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Erving Goffman

Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born American sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century".

In 2007, The Times Higher Education Guide listed him as the sixth most-cited author of books in the humanities and social sciences.

Goffman was the 73rd president of the American Sociological Association. His best-known contribution to social theory is his study of symbolic interaction. This took the form of dramaturgical analysis, beginning with his 1956 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman's other major works include Asylums (1961), Stigma (1963), Interaction Ritual (1967), Frame Analysis (1974), and Forms of Talk (1981). His major areas of study included the sociology of everyday life, social interaction, the social construction of self, social organization (framing) of experience, and particular elements of social life such as total institutions and stigmas.

Life
Goffman was born 11 June 1922, in Mannville, Alberta, Canada, to Max Goffman and Anne Goffman, née Averbach. He was from a family of Ukrainian Jews who had emigrated to Canada at the turn of the century. He had an older sister, Frances Bay, who became an actress. The family moved to Dauphin, Manitoba, where his father operated a successful tailoring business.

From 1937 Goffman attended St. John's Technical High School in Winnipeg, where his family had moved that year. In 1939 he enrolled at the University of Manitoba, majoring in chemistry. He interrupted his studies and moved to Ottawa to work in the film industry for the National Film Board of Canada, established by John Grierson. Later he developed an interest in sociology. Also during this time, he met the renowned North American sociologist Dennis Wrong. Their meeting motivated Goffman to leave the University of Manitoba and enroll at the University of Toronto, where he studied under C. W. M. Hart and Ray Birdwhistell, graduating in 1945 with a BA in sociology and anthropology. Later he moved to the University of Chicago, where he received an MA (1949) and PhD (1953) in sociology. For his doctoral dissertation, from December 1949 to May 1951 he lived and collected ethnographic data on the island of Unst in the Shetland Islands. Goffman's dissertation, entitled Communication Conduct in an Island Community (1953), was completed under the supervision of W. Lloyd Warner, Donald Horton, and Anselm Strauss.

In 1952 Goffman married Angelica Schuyler Choate (nicknamed Sky); in 1953, their son Thomas was born. Angelica experienced mental illness and died by suicide in 1964. Outside his academic career, Goffman was known for his interest, and relative success, in the stock market and gambling. At one point, in pursuit of his hobbies and ethnographic studies, he became a pit boss at a Las Vegas casino.

In 1981 Goffman married sociolinguist Gillian Sankoff. The following year, their daughter Alice was born. In 1982 Goffman died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 19 November, of stomach cancer. His daughter is also a sociologist.

Career
The research Goffman did on Unst inspired him to write his first major work, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956). After graduating from the University of Chicago, in 1954–57 he was an assistant to the athletic director at the National Institute for Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Participant observation done there led to his essays on mental illness and total institutions which came to form his second book, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (1961).

In 1958 Goffman became a faculty member in the sociology department at the University of California, Berkeley, first as a visiting professor, then from 1962 as a full professor. In 1968 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, receiving the Benjamin Franklin Chair in Sociology and Anthropology, due largely to the efforts of Dell Hymes, a former colleague at Berkeley. In 1969 he became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1970 Goffman became a cofounder of the American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization and coauthored its Platform Statement. In 1971 he published Relations in Public, in which he tied together many of his ideas about everyday life, seen from a sociological perspective. Another major book of his, Frame Analysis, came out in 1974. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1977–78. In 1979, Goffman received the Cooley-Mead Award for Distinguished Scholarship, from the Section on Social Psychology of the American Sociological Association. He was elected the 73rd president of the American Sociological Association, serving in 1981–82, but was unable to deliver the presidential address in person due to progressing illness.

Posthumously, in 1983, Goffman received the Mead Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction.

Influence and legacy
Goffman was influenced by Herbert Blumer, Émile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, Everett Hughes, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Talcott Parsons, Alfred Schütz, Georg Simmel and W. Lloyd Warner. Hughes was the "most influential of his teachers"                                                                                according to Tom Burns. Gary Alan Fine and Philip Manning have said that Goffman never engaged in serious dialogue with other theorists, but his work has influenced and been discussed by numerous contemporary sociologists, including Anthony Giddens, Jürgen Habermas and Pierre Bourdieu.

Though Goffman is often associated with the symbolic interaction school of sociological thought, he did not see himself as a representative of it, and so Fine and Manning conclude that he "does not easily fit within a specific school of sociological thought". His ideas are also "difficult to reduce to a number of key themes"; his work can be broadly described as developing "a comparative, qualitative sociology that aimed to produce generalizations about human behavior".

Goffman made substantial advances in the study of face-to-face interaction, elaborated the "dramaturgical approach" to human interaction, and developed numerous concepts that have had a massive influence, particularly in the field of the micro-sociology of everyday life. Much of his work was about the organization of everyday behavior, a concept he termed "interaction order". He contributed to the sociological concept of framing (frame analysis), to game theory (the concept of strategic interaction), and to the study of interactions and linguistics. With regard to the latter, he argued that the activity of speaking must be seen as a social rather than a linguistic construct. From a methodological perspective, Goffman often employed qualitative approaches, specifically ethnography, most famously in his study of social aspects of mental illness, in particular the functioning of total institutions. Overall, his contributions are valued as an attempt to create a theory that bridges the agency-and-structure divide—for popularizing social constructionism, symbolic interaction, conversation analysis, ethnographic studies, and the study and importance of individual interactions. His influence extended far beyond sociology: for example, his work provided the assumptions of much current research in language and social interaction within the discipline of communication.

Goffman defined "impression management" as a person's attempts to present an acceptable image to those around them, verbally or nonverbally. This definition is based on Goffman's idea that people see themselves as others view them, so they attempt to see themselves as if they are outside looking in. Goffman was also dedicated to discovering the subtle ways humans present acceptable images by concealing information that may conflict with the images for a particular situation, such as concealing tattoos when applying for a job in which tattoos would be inappropriate, or hiding a bizarre obsession such as collecting/interacting with dolls, which society may see as abnormal.

Goffman broke from George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer in that while he did not reject the way people perceive themselves, he was more interested in the actual physical proximity or the "interaction order" that molds the self. In other words, Goffman believed that impression management can be achieved only if the audience is in sync with a person's self-perception. If the audience disagrees with the image someone is presenting then their self-presentation is interrupted. People present images of themselves based on how society thinks they should act in a particular situation. This decision how to act is based on the concept of definition of the situation. Definitions are all predetermined and people choose how they will act by choosing the proper behavior for the situation they are in. Goffman also draws from William Thomas for this concept. Thomas believed that people are born into a particular social class and that the definitions of the situations they will encounter have already been defined for them. For instance. when an individual from an upper-class background goes to a black-tie affair, the definition of the situation is that they must mind their manners and act according to their class.

In 2007 by The Times Higher Education Guide listed Goffman as the sixth most-cited author in the humanities and social sciences, behind Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Anthony Giddens, and ahead of Jürgen Habermas. His popularity with the general public has been attributed to his writing style, described as "sardonic, satiric, jokey", and as "ironic and self-consciously literary", and to its being more accessible than that of most academics. His style has also been influential in academia, and is credited with popularizing a less formal style in academic publications. Interestingly, if he is rightly so credited, he may by this means have contributed to a remodelling of the norms of academic behaviour, particularly of communicative action, arguably liberating intellectuals from social restraints unnatural to some of them.

His students included Carol Brooks Gardner, Charles Goodwin, Marjorie Harness Goodwin, John Lofland, Gary T. Marx, Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, David Sudnow and Eviatar Zerubavel.

Despite his influence, according to Fine and Manning there are "remarkably few scholars who are continuing his work", nor has there been a "Goffman school"; thus his impact on social theory has been simultaneously "great and modest". Fine and Manning attribute the lack of subsequent Goffman-style research and writing to the nature of his style, which they consider very difficult to duplicate (even "mimic-proof"), and also to his subjects' not being widely valued in the social sciences. Of his style, Fine and Manning remark that he tends to be seen either as a scholar whose style is difficult to reproduce, and therefore daunting to those who might wish to emulate it, or as a scholar whose work was transitional, bridging the work of the Chicago school and that of contemporary sociologists, and thus of less interest to sociologists than the classics of either of those groups. Of his subjects, Fine and Manning observe that the topic of behavior in public places is often stigmatized as trivial and unworthy of serious scholarly attention.

Nonetheless, Fine and Manning note that Goffman is "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century". Elliott and Turner see him as "a revered figure—an outlaw theorist who came to exemplify the best of the sociological imagination", and "perhaps the first postmodern sociological theorist".

Early works
Goffman's early works consist of his graduate writings of 1949–53. His master's thesis was a survey of audience responses to a radio soap opera, Big Sister. One of its most important elements was a critique of his research methodology—of experimental logic and of variable analysis. Other writings from the period include Symbols of Class Status (1951) and On Cooling the Mark Out (1952). His doctoral dissertation, Communication Conduct in an Island Community (1953), presented a model of communication strategies in face-to-face interaction, and focused on how everyday rituals affect public projections of self.

Presentation of Self
Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life was published in 1956, with a revised edition in 1959. He had developed the book's core ideas from his doctoral dissertation. It was Goffman's first and most famous book, for which he received the American Sociological Association's 1961 MacIver Award.

Goffman describes the theatrical performances that occur in face-to-face interactions. He holds that when someone comes in contact with another person, he attempts to control or guide the impression the other person will form of him, by altering his own setting, appearance and manner. At the same time, the second person attempts to form an impression of, and obtain information about, the first person. Goffman also believes that participants in social interactions engage in certain practices to avoid embarrassing themselves or others. Society is not homogeneous; we must act differently in different settings. This recognition led Goffman to his dramaturgical analysis. He saw a connection between the kinds of "acts" that people put on in their daily lives and theatrical performances. In a social interaction, as in a theatrical performance, there is an onstage area where actors (people) appear before the audience; this is where positive self-concepts and desired impressions are offered. But there is also a backstage—a hidden, private area where people can be themselves and drop their societal roles and identities.

Asylums
Goffman is sometimes credited with having coined the term "total institution", though Fine and Manning note that he had heard it in lectures by Everett Hughes in reference to any institution in which people are treated alike and in which behavior is regulated. Regardless of whether Goffman coined the term, he popularized it with his 1961 book Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. The book has been described as "ethnography of the concept of the total institution". It was one of the first sociological examinations of the social situation of mental patients in psychiatric hospitals and a major contribution to understanding of social aspects of mental illness.

The book comprises four essays: "Characteristics of Total Institutions" (1957); "The Moral Career of the Mental Patient" (1959); "The Underlife of a Public Institution: A Study of Ways of Making Out in a Mental Hospital"; and "The Medical Model and Mental Hospitalization: Some Notes on the Vicissitudes of the Tinkering Trades". The first three focus on the experiences of patients; the last, on professional-client interactions. Goffman is mainly concerned with the details of psychiatric hospitalization and the nature and effects of the process he calls "institutionalization". He describes how institutionalization socializes people into the role of a good patient, someone "dull, harmless and inconspicuous"—a condition that in turn reinforces notions of chronicity in severe mental illness. Total institutions greatly affect people's interactions; yet even in such places, people find ways to redefine their roles and reclaim their identities.

Asylums has been credited with helping catalyze the reform of mental health systems in a number of countries, leading to reductions in the numbers of large mental hospitals and of the people locked up in them. It was also influential in the anti-psychiatry movement.

Behavior in Public Places
In Behavior in Public Places (1963), Goffman again focuses on everyday public interactions. He draws distinctions between several types of public gatherings ("gatherings", "situations", "social occasions") and types of audiences (acquainted versus unacquainted).

Stigma
Goffman's book Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (1963) examines how, to protect their identities when they depart from approved standards of behavior or appearance, people manage impressions of themselves, mainly through concealment. Stigma pertains to the shame a person may feel when he or she fails to meet other people's standards, and to the fear of being discredited—which causes the person not to reveal his or her shortcomings. Thus a person with a criminal record may simply withhold that information for fear of judgment by whoever that person happens to encounter.

Interaction Ritual
Goffman's Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior is a collection of six essays. The first four were originally published in the 1950s, the fifth in 1964, and the last was written for the collection. They include "On Face-work" (1955); "The Nature of Deference and Demeanor" (1956); "Embarrassment and Social Organization" (1956); "Alienation from Interaction" (1957); "Mental Symptoms and Public Order" (1964); and "Where the Action Is".

The first essay, "On Face-work", discusses the concept of face, which is the positive self-image a person holds when interacting with others. Goffman believes that face "as a sociological construct of interaction is neither inherent in nor a permanent aspect of the person". Once someone offers a positive self-image of him- or herself to others, they feel a need to maintain and live up to that image. Inconsistency in how a person projects him- or herself in society risks embarrassment and discredit. So people remain guarded to ensure that they do not show themselves to others in an unfavorable light.

Strategic Interaction
Goffman's book Strategic Interaction (1969) is his contribution to game theory. It discusses the compatibility of game theory with the legacy of the Chicago School of sociology and with the perspective of symbolic interactionism. It is one of his few works that clearly engage with that perspective. Goffman's view on game theory was shaped by the works of Thomas Schelling. Goffman presents reality as a form of game, and discusses its rules and the various moves that players can make (the "unwitting", the "naive", the "covering", the "uncovering", and the "counter-uncovering") while trying to get or hide an information.

Frame Analysis
Goffman credited Gregory Bateson for creating the idea of framing and psychological frames. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (1974) is Goffman's attempt to explain how conceptual frames – ways to organize experience – structure an individual's perception of society. This book is thus about the organization of experience rather than the organization of society. A frame is a set of concepts and theoretical perspectives that organize experiences and guide the actions of individuals, groups and societies. Frame analysis, then, is the study of the organization of social experience. To illustrate the concept of the frame, Goffman gives the example of a picture frame: a person uses the frame (which represents structure) to hold together his picture (which represents the content) of what he is experiencing in his life.

The most basic frames are called primary frameworks. A primary framework takes an individual's experience or an aspect of a scene that would originally be meaningless and makes it meaningful. One type of primary framework is a natural framework, which identifies situations in the natural world and is completely biophysical, with no human influences. The other type of framework is a social framework, which explains events and connects them to humans. An example of a natural framework is the weather, and an example of a social framework is a meteorologist who predicts the weather. Focusing on the social frameworks, Goffman seeks to "construct a general statement regarding the structure, or form, of experiences individuals have at any moment of their social life".

Goffman saw this book as his magnum opus, but it was not as popular as his earlier works.

The Frame Analyses of Talk
In Frame Analysis, Erving Goffman provides a platform for understanding and interpreting the interaction between individuals engaging speech communication. In the chapter "The Frame Analyses of Talk," the focus is put on how words are exchanged and what is being said, specifically in informal talk or conversation. The concept of framing is introduced through an exploration of why misunderstandings occur in these basic, everyday conversations. He argues that they are more errors in verbal framing than anything else. The types of frames Goffman is considering are discussed in previous sections of the book, "fabrications, keyings, frame breaks, misframing, and, of course, frame disputes." That a frame can assume so many forms is the basis of his analyses, "these framings are subject to a multitude of different transformations − the warrant for a frame analysis in the first place."

Goffman's key idea is that most conversation is simply a replaying of a strip – what he describes as a personal experience or event. When we talk with others, the speaker's goal is often always the same, to provide "evidence for the fairness or unfairness of his current situation and other grounds for sympathy, approval, exoneration, understanding, or amusement. And what his listeners are primarily obliged to do is to show some kind of audience appreciation." Essentially, through interaction, we are only looking to be heard, not inspire any kind of action but simply to know that someone listened and understood. This is why often a simple head nod or grunt is accepted as an appropriate response in conversation.

Goffman explains that the way a conversation is keyed is critical to understanding the intent behind many utterances in everyday speech. Key is probably best understood as the tone of the dialogue which can change numerous times during an interaction. Signaling a change in key is one way that framing often takes place, "special brackets will have to be introduced should he want to say something in a relatively serious way: "Kidding aside," "Now, I'm really serious about this," and other such tags become necessary as a means of momentarily down keying the flow of words."

Folklorist Richard Bauman builds heavily on Goffman's work, specifically on the idea of key, in his work pertaining to an analysis of the performance frame. Bauman details that a performance is dependent on it being properly keyed, without this, the display will not be successful. His work on performance analyses is deeply indebted to what Goffman establishes here in "Frame Analyses."

Context is one other element to framing that is essential. "The participants will be bound by norms of good manners: through frequency and length of turns at talk, through topics avoided, through circumspection in regard to references about self, through attention offered eagerly or begrudgingly-through all these means, rank and social relationship will be given their due." Certain things can and will be said in one scenario that would never be uttered in another. An awareness of these social framings is critical, just as is an awareness of the audience. Depending on who you're speaking with (a teacher, a child, a loved one, a friend, a pet, etc.) you will curve your speech to fit the frame of what your intended audience is expecting.

Goffman uses the metaphor of conversation being a stage play. A play's tone will shift throughout the performance due to the actions taken by the actors; this is similar to how a discussion is keyed – based on what either person says or does over the course of an interaction, the key will change accordingly. The parallels go further, though. Goffman also claims that a speaker details a drama more often than they provide information. They invite the listener to empathize and, as was explained above, they are often not meant to be stirred to take action, but rather to show appreciation; during a play this generally takes the form of applause.

Other similarities include engaging in the suspense the speaker is attempting to create. In both scenarios, you must put aside the knowledge that the performers know the outcome of the event being relayed and, in a sense, play along. This is integral to his stance as he explains "the argument that much of talk consists of replayings and that these make no sense unless some form of storyteller's suspense can be maintained shows the close relevance of frame-indeed, the close relevance of dramaturgy-for the organization of talk." Lastly, because the replaying of strips is not extemporaneous, but rather preformulated, it is yet another parallel between a stage production and conversation. All of these things work in concert to provide a foundation of how talk is framed.

Gender Advertisements
In Gender Advertisements, Goffman analyzes how gender is represented in the advertising to which all individuals are commonly exposed.

In her 2001 work Measuring Up: How Advertising Affects Self-Image, Vickie Rutledge Shields stated that the work was "unique at the time for employing a method now being labeled 'semiotic content analysis'" and that it "[provided] the base for textual analyses ... such as poststructuralist and psychoanalytic approaches". She also noted that feminist scholars like Jean Kilbourne "[built] their highly persuasive and widely circulated findings on the nature of gender in advertising on Goffman's original categories".

Forms of Talk
Goffman's book, Forms of Talk (1981), includes five essays: "Replies and Responses" (1976); "Response Cries" (1978); "Footing" (1979); "The Lecture" (1976); and "Radio Talk" (1981). Each essay addresses both verbal and non-verbal communication through a sociolinguistic model. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the study of talk. In the introduction, Goffman identifies three themes that recur throughout the text: "ritualization, participation framework, and embedding".

The first essay, "Replies and Responses", concerns "conversational dialogue" and the way people respond during a conversation, both verbally and non-verbally. The second essay, "Response Cries", considers the use of utterances and their social implications in different social contexts. Specifically, Goffman discusses "self-talk" (talking to no one in particular) and its role in social situations. Next, in "Footing", Goffman addresses the way that footing, or alignment, can shift during a conversation. The fourth essay, "The Lecture", originally an oral presentation, describes different types and methods of lecture. Lastly, in "Radio Talk", Goffman describes the types and forms of talk used in radio programming and the effect they have on listeners.

Positions
In his career, Goffman worked at the:
 * University of Edinburgh, Department of Social Anthropology and Social Sciences Research Centre: researcher, 1949-52;
 * University of Chicago, Division of Social Sciences, Chicago: assistant, 1952–53; resident associate, 1953–54;
 * National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland: visiting scientist, 1954–57;
 * University of California, Berkeley: assistant professor, 1957–59; professor, 1959–62; professor of sociology, 1962–68;
 * University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, 1969–82.

Selected works

 * 1959: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre. ISBN 978-0-14-013571-8. Anchor Books edition
 * 1961: Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York, Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-14-013739-2
 * 1961: Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction – Fun in Games & Role Distance. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill.
 * 1963: Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. The Free Press. ISBN 978-0-02-911940-2
 * 1963: Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 978-0-671-62244-2
 * 1967: Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. Anchor Books. ISBN 978-0-394-70631-3
 * 1969: Strategic Interaction. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-345-02804-4
 * 1969: Where the action is. Allen Lane. ISBN 978-0-7139-0079-8
 * 1971: Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-06-131957-0 (includes discussion of "Tie Signs")
 * 1974: Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. London: Harper and Row. ISBN 978-0-06-090372-5
 * 1979: Gender Advertisements. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-06-132076-7
 * 1981: Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-7790-6

title: Erving Goffman


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Joey

Joey may refer to:

People

 * Joey (name)

Animals

 * Joey (marsupial), an infant marsupial
 * Joey, a Blue-fronted Amazon parrot who was one of the Blue Peter pets

Film and television

 * Joey (1977 film), an American film directed by Horace Jackson
 * Joey (1985 film), a German horror film directed by Roland Emmerich
 * Joey (1986 film), an American film directed by Joseph Ellison
 * Joey (1997 film), an Australian film directed by Ian Barry
 * Joey (TV series), a spin-off of the Friends television series

Music

 * Joey (album), 2014 album by Danish singer Joey Moe
 * "Joey" (Bob Dylan song), from the 1976 album Desire
 * "Joey" (Concrete Blonde song), a song by Concrete Blonde from their 1990 album Bloodletting
 * "Joey" (Sugarland song), by Sugarland from their 2008 album Love on the Inside
 * "Joey", a 1954 song by Betty Madigan
 * "Joey", a song by Bon Jovi from their 2002 album Bounce

Sports

 * Joey, a type of return in pickleball
 * Australia national under-17 football team, nicknamed The Joeys

Other uses

 * Nickname of a Britten-Norman Trislander aircraft (registration G-JOEY) - see Aurigny
 * JOEY-DTV, callsign for Ehime Asahi Television
 * Joey (restaurant), a Western Canadian restaurant chain
 * Joey, a name for Continental Rummy
 * Joey's Seafood Restaurants, a chain in Canada
 * Nickname of the British predecimal threepence coin

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

title: Joey


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Friar Park

Friar Park is a Victorian neo-Gothic mansion in Henley-on-Thames, England, construction began in 1889 and was completed in 1895. It was built for lawyer Sir Frank Crisp, and purchased in January 1970 by English rock musician and former Beatle George Harrison. The site covers about 30 acres, and features caves, grottoes, underground passages, a multitude of garden gnomes, and an Alpine rock garden with a scale model of the Matterhorn.

Overview
The main house is listed Grade II on the National Heritage List, and the gardens of Friar Park are also listed Grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. In addition to the main house, the Lower Lodge, Middle Lodge, and Upper Lodge are all also individually listed Grade II. The entrance walls and piers of the Lower Lodge, and the railed wall piers and gates of the Middle Lodge are also listed Grade II.

Reports claiming that the building has 120 rooms were denied by current owner Olivia Harrison, while speaking to NPR Fresh Air in March 2004, at which time she said that, while she didn't know how many rooms there are, 120 is an over-statement.

Since the early 1970s, the property has become synonymous with the former Beatle's home studio, known as FPSHOT (i.e., "Friar Park Studio, Henley-On-Thames"). Harrison biographer Alan Clayson has described the Friar Park estate as being "as synonymous with his name as the Queen's with Windsor Castle".

The rumours and tabloid press reports claiming Harrison put the property up as collateral in order to fund the Monty Python comedy team's movie Life of Brian, after their original backers, EMI, pulled out at the last minute, is unfounded. The budget for the feature film in 1979 was $4 million. At the same time, Friar Park was worth less than £200,000. The rumour was an "inside joke" that was turned into a marketing scheme stating that Harrison simply wanted to get to see the film, something that his friend Eric Idle described for promotional purposes as "the most expensive cinema ticket in movie history".

History
The Friar Park estate was owned by Sir Frank Crisp from 1889 until his death in 1919. The property was then sold at an auction to Sir Percival David. Following their divorce, Lady David moved into the Coachman's Cottage on the south-west corner of the property when the rest of the estate was donated for the use of nuns belonging to the Salesians of Don Bosco order. The nuns ran a local school in Henley, the Sacred Heart School, but, by the late 1960s, Friar Park was in a state of disrepair. The rumour that Friar Park was due to be demolished is completely unfounded and was little more than an "off-the-cuff" comment without any factual basis whatsoever.

George Harrison and FPSHOT
In early 1972, Harrison installed a 16-track tape-based recording studio in a guest suite, which, at one point, was superior to the one at EMI's Abbey Road Studios. By 1974, the facility had become the recording headquarters for his record label, Dark Horse Records. The album covers for projects Harrison recorded there usually mentioned "F.P.S.H.O.T." – Friar Park Studio, Henley-on-Thames. These include the bulk of his own albums, from 1973's Living in the Material World onwards; among them, Dark Horse, Thirty Three & 1/3, George Harrison, Cloud Nine and Brainwashed.

In addition to Harrison's solo albums, overdubs for the two Traveling Wilburys releases and the recording and filming of The Beatles' 1995 Anthology project were also recorded at Friar Park Studio Henley-on-Thames. In 1996, Harrison recorded and produced the album Chants of India for Ravi Shankar at FPSHOT. Interviews with family and friends for posthumous documentaries such as 2003's Concert for George, the 2005 Concert for Bangladesh DVD release, and Martin Scorsese's George Harrison: Living in the Material World in 2011 were all conducted at FPSHOT or in the residential part of the house.

Besides the records by Harrison or artists he produced, the studio was also used by Shakespears Sister to record their 1992 album Hormonally Yours.

The gardens
In the foreword to Harrison's 1980 memoir I, Me, Mine, Derek Taylor writes of Harrison's purchase of Friar Park: "It is a dream on a hill and it came, not by chance, to the right man at the right time."

Friar Park once had extensive gardens and water features that were designed by Henry Ernest Milner for Crisp, including a grotto, and stones just underneath the surface of the pond (providing a walking-on-water illusion). The majority of the gardens that once existed at Friar Park are long gone, having been on land that is no longer part of the estate, or on land that was overgrown with mature trees, or was repurposed. The Rockery to the northwest of the mansion includes a sandstone replica of the Matterhorn Reflecting Crisp's sense of humour; among the statuary is a friar holding a frying pan with holes in it, and a plaque reading "Two Holy Friars". The year Harrison and his first wife, Pattie Boyd, moved in, he was photographed among four garden gnomes located on the main lawn for the cover of All Things Must Pass, and again with his father Harry six years later, with the photo appearing inside the gatefold cover of Thirty Three & 1/3.

Harrison immortalised the grand building and its surrounds in his 1976 song "Crackerbox Palace". Contrary to popular belief, George Harrison never referred to his estate as "Crackerbox Palace." Instead, Crackerbox Palace was the nickname for the California home of comedian Lord Buckley which was the actual inspiration for the song and its title. This rumour began as a consequence of George Harrison filming a promotional film (Crackerbox Palace) at the estate for the sake of convenience. The All Things Must Pass track "Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)" was inspired by Friar Park's history, and the lyrics of later songs such as "Ding Dong, Ding Dong" and "The Answer's at the End" directly quote from the many carvings around the property. His humorous video clips for the likes of "Ding Dong, Ding Dong", "True Love", and "Crackerbox Palace" were all shot within the gardens and grounds of Friar Park, as were the album covers for some of his FPSHOT-recorded Dark Horse acts − Splinter's The Place I Love and the album Ravi Shankar's Music Festival from India being the most obvious.

Harrison restored very few (not all, as is often incorrectly reported) of the remaining gardens, essentially limited mostly to the Alpine Garden, Topiary Garden, Dutch Knot Garden, Japanese Garden, as well as glass houses and lake system. Until his death in November 2001, he loved tending to them personally − an activity that a visiting Rolling Stone journalist in 1987 deemed a "decidedly un-rock-star-ish pastime" − and among the groundskeepers were his older brothers Peter and Harry. Harrison's son Dhani remembered: "He'd garden at night-time until midnight. He'd be out there squinting because he could see, at midnight, the moonlight and shadows, and that was his way of not seeing the weeds or imperfections that would plague him during the day." Talking of the tranquility he felt at Friar Park, Harrison once said: "Sometimes I feel like I'm actually on the wrong planet, and it's great when I'm in my garden. But the minute I go out the gate I think: 'What the hell am I doing here?'"

Security concerns
During Crisp's time at Friar Park, the grounds were open to the public once a week during the Spring and Summer. Following the murder of John Lennon, Harrison's Beatles bandmate, in December 1980, the gates were locked and security features such as fences and video cameras installed. Despite these measures, an intruder, Michael Abram, broke into the residence in the early hours of 30 December 1999, attacking Harrison and his wife Olivia, leaving Harrison with five stab wounds and a punctured lung.

title: Friar Park


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Tommy McClennan

Tommy McClennan (January 4, 1905 – May 9, 1961) was an American Delta blues singer and guitarist.

Life and career
McClennan was born in Durant, Mississippi, and grew up in the town. He played and sang blues in a rough, energetic style.

He made a series of recordings for Bluebird Records from 1939 through 1942. He regularly played with his friend Robert Petway. His voice is heard in the background on Petway's recording of "Boogie Woogie Woman" (1942). McClennan's singles in this period included "Bottle It Up and Go", "New Highway No. 51", "Shake 'Em on Down", and "Whiskey Head Woman".

Several of his songs have been covered by other musicians, including "Cross Cut Saw Blues" (covered by Albert King) and "My Baby's Gone" (Moon Mullican). McClennan's "I'm a Guitar King" was included in the 1959 collection The Country Blues, issued by Folkways Records.

McClennan died of bronchopneumonia in Chicago, Illinois, on May 9, 1961.

Citation
"He had a different style of playing a guitar", Big Bill Broonzy said. "You just make the chords and change when you feel like changing"

John Fahey's "Screaming and Hollerin' the Blues" contains an interview with Booker Miller, a contemporary of Charlie Patton's, in which Miller mentioned someone who is most likely Tommy McClennan, though Miller did not know his name: "... and I saw another fella he put some records out, they (him and Willie Brown) be together, but he be by himself when I see him, they called him "Sugar"... I ain't never known him as nothing but Sugar, he put out a record called Bottle Up and Go... I sold him my guitar."

Bob Dylan covered Tommy McClennan's track, "Highway 51" (which was written by Curtis Jones), on his self-titled debut album in 1962.

title: Tommy McClennan


text:
Brown rot

Brown rot may refer to the following diseases:

 * Wood-decay fungus, fungi that digest moist wood, causing rot, includes various species that infect living trees and cured wood
 * Ralstonia solanacearum, an aerobic, non-sporing, plant pathogenic bacterium that causes brown rot in a wide range of crops
 * Monilinia fructicola, a plant pathogenic fungus, the cause of brown rot in stone fruits, such as plums, peaches, nectarines and almonds
 * Two of the Gnomoniopsis - G. smithogilvyii or G. castaneae - in chestnuts
 * Almond brown rot caused by Monilinia fructicola

title: Brown rot


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User talk:Snowbird~enwiki

Hello Snowbird, please take a look at our NPOV policy. Phrases like "Due to the fact that there is no substance to the above belief" are not acceptable according to this policy. Please base Wikipedia articles only on attribtued opinions or uncontroversial facts. --Eloquence 01:33 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Okay, I've changed it now. It actually says what I meant it to say originally! Snowbird 01:59 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Snowbird. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Snowbird~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 03:04, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Snowbird~enwiki


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Video rental shop

A video rental shop/store is a physical retail business that rents home videos such as movies, prerecorded TV shows, video game discs and other media content. Typically, a rental shop conducts business with customers under conditions and terms agreed upon in a rental agreement or contract, which may be implied, explicit, or written. Many video rental stores also sell previously viewed movies and/or new, unopened movies.

In the 1980s, video rental stores rented VHS and Betamax tapes of movies, although most stores dropped Betamax tapes when VHS won the format war late in the decade. In the 2000s, video rental stores began renting DVDs, a digital format with higher resolution than VHS. In the late 2000s, stores began selling and renting Blu-ray discs, a format that supports high definition resolution.

Increasing accessibilities of electronic medias in library circulation and widespread adoption of video on demand and video streaming services such as Netflix in the 2010s sharply reduced the revenues of most major rental chains, leading to the closure of most locations. Due to the precipitous drop in demand, few rental shops have survived into the present day. As of 2022, the small number of remaining stores tend to cater to film buffs seeking classic and historic films, art films, independent films, foreign language films, and cult films that are less available on streaming platforms.

1970s
The world's oldest business renting out copies of movies for private use was a film reel rental shop opened by Eckhard Baum in Kassel, Germany in the summer of 1975. Baum collected movies on Super 8 film as a hobby and lent pieces of his collection to friends and acquaintances. Because they showed great interest in his films, he came up with the idea of renting out films as a sideline. Over the years, videotapes and optical discs were added to the range. Baum still operates the business as of April 2023 and was portrayed in the June 2006 documentary film Eckis Welt by Olaf Saumer.

The first professionally managed video rental store in the U.S., Video Station, was opened by George Atkinson in December 1977 at 12011 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. After 20th Century Fox had signed an agreement with Magnetic Video founder Andre Blay to license him 50 of their titles for sale directly to consumers, amongst them Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, M*A*S*H, Hello, Dolly!, Patton, The French Connection, The King And I and The Sound Of Music, Atkinson bought all the titles in both VHS and Beta formats, and offered them for rent. Such stores led to the creation of video rental chains such as West Coast Video, Blockbuster Video, and Rogers Video in the 1980s.

Sony released its first commercially available video recorders in the United States on June 7, 1975, and the following year, on October 25, 1976, Universal and Disney filed a lawsuit against Sony in the case known as Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. The two studios tried to ban the sales of VCRs, and later the rental of movies, which would have destroyed the video rental business in the US. Justice Harry Blackmun sided with the studios, while Justice John Paul Stevens ruled in Sony's favor. Eventually, on January 17, 1984, the Supreme Court overruled the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor changed her mind, leading to a 5-to-4 ruling.

1980s

Video games started being rented in video shops from 1982. Some of the earliest game cartridges available for rental included Donkey Kong, Frogger and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. However, not many stores made them available for rental at the time. In Japan, Nintendo Entertainment System games could be rented as early as 1983. However, in response to rental stores making pirated copies of game cartridges, video game companies, as well as the Recording Industry Association of Japan and trade associations, lobbied for an amendment to the Japanese Copyright Act that banned the rental of video games in Japan in 1984. Some video game companies intentionally made their games more difficult to prevent them from being beaten during the rental period, in the hopes players would purchase games instead of renting.

By mid-1985, the United States had 15,000 video rental stores, and many record, grocery, and drug stores also rented videotapes. By May 1988, the number of specialty video stores was estimated to be 25,000, in addition to 45,000 other outlets that also offered video rentals. Grocery stores in the US rented tapes for as little as $0.49 as loss leaders. The press discussed the VCR "and the viewing habits it has engendered — the Saturday night trip down to the tape rental store to pick out for a couple of bucks the movie you want to see when you want to see it". Video rental stores had customers of all ages and were part of a fast-growing business. By 1987, for example, Pennsylvania had 537 stores that primarily rented videotapes, with annual spending per resident of $10.50. By 1989, six years after its founding, Philadelphia's West Coast Video operated over 700 stores in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In 1987, home video market revenues for the year surpassed box office revenues.

In the 1980s, it was common for shops to rent equipment—typically VHS recorders—as well as tapes. Some video shops also had adults-only sections containing X-rated videos. Some video stores exclusively sold X-rated suggestive films, often along with related sex shop items. To cope with the videotape format war of the 1970s and 1980s, some stores initially stocked both VHS and Betamax cassettes, while others specialized in one format or the other. During the 1980s, most stores eventually phased out their Betamax section and became all-VHS, contributing to the eventual demise of Beta as a home video format (nevertheless, the Beta form factor remained in use as a professional video format in broadcasting as Betacam).

1990s-2000s
In the late 1990s, DVDs began appearing in video rental stores. The format was smaller than tapes, allowing stores to stock more movies. As well, the thin, lightweight discs could be mailed, which made mail DVD services feasible. In the late 1990s, Netflix offered a per-rental model for each DVD but introduced a monthly subscription for DVDs concept in September 1999. The per-rental model was dropped by early 2000, allowing the company to focus on the business model of flat-fee unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees (a source of annoyance for bricks and mortar video store customers), shipping and handling fees, or per-title rental fees.

Rogers Video was the first chain to provide DVD rentals in Canada. Other chains and independent stores later transitioned to the newer format. Similarly, many video stores rented Blu-ray Disc movies after the high definition optical disc format war ended in the late 2000s.

Some firms rented DVDs from automatic kiosk machines such as Redbox. Customers selected a movie from a list using buttons, paid by credit card, and the movie popped out of a slot. While traditional brick and mortar video rental stores were closing at a high rate, Redbox moved into existing retail locations such as supermarkets, and placed kiosks within them or outside of them to gain access to that consumer base. As well, with Redbox, consumers could rent the movie at one kiosk (for example, one near their work) and return it to any Redbox kiosk (for example, one near their home), thus increasing convenience. Redbox surpassed Blockbuster in 2007 in the number of US locations, passed 100 million rentals in February 2008, and passed 1 billion rentals in September 2010.

Automatic DVD kiosks still required consumers to leave home twice, to rent the movie and return it. Widespread availability of video on demand (VOD) on cable TV systems and VHS-by-mail and DVD-by-mail services offered consumers a way of watching movies without having to leave home. Consumers preferred the convenience of choosing movies at home.

With the advent of the World Wide Web, Internet services which streamed content as Netflix became increasingly popular starting in the mid–2000s. All the new ways of watching movies greatly reduced demand for video rental shops, and many closed as a result. In 2000, there were 27,882 stores renting videos open in the US, by late 2015, the number was down to 4,445. Over 86% of the 15,300 U.S. stores (specializing in video rentals) open in 2007 were reported to have closed by 2017, bringing the total to approximately 2,140 remaining stores. The total income from brick and mortar rentals for 2017 was about $390 million.

In mid-June 2020, Malaysian video rental chain Speedy Video closed its 14 remaining shops in response to competition from satellite television and streaming platforms. In Asia, video rental stores faced the additional challenge of dealing with rampant video piracy.

On January 5, 2021, Glenview, Illinois-based Family Video announced it was closing all its remaining video rental stores. The company was the last remaining video rental chain in the United States; its closing marked the end of large video rental chains.

In the 2020s, some video stores facing the loss of their business model have adapted by becoming non-profit organizations that focus on preserving an archive of film heritage and educating people about cinema. Operating as a non-profit enables a video store to use volunteer personnel and apply for foundation grants, which can make it feasible to operate with less rental revenue.

Meanwhile, at the end of 2022, there are still more than 2,000 video rental stores in Japan, including Tsutaya and Geo. However, as is typical, the number is decreasing year by year. In addition, Redbox has nearly 40,000 vending machine-type stores in the U.S. as of 2021.

In 2022, CBC News reported that Ottawa still has two DVD rental stores: Movies n' Stuff (12,000 titles for rent and 40,000 more in storage) and Glebe Video International (18,000 titles for rent). Movies n' Stuff's owner, Peter Thompson, attributes the continued interest in video rental stores to the rising cost of streaming subscription services and patrons' desire for the personalized film recommendations he provides.

On April 23, 2024, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Redbox's parent, announced a $636.6 million loss in 2023, and warned that without any options to generate additional financing, the company may be forced to liquidate or pause operations, and seek a potential Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing. However, Chicken Soup for the Soul did also report that Redbox's sales increased last year, seeing a 66% increase in annual revenue to $112.7 million. On June 29, 2024, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after missing a week of paying its employees and failing to secure financing.

On July 10, 2024, a bankruptcy judge ordered to convert Chicken Soup for the Soul's Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation after accusing the company's previous CEO of misusing the business and failing to pay employees or support healthcare. Over 1,000 employees were laid off and over 26,000 Redbox kiosks will shut down permanently, marking the end of major physical video rental services in the United States.

Legacy and sociocultural impact
According to Daniel Herbert, a film professor at the University of Michigan, video rental stores "helped cement a local “movie culture” and contribute to the social fabric of a community in small but meaningful ways", in that customers sought advice from staff on what film to rent or chatted with other customers about "what to watch and why."

Film critic Collin Souter states that video stores gave "film lovers" a place "to congregate" and make "discoveries by browsing" the racks of film shelves, with the store providing a "film school, a social gathering, a place of cinematic discovery, date nights, and rites of passage." He underscores the impact that video stores had by noting that when film director Quentin Tarantino, a former video rental store employee, learned that Video Archives in Hermosa Beach California (the store he had worked at) was closing, he bought the entire "inventory and recreated the store in his basement", as for him, "that place [was] a lifesaver."

A 2018 article about video stores states that they are appealing because "people crave being together to pick entertainment" and the chance to "chat with a staff member" "who can be relied upon for reviews and recommendations and who truly love what they do", while at the same time being "part of a "community of like-minded individuals." One argument for video stores is the element of investment; if "you're taking time to walk into a physical place, grab something and take it home, you'll be at least a little bit invested."

As well, there is the "allure of browsing" the physical copies on the shelves (an appeal likened to the resurgence of interest in vinyl records in the 2020s).

Such video rental stores as Toronto's Bay St Video have a larger selection than a streaming platform's movie list. The owner of Bay St Video states that they "have movies that go back to the beginning of filmmaking, from the first silent films ever made to stuff that was just in theatres – and everything in between. We have the history of cinema.” He calls the store's selection of films "libraryesque – almost like an archive or a museum.” Benjamin Owens, the owner of Film is Truth, a non-profit video rental outlet, points out that video stores may carry a larger selection of films than streaming platforms; he notes that while the "largest streaming provider, Netflix, has only 6,000 titles", Film is Truth has over 20,000 titles. An additional benefit that video stores provide to communities is that they give access to films to people with poor access to Internet and those who are not comfortably with adapting to online consumption.

In 2010, Daniel Hanna, the owner of Toronto's Eyesore Cinema (an independent video shop) launched International Independent Video Store Day, which is held on the third Saturday of every October, to promote awareness of video rental stores and their unique contribution to film culture.

Film professor Daniel Herbert says that the demise of the video store may affect independent film production. He states that studios lost a major channel for low-budget, feature-length indie movies when the large video store chains collapsed. Streaming services are less likely to produce this format, as they prefer binge-watching-oriented serials. Richard Brody argues that between 1985 and 1995, there was "a generation of filmmakers that included Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh, whose first films, Reservoir Dogs and Sex, Lies, and Videotape, respectively, were financed" by the home video market. Brody argues that for aspiring filmmakers, video stores they worked at became "launching pads of true outsiders", and provided "counter-programming" to film school training by valorizing "anti-academic values of disorder, spontaneity, and enthusiasm."

Friday Night at the Video Store is a National Film Board documentary directed by Cédric Chabuel and Alexandra Viau that aims to "record and preserve a vestige of the brief existence" of five video store owners who "cling to their dream of keeping the video rental industry alive."

In popular culture
The impact of video rental stores on popular culture is attested to by filmmakers' use of video stores as a setting for a number of films from the 1980s to the 2000s. Examples include Be Kind Rewind (2008), in which Jack Black and Mos Def play rental store staff in a shop scheduled for demolition; Clerks (1994), which depicts a day in the life of two bored, annoyed clerks, one that works in a video store; Speaking Parts (1989), a film directed by Atom Egoyan about a video rental store customer whose obsession with a minor actor pushes her to rent every film he has a bit part in; Remote Control (1988), a science fiction film about alien brainwashing scheme that uses a message hidden in a VHS tape, in which Kevin Dillon plays the role of a video store clerk; Air Doll (2009) a Japanese film about a blow-up doll that comes to life and begins working in a video rental store; Bleeder (1999), a Nicolas Winding Refn film in which Mads Mikkelsen plays a lonely video store clerk; and Watching the Detectives (2007), a film in which Cillian Murphy plays a video store clerk who is a film buff who tries to get his customers interested in cinema.

The decline of chain video stores was later addressed by the documentary film The Last Blockbuster (2020) and the TV sitcom Blockbuster (2022), a fictionalized version of the same premise.

Rental and copyright
Renting books, optical discs, tapes, and movies is covered by copyright law. Copyright owners sometimes put warning notices on the packaging of products such as DVDs to deter copyright infringement such as copying of movies.

In Canada, movies are protected under the Canadian Copyright Act, so shifting from one format to another (e.g. "ripping" a digital copy of a rental DVD movie) is illegal. In 2012, public school teachers were granted some exemptions for the exhibition of films, when the Canadian Parliament passed the Copyright Modernization Act. Teachers can show "copyrighted commercially available movies for educational purposes", so long as it is part of a "classroom curriculum related context."

In the United States, Title 17 of the United States Code indicates that it is "illegal to reproduce a copyrighted work" such as a rented VHS tape or DVD movie.

In some cases, consumer rights in Europe and the US are significantly broader than those described in copyright warning labels. In the U.S., with narrow exceptions for religious and educational purpsoses, a person who shows a rental video outside of a home must pay for an exhibition license.

title: Video rental shop


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Talk:List of newsgroups

Untitled
Why don't we incorporate this list to the UseNet article? -- Taku 01:41 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

 * Some people here on wikipedia are absolutely fanatical about creating lists about every conceivable topic (I think there is even a humerus term or acronym for it). In my opinion a list of the usenet groups is not central to explaining what usenet is (which is what an encyclopedia should do) - save of course for a few examples. So by all means, if the listoholics want to create every conceivable list let them, but it should not interfere too much which genuine encyclopedic entries. --snoyes 01:49 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

If we must have this list, shouldn't there be a short parenthetical note telling WHY a group is notable or interesting? There's no invitation for the curious to explore the entry on, say, alt.binaries.slack, which means nothing to most people (including me). Alt.sex.stories may be self-explanatory, but many are not. just 2 cents. Catherine

 * That's a good point. Descriptions of the newsgroups have been added. -- Modemac 11:48 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

I'll delete uk.lifts because Google Groups doesn't carry it and it has no description/WP article so it must be not that notable at all. Grue 13:09, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is is possible to move the newsgroups related to mature subjects to another page? It's not a request bases on morals but a request based on content. It would also be important to separate them from the lis if there are people who are looking at this page at work.

Also, I'm thinking of making pages for a few of the Big 8 categories. Specifically alt.*, comp*, rec*, and sci* since those are the ones with the most active groups. Does anyone have any objections? --Bushido Hacks 19:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Heirarchy Pages
I'm currently working to export the larger group listings to their own hierarchy pages. Currently, comp.* and sci.* have been created.

--Bushido Hacks 22:52, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Lists are examples only
It may confuse the novice to see only a few groups in the alt category, and only two in talk. It should be made clear that these are EXAMPLES only, and not all there is. I will add Examples include: to those lists for this purpose.

For that matter, why are there NO examples at all of ANY science groups or society groups, but two for talk, both trivial? What a strange priority!

And yes, there is no reason why Wikipedia can't have COMPLETE lists on many such topics. A lot of encyclopedias have sporting records and almanac type info so that readers can look things up. Wikipedia has SO many articles on little side streets that would be of interest to less than 5 people, and yet there is always a lot of objections raised when anyone, quite sensibly, suggests making complete records of EXACTLY those kinds of things that people DO look up, like Classical Allusions, for example, and newsgroup sites. Myles325a (talk) 07:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Other hierarchies
This section is blank, and should probably refer to other hierarchies, such as national ones, and even local ones... eg:

A number of other hierarchies exist, for example those relating to issues of a more national or local nature, or those within a particular organisation's servers.

For example:

 * uk.* - newsgroups relating to the United Kingdom
 * uk.railway - discussion of Railways in the United Kingdom
 * uk.local.*
 * uk.local.birmingham - local discussion about Birmingham, United Kingdom
 * uk.local.yorkshire - local discussion about Yorkshire

 * bham.* - newsgroups relating to the University of Birmingham
 * bham.comp.unix - Unix use in Computer Science at the University of Birmingham

Aboodoo (talk) 22:51, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

title: Talk:List of newsgroups


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Falsetto

Falsetto (, ; Italian diminutive of falso, "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave.

It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal cords, in whole or in part. Commonly cited in the context of singing, falsetto, a characteristic of phonation by both sexes, is also one of four main spoken vocal registers recognized by speech pathology.

The term falsetto is most often used in the context of singing to refer to a type of vocal phonation that enables the singer to sing notes beyond the vocal range of the normal or modal voice. The typical tone of falsetto register or M2, usually has a characteristic breathy and flute-like sound relatively free of overtones  —which is more limited than its modal counterpart in both dynamic variation and tone quality. However, William Vennard points out that while most untrained people can sound comparatively "breathy" or "hooty" when using falsetto production, there are in rarer cases individuals who have developed a much stronger falsetto sound production, which has more "ring" to it.

Anatomical process
The modal voice, or modal register, and falsetto register differ primarily in the action of the vocal cords. Production of the normal voice involves vibration of the entire vocal cord, with the glottis opening first at the bottom and then at the top. Production of falsetto, on the other hand, vibrates only the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds while leaving each fold's body relatively relaxed. Transition from modal voice to falsetto occurs when each vocal cord's main body, or vocalis muscle, relaxes, enabling the cricothyroid muscles to stretch the vocal ligaments. William Vennard describes this process as follows:

"With the vocalis muscles relaxed it is possible for the cricothyroids to place great longitudinal tension upon the vocal ligaments. The tension can be increased in order to raise the pitch even after the maximum length of the cords has been reached. This makes the vocal folds thin so that there is negligible vertical phase difference. The vocalis muscles fall to the sides of the larynx and the vibration take place almost entirely in the ligaments."

In the modal register, the vocal folds (when viewed with a stroboscope) are seen to contact with each other completely during each vibration, closing the gap between them fully, if just for a very short time. This closure cuts off the escaping air. When the air pressure in the trachea rises as a result of this closure, the folds are blown apart, while the vocal processes of the arytenoid cartilages remain in apposition. This creates an oval gap between the folds and some air escapes, lowering the pressure inside the trachea. Rhythmic repetition of this movement creates the note.

In falsetto, however, the vocal folds are seen to be blown apart, and in untrained falsetto singers, a permanent oval orifice is left in the middle between the edges of the two folds through which a certain volume of air escapes continuously as long as the register is engaged (the singer is singing using the voice). In skilled countertenors, however, the mucous membrane of the vocal folds contact with each other completely during each vibration cycle. The arytenoid cartilages are held in firm apposition in this voice register also. The length or size of the oval orifice or separation between the folds can vary, but it is known to get bigger as the pressure of air pushed out is increased.

The folds are made up of elastic and fatty tissue. The folds are covered on the surface by laryngeal mucous membrane, which is supported deeper down underneath by the innermost fibres of the thyroarytenoid muscle. In falsetto, the extreme membranous edges (i.e., the edges furthest away from the middle of the gap between the folds) appear to be the only parts vibrating. The mass corresponding to the innermost part of the thyroarytenoid muscle remains still and motionless.

Some singers feel a sense of muscular relief when they change from the modal register to the falsetto register.

Research has revealed that not all speakers and singers produce falsetto in exactly the same way. Some speakers and singers leave the cartilaginous portion of the glottis open (sometimes called 'mutational chink'), and only the front two-thirds of the vocal ligaments enter the vibration. The resulting sound, which is typical of many adolescents, may be pure and flutelike, but is usually soft and anemic in quality. In others, the full length of the glottis opens and closes in each cycle. In still others, a phenomenon known as damping appears, with the amount of glottal opening becoming less and less as the pitch rises, until only a tiny slit appears on the highest pitches. The mutational chink type of falsetto is considered inefficient and weak, but there is little information available about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the other two types.

Female falsetto
Both sexes are physically capable of phonating in the falsetto register. Prior to research done by scientists in the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely believed that only men were able to produce falsetto. One possible explanation for this failure to recognize the female falsetto sooner is that when men phonate in the falsetto register there is a much more pronounced change in timbre and dynamic level between the modal and falsetto registers than there is in female voices. This is due in part to the difference in the length and mass of the vocal folds and to the difference in frequency ranges. However, motion picture and video studies of laryngeal action prove that women can and do produce falsetto, and electromyographic studies by several leading speech pathologists and vocal pedagogists provide further confirmation.

While scientific evidence has proven that women have a falsetto register, the issue of 'female falsetto' has been met with controversy among teachers of singing. This controversy does not exist within the sciences and arguments against the existence of female falsetto do not align with current physiological evidence. Some pioneers in vocal pedagogy, like Margaret Green and William Vennard, were quick to adopt current scientific research in the 1950s, and pursued capturing the biological process of female falsetto on film. They went further to incorporate their research into their pedagogical method of teaching female singers. Others refused to accept the idea, and opposition to the concept of female falsetto has continued among some teachers of singing long after scientific evidence had proven the existence of female falsetto. Celebrated opera singer and voice teacher Richard Miller pointed out in his 1997 publication National Schools of Singing: English, French, German, and Italian that while the German school of voice teachers had largely embraced the idea of a female falsetto into pedagogical practice, there is division within the French and English schools and a complete rejection of the idea of female falsetto in the Italian school of singing. In his 2004 book, Solutions for Singers: Tools For Performers and Teachers, Miller said, "It is illogical to speak of a female falsetto, because the female is incapable of producing a timbre in the upper range that is radically different from its mezza voce or voce piena in testa qualities".

However, other writers of singing have warned about the dangers of failing to recognize that women have a falsetto register. McKinney, who expressed alarm that many books on the art of singing completely ignore or gloss over the issue of female falsetto or insist that women do not have falsetto, argues that many young female singers substitute falsetto for the upper portion of the modal voice. He believes that this failure to recognize the female falsetto voice has led to the misidentification of young contraltos and mezzo-sopranos as sopranos, as it is easier for these lower voice types to sing in the soprano tessitura using their falsetto register.

Musical history
Use of falsetto voice in western music is very old. Its origins are difficult to trace because of ambiguities in terminology. Possibly when 13th century writers distinguished between chest, throat and head registers (pectoris, guttoris, capitis) they meant capitis to refer to what would be later called falsetto. By the 16th century the term falsetto was common in Italy. The physician, Giovanni Camillo Maffei, in his book Discorso della voce e del modo d'apparare di cantar di garganta in 1562, explained that when a bass singer sang in the soprano range, the voice was called "falsetto". In a book by GB Mancini, called Pensieri e riflessioni written in 1774, falsetto is equated with "voce di testa" (translated as 'head voice').

The falsetto register is used by male countertenors to sing in the alto and occasionally the soprano range and was the standard before women sang in choirs. Falsetto is occasionally used by early music specialists today and regularly in British cathedral choirs by men who sing the alto line.

There is a difference between the modern usage of the "head voice" term and its previous meaning in the renaissance as a type of falsetto, according to many singing professionals. These days, head voice is typically defined as a mix of chest and head voice, therefore created a stronger sound than falsetto. The falsetto can be coloured or changed to sound different. It can be given classical styling to sound as male classical countertenors make it sound, or be sung in more contemporary musical styles.

In opera, it is believed that the chest voice, middle voice and head voice occur in women. The head voice of a man is, according to David A. Clippinger generally equivalent to the middle voice of a woman. This may mean the head voice of a woman is a man's falsetto equivalent. Although, in contemporary teaching, some teachers no longer talk of the middle voice, choosing to call it the head voice as with men. Falsetto is not generally counted by classical purists as a part of the vocal range of anyone except countertenors. There are exceptions, however, such as the baryton-Martin which uses falsetto (see baritone article).

Use in singing
Falsetto is more limited in dynamic variation and tone quality than the modal voice. Falsetto does not connect to modal voice except at very low volumes, leading to vocal breaks when transitioning from modal voice. In the absence of modern vocal training to hold back the volume of modal voice, in this overlapping area a given pitch in modal voice will be louder than the same pitch sung in falsetto. The type of vocal cord vibration that produces the falsetto voice precludes loud singing except in the highest tones of that register; it also limits the available tone colors because of the simplicity of its waveform. Modal voice is capable of producing much more complex waveforms and infinite varieties of tone color. Falsetto, however, does involve less physical effort by the singer than the modal voice and, when properly used, can make possible some desirable tonal effects.

Use in speech
The ability to speak within the falsetto register is possible for almost all men and women. The use of falsetto is considered uncommon in normal Western speech and is most often employed within the context of humor. However, the use of falsetto speech varies by culture and its use has been studied in African Americans and gay men in certain contexts. Its use has also been noted in the U.S. South. Pitch changes ranging to falsetto are also characteristic of British English.

Some people who speak frequently or entirely in the falsetto register are identified by speech pathologists as suffering from a functional dysphonia. Falsetto also describes the momentary, but often repeated, fluctuations in pitch emitted by both sexes while undergoing voice change during adolescence. These changes, however, are more apparent and occur with greater frequency in boys than they do in girls. Failure to undergo proper voice-change is called puberphonia.

title: Falsetto


text:
Intermontane

Intermontane is a physiographic adjective formed from the prefix "inter-" (signifying among, between, amid, during, within, mutual, reciprocal) and the adjective "montane" (inhabiting, or growing in mountainous regions, especially cool, moist upland slopes below the timberline).

The corresponding physiographic noun is intermountain, while the noun intermontane is an ecologic noun meaning among, between, amid, or within "flora and fauna of a montane habitat." As an example, an alpine region would be an intermontane for a species that migrates between a glacial region and a subalpine region.

Use of the term

 * Intermontane Basin, a wide valley between mountain ranges that is partly filled with alluvium such as New Zealand's Mackenzie Basin.
 * Intermontane Belt, a physiogeological region in the North American Pacific Northwest.
 * Intermontane Plateaus, the United States physiographic region of the Intermountain West.
 * Intermontane Steppe, a term used mainly in reference to the Sayan Intermontane Steppe.

In palaeogeography, intermontane may refer to
 * Intermontane Islands, an ancient Pacific Ocean chain of volcanic islands of the Intermontane Plate that were active during the Triassic period.
 * Intermontane Plate, an ancient oceanic tectonic plate on the west coast of North America about 195 million years ago.
 * Intermontane Trench, an ancient oceanic trench of the Triassic period along the west coast of North America in the former Slide Mountain Ocean.

title: Intermontane


text:
Peneplain

In geomorphology and geology, a peneplain is a low-relief plain formed by protracted erosion. This is the definition in the broadest of terms, albeit with frequency the usage of peneplain is meant to imply the representation of a near-final (or penultimate) stage of fluvial erosion during times of extended tectonic stability. Peneplains are sometimes associated with the cycle of erosion theory of William Morris Davis, but Davis and other workers have also used the term in a purely descriptive manner without any theory or particular genesis attached.

Discussion

The existence of some peneplains, and peneplanation as a process in nature, is not without controversy, due to a lack of contemporary examples and uncertainty in identifying relic examples. By some definitions, peneplains grade down to a base level represented by sea level, yet in other definitions such a condition is ignored. Geomorphologist Karna Lidmar-Bergström and co-workers consider the base level criterion crucial and above the precise mechanism of formation of peneplains, including this way some pediplains among peneplains.

While peneplains are usually assumed to form near sea level it has also been posited that peneplains can form at height if extensive sedimentation raises the local base level sufficiently or if river networks are continuously obstructed by tectonic deformation. The peneplains of the Pyrenees and Tibetan Plateau may exemplify these two cases respectively.

A common misconception about peneplains is that they ought to be so plain they are featureless. In fact, some peneplains may be hilly as they reflect irregular deep weathering, forming a plain grading to a base level only at a grand-scale.

At the grand-scale peneplains are characterized by appearing to be sculpted in rock with disregard of rock structure and lithology, but in detail, their shape is structurally controlled, for example, drainage divides in peneplain can follow more resistant rock. In the view of Davis large streams do became insensitive to lithology and structure, which they were not during the valley phase of erosion cycle. This may explain the existence of superimposed streams.

Types of peneplains
There are various terms for landforms that are either alternatives to classical peneplains, a sub-set of peneplains or partially overlap with the term. The last is the case of planation surfaces that may be peneplains or not, while some peneplains are not planation surfaces.

In their 2013 work Green, Lidmar-Bergström and co-workers provide the following classification scheme for peneplains:
 * 1) Planation surfaces
 * 2) Pediplain
 * 3) Inselberg plain
 * 4) Etchplain
 * 5) Hilly relief
 * 6) Etched hilly relief

Rhodes Fairbridge and Charles Finkl argue that peneplains are often of mixed origin (polygenetic), as they may have been shaped by etchplanation during periods of humid climate and pediplanation during periods of arid and semi-arid climate. The long time spans under which some peneplains evolve ensures varied climatic influences. The same authors do also list marine abrasion and glacial erosion among processes that can contribute in shaping peneplains.

In addition, epigene peneplains can be distinguished from exhumed peneplains. Epigene peneplains are those that have never been buried or covered by sedimentary rock. Exhumed peneplains are those that are re-exposed after having been buried in sediments.

The oldest identifiable peneplain in a region is known as a primary peneplain. An example of a primary peneplain is the Sub-Cambrian peneplain in southern Sweden.

Pediplains
The peneplain concept is often juxtaposed to that of pediplain. However authors like Karna Lidmar-Bergström classify pediplains as a type of peneplain. On the contrary Lester Charles King held them as incompatible landforms arguing that peneplains do not exist. King wrote:
 * A peneplain in the Davisian sense, resulting from slope reduction and downwearing, does not exist in nature. It should be redefined as "an imaginary landform."

According to King the difference between pediplains and Davis’ peneplains is in the history and processes behind their formation, and less so in the final shape. A difference in form that may be present is that of residual hills, which in Davis’ peneplains are to have gentle slopes, while in pediplains they ought to have the same steepness as the slopes in the early stages of erosion leading to pediplanation. Given that the coalesced pediments of the pediplains form a series of very gentle concave slopes, a difference with Davis' understanding of peneplains may lie in the fact that his idealized peneplains had very gentle convex slopes instead. However, Davis' views on the subject are not fully clear. Contrary to this view Rhodes Fairbridge and Charles Finkl argue that the precise mechanism of formation (pediplanation, etc.) is irrelevant and that the term peneplain has been used and can be used in a purely descriptive manner. Further, alternation of processes with varying climate, relative sea level and biota make old surfaces unlikely to be of a single origin.

Preservation and destruction of peneplains
Peneplains that are detached from their base level are identified by either hosting an accumulation of sediments that buries it or by being in an uplifted position. Burial preserves the peneplain. Any exposed peneplain detached from its baselevel can be considered a paleosurface or paleoplain. Uplift of a peneplain commonly results in renewed erosion. As Davis put it in 1885:
 * "the decrepit surface must wait either until extinguished by submergence below the sea, or regenerated by elevation into a new cycle of life"

Uplifted peneplains can be preserved as fossil landforms in conditions of extreme aridity or under non-eroding cold-based glacier ice. Erosion of peneplains by glaciers in shield regions is limited. In the Fennoscandian Shield average glacier erosion during the Quaternary amounts to tens of meters, albeit this was not evenly distributed. For glacier erosion to be effective in shields a long "preparation period" of weathering under non-glacial conditions may be a requirement.

Silicification of peneplain surfaces exposed to sub-tropical and tropical climate for long enough time can protect them from erosion.

title: Peneplain


text:
Inselberg

An inselberg or monadnock is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, an Afrikaans word ("little head") from the Dutch diminutive word kopje. If the inselberg is dome-shaped and formed from granite or gneiss, it can also be called a bornhardt, though not all bornhardts are inselbergs. An inselberg results when a body of rock resistant to erosion, such as granite, occurring within a body of softer rocks, is exposed by differential erosion and lowering of the surrounding landscape.

Inselberg
The word inselberg is a loan word from German, and means "island mountain". The term was coined in 1900 by geologist Wilhelm Bornhardt (1864–1946) to describe the abundance of such features found in eastern Africa. At that time, the term applied only to arid landscape features. However, it has since been used to describe a broader geography and range of rock features, leading to confusion about the precise definition of the term.

In a 1973 study examining the use of the term, one researcher found that the term had been used for features in savannah climates 40% of the time, arid or semi-arid climates 32% of the time, humid-subtropical and arctic 12% of the time, and 6% each in humid-tropical and Mediterranean climates. A 1972 paper defined inselbergs as "steep-sided isolated hills rising relatively abruptly above gently sloping ground". This definition includes such features as buttes; conical hills with rectilinear sides typically found in arid regions; regolith-covered concave-convex hills; rock crests over regolith slopes; rock domes with near vertical sides; tors (koppies) formed of large boulders but with solid rock cores. Thus, the terms monadnock and inselberg may not perfectly match, though some authors have explicitly argued these terms are completely synonymous.

Monadnock
Monadnock is derived from an Abenaki term for an isolated hill or a lone mountain that stands above the surrounding area, typically by surviving erosion. Geologists took the name from Mount Monadnock in southwestern New Hampshire. It is thought to derive from either menonadenak or menadena. In this context, monadnock is used to describe a mountain that rises from an area of relatively flat and/or lower terrain. For instance, Mount Monadnock rises 2000 ft above its surrounding terrain and stands, at 3165 ft, nearly 1000 ft higher than any mountain peak within 30 mi.

Geological and geographical patterns
Inselbergs are common in eroded and weathered shields. The presence of an inselberg typically indicates the existence of a nearby plateau or highland, or their remnants. This is especially the case for inselbergs composed of sedimentary rock, which will display the same stratigraphic units as this nearby plateau. However once exposed, the inselbergs are destroyed by marginal collapse of joint blocks and exfoliation sheets. This process leaves behind tors perched at their summits and, over time, a talus-bordered residual known as a castle koppie appears. By this association various inselberg fields in Africa and South America are assumed to be the vestiges of eroded etchplains.

Clusters of inselbergs, called inselberg fields and inselberg plains, occur in various parts of the world, including Tanzania, the Anti-Atlas of Morocco, Northeast Brazil, Namibia, the interior of Angola, and the northern portions of Finland and Sweden.

The classification of Anthony Young (1969) distinguishes six types of inselbergs; buttes, conical hills, convex-concave hills, rock crest over regolith-covered slope, rock dome (sugarloaf) and kopje or tor.

The types of rock of which inselbergs are made of include granite, gneiss and gabbro.

Origin and development
Summarizing the understanding on the origin of inselbergs in 1974, geomorphologist Michael Thomas writes "Hypotheses for the development of inselbergs have been advanced, refuted and reiterated over a period of more than seventy years." Volcanic or other processes may give rise to a body of rock resistant to erosion, inside a body of softer rock such as limestone, which is more susceptible to erosion. When the less resistant rock is eroded away to form a plain, the more resistant rock is left behind as an isolated mountain. The strength of the uneroded rock is often attributed to the tightness of its jointing.

Inselbergs can be reshaped by ice sheets much the same way as roches moutonnées. In northern Sweden, examples of this type of inselberg are called flyggbergs.

Ecology
The inselbergs of Eastern Africa tend to be a refuge for life in the Serengeti of Tanzania and in the Masai Mara of Kenya. Where the soil is too thin or hard to support tree life in large areas, soil trapped by inselbergs can be dense with trees while the surrounding land contains only short grass. Hollows in the rock surfaces provide catchments for rainwater. Many animals have adapted to the use of inselbergs, including the lion, the hyrax, and an abundance of bird and reptile life.

title: Inselberg


text:
Tigerfish (torpedo)

The Mark 24 Tigerfish was a heavyweight acoustic homing torpedo used by the Royal Navy (RN) during the 1980s and 90s. Conceptual development dates to the mid-1950s, and formally started in 1959 with a target introduction date in 1969. A lengthy development process led to a greatly reduced performance requirement, including the removal of anti-surface capabilities. The first prototype "Tiger Fish" examples were delivered in 1967.

The Tigerfish was fitted with both active and passive sonar and could be remotely controlled through a thin wire which connected it to the launching submarine. Wire guidance permits a torpedo to be launched on-first-warning, i.e. when a target is first detected at long range. This permits the torpedo the time needed to close the range while target course and speed is being updated by the submarine's superior sensors and transmitted 'down-the-wire'. The torpedo can also be reassigned to another target or recalled. Typically, wire-guided torpedoes initially run at low speed in order to maximize their range and to minimize their self-generated noise while they close the range and speed up during the attack phase.

Testing in 1969 revealed many problems, especially with the seeker system. An upgrade program was ordered, producing the Mod 1 which regained the surface-attack mode. Testing from 1975 led to a production order in 1977, but it was not until 1983 that these officially entered service. Service during the 1982 Falklands War revealed serious reliability problems. A more significant upgrade program followed, the Consolidation Programme, which addressed the complete weapon system including the fire control system. This emerged as the much more reliable Mod 2, which entered service in 1987. A final upgrade series, Mod 2*, entered service in 1992. A simplified inexpensive version, Mod 3, was not produced.

While Tigerfish was being deployed, a new project was started that more closely followed the original performance requirement, and ultimately greatly surpassed it. This became the much more capable Spearfish torpedo, which began replacing Tigerfish starting in 1988. The last examples of the Tigerfish retired in RN service in 2004. Tigerfish was also operated by Turkey, Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia. A total of 2,184 Mk. 24s were produced.

Design and development
The initial concept developed in the mid-1950s was for a fast, 55 kn, deep-diving torpedo driven by an internal combustion engine, carrying high pressure oxygen as oxidant, guided by a wire system developed from the Mackle wire-guidance study dated 1952 using data transmitted from the firing submarine sonars and using an autonomous active/passive sonar developed from the abandoned 1950s UK PENTANE torpedo project.

The weapon was known as Project ONGAR because Ongar railway station was, until 1994, the last on the Central line of the London Underground system. The engineers developing this weapon were confident that it would be so advanced that it would be "...the end of the line for torpedo development".

The programme ran into serious problems in the late 1950s because the technology required was too advanced to meet an in-service target date of 1969. In addition, the closure of the Torpedo Experimental Establishment, Greenock, Scotland in 1959 and the transfer of its staff to Portland in Dorset disrupted the pace of development.

In the early 1960s a series of wide-ranging reviews (one report was titled "Whither ONGAR?" - the pun being intentional) led to a greatly reduced performance specification which was realistically expected to achieve an in-service date of 1969.

The propulsion system was changed from an internal combustion engine to an electric motor with a silver zinc battery as the power source. This reduced the planned speed of the weapon from 55 to 24 kn with a short final-attack-phase capability at 35 kn.

The homing system was simplified by the exclusion of the anti-surface ship capability in the Mod 0 weapon.

Only the wire-guidance system was retained relatively unchanged. This was similar to the system used on the earlier Mk 23 torpedo.

The original requirement for a crush depth of 1000 ft was overtaken by rapid advances in SSN deep-diving performance and the requirement was progressively increased to 1600 ft and then 2000 ft.

In-service performance
Early models suffered from poor reliability: only 40% of the Mod 0 ASW model performed as designed. The torpedo depended in large part on the remote-control system, but the weapon tended to dip during launch, severing the control wire. A redesigned version, designated the Tigerfish Mod 1, aimed to rectify some of the original model's faults but failed its initial fleet acceptance trials in 1979 despite some improvements. Lacking any alternative it was nevertheless issued to the fleet (alongside the Mod 0 which also failed its own fresh acceptance trials the same year) in 1980. When HMS Conqueror sank the ARA General Belgrano during the 1982 Falklands War she used the "point and shoot" 21-inch Mark VIII torpedoes rather than her Tigerfish. The Mark VIII had no homing system but, despite the design being over 50 years old at the time, was far more reliable and carried a greater high-explosive payload. In a test carried out by submarines returning to the UK after the war, two of five Mod 1 Tigerfish fired at a target hulk failed to function at all and the remaining three failed to hit the target.

A measure of the Royal Navy's need for a reliable means of dealing with fast, deep-diving, time-urgent targets at long range resulted in a project to arm Tigerfish with a nuclear warhead to offset its poor diving depth and homing performance and to increase kill probability close to 90%. Various other measures were proposed in mid-1969, including purchase of U.S. weapons such as the Mark 45 ASTOR nuclear torpedo, the Mark 48 Mod-1 torpedo or the Subroc rocket. Alternatively, at the initiative of Flag Officer Submarines (FOSM), a nuclear warhead might be fitted to the unguided, shallow-running and short-ranged, but reliable Mark VIII torpedo. Flag Officer Submarines minuted that the proposal to arm the Mark VIII with the WE.177A warhead would, despite the torpedo's performance shortcomings, be "much superior to any present British submarine weapon ..." However, the short range of the Mark VIII put the firing submarine within damage range of the nuclear warhead of its torpedo.

The Marconi Consolidation Programme of the early 1980s finally produced the Mod 2 with reliability improved to 80%, which the Royal Navy accepted as the best that could be achieved with a basic design that was incapable of further development. By 1987, 600 Tigerfish had been modified to the Mod 2 standard.

Further improvements, including improved under-ice, and anti-surface performance led to a Mod 2* (enhanced) version being accepted into the fleet in 1992. The new version featured substantial changes to batteries, sensors and warhead. Further software enhancements continued throughout its operational life.

The tribulations in the Tigerfish's development, from its conception in the mid-1950s to the introduction of the unsuccessful Mod 0 variant into Royal Navy service in 1980, prompted the decision to purchase cruise missiles to attack ships from Royal Navy submarines.

Versions were:
 * Mark 24-Mod-0 for ASW use. Dive depth 1150 ft.
 * Mark 24-Mod-1 (or Mark 24 DP) for ASW and ASV use. Dive depth 1450 ft.
 * Mark 24-Mod-1-N for ASW and ASV use. Dive depth 1450 ft. The nuclear version – paper study only.
 * Mark 24-Mod-2 for ASW and ASV use. Dive depth 1450 ft. The Marconi upgrade.

In 1990 Cardoen of Chile was granted a licence to manufacture Tigerfish for the Chilean, Brazilian and Venezuelan navies.

The Royal Navy retired the last of its Tigerfish torpedoes from active service in February 2004.

A proposal to develop a Mod 3 configuration which might be attractive to existing export customers in Brazil and Turkey never came to fruition.

title: Tigerfish (torpedo)