civic functions, important ceremonial occasions and also as appropriate at other times, such as opening conferences, new businesses, etc. It is also worn, at the Lord Mayor's discretion, when paying visits to such places as schools, churches and the emergency services.

The Lord Mayor of Dublin's gold chain of office was presented by King William III to the City of Dublin in 1698. The chain is composed of decorative links including the Tudor rose, a harp, a trefoil-shaped knot and the letter S (thought to stand for Seneschal or Steward). A circular gold medal with the bust of William III hangs from the chain. The previous chain was not returned by Michael Creagh, the Protestant Jacobite Lord Mayor in 1688–1689.

Dublin city seal
The city seal dates from 1229/1230 when it was used by the Dublin City Assembly to issue a deed to the Town Clerk. One side shows three watchtowers above one of the city gates being defended by archers, while the reverse side shows a merchant ship at sea.

Great Dublin civic sword
The civic sword dates from the 1390s and was made for Henry IV of England in 1399. He gave it to the City of Dublin in 1409/1410.

Great mace of Dublin
The Great mace dates from 1717/1718 and incorporates parts of an earlier mace made in 1665 for the first Lord Mayor of Dublin, Sir Daniel Bellingham.

The city sword and Great mace are still used at major civic events such as the Honorary Freedom of the City conferring. All of the above are on display in City Hall, Dublin.

Lord Mayor's coach
The Lord Mayor's coach was built in 1789 by William Whitton, of Dominick Street, and made its first appearance on the streets of Dublin on 4 November 1791 in an annual event to mark the birthday of William III. The elaborately decorated coach far exceeded its original budget and was completed for a total cost of £2,690 13s 5d. The coach was used for ceremonial occasions up until 1932 when, due to its poor condition, it was placed in storage. Following expert restoration, the coach returned to public life in 1976 and is a feature of Dublin's annual Saint Patrick's Day parade.

Notable mayors

 * Richard Muton (1229–1230), Dublin's first Mayor
 * Gilbert de Lyvet (1233–1234, 1235–1237)
 * John Drake, three times Mayor between 1401 and 1412, who led the Dubliners to victory over the O'Byrne clan of County Wicklow at the Battle of Bloody Bank in 1402
 * Bartholomew Ball (1553–1554), whose widow Blessed Margaret Ball was martyred by their eldest son, Walter
 * Walter Ball (1580–1581), Commissioner for Ecclesiastical Causes – implemented the Reformation in Dublin
 * Francis Taylor (1595–1596), who was incarcerated because of his Catholicism, and has been declared a martyr for his faith and beatified by the Catholic Church
 * Sir Daniel Bellingham (1665–1666), first Lord Mayor
 * Jean Desmynieres (1666–1667) and Lewis Desmynieres (1669–1670), Huguenot Lord Mayors of Dublin
 * Sir Michael Creagh (1688–1689) who, although a Protestant, was a supporter of the Catholic James II
 * Sir Mark Rainsford (1700–1701), the original founder of what was to become St James' Gate (Guinness) Brewery
 * Daniel O'Connell (1841–1842), leader of campaigns for Catholic Emancipation and Repeal of the Acts of Union; first Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin since 1690
 * Sir John Barrington (1865–1866 and 1879–1880), the first Quaker to hold the office
 * Laurence O'Neill (1917–1924), who was Lord Mayor throughout the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War
 * Alfie Byrne (1930–1939 and 1954–1955), the longest-serving Lord Mayor of Dublin in the office's 800-year history
 * Kathleen Clarke (1939–1941), the first woman in the post
 * Robert Briscoe (1956–1957 and 1961–1962), the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin
 * Tomás Mac Giolla (1993–1994), former republican prisoner and long-time leader of Sinn Féin, and later the Worker's Party of Ireland
 * Hazel Chu (2020–2021), the first person of Chinese ethnicity to be mayor of a European capital

title: Lord Mayor of Dublin


text:
Talk:Pennsylvania Dutch language

Requested move 4 May 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Overall there's a clear consensus to move. Some argue against the move because in linguistic literature the term "Pennsylvania German" is more often used or because the title is considered by some editors to be an incorrect name (although that's disputed). However, most editors commenting do not accept that argument or consider it to supersede WP:COMMONNAME in this case. (t · c)  buidhe  01:19, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Pennsylvania German language → Pennsylvania Dutch language – This title has been a travesty against WP:COMMONNAME for years. Absolutely everyone in Pennsylvania calls this Pennsylvania Dutch. We already moved Pennsylvania Dutch to the correct title.

When I looked through the talk history, I see the vast majority of comments have been in favor of a move. The only exception is the last requested move, which failed only because enough people failed to show up for the discussion.

(courtesy ping User:TortillaDePapas who recently commented) Magog the Ogre (t • c) 11:53, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Hardly "absolutely everone". Kutztown is in PA, but it's the "Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center". — kwami (talk) 00:50, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

 * Supposrt per WP:commonname—blindlynx (talk) 13:58, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the ping. Support TortillaDePapas (talk) 14:24, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:19, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 *  Support  per WP:COMMONNAME. This is a clear and indisputable case where the accepted scientific name is not the common name.  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 18:00, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Kwamikagami's argument below. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 00:56, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

 * Support. Even though I know it's a dialect of German and the "Dutch" is a rendering of "Deitsch" (comparable to the origin of Netherlands "Dutch") meaning "German", in English I've only known it to be called "Pennsylvania Dutch", and even the first sentence of the article has said that's the more common name for the last 15 years. Largoplazo (talk) 18:48, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support "Dutch" doesn't commonly referred as the Netherlands in Pennsylvania Dutch. 180.242.74.101 (talk) 21:01, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support move per COMMONNAME.  O.N.R.  (talk) 23:24, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

 * Comment Ngram shows 3:1 to 6:1 in favor of "Pennsylvania Dutch" in recent years (though the gap has narrowed considerably over prior decades). And that would be the choice per the criterion of "Recognizability". But per COMMONNAME, "inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." ISO, Ethnologue, Glottolog, LinguistList and the Endangered Languages Project all use "Pennsylvanian German", as does Kutztown University's Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center. Jellyfish and starfish are similar names in another field, where we went with a common name that conflicts with the modern use of a word. (In the 17th century they were fish, as were whales, but they are no longer.) Note that Pennsylvania Dutch English is also relevant here. — kwami (talk) 00:47, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Kwami makes a good argument that the speakers themselves use "Pennsylvania German" (or, in language, "Deutsch") and all reference works on the language use "Pennsylvania German". I'll change my "support" to "oppose".  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 00:56, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't consider "Pennsylvania Dutch" to be "inaccurate" per se because it isn't directly related to the modern Dutch language anymore than I consider french fries to be an inaccurate term because it has nothing to do with France. "Pennsylvania Dutch" is the name most commonly used in reliable sources, as well as the most commonly used term in general, so that's what our article title should be. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:27, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * This article is about a language, so the only reliable sources that count as reliable sources are linguistics ones. Nearly 100% of linguistics sources use "German", so your comment about "Dutch being the most commonly used term in reliable sources" is false.  (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to some linguistics source I have not seen, so not an absolute 100%.)  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 13:06, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

 * Comment - Not knowledgeable enough about this particular topic to feel comfortable presenting my reply as a !vote; but Kwami makes a very good argument that the current title may conform better to policy and also fundamentally be less misleading. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 04:09, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:PRECISION. Not only does "Pennsylvania German" prevail in scientific literature, the current name distinguishes it from Pennsylvania Dutch English, serving as a WP:NATURALDAB. Nardog (talk) 00:56, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose Only commented above, as wanted to think about it. While you can still occasionally find "Pennsylvania Dutch" in the recent linguistic lit, the field has largely shifted to Pennsylvania German, as Penn Dutch is misleading. (Most people, at least outside PA, who aren't familiar with the language naturally assume that "Penn Dutch" is Dutch, to the extent that intros need to clarify that it's not.) As for the claim above that the name "Penn Dutch" is not inaccurate, perhaps within PA "Dutch" means German, but for the rest of the English-speaking world, "Dutch" means Dutch. So we have two quite valid and defensible but conflicting rationales: Common usage indeed is "Penn Dutch", but RS's are overwhelmingly "Penn German". Add in the potential for "Dutch" to mislead our readers and the fact that the people themselves call themselves "Penn German", at least a significant amt of the time, and I've come down on the side of keeping the article in line with RS's.
 * As for the people being at Pennsylvania Dutch, I don't find the discrepancy bothersome. We generally try to use the same name for a people and their language, but there are plenty of exceptions. — kwami (talk) 22:52, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

 * Comment - this discussion is everything that's wrong with Wikipedia. The denonym and the significant majority of popular usage is Dutch, while the scientific literature is nearly even, but we are going to close this discussion as no consenus because the permanently online crowd who live outside the state, have no knowledge of our history, and haven't a single clue on popular usage decided their opinion was more relevant than the popular one. You know what? Fine, keep your stupid name. Can't say you weren't warned. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 16:00, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I favor the name change, but nevertheless: If this discussion is everything that's wrong with Wikipedia then, given that you're stating that a disagreement over which sources to give more weight to in choosing which title to use for an article is everything wrong with Wikipedia, it's as though you're saying that, overall, Wikipedia really has very little wrong with it and there's utterly nothing else about it to criticize. If that isn't what you meant, then take this as a lesson on how one undermines oneself when one's contribution to a discussion relies so much on overwrought rhetoric.
 * In addition, you didn't warn us of anything, so "Can't say you weren't warned" also seems to serve a purely rhetorical purpose. Largoplazo (talk) 16:11, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

 * Support Pennsylvania Dutch is near-universal in non-academic media. Pennsylvania German appears frequently in linguistic articles, but this need not take precedence over common usage, as Wikipedia is not an academic publication.Zhanmusi (talk) 16:37, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Dative usage for possession instead of genitive
It might be interesting to add that there are/were similar phenomenons in English (his genitive) and modern German (as described in the book Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod). Nakonana (talk) 15:58, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Pennsylvania Dutch language