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Warren Hastings

Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first Governor-General of Bengal in 1772–1785. He and Robert Clive are credited with laying the foundation of the British Empire in India. He was an energetic organizer and reformer. In 1779–1784 he led forces of the East India Company against a coalition of native states and the French. In the end, the well-organized British side held its own, while France lost influence in India. In 1787, he was accused of corruption and impeached, but he was eventually acquitted in 1795 after a long trial. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.

Early life and education
Warren Hastings was born in Churchill, Oxfordshire in 1732 to Reverend Penyston Hastings and his wife Hester (née Warren), who died soon after he was born. The family had been lords of the manor and patrons of the living of Daylesford in direct line from 1281 until 1715. The Daylesford estate was then sold, there having been a considerable loss of family wealth due to support given to Charles I. Young Warren was brought up by his grandfather and educated in a charity school with the poorest children in the Gloucestershire village of Daylesford. At some point he was rescued by an uncle who sent him to London.

Hastings attended Westminster School, where he coincided with the future Prime Ministers Lord Shelburne and the Duke of Portland and with the poet William Cowper. He quickly excelled as a top scholar but was forced to leave at sixteen, when his uncle died. He joined the British East India Company in 1750 as a writer (clerk) and sailed out to India, reaching Calcutta in August 1750. There he built up a reputation for diligence and spent his free time learning about India and mastering Urdu and Persian. His work won him promotion in 1752 when he was sent to Kasimbazar, a major trading post in Bengal, where he worked for William Watts. While there he gained further experience in the politics of East India.

British traders still relied on the whims of local rulers, so that the political turmoil in Bengal was unsettling. The elderly moderate Nawab Alivardi Khan was likely to be succeeded by his grandson Siraj ud-Daulah, but there were several other claimants. This made British trading posts throughout Bengal increasingly insecure, as Siraj ud-Daulah was known to harbour anti-European views and to be likely to launch an attack once he took power. When Alivardi Khan died in April 1756, the British traders and a small garrison at Kasimbazar were left vulnerable. On 3 June, after being surrounded by a much larger force, the British were persuaded to surrender to prevent a massacre. Hastings was imprisoned with others in the Bengali capital, Murshidabad, while the Nawab's forces marched on Calcutta and captured it. The garrison and civilians were then locked up under appalling conditions in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

For a while, Hastings remained in Murshidabad and was even used by the Nawab as an intermediary; but, fearing for his life, he escaped to the island of Fulta, where a number of refugees from Calcutta had taken shelter. While there, he met, fell in love with, and married Mary Buchanan, the widow of Captain John Buchanan (one of the victims of the Black Hole of Calcutta). Shortly afterwards a British expedition from Madras under Robert Clive arrived to rescue them. Hastings served as a volunteer in Clive's forces as they retook Calcutta in January 1757. After this swift defeat, the Nawab urgently sought peace and the war came to an end. Clive was impressed with Hastings when he met him and arranged for his return to Kasimbazar to resume his pre-war activities. Later in 1757, fighting resumed, leading to the Battle of Plassey, where Clive won a decisive victory over the Nawab. Siraj ud-Daulah was overthrown and replaced by his commander-in-chief Mir Jafar, who initiated policies favorable to the East India Company traders, before falling out with them and being overthrown.

Rising status
In 1758, Hastings became the British Resident in the Bengali capital of Murshidabad – a major step forward in his career – at the instigation of Clive. His role in the city was ostensibly that of an ambassador but as Bengal came increasingly under the dominance of the East India Company he was often given the task of issuing orders to the new Nawab on behalf of Clive and the Calcutta authorities. Hastings personally sympathised with Mir Jafar and regarded many of the demands placed on him by the company as excessive. Hastings had already developed a philosophy that was grounded in trying to establish a more understanding relationship with India's inhabitants and their rulers, and he often tried to mediate between the two sides.

During Mir Jafar's reign, the East India Company exerted an increasingly large role in the running of the region, and effectively took over the defence of Bengal against external invaders when Bengal's troops proved insufficient for the task. As he grew older, Mir Jafar became gradually less effective in ruling the state, and in 1760, EIC troops ousted him from power and replaced him with Mir Qasim. Hastings expressed his doubts to Calcutta over the move, believing they were honour-bound to support Mir Jafar, but his opinions were overruled. Hastings established a good relationship with the new Nawab and again had misgivings about the demands he relayed from his superiors. In 1761, he was recalled and appointed to the Calcutta council.

Conquest of Bengal
Hastings was personally angered when investigating trading abuses in Bengal. He alleged that some European and British-allied Indian merchants were taking advantage of the situation to enrich themselves personally. Persons travelling under the unauthorised protection of the British flag engaged in widespread fraud and illegal trading, knowing that local customs officials would be cowed into not interfering with them. Hastings felt this was bringing shame on Britain's reputation and urged the authorities in Calcutta to put an end to it. The Council considered his report but ultimately rejected Hastings' proposals. He was fiercely criticised by other members, many of whom had themselves profited from the trade.

Ultimately, little was done to stem the abuses, and Hastings began to consider quitting his post and returning to Britain. His resignation was only delayed by the outbreak of fresh fighting in Bengal. Once on the throne Qasim proved increasingly independent in his actions, and he rebuilt Bengal's army by hiring European instructors and mercenaries who greatly improved the standard of his forces. He gradually felt more confident, and in 1764, when a dispute broke out in the settlement of Patna, he captured its British garrison and threatened to execute them if the East India Company responded militarily. When Calcutta dispatched troops anyway, Mir Qasim executed the hostages. British forces then went on the attack and won a series of battles culminating in the decisive Battle of Buxar in October 1764. After this, Mir Qasim fled into exile in Delhi, where he died in 1777. The Treaty of Allahabad (1765) gave the East India Company the right to collect taxes in Bengal on behalf of the Mughal Emperor.

Hastings resigned in December 1764 and sailed for Britain the following month. He left deeply saddened by the failure of the more moderate strategy that he had supported, but which had been rejected by the hawkish members of the Calcutta Council. Once he arrived in London, Hastings began spending far beyond his means. He stayed at fashionable addresses and had his picture painted by Joshua Reynolds even though, unlike many of his contemporaries, he had not amassed a fortune while in India. Eventually, having run up enormous debts, Hastings realised he needed to return to India to restore his finances, and applied to the East India Company for employment. His application was initially rejected as he had made many political enemies, including the powerful director Laurence Sulivan. Eventually, an appeal to Sulivan's rival Robert Clive secured Hastings the position of deputy ruler at the city of Madras. He sailed from Dover in March 1769. On the voyage on board, the Duke of Grafton became ill, and he was cared for by the German Baroness Marian von Imhoff (1749–1837) and her husband. He fell in love with the Baroness, and they began an affair, seemingly with her husband's consent. Hastings' first wife, Mary, had died in 1759, and he planned to marry the Baroness once she had obtained a divorce from her husband. The process took a long time and it was not until 1777 that news of the divorce came from Germany, and Hastings was finally able to marry her.

Madras and Calcutta
Hastings arrived in Madras shortly after the First Anglo-Mysore War of 1767–1769, when the forces of Hyder Ali had threatened the capture of the city. The Treaty of Madras (4 April 1769) ended the war but failed to settle the dispute and three further Anglo-Mysore Wars followed (1780–1799). During his time at Madras, Hastings initiated reforms of trading practices which cut out the use of middlemen and benefited both the Company and the Indian labourers, but otherwise the period was relatively uneventful for him.

By this stage, Hastings shared Clive's view that the three major British Presidencies (settlements) – Madras, Bombay and Calcutta – should be brought under single rule rather than being governed separately as they currently were. In 1772, he was appointed to be Governor of Calcutta, the most important of the Presidencies. In Britain, moves were underway to reform the divided system of government and establish single rule across all of British-controlled regions in India with its capital in Kolkata (Calcutta). Hastings became the first Governor General in 1773.

While Governor, Hastings launched a major crackdown on bandits operating in Bengal, which proved largely successful. He also faced the severe Bengal Famine, which resulted in between two and ten million deaths.

Governor-General
The Regulating Act of 1773 brought the presidencies of Madras and Bombay under Bengal's control. It raised Hastings from Governor to the new post of Governor-General, but limited his power by making the Governor-General one member of a five-man Supreme Council. This was so confusingly structured that it was difficult to tell what constitutional position Hastings actually held.

According to William Dalrymple:
 * He got quickly to work, beginning the process of turning the EIC into an administrative service. Hastings' first major change was to move all the functions of government from Murshidabad to Calcutta ... Throughout 1773, Hastings worked with extraordinary energy. He unified currency systems, ordered the codification of Hindu laws and digests of Muslim law books, reformed the tax and customs system, fixed land revenue and stopped the worst oppression being carried out on behalf of private traders by the local agents. He created an efficient postal service, backed a proper cartographical survey of India by James Rennell and built a series of public granaries, including the great Gola at Patna, to make sure the famine of 1770-71 was never repeated ... Underlying all Hastings' work was a deep respect for the land he had lived in since his teens ... Hastings genuinely liked India, and by the time he became Governor spoke not only good Bengali and Urdu but also fluent court and literary Persian.

In 1774, Hastings assumed control of the East India Company's opium monopoly.

War with France
In 1777, during the American War of Independence (1775–1783), the Americans had captured a British field army at the Battle of Saratoga during the Saratoga campaign. This emboldened the French to sign a military alliance with the new United States of America and declare war on Great Britain. The French concentrated in the Caribbean islands, and in India.

War in India
The presidencies of Madras and Bombay became involved in serious quarrels with the greatest of the native states. Madras with the formidable Hyder Ali of Mysore and with the Nizam of Hyderabad, and Bombay with the Marathas. France sent a fleet under Admiral Pierre André de Suffren. The combination meant Hastings faced a formidable challenge, with only Oudh as an ally. In six years of intense and confused fighting, from 1779 to 1784, Hastings sent one army marching across India to help Bombay, and another to Madras. His greatest achievement was in breaking up the hostile coalition. By 1782 he made peace with the Marathas. The French fleet had been repeatedly delayed. Suffren finally arrived in 1782 to discover that the Indian coalition had fallen apart, that Hastings had captured all the French ports, and Suffren could achieve nothing. When the wars ended in 1784, British rule in India had not changed, but the French position was now much weaker. The East India Company now had an efficient system in operation. However, Hastings's multiple wartime operations needed large sums of money and London sent nothing. His methods of using the local treasuries later became the main line of attack in the impeachment brought against him.

Bhutan and Tibet
In 1773, Hastings responded to an appeal for help from the Raja of the princely state of Cooch Behar to the north of Bengal, whose territory had been invaded by Zhidar, the Druk Desi of Bhutan the previous year. Hastings agreed to help on the condition that Cooch Behar recognise British sovereignty. The Raja agreed and with the help of British troops they pushed the Bhutanese out of the Duars and into the foothills in 1773.

The Druk Desi returned to face civil war at home. His opponent Jigme Senge, the regent for the seven-year-old Shabdrung (the Bhutanese equivalent of the Dalai Lama), had supported popular discontent. Zhidar was unpopular for his corvee tax (he sought unreasonably to rebuild a major dzong in one year), as well as for his overtures to the Manchu Emperors which threatened Bhutanese independence. Zhidar was soon overthrown and forced to flee to Tibet, where he was imprisoned and a new Druk Desi, Kunga Rinchen, installed in his place. Meanwhile, the Sixth Panchen Lama, who had imprisoned Zhidar, interceded on behalf of the Bhutanese with a letter to Hastings, imploring him to cease hostilities in return for friendship. Hastings saw the opportunity to establish relations with both the Tibetans and the Bhutanese and wrote a letter to the Panchen Lama proposing "a general treaty of amity and commerce between Tibet and Bengal".

In February 1782, news reached the headquarters of the EIC in Calcutta of the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. Hastings proposed sending a mission to Tibet with a message of congratulation, designed to strengthen amicable relations established by Bogle on his earlier visit. With the assent of the EIC Court of Directors, Samuel Turner was appointed chief of the Tibet mission on 9 January 1783 with fellow EIC employee Samuel Davis as "Draftsman & Surveyor". Turner returned to the Governor-General's camp at Patna in 1784 where he reported he had been unable to visit the Tibetan capital at Lhasa, but received a promise that merchants sent there from India would be encouraged.

Turner was instructed to obtain a pair of yaks on his travels, which he duly did. They were transported to Hasting's menagerie in Calcutta and on the Governor-General's return to England, the yaks went too, although only the male survived the difficult sea voyage. Noted artist George Stubbs subsequently painted the animal's portrait as The Yak of Tartary and in 1854 it went on to appear, albeit stuffed, at The Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in London.

Hasting's return to England ended any further efforts to engage in diplomacy with Tibet.

Impeachment

In 1785, after 10 years of service, during which he helped extend and regularise the nascent Raj created by Clive of India, Hastings resigned. He was replaced by the Earl Cornwallis; Cornwallis served as Commander-in-Chief of British India and Governor of the Presidency of Fort William, also known as the Bengal Presidency.

On return to England, Hastings was impeached in the House of Commons for alleged crimes in India, notably embezzlement, extortion and coercion, and an alleged judicial killing of Maharaja Nandakumar. At first thought unlikely to succeed, the prosecution was managed by MPs including Edmund Burke, encouraged by Sir Philip Francis, whom Hastings had wounded during a duel in India, Charles James Fox and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. When the charges of the indictment were read, the 20 counts took Edmund Burke two full days to read. According to historian Mithi Mukherjee, the trial instituted debate between two radically opposed visions of empire – one based on ideas of power and conquest in pursuit of the exclusive national interests of the colonizer, and one represented by Burke, of sovereignty based on a recognition of the rights of the colonized.

Following the indictment by the House of Commons, Hastings was tried by his peers in the House of Lords; the trial started on 13 February 1788 and continued for 148 days of hearings over a period of seven years. These hearings continued at great personal cost to Hastings, who complained that he was being bankrupted by the cost of defending himself. He is rumoured once to have said that the punishment would have been less extreme had he pleaded guilty. The House of Lords acquitted him of all charges on 24 April 1795. The Company subsequently compensated him with £4,000 annually, retroactive to the date he returned to England, but did not reimburse his legal fees, which he claimed to have been £70,000. He collected the stipend for nearly 29 years. Throughout the years of the trial, Hastings lived in considerable style at his leased town house, Somerset House, Park Lane. He subsequently sold the lease at auction for £9,450.

Among many who supported him in print was the pamphleteer Ralph Broome. Others disturbed by the perceived injustice of the proceedings included Frances Burney.

Letters and journals of Jane Austen and her family, who knew Hastings, show they followed the trial closely.

Later life
Hastings' supporters from the Edinburgh East India Club and a number of other gentlemen from India gave a reportedly "elegant entertainment" for Hastings when he visited Edinburgh. There was a toast to "prosperity to our settlements in India" and a wish that "the virtue and talents which preserved them be ever remembered with gratitude."

In 1788, Hastings bought for £54,000 an estate at Daylesford, Gloucestershire, including the site of the Hastings family's medieval seat. Thereafter he remodelled the house to designs by Samuel Pepys Cockerell with classical and Indian decoration and gardens landscaped by John Davenport. In 1801, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1816, he rebuilt the Norman church, where he was buried two years later. In spite of substantial compensation from the East India Company, Hastings was technically insolvent on his death.

Administrative ethos and legacy

In the last quarter of the 18th century, many senior administrators realised that to govern Indian society it was essential to learn its various religious, social, and legal customs and precedents. The importance of such knowledge to the colonial government was in Hastings' mind when he remarked in 1784, in his introduction to the English translation of the ‘’Bhagavad Gita’’ by Wilkins: "Every accumulation of knowledge and especially such as is obtained by social communication with people over whom we exercise dominion founded on the right of conquest, is useful to the state... it attracts and conciliates distant affections; it lessens the weight of the chain by which the natives are held in subjection; and it imprints on the hearts of our countrymen the sense of obligation and benevolence.... Every instance which brings their real character... home to observation will impress us with a more generous sense of feeling for their natural rights, and teach us to estimate them by the measure of our own. But such instances can only be obtained in their writings: and these will survive when the British dominion in India shall have long ceased to exist, and when the sources which once yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance."

During Hastings' term as governor-general, much administrative precedent was set, which profoundly shaped later attitudes towards the government of British India. Hastings had great respect for the ancient scripture of Hinduism and set the British position on governance as one of looking back to the earliest precedents possible. This allowed Brahmin advisors to mould the law, as no Briton thoroughly understood Sanskrit until Sir William Jones, and even then, a literal translation was of little use: it needed to be elucidated by religious commentators well versed in the lore and its application. This approach accentuated the Hindu caste system and to an extent the frameworks of other religions, which had at least in recent centuries been somewhat more flexibly applied. So British influence on the fluid social structure of India can largely be seen as a solidification of the privileges of the Hindu caste system through the influence of exclusively high-caste Hindu scholars advising the British on their laws. Where British translators or interpreters read in the Arthashastra a caste system in India, the actual wording speaks of varna and jati: skin-colour and birth, i.e. clan, and it speaks of the four societal classes, not castes: from upper-class Brahmin to lower-class Shudra.

In 1781, Hastings founded Madrasa 'Aliya at Calcutta (transformed in 2007 into Aliah University by the Government of West Bengal). In 1784, he supported the foundation of the Bengal Asiatic Society, now the Asiatic Society of Bengal, by the oriental scholar Sir William Jones. This became a storehouse for information on the subcontinent and has remained in various institutional guises to the present day. Hastings' legacy as an administrator has been somewhat dualistic: as governor, he instituted reforms that would change the path India followed in subsequent years, but he retained the distinction of being also the "architect of British India and the one ruler of British India to whom the creation of such an entity was anathema."

Legacy
The city of Hastings, New Zealand, and the Melbourne outer suburb of Hastings, Victoria, Australia, were named after him. There is also a road and the neighbourhood of Hastings, Kolkata, in India named after him.

"Hastings" is the name of one of the four schoolhouses in La Martiniere Calcutta (Kolkata). It is represented by the colour red. "Hastings" is also the name of one of the four schoolhouses in Bishop Westcott Girls' School, Ranchi, again represented by the colour red. "Hastings" is a senior wing house at St Paul's School, Darjeeling, India, where all the senior wing houses are named after Anglo-Indian colonial figures.

RIMS Warren Hastings was a Royal Indian Marine troopship built by the Barrow Shipbuilding Co. and launched on 18 April 1893. The ship struck a rock and was wrecked off the coast of Réunion on the night of 14 January 1897.

Literature
Hastings took an interest in seeing the Bhagavad Gita translated into English. His efforts led to a first translation by Charles Wilkins appearing in 1785. He wrote the introduction to it which appeared on 4 October 1784 in Benares.

"Warren Hastings and His Bull", a short story by the Indian writer Uday Prakash, was adapted for stage under the same title by the director Arvind Gaur. It presents Hastings's interaction with traditional India in a work of socio-economic political satire.

A short story by the Hindi author Shivprasad Singh 'Rudra' Kashikeya called Bahti Ganga features Chait Singh, then Raja of Banaras, in conflict with Hastings, who is imprisoned by the Raja, but escapes, though ordinary people of the city make fun of him.

The Hastings career is much discussed in the historical mystery novel, Secrets in the Stones, by Tessa Harris.

Hastings is named in Book 5 of George Eliot's novel Middlemarch, where his greed for Daylesford is compared to the character Joshua Rigg's greed for money.

Hastings was rumoured to be the biological father of Eliza de Feuillide, the daughter of Philadelphia Austen Hancock and a cousin of Jane Austen. Some scholars have seen parallels between Hastings and Colonel Brandon in Austen's Sense and Sensibility: both left for India at age 17; both may have had illegitimate daughters named Eliza; both participated in a duel. Linda Robinson Walker argues that Hastings "haunts Sense and Sensibility in the character of Colonel Brandon."

title: Warren Hastings


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Talk:Kazoo

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My issue with the history section is that it's missing the roots of the instrument. The Kazoo which Alabama Vest is credited for is a modern version of the African mirlitons's that date back to time immemorial. It's important to know that this ancient African instrument didn't start in 1840, and it didn't start in America. The history goes much farther back. - AnonaMan

You don't blow into a Kazoo when you play it, god damnit, the Playing section of this page is just fucking stupid. God damn.--83.252.170.236 (talk) 08:36, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Removed link to the Electric Kazoo website because it was a advert. Uwilldrop 18:50, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

The following was removed as "highly dubious":
 * The kazoo is the only musical instrument developed in the United States and the only melodic instrument that anyone can play.

Please name another musical instrument developed in the United States. Please name another melodic instrument that anyone can play.

Ortolan88

OK: sousaphone and voice. Don't mean to be snide, but both fit.

--dreamword
 * You think anyone can play the sousaphone? Should I present myself as an example of someone who can't?  KQ

Dreamword, It's a better challenge than you think. Not everyone can play the sousaphone, and the voice is an instrument only metaphorically. If only the theremin had been developed in the US.... -- Someone else 04:57 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
 * The theremin is damned hard to play (and you look most ungraceful doing it). My son was in a band with a theremin in it (even the Beach Boys couldn't manage it, that's a keyboard instrument on "Good Vibrations"). Ortolan88
 * What a bunch of cheaters! I feel thoroughly rooked. Can everyone play the Paul Tanner Electro-theremin?  -- Someone else

 * The theremin is actually quite difficult to play, as it requires rather precise & fluid movement, & the player has to stand perfectly still otherwise, else the instrument introduces unintended noise. KQ
 * Fair enough, I guess unintended noise is the opposite of melody! -- Someone else 05:06 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)

How about the banjo? -- Zoe

The sentence said the kazoo was the only instrument developed in the US (but so was the sousaphone, or if you prefer, a hundred and one synthesisers - the Buchla, the Moog, the original RCA), and that it was the only melodic instrument that anyone can play, which isn't true because you have to be able to sing to play it, which not everyone is (people can be physically incapable of singing, I mean). Aside from which, you could say anyone can play the piano (not well, admittedly, but not everyone can play the kazoo well either). It was correct to remove the sentence, because it isn't true. --Camembert
 * Anyone with limbs and unrestricted movement can play the piano (and can play it in C major). Maybe we should stay away from "anyone" statements, just like the "everyone" ones, since one person alone could disprove them.  :-)  --KQ
 * I challenge anyone to find a person who can't play the lagerphone BryanJones

 * That depends what you mean by play. A certain amount of experience is neded to produce a good tone. -- Tarquin 17:33 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
 * Well, I just mean one could stick to the white keys (or the closer keys, if blind) and bang an ok tune in C maj. Not great, probably, but arguably as accomplished as anything Yanni's done.  But now we're belaboring the point.  :-)  --KQ

 * yes, we are. But it wasn't a typo. tOne, not tUne. and "bang" was exactly my point. -- t

 * My number-two son, the one who played in a band with a theremin, can catch your attention playing a single chord on the piano (or a couple of notes on bass). There is a big difference between banging and playing, speaking as one who banged the drums in a rock and roll band with three real musicians.  Ortolan88
 * Yes, I'll concede both those points, but really if Yanni plays music then anyone can sit at a piano & hit keys at random and call that music too. So we're back to tarquin's "That depends what you mean by play."  Or, more fundamentally, that depends on what you mean by music.  FWIW, I do think Yanni is music, just not good music.  Now Davis/Coltrane/Monk: that's music.  :-)  KQ  p.s. oh, and Brubeck bangs the hell out of the piano, but in his heyday he did indeed play.
 * but he bangs with style' ... ;-) - t
 * Of course, as a refined individual, I have never actually heard this Yanni you speak of. Ortolan88
 * Worse than that: Yanni <-- see? no article. ergo he doesn't exist! ;-) -- t
 * Great, now he goes on the most-wanted list. Ortolan88

The banjo is an African instrument, but otherwise you can consider me officially crushed like a bug. Ortolan88

I wrote the offending sentences in the exhilaration of writing about the kazoo and got carried away. Not only should writers avoid "anyone" and "everyone", but also "first". After all, Cortez, the "first explorer in Mexico" hooked up with Malinche, a Spanish speaking native who had been taught the language by previous visitors from Spain. And Thomas Edison didn't invent the phonograph. As I say, carried away by exuberance, the opposite of being a troll. Ortolan88

 * Ah, don't worry about it Orto - anyone would have got excited writing about the kazoo ;) (seriously, it's a great instrument - I own four). Something like "The kazoo is one of the few acoustic instruments to be developed in the United States and one of the easiest melodic instruments to play, requiring only the ability to hum" would OK, I think (in fact, I think I'll add it now). I'm a real pedant when it comes to these things, I'm afraid :) --Camembert

 * In the song Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, Sesame Street character Big Bird ponders if Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz is a "strange type of kazoo".

Is this really useful? We could, I suppose, note every time the word "kazoo" has been used in television, films, radio, books and so on, but I don't think it would be much use to anybody. --Camembert

Is Kazoo an instrument?
"...it should be noted that to call the kazoo (which merely distorts and amplifies the sound of ones hum) an instrument would require one to call the distortion pedal used for guitar an instrument.". Well, I am a proud musician, and I play several instruments, kazoo included; and sincerely I don't agree at all about this phrase. All woodwind instruments are based on someone's mouthpieces. Kazoo is not less honourable than other instruments like saxophone, flutes and others, in my opinion, thus I guess that affirmation should be removed, also because that metaphor doesn't work (I have a distortion pedal, and it is quite useless without a guitar). --Angelo 23:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The comparison to a guitar pedal is inaccurate, as the pedal requires input from the guitar. --Umma Kynes 08:36, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Just as a distortion pedal requires input from a guitar, the kazoo requires you to hum into it. It isn't an instrument. All true woodwind instruments produce the vibrations somewhere in the instrument, the vibrations from a kazoo are produced in your vocal chords. You don't play a kazoo, you hum into it. You don't play a distortion pedal, you play the guitar through it. This has nothing to do with snobbery and whether the kazoo is "less honourable". eyeball226 (talk) 19:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I disagree.

The kazoo is as much a musical instrument as the trumpet. The trumpet amplifies and filters the sound made by the "brr" sound combined with pressure made by the lips, in much the same way the kazoo filters and amplifies the sound. It could also be argued that an extension of a musical instrument might be considered a variation on a musical instrument, like how a cornet is as much a musical instrument as the trumpet, compared to how the kazoo is an instrument just as well as the human voice is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.149.169.164 (talk) 00:15, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

The kazoo may very rarely be used in classical bands and orchestras, but it is still a musical intstrument. I think that the article could benefit from information about the etymology of the word "kazoo". ACEOREVIVED (talk) 16:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

 * Well this is frustrating. The kazoo is clearly not an instrument - it is a voice modulator. It changes the sound of your voice. When you listen to somebody playing kazoo, the instrument you are hearing is their voice. The human voice creates the pitches. When the sound of your voice goes through your kazoo, no new pitches are introduced, the signal is merely distorted, just like a guitar pedal. Your comparison of the kazoo with the trumpet doesn't make sense - when playing trumpet, the pitches are created by the trumpet itself.

 * No, actually they are not. The buzzing of the player's lips modulate the air column at various frequencies, some of which are selectively reinforced by the length of trumpet tubing applied at any given moment.  The sound is coming from the vibrating air column.  The trumpet does not "create" any pitches -- if you take the trumpet away from the trumpeter, the sound will stop.  If you put the trumpet and the trumpeter in a vacuum, the sound will stop.

 * Mirliton instruments are numerous, popular, and are considered musical instruments in major works of organology, inlcuding those by Marcuse, Sachs, and the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. If your suggested basis for disallowing the kazoo were used, you would also have to disallow instruments like the Jew's harp and the didgeridoo, both of which have extensive repertory and ethnic traditions.

 * The player must make a buzzing sound with their lips for the trumpet to work, in the same way a guitar player must apply pressure to their guitar strings, but without the instrument in hand, their would be no music. If you walked up to a trumpet player and grabbed their trumpet out of their hands while they were playing it, you wouldn't hear any music, because the musical notes are made by the trumpet itself.

 * You just contradicted yourself there. If the notes were being made by the trumpet itself, then the music wouldn't stop when you took it away from the trumpeter.  The trumpet requires input from the trumpeter to make music; likewise with the kazoo.

 * The same applies to anything which can be considered an instrument - guitar, piano, saxophone, harmonica.... but obviously not the kazoo - if you walked up to a kazoo player and snatched their kazoo out of their hands while they were playing it, you would still hear the musical notes they would have been playing through their kazoo, because (here is the important bit) the musical notes were being created by their voice. Kazoo 'players' are in fact vocalists.

 * Plenty of acousticians and musicologists assert -- and support -- the theory that most, if not all musical instruments evolved from attempts to imitate and extend the human voice. Many, in fact, consider the voice itself an instrument; as do many musicians.

 * They are still definitely valid musicians, just not instrumentalists. Vocalists use many effects to enhance the sound of their voice - they may apply reverb, delay or distortion, or they may direct their sound through a kazoo, just like a a guitarist would direct their sound through an overdrive pedal, and not at all like how one would play the trumpet. So there you have it - the kazoo is not an instrument, but rather a tool vocalists use to modify the sound of the real instrument at work - the human voice.         - Wiki-Edit-Maker 24 August 2019

 * You are attempting to apply a definition which is far too rigid to be useful. Taking your thesis to the logical extreme, synthesizers are not musical instruments.  They produce no sounds, only electrical currents.  Speakers are an effect which renders some of those currents into vibrations in the air which we are able to perceive as sounds.  Take the speaker away, and there is no sound.  Is a synthesizer not an instrument because the sound comes from a speaker, and not from the synthesizer?

 * "Musical instrument" is defined not as something that produces sound in a particular way, but by the use to which those sounds are put. You might want to check out the | Wikipedia article on musical instruments:  " In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument."
 * 70.89.176.249 (talk) 00:37, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

A musical instrument is an object which can be used in conjunction with the human body to create musical notes. Both the object itself and the human input must be necessary in the creation of the note. Snatch a kazoo out of the mouth of a person playing kazoo and you will hear the same musical note that the kazoo was 'playing' emanating from their voice. The kazoo was not necessary in the creation of musical notes. It does not change the pitch of the note produced by the voice. It only changes the timbre of the note. It is therefore a timbre modifier, not an instrument. To counter your synthesiser point: no, a synthesiser by itself, not plugged into a speaker, is not a musical instrument. An unconnected speaker by itself is also not a musical instrument. The combination of a synthesiser and a speaker, however, is a musical instrument - because both the synthesiser and the speaker were necessary in the creation of the musical pitch. The pitch was not created until electrical currents reached the speaker. When you play a kazoo, the musical pitch is created by your voice. Unplug a speaker from a synthesiser and you won't hear audible music. The synthesiser's output is an electrical signal, not audible music. Remove the kazoo from a players mouth and you WILL hear audible music. That is the difference. That is a why a human voice is a musical instrument and an unconnected synthesiser is not a musical instrument. That is why a kazoo is not a musical instrument. Wiki-Edit-Maker 21.7.2021

Playing the kazoo
Ok, first time edit after discovering the Wikipedia world and my entire section was deleted by an administrator with no explanation. What did I do wrong? My addition was intended to enlighten those newcomers to a kazoo (there are more than you might think) on how to get it to make any sound. There is nothing inaccurate or argumentative that I can see in my edit. I hunted down the administrator's email address from her web site and asked this question, but in the mean time, can anyone else offer any advise or explanation? Thanks much.

''The deleted section: Notes on Playing the Kazoo: While humming is typically used as the technique required to play a kazoo, a more accurate term would be singing into the kazoo. A person can hum with their lips completely closed. Humming with your lips closed around the mouthpiece of the kazoo will not change the sound - you must vocalize or "sing" in order for the kazoo to make any sound. Many people will stuggle with getting any sound from a kazoo when instructed to hum. But when instructed to speak "do, do, do..." into the kazoo mouthpiece, viola! Music for all to enjoy.'' Bellzerr

Since I've seen no further discussion on "Notes on Playing the kazoo" and have received no reply to my personal email to Ms. Martin concerning the deletion of this section, I've inserted it back into place. Bellzerr 20:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I found Bellzerr's comment helpful. I suggest that it be kept. Typofixer76 15:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Where else can kazoos be heard?
I am certain that I have heard a rendition of "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin, with all instrumentation performed on a set of kazoos. However I cannot identify the performers, only that it likely has been around since the late 1970s. I suggest adding this to the Pop Culture section if proper attribution can be obtained. Typofixer76 15:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

BBC lists an example: Goldfrapp handed out kazoos to accompany them while playing the Royal Albert Hall, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8543467.stm  94.169.249.202 (talk) 11:46, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Barbara Stewart
I replaced the one guy with Barbara Stewart as she seems to be more notable. Also I just saw her on Conan. I'm not trying to tick anyone off, I just couldn't find much on this BrianApocalypse if that it is his real name. (Which I somehow doubt) Also I didn't put her name in brackets because at present Barbara Stewart leads to a politician from New Zealand.--T. Anthony 06:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I hear T. Anthony's point, but Barbara Stewart is an awful Kazoo player, so awful that including her name really hurts the field. She has no idea what she's doing. She was on Conan once and made a complete fool of herself and the Kazoo, and the sad part was that it was done unintentionally.98.4.103.242 (talk) 01:31, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Tampa Red
If anyone wants to hear some REALLY GREAT kazoo playing (as opposed to its usual appearance as a "gag" instrument), check out the work of bluesman Tampa Red. He gets a wonderful trumpet-harmonica sound out of it, with interesting vocalization and wah effects. He's mostly known as a guitarist and singer, and he only breaks out the kazoo occasionally-- you can hear some excellent playing on a few old Ma Rainey records in addition to his solo work. It's a shame that the expressive possibilities of this instrument have not been explored further. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paulybrooklyn (talk • contribs) 08:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

History of Name?
is there any information on where the strange name comes from --voodoom 09:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The "kazoo" was what Warren Herbert Frost named his invention in Patent #270,543 issued on January 9, 1883. In the text of the patent he refers to it as "This instrument or toy, to which I propose to give the name "kazoo"," Motleyjust (talk) 13:39, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I have added that information to the article. Motleyjust (talk) 17:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Request for phraseology fix
"In North East England and South Wales, kazoos play an important role in so-called jazz bands (really children's marching bands)."

This sentence is pretty unintelligable - I'd correct it myself but I have no idea what it's on about. Thanks 82.20.14.88 (talk) 07:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Removed trivial list
I have removed almost the entire section listing recordings with kazoos - more than 20 different items, none with references, and none with much point except to say "hey, I heard a kazoo on this record!" It could use some expansion about when/if/why kazoos are used in recordings today, but that wasn't it. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Fix Please
Okay, sorry for the lack of editing on this post, I rarely edit articles and would rather have someone else more knowledgeable fix the problems unless they are blatant. There's an incredible fact that involves The Beatles, combs, and toilet paper on this page. Now I don't know for sure but I don't think toilet paper can be used to make a kazoo. It's too soft. Sure, there are kazoos in, “Lovely Rita,” but I don't think they involved toilet paper. I didn't even check the rest of the one-sentenced-paragraph statements in this article. Could someone that knows this stuff please check into it? --WerewNC, 2/10/2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.162.221.199 (talk) 22:07, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

That song was recorded in 1967. At that time, some toilet paper (especially that in public facilities) was thinner, harder and much less absorbent than most toilet paper available today. Not really pleasant for it's usual purpose, but quite possibly it could have been used for comb kazoos. (Not having any samples of 1967 toilet paper on hand, I can not say for sure.) Motleyjust (talk) 15:19, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

 * I think the identification of it as toilet paper is due to confusion regarding the term tissue paper. As well as sometimes referring to toilet paper, tissue paper is a thin, brittle and translucent paper which is what is referred to in the "comb and tissue paper" combination. At some point someone has obviously misunderstood that term and then described it as comb and toilet paper. eyeball226 (talk) 19:19, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The reference is definitely to toilet paper. I was born in 1942 and comb and toilet paper was a 'standard instrument' for children of my era (and the growing-up Beatles!) - except it was called lavatory paper in the 40's and 50's. Sometimes called tissue paper but the meaning of that word has changed too. Then it still referred to hard surface paper but with a see-through quality and sometimes called tracing paper. Tommyboy (talk) 09:57, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

"Professional usage" section
That's quite the example farm there, many of them kinda trivial. It could use a trim, or at least converted into a bulleted list form. -- œ ™ 15:56, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

J.P. Kalaam ?
I am requesting information on this statement: "The kazoo was first brought into the public by a magician named J.P. Kalaam. He was "fascinated" by strange instruments and encountered the kazoo while in Africa. His kazoos were all made of wood."

The only information I can find on J.P. Kalaam is that exact statement. It is used over and over. I suspect someone used it, and everyone else copied it from that source or one of the parroted statements.

It says "The kazoo was first brought into the public" but it doesn't say when. If it doesn't say when that happened, how can you tell it was the first? Motleyjust (talk) 14:08, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Questionable Reference
The book Kassinger, Ruth, 2002, Build a Better Mousetrap: Make Classic Inventions, Discover Your Problem-Solving Genius, and Take the Inventor's Challenge, John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 0471395382 is cited as support for the statement "It was on such an instrument that the kazoo, invented in the 19th century by an African American named Alabama Vest in Macon, Georgia, United States, is based. The first kazoo was manufactured to Vest's specifications by Thaddeus Von Clegg, a German clockmaker in Macon. The kazoo was first publicized at the Georgia State Fair in 1852, where it was presented as the "Down-South Submarine".[2]"

Kassinger apparently took her "facts" from information distributed by one of the kazoo manufacturers, which is quoted verbatim on many web sites, but is never supported with facts.

I do not feel that this should be used as a reference in this case. This leaves this statement with no citation. I would really like to know if anyone has any proof for any of the Alabama Vest Legend.

I have contacted the book publishers regarding this, and hope to hear something from them in a few days. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Motleyjust (talk • contribs) 15:26, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

First metal kazoos ?
The statement "The first metal kazoos were manufactured and patented in Eden, New York, " has no reference and no date or patent # or who it was issued to.

Can anyone clarify this?

The first metal kazoo I have found to be patented in Eden NY was US Pat. D53470 - Filed Feb 3, 1919 - Issued Jun 17, 1919 EMIL G. SORG, OF BUFFALO, AND HAEKT E. RICHARDSON, OF EDEN, NEW YORK. This was 17 years after the patent for a metal kazoo issued to George D. Smith 1902

Motleyjust (talk) 02:04, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Umm....

 * "The kazoo is a quasi-musical instrument"

Contained in the first sentence, doesn't this seem a bit judgmental? And not necessarily correct nonwithstanding any citations. By the same argument, the jews harp and digeridoo might not be considered musical instruments, since they depend on mouth shape and sometimes voice.--♦♦♦Vlmastra♦♦♦ (talk) 04:44, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Big difference. If an instrument depends on mouth shape, it is still an instrument. If an 'instrument' depends on human voice... and the pitch created by the human voice is the same as the pitch 'created' by the 'instrument'... then it is not a musical instrument. The kazoo is not a musical instrument.

Batman Animated Series Funeral scene kazoo
There's a scene in Batman: The Animated Series where the Joker believes Batman to be dead and holds a mock funeral for him, which includes a pretty infamous kazoo version of Amazing Grace. Considering you guys have Yoshi's New Island on here I think this is noteworthy enough to go onto this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:C308:FA00:64B4:83CC:743C:2B77 (talk) 23:27, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

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Quibble
Second sentence of the lede uses the linked term mirliton, however the link currently redirects to the Eunuch flute article.

While the Eunuch flute is sometimes referred to as a "mirlition", the term mirlition is actually the generic name for the vibrating membrane which produces the buzzing sound in the kazoo, the eunuch flute, African marimbas, and in several other instruments. (See, for example, The Harvard Dictionary of Music:   "Mirliton:  A vibrating membrane that modifies a sound produced in some other way..."; also The Oxford Companion to Music:   "Mirliton:  A generic term of French origin for voice-changing ‘singing membranes’. Many instruments incorporate mirlitons to impart a buzzing quality to the sound,...", &etc.)

The redirect is, therefore, incorrect. "Mirliton" should be linked to an article titled "Mirliton" which defines/explains the device/object, and not to the eunuch flute which, despite the slang name, merely uses a mirliton to achieve its distinctive sound.

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

title: Talk:Kazoo


text:
Chocolate milk

Chocolate milk is a type of flavoured milk made by mixing cocoa solids with milk (either dairy or plant-based). It is a food pairing in which the milk's mouthfeel masks the dietary fibres of the cocoa solids.

Types
The liquid carbohydrates in milks like cow milk, or oat milk, may be sufficient on its own to mask the bitterness from the theobromine. However, most often additional sweeteners are added to make the drink taste sweet.

However, the particles from cocoa solids in homemade chocolate milk will quickly sediment to the bottom. So the solution should be shaken or stirred before consumption to avoid uneven concentration. This is not a problem in some ready to drink chocolate milks.

Chocolate milk
Sugar used in commercial chocolate milk are used as preservative, and the energy from the sugar also makes it a convenience food. It can also be made at home by blending milk with cocoa powder and a sweetener (such as sugar or a sugar substitute), melted chocolate, chocolate syrup, or a pre-made powdered chocolate milk mix. Other ingredients, such as starch, salt, carrageenan, vanilla, or artificial flavoring are sometimes added. To add nutritional value to the product, sometimes some minerals like zinc oxide or iron are added.

In New York City, school food officials report that nearly 60 percent of the 100 million cartons served each year contain fat-free chocolate milk.

Negative health impact
Some nutritionists have criticized chocolate milk for its high sugar content and its relationship to childhood obesity. Because chocolate milk can contain twice as much sugar as plain low-fat milk from added sugars, some school districts have stopped serving the product altogether.

Dark chocolate milk
Dark chocolate milk has more cocoa solids than conventional chocolate milk. However, added sugar can still contribute to health problems.

Drink mix
Drink mixes of cocoa powder and a sweetener can be either homemade or commercially manufactured.

Ready to drink

Ready to drink chocolate milk are produced by homogenization.

At or below room temperature, chocolate is a solid, which does not dissolve, but instead remains a powdered solid suspended in milk. The suspension must be stabilized, otherwise, the powder will settle. Separation can be slowed by any of the following:

 * Reduce particle size, for example by tempering chocolate
 * Reduce particle density, by incorporating air pockets
 * Increase the viscosity of the milk, by adding thickening agents

Carrageenan is used at very low concentrations to form an imperceptible weak gel that prevents the large, dense particles of chocolate from sedimentation.

Ready to drink chocolate milk should be refrigerated like unflavored milk, except some ultra-high temperature (UHT) pasteurized drinks, which can be stored at room temperature. However, it is generally served cold. The nutritional qualities of chocolate milk are the subject of debate: while some studies criticize the high sugar content of chocolate milk, other studies suggest that chocolate milk is nutritionally superior to white.

Disadvantage
Ready to drink chocolate milk contains fewer antioxidants, caffeine, etc., due to oxidation from the water in the milk.

Studies and research
A number of studies have been issued in regard to chocolate milk nutrition. A 2005 study by the New York City Department of Education found that by removing whole milk and replacing it with low-fat or fat-free chocolate milk, students were served an estimated 5,960 fewer calories and 619 fewer grams of fat per year. However, more recent studies show that fat-free and low-fat milk may actually increase body fat and contribute to obesity. Whole milk may in fact be healthier for obese children than low-fat or non-fat milk.

An April 2007 study from Loughborough University indicated that low-fat milk was an effective rehydration drink.

A November 2009 study conducted by scientists in Barcelona, Spain, suggests that regularly consuming skimmed milk with cocoa rich in flavonoids may reduce inflammation and slow or prevent the development of atherosclerosis. The study notes that its effects are not as pronounced as seen in consumption of red wine. However, in a single serving of cocoa, other researchers found 611 milligrams of gallic acid equivalents (GAE) and 564 milligrams of epicatechin equivalents (ECE), compared with 340 milligrams of GAE and 163 milligrams of ECE in red wine, and 165 milligrams of GAE and 47 milligrams of ECE in green tea.

A study published in 2009 compared chocolate milk to a commercial recovery beverage (matched for carbohydrate and protein content) administered to cyclists after intense workouts. The researchers found no difference in post-workout plasma creatine kinase levels and muscle soreness, nor in cycling time to exhaustion. However, since chocolate milk is usually less expensive than commercial recovery beverages, the researchers concluded that chocolate milk "serves as a more convenient, cheaper ... recovery beverage option for many athletes".

A May 2010 sports nutrition study concluded that "exercise recovery during short-term periods of heavy soccer training appears to be similar when isocaloric CM (Chocolate Milk) and CHO (Carbohydrate) beverages are consumed post-exercise".

Yet another study in 2011 at Kean University in New Jersey concluded similar results in male soccer players, discovering that there was an increase in time to fatigue when chocolate milk was consumed. The Kean University study also viewed chocolate milk's effects on female soccer players undergoing morning and afternoon practices during preseason. They were either given the carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage or chocolate milk between morning and afternoon preseason practices. Following every afternoon practice, each athlete completed a shuttle run to fatigue. The study concluded that chocolate milk is just as beneficial as the carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage in promoting recovery in women.

Calcium oxalate production
Chocolate has oxalic acid, which reacts with the calcium in the milk producing calcium oxalate, thus preventing the calcium from being absorbed in the intestine. However, it is present in small enough amounts that the effect on calcium absorption is negligible (2–3%). As chocolate contains relatively small amounts of oxalate, it is unclear to what extent chocolate consumption affects healthy people with calcium-rich diets.

In a 2008 study, participants who consumed one or more servings of chocolate on a daily basis had lower bone density and strength than those participants who ate a serving of chocolate six times a week or less. Researchers believe this may be due to oxalate inhibiting calcium absorption – but it could also be due to sugar content in chocolate, which may increase calcium excretion. It is clear, however, that consuming foods high in oxalate – and in turn their effect on calcium absorption – is a more significant concern for people with oxalate kidney stones, which occur when there is too much oxalate in the urine. These people especially should reduce their oxalate intake and increase their calcium intake. However, the high magnesium content in chocolate is likely to reduce the risk of stone formation, because like citrate, magnesium is also an inhibitor of urinary crystal formation.

History
Milk has probably been added to chocolate drinks since both ingredients were available to people. The first domesticated cattle were introduced to the Caribbean in 1493 by Christopher Columbus. Reciprocally, cocoa was introduced in Europe in the 1520s. The Natural History Museum lists Anglo-Irish botanist Hans Sloane as the inventor of drinking chocolate with milk. Sloane found the local Jamaican beverage consisting of cacao and water served to him in Jamaica unpalatable, but by adding milk to it, found it much improved. However, according to historian James Delbourgo, the Jamaicans were brewing "a hot beverage brewed from shavings of freshly harvested cacao, boiled with milk and cinnamon" as far back as 1494.

In the late 19th century, Swiss entrepreneur Daniel Peter developed a solid dehydrated version of chocolate milk so that it could be easily portioned, transported and conserved (fresh milk was rare in the cities). He eventually created milk chocolate in 1875.

title: Chocolate milk


text:
Talk:Quine (computing)

ACM Spam?
The link to "Reflections on Trusting Trust" (section "Further reading") is

http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/

which redirects to

http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?id=SERIES11430&type=series&coll=ACM&dl=ACM

which is a site that doesn't even contain the words "reflections" or "trust". Can anyone repair that link, or should we remove this spam entirely?

Vog (talk) 18:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Sigh. This sort of thing makes me want to hurt someone badly.  I really wish webmasters had a compulsory course in the importance of lasting and durable URL's.  Well, I put up another link to the same text.  Thanks for pointing this out. --Gro-Tsen (talk) 00:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

current javascript example are not Quines!
Because of Quine's paradox, Quines should not read source of those. Programs that use toSource, (implicitly or explicitly) toString, innerHTML, innerText ,etc. should not be consider to Quine.

History and the name
I think the self-producing programs are known in recursion theory decades before the article cited. Also the article does not give references who has coined the name Quine, in recursion theory/logic literature it is simply called a self-reproducing program, I have not seen any book calling it a Quine program, so I think it is not a common name unless someone provides sources justifying the name, IMHO, the page should be moved to self-reproducing programs.

It seems that the only source for this name is the book GEB (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.164.5131&rep=rep1&type=pdf) and there does not seem any adoption of this name in literature. My search on Google scholar for "Quine Program" -philosophy returns only 4 results, one from 2007 and the rest from 2009/2010. I don't think it is good practice to change the name of a well-established concept in literature to a name coined by a popular science book which has not been adopted by experts in the area even after 31 years. 128.100.3.43 (talk) 16:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

 * Asking for academic references about quines is a little like asking for academic references about Pokémon: there is nothing interesting to say about them, academically, so they aren't mentioned, under one name or another. Nor are there any "experts" or publications about them.  The only thing worth mentioning, scientifically, is Kleene's fixed point theorem.  However, amateur enthusiasts, i.e., the people who actually write these things, have largely adopted the word "Quine" (because Hofstadter's book was such a success with them).  Anyway, discussing what the principal name of an article should be is a generally infertile activity, as whether it should be spelled "color" or "colour"...  The article should, in any case, mention all common names and should be accessible from all of them: let's make that happen. --Gro-Tsen (talk) 00:00, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

 * No, it is not like "color" and "colour". There are well-established names for these programs in computer science (computability/recursion theory, computer security, ... ), and they are interesting and well studied. Search for expression like "self-replicating program", "self-reproducing program", or "self-copying program" (http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=%22self-reproducing+program%22 http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=%22self-replicating+program%22) on Google or Google Scholar (the first article for "self-reproducing program" on Google Scholar is paper by Ken Thompson from 1984!), check the definition of a computer virus, ... . The names for well-established concepts are not defined by pop-sci books, we have already a name, and to be clear, there is no relation between Quine and these programs to call them Quine programs. We can mention that they are also called "Quine programs" by hobbyists loving the pop-sci book GEB, but the main name for the article should be the one which is used in the literature. 128.100.3.41 (talk) 22:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

 * ps: I am having trouble in finding a reference on "Quine's Paradox" as mentioned in this article and its wiki page other than GEB (and articles citing it or wiki), so that is probably another name coined by the author of GEB. If you know sources other than GEB for calling that sentence Quine's Paradox, please add it to the Quine's Paradox page. Thanks. 128.100.3.41 (talk) 23:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

 * A Quine is completely unlike a computer virus, and computer viruses (and worms, etc.) don't use techniques related to Quines to reproduce themselves. Don't confuse programs that duplicate their executable code with those that output their source code. — Gavia immer (talk) 23:50, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

multiquine
why is there no mention of multiquines, that is programs that are quines in different programming language using the same sourcecode? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.61.9.74 (talk) 11:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

 * There is. A few days ago I added a section called "Ouroboros programs". I now changed the section title to "Multiquines". --Waldir talk 15:04, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

What about a program x which outputs another program y which outputs program x again, but where x and y are written in the same language? Isn't that also a multiquine, or at least an object of interest? Do the languages absolutely have to be different? 188.169.229.30 (talk) 17:23, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

The idea of a multiquine needs to be cleared up. A multiquine is not a quine-relay, or Ouroboros pogram. Have a look at David Madore's post on quines: http://www.madore.org/~david/computers/quine.html. Summarized: "A multiquine is a set of r different programs (in r different languages — without this condition we could take them all equal to a single quine), each of which is able to print any of the r programs (including itself) according to the command line argument it is passed. (Note that cheating is not allowed: the command line arguments must not be too long — passing the full text of a program is considered cheating)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.232.77.178 (talk) 09:32, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

"First appeared"
At the moment, the article contains the phrase
 * The idea of self-reproducing programs first appeared in Paul Bratley and Jean Millo's article "Computer Recreations: Self-Reproducing Automata" in 1972.[2] Bratley first became interested in self-reproducing programs after seeing the first known such program written in Atlas Autocode at Edinburgh in the 1960s

I guess I'm missing something: if he had already become interested in them in the 1960s, how can it be that the idea only first appeared in 1972?! Perhaps the intention was that that was the first time the idea was mentioned in an article? I'm not fixing it myself, as I don't really know much about it and don't know if what I wrote is correct. 188.169.229.30 (talk) 17:21, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It is implied in context that "first appeared" means "first appeared in professional literature".TricksterWolf (talk) 14:55, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Did Hofstadter coin the name "quine" for self-reproducing programs?
The article states that the name "quine" was coined by Douglas Hofstadter in his 1979 book GEB. In the context in which this is presented, this gives the impression that it is claimed here that Hofstadter coined the name "quine" for self-reproducing programs. However, in GEB Hofstadter only introduced the term "quine" as a verb (as in "to quine a phrase"), and only in the meaning of prepending a quoted copy of a phrase to that phrase. For example, if you quine  FOOBAZ   you get   "FOOBAZ" FOOBAZ . Though related to self-reproduction, this is nevertheless really something else. --Lambiam 19:16, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

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PostScript quine
Here is a PostScript Quine from Stan Switzer at https://donhopkins.com/home/archive/NeWS/news-tape/fun/quine/quine

{{[ exch /dup load /exec load ] cvx} dup exec}

That is an executable array (i.e. a PostScript a function), that when executed, reconstructs a duplicate of itself on the stack, be re-using another executable array as both data and code ("dup exec" passes the function as data to the function as code, kind of like the y-combinator). Xardox (talk) 20:24, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

C empty program?
The article says "In some languages, particularly scripting languages but also C, an empty source file is a fixed point of the language, being a valid program that produces no output." What? I don't think an empty program is legal in C. I think it needs a main function. Is there some source that says an empty program is valid in C? Bugefun (talk) 05:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Java Example wrong?
The example of using blockquotes for java is wrong: Its missing the double print

Error quine
This is not a serious suggestion for modifying the article; just a piece of computer geekery for folks who like to hang around in talk pages. It is possible to construct an 'error quine' for a given compiler (or interpreter) such that a program when submitted to the compiler causes the compiler to print out the source code of the program as an error message. Dezaxa (talk) 01:20, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Quine (computing)


text:
Karl Wolfskehl

Karl Wolfskehl (17 September 1869 – 30 June 1948) was a German Jewish author and translator. He wrote poetry, prose and drama in German, and translated from French, English, Italian, Hebrew, Latin and Old/Middle High German into German.

Biography
Wolfskehl's family had a long history in Germany. During the 10th century, one of his ancestors, a rabbi, had emigrated to Germany from Italy with the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II. Wolfskehl's ancestors then settled in Mainz, where they lived for the next thousand years.

Karl Wolfskehl was born in Darmstadt, Germany, the son of the banker and politician Otto Wolfskehl. He studied Germanic languages and philology and a range of humanities courses in Giessen, Leipzig and Berlin. Under Otto Behaghel, he gained a PhD with a dissertation on a topic in German mythology.

In 1898 he married Hanna de Haan (1878-1946), daughter of the Dutch conductor Willem de Haan at the Grand Ducal court theatre at Darmstadt. They had two daughters, Judith (born 1899) and Renate (born 1901).

He defined himself by pride in his German Jewish faith and heritage as well as in his roots in German literature and culture. He developed a lasting friendship with the poet Stefan George and was a leading figure in the poet's circle of friends and followers. With the philosopher Ludwig Klages and the archaeologist Alfred Schuler, Wolfskehl formed the short-lived so-called Munich Cosmic Circle around 1900. His family's wealth allowed Wolfskehl to pursue an independent career devoted to his literary, intellectual, and art related interests. Holding a jour fixe at his house, Wolfskehl became a central personality in the literary bohemia in Munich's borough of Schwabing during the last two decades of the German Empire.

Amongst his friends and associates were Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Paul Klee, Alfred Kubin and Martin Buber.

In 1915, Wolfskehl bought an estate at Kiechlinsbergen an der Kaiserstuhl, in the wine country of the Grand Duchy of Baden. He and his family moved there in 1919 after he lost his family fortune due to the First World War and the ensuing inflation. He was forced to earn a living as a tutor in Italy and as an editor, cultural journalist and translator in Munich.

In 1933 appalled by Hitler's rise to power, Wolfskehl left Germany for Switzerland the day after the Reichstag fire. Following Stefan George's death on December 3, 1933, Wolfskehl and fellow Jewish member of the George-Kreis Ernst Morwitz were informed and attended the Master's funeral in Minusio, Switzerland.

Wolfskehl moved on to Italy in 1934. During his years as a refugee, Karl Wolfskehl became a central figure in the anti-Nazi literary movement with German literature known as Exilliteratur.

In defiance of what Peter Hoffmann calls the Nazi Party's "absurd efforts" to exclude him from the German people, Wolfskehl often said that wherever he was, there was the German Geist ("Spirit"). Also in 1934, Wolfskehl published a collection of poems titled, Die Stimme Spricht ("A Voice Speaks"), in which he affirmed his belief in Judaism and warned of the impending dangers posed by the Nazis. Some fellow members of the George-Kreis, however, feared that Wolfskehl's denunciations of Nazism might put every other member of the Circle in very real physical danger.

In 1938, due to the rapprochement between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, he moved to New Zealand with his partner Margot Ruben (1908–1980). There he became a staunch friend of the conductor Georg Tintner, also a refugee from Nazi Austria. He was granted New Zealand citizenship after World War II and remained there until his death in 1948.

Works (selection)

 * Ulais. 1897.
 * Gesammelte Dichtungen. 1903.
 * Maskenzug. 1904.
 * Saul. 1905.
 * (with Friedrich von der Leyen) Älteste Deutsche Dichtungen. 1908 (translations).
 * Sanctus. 1909.
 * Gedichte des Archipoeta an Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa und seinen Kanzler: nach Jakob Grimms Ausgabe. 1921 (translation).
 * de Coster, Charles: Die Geschichte von Ulenspiegel und Lamme Goedzak und ihren heldenmäßigen, fröhlichen und glorreichen Abenteueren im Lande Flandern und anderwärts. München 1926 (translation).
 * (with Curt Sigmar Gutkind) Das Buch vom Wein. 1927 (translations).
 * Der Umkreis. 1927.
 * Bild und Gesetz. Gesammelte Abhandlungen 1930.
 * Die Stimme spricht. 1934/1936.
 * An die Deutschen. 1947.

posthumously published:
 * Hiob oder Die vier Spiegel. 1950.
 * Sang aus dem Exil. 1950.
 * Gesammelte Werke. 2 Vol. 1960.
 * Briefwechsel aus Neuseeland 1938-1948. 2 Vol. Ed. C. Blasberg'' 1988.
 * Briefwechsel aus Italien 1933–1938. Ed. C. Blasberg'' 1993.
 * Von Menschen und Mächten. Stefan George, Karl und Hanna Wolfskehl. Der Briefwechsel 1892-1933. Ed. B. Wägenbaur and U. Oelmann, 2015
 * Three Worlds / Drei Welten. Selected Poems. German and English. Transl. and ed. by A. P. Wood and F. Voit. 2016
 * Poetry and Exile. Letters from New Zealand 1938-1948. Ed. and transl. By N. Wattie. 2017

title: Karl Wolfskehl


text:
Editing

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, and many other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate and complete piece of work.

The editing process often begins with the author's idea for the work itself, continuing as a collaboration between the author and the editor as the work is created. Editing can involve creative skills, human relations and a precise set of methods.

There are various editorial positions in publishing. Typically, one finds editorial assistants reporting to the senior-level editorial staff and directors who report to senior executive editors. Senior executive editors are responsible for developing a product for its final release. The smaller the publication, the more these roles overlap.

The top editor at many publications may be known as the chief editor, executive editor, or simply the editor. A frequent and highly regarded contributor to a magazine may acquire the title of editor-at-large or contributing editor. Mid-level newspaper editors often manage or help to manage sections, such as business, sports and features. In U.S. newspapers, the level below the top editor is usually the managing editor.

In the book publishing industry, editors may organize anthologies and other compilations, produce definitive editions of a classic author's works (scholarly editor), and organize and manage contributions to a multi-author book (symposium editor or volume editor). Obtaining manuscripts or recruiting authors is the role of an acquisitions editor or a commissioning editor in a publishing house. Finding marketable ideas and presenting them to appropriate authors are the responsibilities of a sponsoring editor.

Copy editors correct spelling, grammar and align writings to house style. Changes to the publishing industry since the 1980s have resulted in nearly all copy editing of book manuscripts being outsourced to freelance copy editors.

At newspapers and wire services, press or copy editors write headlines and work on more substantive issues, such as ensuring accuracy, fairness, and taste. In some positions, they design pages and select news stories for inclusion. At British and Australian newspapers, the term is sub-editor. They may choose the layout of the publication and communicate with the printer. These editors may have the title of layout or design editor or (more so in the past) makeup editor.

In film editing, many techniques are available for use, however, using one doesn't make your edit 'better' than if it were not to be used.

Scholarly books and journals
Within the publishing environment, editors of scholarly books are of three main types, each with particular responsibilities:

 * Acquisitions editor (or commissioning editor in Britain), who contracts with the author to produce the copy
 * Project editor or production editor, who sees the copy through its stages from manuscript to bound book and usually assumes most of the budget and schedule responsibilities
 * Copy editor or manuscript editor, who prepares the copy for conversion into printed form.

In the case of multi-author edited volumes, before the manuscript is delivered to the publisher it has undergone substantive and linguistic editing by the volume's editor, who works independently of the publisher.

As for scholarly journals, where spontaneous submissions are more common than commissioned works, the position of journal editor or editor-in-chief replaces the acquisitions editor of the book publishing environment, while the roles of production editor and copy editor remain. However, another editor is sometimes involved in the creation of scholarly research articles. Called the authors' editor, this editor works with authors to get a manuscript fit for purpose before it is submitted to a scholarly journal for publication.

The primary difference between copy editing scholarly books and journals and other sorts of copy editing lies in applying the standards of the publisher to the copy. Most scholarly publishers have a preferred style that usually specifies a particular dictionary and style manual—for example, The Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA Style Manual or the APA Publication Manual in the U.S., or the New Hart's Rules in the U.K.

Editing in the 21st century
Editing has a long history dating back to the earliest times of written language. Over time, editing has evolved greatly, particularly with the emergence of new forms of media and language that have led to a move towards multimodality. Today, hardcopies and print are no longer the main focus of editing as new content like film and audio require different kinds of edits.

Technical editing is now more commonly done using applications and websites on devices, which requires editors to be familiar with online platforms like Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Office, and Google Docs. The significance and intentions behind editing have also changed, moving beyond print due to the continuous advancements in technology. As a result, the grounds and values of editing have changed as well. For instance, text is often shortened and simplified online because of the preference for quick answers among this generation. Additionally, the advancement in social issues has made it possible to offer easy access to vast amounts of information.

Apart from editing written work, video editing has also evolved. Nowadays, non-linear editing is the main way of editing video clips, but in the 1900s, it was linear editing. As computer systems and software have developed, video clips are now able to be uploaded directly to the editing software, making the editing process quicker. With this evolution of editing, creativity has been sped up, editing has become easier, and there are now countless ways for writers to tell stories.

Visual editing
In terms of editing visual content, the two main forms would be photo and cinematic. Photo editing has evolved considerably from humble means, dating back to the early 20th century. During the 1920s, photographers established a new discipline of creative editing by creating collages from multiple photos. By the late 1980’s, it became possible to computerize images by running physical photos through a scanner. Over time, software began to develop, aimed toward the manipulation of different qualities of a photo. Today, there are a multitude of applications to choose from to edit the content or qualities of photos; PhotoShop is a common example, as well as other applications such as Adobe Lightroom. Modern photo editing techniques include, but are not limited to linearization, white balance, noise reduction, tone reproduction and compression.

The other form of Visual editing is cinematic editing. Cinematic editing entails anything that is to be used as cinematic material, mainly films. Cinematic editing dates back to the early 1900's when American filmmaker, D.W Griffith, produced the first films that essentially paved the way for the editing techniques that are still used today. The progression of technology brought about advancements in gear, which meant filmmakers were able to achieve new techniques in the post-production process through editing. Editors went from physically cutting and rearranging film to working on virtual timelines using software like Davinci Resolve or Premiere pro.

Technical editing
Technical editing involves reviewing text written on a technical topic, identifying usage errors and ensuring adherence to a style guide. It aims to improve the clarity of the text or message from the author to the reader. Technical editing is actually the umbrella term for all the different kinds of edits that might occur.

Technical editing may include the correction of grammatical mistakes, misspellings, mistyping, incorrect punctuation, inconsistencies in usage, poorly structured sentences, wrong scientific terms, wrong units and dimensions, inconsistency in significant figures, technical ambivalence, technical disambiguation, statements conflicting with general scientific knowledge, correction of synopsis, content, index, headings and subheadings, correcting data and chart presentation in a research paper or report, and correcting errors in citations.

From basics to more critical changes, these adjustments to the text can be categorized by the different terms within technical editing. There are policy edits, integrity edits, screening edits, copy clarification edits, format edits and mechanical style edits, language edits, etc.

The two most common and broad are substantive editing and copy editing. Substantive editing is developmental because it guides the drafting process by providing essential building blocks to work off of. They work closely with the author to help supply ideas. Copy editing happens later in the drafting process and focuses on changing the text so that it's consistent throughout in terms of accuracy, style, flow, and so on. This is usually the preferred editing for the surface-level cleaning up of work.

Large companies dedicate experienced writers to the technical editing function. Organizations that cannot afford dedicated editors typically have experienced writers peer-edit text produced by less experienced colleagues.

It helps if the technical editor is familiar with the subject being edited. The "technical" knowledge that an editor gains over time while working on a particular product or technology does give the editor an edge over another who has just started editing content related to that product or technology.

General essential skills include attention to detail, patience, persistence, the ability to sustain focus while working through lengthy pieces of text on complex topics, tact in dealing with writers, and excellent communication skills. Additionally, one does not need an English major to partake but language aptitude certainly helps.

Editing services
Editing is a growing field of work in the service industry. There is little career training offered for editors. Paid editing services may be provided by specialized editing firms or by self-employed (freelance) editors.

Editing firms may employ a team of in-house editors, rely on a network of individual contractors or both. Such firms are able to handle editing in a wide range of topics and genres, depending on the skills of individual editors. The services provided by these editors may be varied and can include proofreading, copy editing, online editing, developmental editing, editing for search engine optimization, etc.

Self-employed editors work directly for clients (e.g., authors, publishers) or offer their services through editing firms, or both. They may specialize in a type of editing (e.g., copy editing) and in a particular subject area. Those who work directly for authors and develop professional relationships with them are called authors' editors. There is hope for self-employed editors because all editing differs based on tradition, experience, education, personal style, values, etc.

title: Editing


text:
Idiom dictionary

An idiom dictionary is a dictionary or phrase book that lists and explains idioms – distinctive words or phrases having a figurative meaning that goes beyond the original semantics of the words.

Idioms
An idiom is a phrase whose meaning could not be readily deduced from the meaning of its individual words. The word comes from the Greek ἰδίωμα (idioma) – the distinctive style of a particular person. The traditional example is "kick the bucket" which is normally understood to mean dying. The extent to which a phrase is thought idiomatic is a matter of degree and native speakers of English consider a phrase like "pop the question" (proposing marriage) to be less idiomatic than "kick the bucket".

Dictionary
An idiom dictionary may be a traditional book or expressed in another medium such as a database within software for machine translation. Examples of the genre include Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which explains traditional allusions and proverbs, and Fowler's Modern English Usage, which was conceived as an idiom dictionary following the completion of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, which itself contained many idioms.

Some multilingual dictionaries of idioms are available on-line. One of them is Babelite which is freely accessible.

The main readership and market for idiom dictionaries are deaf people and learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). The first major dictionary of idioms in American English was A Dictionary of Idioms for the Deaf; published in 1966 by the American School for the Deaf. Subsequent editions were published under the more general title of A Dictionary of American Idioms.

Structure
Idioms may vary considerably in their presentation. The keywords may vary – "green fingers" or a "green thumb". The grammar may vary – "turn the tables" or "the tables are turned". A phrase may even be recast completely, just following a pattern – "a few gallons shy of a full tank" or "one sandwich short of a picnic". This variation makes organisation of an idiom dictionary difficult. The idioms may be organised in simple alphabetical order, as in The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English. They may be grouped by keyword, as in the Longman Dictionary of English Idioms. Or they may be grouped by domain so that, for example, all idioms based upon nautical expressions such as "show him the ropes" and "three sheets to the wind" are put together.

Bilingual dictionaries
Bilingual dictionaries have an additional problem when dealing with idioms – as well as explaining the idiom, they also have to translate it. In doing so, they will commonly provide both a literal translation and a free translation. For example, the phrase "can be counted on the fingers of one hand", meaning few in number, may translated literally into Chinese as qu zhe ke shu and, more sensibly, as liao liao wu ji (only a handful).

title: Idiom dictionary


text:
Talk:Idiom dictionary

multiple issues, nominate for deletion
See Articles_for_deletion/Idiom_dictionary --- Vroo (talk) 19:15, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Copyvio
Copyvio from this site removed. Please to not reinsert. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:40, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Otherwise it looks clean. Don't have access to the offline sources to be sure, however. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:27, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

 * My impression is that site got the text from us - it's full of wikilinks. See CP. Anyway, that text is not especially important so we can do without it to be sure.  But I'd like all my contributions back.  In particular, there's:

 * 1) The image and caption which is a page from Brewer's which was taken from the Internet Archive as public domain - the link comes from our page about that work.
 * 2) The paragraph: "An idiom is a phrase whose meaning could not be readily deduced from the meaning of its individual words. The traditional example is "kick the bucket" which is normally understood to mean dying. The degree to which a phrase is thought idiomatic is a matter of degree and native speakers of English consider a phrase like "pop the question" (proposing marriage) to be less idiomatic than "kick the bucket".[2]"
 * 3) The paragraph "Idioms may vary considerably in their presentation. The keywords may vary — "green fingers" or a "green thumb". The grammar may vary — "turn the tables" or "the tables are turned". A phrase may even be recast completely, just following a pattern — "a few gallons shy of a full tank" or "one sandwich short of a picnic".[3] This makes organisation of an idiom dictionary difficult. The idioms may be organised in simple alphabetical order, as in The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English. They may be grouped by keyword, as in the Longman Dictionary of English Idioms. Or they may be grouped by domain so that, for example, all idioms based upon nautical expressions such as "show him the ropes" or "three sheets to the wind" are put together.[4]"
 * 4) The section headings and other structural bits.

 * And when that's done, can we have the big banner tag dealt with. I don't want to touch the page until that's done. Warden (talk) 12:48, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm fairly certain that your contributions are not an issue, at least with online sources. The only reason I haven't removed the banner tag is because the sources are offline (apparently) and thus I can't check them. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:58, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

 * This is an interesting one. The content was placed in 2009 by this fellow. His talk page history also suggests a sustained interest in Alexander International. It was placed with links intact. The first substantive change to content took place several weeks later. It's not in that external site. Neither is the altered link tucked away several months later here.

 * I'd lay odds that the same person placed it in both locations. If it came here first, he must have placed it there in a short window. I think I'll ask him about it. He's still active. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:08, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Asked. Hopefully he can resolve the confusion. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:20, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

French
French is difacalt than english Ali mohamud (talk) 17:33, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Idioms
Rkdvsulwvwjwksvd 41.13.110.43 (talk) 16:10, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Idiom dictionary


text:
Merchant raider

Merchant raiders are armed commerce raiding ships that disguise themselves as non-combatant merchant vessels.

History
Germany used several merchant raiders early in World War I (1914–1918), and again early in World War II (1939–1945). The captain of a German merchant raider, Felix von Luckner, used the sailing ship SMS Seeadler for his voyage (1916–1917). The Germans used a sailing ship at this stage of the war because coal-fired ships had limited access to fuel outside of territories held by the Central Powers due to international regulations concerning refueling of combat ships in neutral countries.

Germany sent out two waves of six surface raiders each during World War II. Most of these vessels were in the 8000 – range. Many of these vessels had originally been refrigerator ships, used to transport fresh food from the tropics. These vessels were faster than regular merchant vessels, which was important for a warship. They were armed with six 15 cm (5.9 inch) naval guns, some smaller guns, torpedoes, reconnaissance seaplanes and some were equipped for minelaying. Several captains demonstrated great creativity in disguising their vessels to masquerade as allied or as neutral merchants.

The Kormoran fought the Australian light cruiser Sydney in a mutually destructive battle in November 1941.

Italy intended to outfit four refrigerated banana boats as merchant raiders during World War II (Ramb I, Ramb II, Ramb III and Ramb IV). Only Ramb I and Ramb II served as merchant raiders and neither ship sank enemy vessels due to naval presence in the Red Sea. The New Zealand cruiser Leander sank Ramb I off the Maldives (February 1941) while it tried to make for Japan; Ramb II did reach the Far East, where the Japanese prevented her from raiding, ultimately took her over and converted her to an auxiliary transport ship. (Ramb III served as a convoy escort until torpedoed and ended up as a German minelayer, and Ramb IV was converted for the Italian Royal Navy to a hospital ship.)

These commerce raiders carried no armour because their purpose was to attack merchantmen, not to engage warships—it would also be difficult to fit armour to a civilian vessel. Eventually most were sunk or transferred to other duties.

The British deployed Armed Merchant Cruisers (AMC) in World War I and in World War II. Generally adapted from passenger liners, they were larger than the German merchant raiders, were used as convoy escorts and did not disguise themselves. The British AMC Carmania sank the German SMS Cap Trafalgar which had been altered to look more like the Carmania.

During World War I, the British Royal Navy deployed Q-ships to combat German U-boats. Q-ships were warships posing as merchant ships so as to lure U-boats to attack them; their mission of destroying enemy warships differed significantly from the raider objective of disrupting enemy trade.

title: Merchant raider