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Ma Normandie

"Ma Normandie" was the official regional anthem of the Bailiwick of Jersey, a British Crown dependency in the Channel Islands, and was written and composed by Frédéric Bérat. Jersey is historically part of the Duchy of Normandy, and French has been for centuries an official administrative language of Jersey, whose inhabitants have traditionally spoken a variety of Norman language.

Although "Ma Normandie" is used by Jersey at Commonwealth Games, Island Games and other international events where it is necessary for territories that otherwise use "God Save the King" to be distinguished, the fact that the song refers to France rather than to Jersey means that a body of opinion has campaigned for a change of anthem.

In 2007 the States of Jersey undertook to find a new, official, Anthem by means of an open competition. The final judging of the competition took place with a public performance of the short-listed pieces on 30 April 2008. The short-listed composers were: Derek Lawrence, Gerard Le Feuvre, James Taberner and a joint composition by Kevin Porée and Matheson Bayley; the traditional song "Beautiful Jersey"/"Man Bieau P'tit Jèrri" was also included in the shortlist. The winner of the competition was declared to be "Island Home" composed by Gerard Le Feuvre. A Jèrriais version of the English lyrics will be provided. The States will take the decision on whether to ratify the adoption of a new anthem in the light of public reaction to the results of the competition.

"Ma Normandie" is also widely used, but unofficially, as the regional anthem of Normandy.

The song was translated into Armenian by Mkrtich Beshiktashlian under the title “Erg hayreni” (“A song of the homeland”). This translation inspired Nahapet Rusinian during the Zeytun uprising in 1862 to write his famous poem “Kilikia” (“Cilicia”) in support of the liberation movement of Western Armenia. Gabriel Yeranyan set "Cilicia" to music, which is a popular song among Armenians.

title: Ma Normandie


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Fabrizio Ruffo

Fabrizio Dionigi Ruffo (16 September 1744 – 13 December 1827) was an Italian cardinal and politician, who led the popular anti-Jacobin Sanfedismo movement (whose members were known as the Sanfedisti).

Biography
Ruffo was born at San Lucido, in Calabria Citra (today in province of Cosenza), then part of the Kingdom of Naples. His father, Litterio Ruffo, was a Calabrian aristocrat, holder of the title of duke of Baranello, while his mother, Giustiniana, was of the Roman family of Colonna. Fabrizio owed his education to his uncle, cardinal Tommaso Ruffo, then dean of the College of Cardinals. In early life he secured the favour of Giovanni Angelo Braschi, who in 1775 became Pope Pius VI. Ruffo was placed by the pope among the chierici di camera, the clerks who formed the papal civil and financial service. He was later promoted to treasurer-general, a post which carried with it the ministry of war. Ruffo's conduct in office was diversely judged. Pietro Colletta, the historian of Naples, speaks of him as corrupt, and Jomini repeats the charge, but these can be dismissed as part of a hostile tradition, as they both participated in favour of France. In fact, he was widely regarded as a reformer.

Ruffo's biographer, Sachinelli, says that he incurred hostility by restricting the feudal powers of some of the landowners in the Papal States. In 1791 he was removed from the treasurership, but was created cardinal on 2 September, though he was not in orders and in fact never became a priest. Ruffo went to Naples, where he was named administrator of the royal domain of Caserta, and received the abbey of Santa Sofia, Benevento in commendam.

On account of the equity of his fiscal norms he made an enemy of the Roman aristocracy, which put pressure upon the Pontiff. In 1791, Pope Pius VI removed Mgr. Ruffo from his office and offered to create him a cardinal (according to the traditional Latin proverb promoveatur ut amoveatur). On 21 February 1794 Ruffo was created cardinal of the Roman deaconry of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria and charged with the administration of the Ager Romanus.

He also announced Pope Leo XII's election in the papal conclave of 1823.

Sanfedismo
When in December 1798 the French troops advanced on Naples, Ruffo fled to Palermo with the royal family. He was chosen to head a royalist movement in Calabria, where his family, though impoverished by debt, exercised large feudal powers. On 8 February 1799, he landed at La Cortona with a small following, and began to raise the so-called "army of the faith" in association with Michele Pezza, "Fra Diavolo", and other brigand leaders. Backed by the Russian fleet of Admiral Ushakov, Ruffo had no difficulty in upsetting the Parthenopean Republican government established by the French, and by June had advanced to Naples. Possibly exceeding his authority, he promised the Neapolitan republicans immunity from reprisals and obtained their surrender in June 1799. In the meantime Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson, sent from Palermo by King Ferdinand, appeared in the Bay of Naples with his fleet; he called the cardinal to task for his leniency, and revoked the terms of surrender. The republicans, it was asserted, had surrendered under terms that were unclear. One of the main republican figures, former Admiral Francesco Caracciolo, was ignominiously executed on 30 June, and widespread reprisals and executions of other republican sympathizers in Naples followed.

After having received the title of King's General Official, Ruffo weighed anchor from Palermo and landed in Calabria on February 8. His feuds of Scilla and Bagnara were the first places to be used for a massive enlistment of 25.000 farmers skilled to arms. They formed the Christian and Real Army, also known as Esercito della Santa Fede in Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo, and conquered Crotone moving to the Basilicata and Apulia regions (Altamura and Modugno), and finally in the Principato Ultra. At the head of his army, cardinal Ruffo participated to the battles of the Second anti-French Coalition which defeated Naples on 15 June 1799. Ruffo appointed the member of the State juncta that processed the rebels for the crime of Lèse-majesté.

While Ruffo was a personal confidant of the king of Naples, the queen preferred the admiral Horatio Nelson to him. On 24 June Ruffo arrived in the roadstead. The following day, when the first Jacobins were waiting to be boarded, the English admiral informed that the pact of pacification partially enacted by the cardinal, was "infamous" and that he would never allow its execution. Eventually, an English official decided the destiny of the Neapolitan prisoners: they were entrusted to Bourbon justice and 124 of them were put to death.

The campaign gave rise to much controversy among nineteenth-century historians. Ruffo appears to have lost favor with the king by showing a tendency to spare the republicans. He resigned the vicar-generalship, which he had been granted on 25 January 1800, to the prince of Cassero, and during the second French occupation and the reigns of Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat he lived quietly in Naples. Some notice was taken of him by Napoleon, but he never held an important post. After the restoration of the Bourbons he was received into favor. During the revolutionary troubles of 1822 he was consulted by the king, and was even in office for a very short time as a loyalist minister.

Return to the Holy See and role in the Kingdom of Naples
After the conquest of Naples, Ruffo decided to send some military companies within the Roman Republic, led by the general Gian Battista Rodio. This represented the first act of invasion of the Republican State. After the defeat of the Roman Republic, on 11 August 1800 Ruffo entered in the Urbe and changed his cardinal diacony with the one of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. In 1801, after having been resigned from the role of general vicarious of the king of Naples, for a short time he filled the role of minister of Naples in Rome and then accepted the government of Joseph Bonaparte in the Neapolitan territory. In September 1805, he escaped in Amelia, Umbria, and then he was hoised for a second time by Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and his court in Palermo, who appointed him as ambassador at the Parisian court. On 2 April 1810 Ruffo was present at his marriage with the duchess Marie Louise of Austria. After this gesture, he become part of the so-called "red cardinals", a restricted circle of high prelates who weren't punished by the French emperor and got the right to continue to publicly profess their religious functions. The emperor instituted a commission with the duty to formulate a brief indicating the conclusive decrees of the Council of Paris which was held in 1811. It was formed by Ruffo, Giuseppe Doria Pamphili and Aurelio Roverella. The main objective was to persuade Pope Pius VII, who was jailed in Savona, to counterfirm the act. It was a favour to the French emperor, who decorated him with the Cross of the Legion of Honour.

In May 1814, Ruffo returned to Rome where the population and the College of Cardinals received him with indifference, so that he decided to move to Naples and to establish himself there. On 8 February 1815 Pope Pius VII recalled Ruffo to Rome and appointed him Prefect of the Annona and of Grascia, a role responsible for the procurement of meat, fat, and oil. On 8 May 1817 he become Great Prior of the Order of Malta within the Pontifical State. From 29 March 1819 to 21 February 1820, he was Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church until his appointment in the Prefect of the Congregation for Water, Pontine Marshes and of Chiani. In March 1821, he came back to Naples, which was afflicted by the popular rebellion against the Austrian military forces. On 27 June he chose the diacony of Santa Maria in Via Lata and held the title of Cardinal Protodeacon. In August 1823, Ruffo took part in the papal conclave which elected Pope Leo XII. At the end of the year, Ruffo went back to Naples.

He died in Naples on 13 December 1827 and was buried in his familiar chapel, consecrated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria, within the San Domenico Maggiore Basilica, not distant from the Aquinos' chapel.

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

title: Fabrizio Ruffo


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Hollywood Stock Exchange

The Hollywood Stock Exchange, or HSX, is a web-based, multiplayer game in which players use simulated money to buy and sell "shares" of actors, directors, upcoming films, and film-related options. The game uses Virtual Specialist technology invented by HSX co-founders and creators Max Keiser and Michael R. Burns, who were awarded a  in 1999 for the invention. Claims of this patent cover trading applications for trading virtual securities using virtual currencies over a network.

The company moved into the former Ritts Furniture building designed by Harry Harrison on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Operation
Because trading directly affects the prices of the securities – purchasing enough shares of a stock causes its price to rise, and selling causes its price to fall – and because the ultimate value of a moviestock is based on the film's box office, stock prices act as box office predictions. For example, if a particular moviestock trades at "H$40.00", the market is predicting that the movie will gross US$40 million at the box office in the first four weekends of wide release. In 2007, players in the Hollywood Stock Exchange correctly predicted 32 of the 39 major-category Oscar nominees and seven out of eight top-category winners. The Hollywood Stock Exchange is considered a good example of a prediction market. Previous incarnations of the game included a music market (for purchasing musical artists), prizes for top gainers and, briefly, a "buyout" program in which HSX would reward top players by purchasing their portfolios at a price of US$1.00 per HS1 million if the player listed the portfolio for sale on eBay. These features have been discontinued. The practice of selling portfolios on eBay was inaugurated by Curtis Edmonds, a former Texan lawyer.

HSX attracted some private investment during the dot-com boom and ran TV ads on cable channels in an effort to attract players. After the dot-com crash, HSX was eventually acquired by units of Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor has used HSX's moviestock prices to assist Cantor's gambling operations in the United Kingdom, in which bettors can place bets on how much money US films will gross. HSX is headquartered in Century City, Los Angeles, California.

Special warrants
During the holidays, there were "holiday warrants" that allowed one to predict the final gross of a movie by President's Day weekend of the following year. For example, there was a Narnia warrant of H$180 million. Since Narnia would make over US$300 million by February 20, 2006, anyone who purchased the warrant made over H$120 per share. On the other hand, Zathura had a holiday warrant for H$70 million. Since Zathura closed a month after its release and made less than U$30 million, anyone who predicted that it would make more than US$70 million lost their investment. During the summer, there were similar "Blockbuster Warrants" that allowed one to predict the final gross of a movie by Labor Day weekend of that year. Currently, Blockbuster Warrants are issued throughout the year for those movies that will gross $100 Million or more through their first 12 weekends of release.

Every winter there are special warrants to predict the Oscar nominees called "Nominoptions" followed by Award Options to predict the actual Academy Award winners.

There are special warrants for first year scripted TV shows based upon the number of episodes that will be shown by May 31, the end of the TV Season.

HSX also releases various special derivatives throughout the year. During the summer of 2006, there were derivatives for the FIFA World Cup. Other past special warrants involved the contestants on Survivor, American Idol and top categories of the Grammy Awards.

title: Hollywood Stock Exchange


text:
Talk:Antisemitism/Etymology complete

See also:

 * Talk:Antisemitism/Etymology for a summarised version
 * Talk:Antisemitism for more

Discussion
"Anti-Semitism is hostility or violence toward people of Jewish ancestry. Although sometimes confused for hatred of all Semites?, The word "anti-Semitism" means specifically the hatred of Jews, and has never been used otherwise. "

I'm changing this for two reasons,

1) It is logically unneccassary, if it "has never been used otherwise" then there is no need for that statement as no one would think otherwise. However if it is used differently (even in peoples' heads) the statement is wrong.

 * I think you are confused. Jewish people and most Christians never use the term "anti-semite" to mean anything other than hatred of Jews. The Germans who invented and popularized this word also never used this word to mean anything different. However - and this is the point you have missed - anti-semitic people themselves deliberately mis-use this word, to try and confuse the issue. That deliberate misuse is what the entry is trying to clarify. The attempt at change confuses the issue further. RK

 * It has been used, I agree that 95% percent of the time that it is used to indicate anti-jewish activity, but there are a minority of users who do legitimately use it to represent opposition to semetic culture as a whole.

 * The changes you have made are signifcantly not NPOV

2) It is used to mean people who are against speakers of semitic languages (including arabic), for instance in Gary Geddes book Flying Blind (1998). Imran

 * No, the term anti-semite does not, and has never meant, hatred of those people who speak semitic-derived languages. That's just silly. People just don't use the word to mean this! Just because one lone author mistakenly uses this word does not constitute rewriting an encyclopaedia entry. If that were any measure of anything, we'd have to say that no words have any set meaning, because just about every word is used by a tiny number of people in a sense that it was never meant to be used. RK

 * That was just the first example that came to hand, another to hand is the in the letters section of "The Independent" (July 26th) (London), the "Culture" section of the "Sunday Times" (June 30th) (London) , page 15 of The Guardian (June 19th) (London), page 8 of the "Morning Star"  (June 1st).

 * The fact that some people (perhaps mistakingly) used the term for something else, does not make you egligible to change its meaning. That's a coverup, and coverups are definitely not NPOV. --Uri

 * How many people have to "mistakenly" use it for it to become legitimate, those four articles I've mentioned come from a wide spread of British newspapers, all from the last two months. To deny the words existance (note that the article specifically says the word is never used in that sense) isn't NPOV.

 * I've never even heard that the issue is a coverup, and searching the internet I can't find any sources to indicate it. So could you point some out ?

The entry at one time stated: ''In recent years some anti-Semites within the Arab world have tried to confuse the issue by rewriting the dictionary; they claim that since they themselves speak a Semitic language, they by definition cannot be anti-Semitic. Jewish, Christian and moderate Muslim groups (as well as English usage dictionaries) respond by saying that this is a just a word game. Anti-Semitism means solely hatred of Jews.''

Can some provide evidence for this primarily,

1) Early sources for the use of "anti-semitism" as being inclusive of "anti-arab" by known anti-semitic arabs.

2) Evidence that it was for the purpose of confusion, and not for any of the reasons suggested in Joseph Telushkin "Why the Jews?: The Reasons for AntisemitismTalk:Anti-Semitism/archive", Moshe David's "World Jewry and the State of Israel" or the article "Antisemitism is Anti-Jewish" by Lorne Shipman and Dr. Karen Mock.

Also note that in Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) the definition is inclusive of anti-arab behaviour. Note that it is the _1913_ edition.

 * In the modern Webster (Online Edition), however, there's absolutely no ambiguity. This is particularly suspicious, considering the fact that the examples you bring are all very new. --Uri

 * Given that the version online is the Collegiate edition it is likely to give only the most common definition. The examples I chose are just the ones I could find from the internet, which by the nature of the internet are recent (last ten years) and are in electronic databases or are old enough to be out of copyright (i.e Webster 1913).

The last sentence is obviously inaccurate, see the cites I have given above.

 * You bring usage in 4 (related!) letters during the last couple of years, as opposed to world-wide usage for decades? Of course, language change, but that particular change is nothing more than a jargon pecularity that's most likely to disappear (if it hasn't already). Mentioning it as something significant is misleading, hence it's against NPOV. --Uri

 * I'm not sure what you mean "letters" only one was a cite of a letter, the others are all newspaper articles. More over as I said they are all in the last two months(chosen to indicate the word is in current use). The fact that this arguement exists makes it significant, I'm not opposed to saying that it isn't normally used in that sense, but to deny its existance in legitimate usage ins't NPOV.

 * You want some more cites, well here are some,
 * * The Sun (London), July 5, 2002, Letters section, letter from Ambassador Ali Muhsen Hamid
 * *BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, November 1, 1997, (admitedly the use was in a quote from Qadhafi)
 * *Daily Post (Liverpool), September 25, 2001, page 6.
 * *The Times (London), September 2, 1992, interview with Bobby Fischer.
 * *The Times Higher Education Supplement, June 2, 1995, page 22.
 * *M2 PRESSWIRE, March 24, 1997, "UN Human Rights Commission concludes general debate on racism and racial discrimination"
 * How many cites do you need before you'll consider the term "legitimate" ?
 * How many cites do you need before you'll consider the term "legitimate" ?

 * The question is which usage. Claiming that some people have at one period used this term to signify something else than what dictionaries mention, does not mean that their usage is acceptable. They could just as well be not educated enough in the subject and inventing their own words for different concepts. For example, a lot of people use *virii as plural of virus. Now there isn't such a word *virii, the correct English plural being viruses (see here for a discussion). The fact that some people use *virii does nothing to even make it a word in general usage (as opposed to their own dialect of English); similarily, the fact that some people use anti-Semitism in a certain way does not mean that this way is acceptible for general usage. --Uri

 * Also, one more thing: it's curious that many of the sources you said originate in non-English speakers, and in particular Arabs. The fact that they've been prefering this usage or other may be interpreted not just as casual misuse, but intentional propaganda (see Newspeak). So I wouldn't treat their statements as any example of normative English usage. --Uri

 * Three possibly four are from Arab, one from Bobby Fischer ( who I assume isn't arab as one of his parents is jewish) and the rest are from British journalists. --Imran

How about a compromise here. Something along the lines of: "Anti-Semitism is a term coined in 18?? to describe hatred of the Jewish people. While this is the meaning most associated with the term, it is also used occasionally/with increasing frequency to refer to other Semitic peoples, notably Arabs." Just a suggestion. Danny

 * No, that would be simply untrue. In the vast majority of English contexts, anti-Semitism refers solely to the hatred of Jews, all other usages so far being either unsuccessful (unadopted) propaganda or inadquate understanding of the real meaning of the word (folk etymology). --Uri

 * I agree with you here --Imran

 * That doesn't make it untrue. The fact is that no matter what you, I, or anyone else thinks about it, the term seems to be undergoing some kind of evolution. That happens in language and in this case is worth noting. Danny

 * When studying language, one should distinguish between (1) random/deliberate changes for whatever reasons that were introduced by an individual or individuals and (2) changes, such as above, that persist, and propagate into common usage. I do not deny that (1) takes case (in this case, as a propaganda effort on behalf of the Arabs); I merely point out that it hasn't (and chances are that it won't) become (2). Until it does, I don't think it deserves to be incorporated, as it represent a piece of information of too little importance (exactly as I wooudln't be writing, for example, what sorts of associations people have when they hear the word "anti-Semitism"). --Uri

Among the majority of English speakers, the the use of the word "Anti-Semitism" is not undergoing any significant form of evolution. Rather, the changes we see usually come from anti-Semitic people who deliberately mis-use this word in order to confuse the issue. That is certainly not NPOV (neutral point of view). The secondary fact that some non-anti-Semites on occasion mis-use this word, but this is meaningless. After all, all English words are occasionally mis-used like this. But do we rewrite encyclopaedia entries on hundreds of other topics because of such varying useage? No - it is only in the entry on anti-Semitism that some people do so, and that is precisely what some anti-Semites are trying to accomplish. Their entire goal is Newspeak, a deliberate project to rewrite parts of the dictionary in order to further their political goals. RK

 * I haven't seen any quotable sources saying the word was being used purposefully to confuse, I list some source earlier which give several possible reasons, the most common being that the term anti-semitism is already popular and has strong negative conatation associated with it so it can be more easily adopted by other persecuted semites rather then them trying to coin a new word. Another source I've seen also attributes the use due to the majority of usage outside of Israel/USA being related to far right groups who do oppose semitic people as a group. --Imran

 * I'm very much a non-expert on this, but I don't see any need to "rewrite" the entry - all you need is a short note somewhere as Danny suggests saying that some people use the term to mean something other than the generally accepted definition. Of course you don't have to add such a comment to entries on other "misused" words, but some of the misuse here has been from quite prominent figures (the reason for their usage is irrelevant). Apart from anything else, I should think that somebody going to a dictionary and finding "Semite" to mean "a descendant of Shem or speaking a Semitic language such as Hebrew or Arabic" might logically conclude that an anti-semite is one against people speaking Hebrew or Arabic. Even if such a misuse is "wrong" and "deliberate" I don't see how ignoring it does anybody any favours. --camembert

 * It is simply false - in general English usage, "anti-Semitism" means only the hatred of Jews. The possible misinterpretations are already well-represented in the article. --Uri

 * I don't know what you're saying is false, but I admit my last entry was somewhat incoherent, and having reread the article, I largely agree with you - I think there's little chance of people being left unclear as to the meaning of the phrase. But if it is demonstrably true that certain people are trying to change the meaning of the phrase (as RK suggests), shouldn't this be mentioned? Not as an evolution in the meaning of the phrase, but as an attempt by certain parties to change it. --camembert

 * I have a house full of dictionaries and not a one contains a hint that anti-Semitism is anything but anti-Jewish. In fact, the unabridged Webster's III, which is strongly oriented towards definitions based on actual usage, gives not only "anti-Jewish", but "anti-Zionist" and "opposed to the state of Israel" as definitions. In the Oxford English Dictionary, perhaps lagging a little, virtually all the citations refer to German anti-Semitism.

 * A quick Google search on "anti-Semitic anti-Arab" reveals a few instances of the "we're/they're Semites too" argument, usually stated pretty naively. It strikes me that this is not only sophistry, but actually harmful to the Arabs. Most of the Google hits refer to "anti-Semitic" and "anti-Arab" as two different kinds of prejudice against two kinds of people.  It is unquestionably true that there is anti-Arab feeling, stereotypes in the media, hatred directed at "towelheads" and "camel jockeys", and worse.  It greatly diminishes public discourse if these manifestations are not called what they are, anti-Arab, without any confusing talk about ancient languages.  Ortolan88 08:25 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

 * I'm not disputing the meaning of the phrase "anti-Semite" but I am saying that if people (some of them prominent) are using it to mean something different, as has been suggested, and that use is part of a deliberate attempt to confuse or mislead people, then that is something worth observing. I'm not saying such an incorrect use of the phrase should be presented as an acceptable or widely used alternative, any more than I'd suggest an article on xenophobia should say it's a jolly good idea, but it is something worth noting, I feel. But as I said, I'm far from an expert on this, and I'll let others argue about it from now on. --Camembert

--- That's a reasonable position, but I think that that's exactly what the article says now :-) If I misunderstood you, could you say what changes do you propose? --Uri
 * Another attempt at compromise here: ""Anti-Semitism is a term coined in 18?? to describe hatred of the Jewish people. While this is the meaning most associated with the term, it has occasionally been coopted by some to refer to other Semitic peoples, notably Arabs." At some point, this can be explained in no more than a sentence (which is really no more than it is worth). Danny

-- Here's how I think we should rephrase in order to remove opinion and just leave factually provable statements (things in brackets are just comments anf not intended to be part of the article),

Anti-Semitism is hostility or violence toward people of Jewish ancestry. Although sometimes used for hatred of all Semites?, The word "anti-Semitism" was coined specifically to refer to hatred of Jews. There are numerous forms of anti-Semitism, originating in different trends in human society, but usually having the common ground of xenophobia.

(It is obvious that in a lot of these cases people aren't confused and are using it deliberatly so I've dropped the word confuse)

(Next replacements for the last two paragraphs of etymology)

In recent decades some people have argued that the the term Anti-Semetism should be extended to cover all Semetic people and not just Jews, this arguement has failed to make any significant impact on popular usage, although proponents of the idea (including politician Bobby Fischer and famous chess player Qadhafi) continue to use the word in this sense. Because of this debate many scholars now favour the unhyphenated term antisemetism to represent anti-jewish behaviour.

(I've removed any statement indicating the reasons why they want widen the definition of the term, after all you and I are not mind readers and can't tell their motivation, however I doubt that all the users are anti-semetic after all two of those quotes I gave came from journalists of Rupert Murdoch papers.)

Clearly we must explain the usage of the term, as well as describing instances of the practice. The current etymology section looks pretty good. How about adding a usage section, pointing out that some people use anti-semitism one way and some people use it another? I think if we go pointing the finger of "co-opted", et al., we wind up adding more fuel to the POV fire. I think Uri is on the right track. Ed Poor

 * I'm still opposed to seriously treating a "usage" with a political base, several dozen big (I saw Fischer's opinions described as "anti-Semitic" somewhere, and I don't think he meant the Arabs), as something deserving this sort of a review. --Uri

 * Yes, Fischer is very much anti-Jew, but I've seen nothing by him to suggest he is anti-Arab as well (although I certainly wouldn't put it past him) - I doubt in any case that that's the meaning he'd give to "anti-semetic". Since the paragraph at the end of the etymology section was added, I don't really have any objections to the article. (I didn't have many before, really; I think I misunderstood the argument, because it seemed to me that some were arguing for the removal of any reference to these "alternative" uses.) It could still do with a bit of tidying, I suppose (the last two paras of the etymology section seem to duplicate one another - I prefer the second to the first myself) and I think naming one or two people who have used "anti-semite" to include arabs would not go amiss. I'm for dropping "confused" in the opening para as well. And that really is the last I'm saying about it (probably) :-) --Camembert

If the term anti-Semitism was originally a euphemism, why not say,
 * Some advocates insist that the term anti-Semitism should be taken literally, thus interpreting anti-Semitism as hostility toward everyone who is "Semitic" or speaks a Semitic language. Given this interpretation, they reason that to call Arab hatred of Jews and Israel "anti-Semitism" is a misnomer and conclude that there is no such thing as "Arab anti-Semitism". This usage is genarally considered non-standard.

--Ed Poor 07:18 Aug 20, 2002 (PDT)

title: Talk:Antisemitism/Etymology complete


text:
Jèrriais

Jèrriais (Jersiais ; also known as the Jersey language, Jersey French and Jersey Norman French in English) is a Romance language and the traditional language of the Jersey people. It is a form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, an island in the Channel Islands archipelago off the coast of France. Its closest relatives are the other Norman languages, such as Guernésiais, spoken in neighbouring Guernsey, and the other langues d'oïl.

Use of Jèrriais has been in decline over the past century, as English has increasingly become the language of education, commerce and administration on Jersey. There are very few people who speak Jèrriais as a mother tongue and, owing to the age of the remaining speakers, their numbers decrease annually. Despite this, efforts are being made to keep the language alive.

The language of Sark, Sercquiais, is a descendant of the Jèrriais brought by the Jersey colonists who settled Sark in the 16th century, with mutual intelligibility with the Norman language of mainland Normandy.

Jèrriais is often called "Jersey French" or "Jersey Norman French" in English (though this may give the impression that the language is a dialect of French) and jersiais or normand de Jersey in French. Jèrriais is distinct from the Jersey Legal French used for legal contracts, laws and official documents by the government and administration of Jersey. For this reason, some prefer using the term "Jersey Norman" to avoid ambiguity and to dissociate the language from standard French.

History
Although few now speak Jèrriais as a first language, until the 19th century it was used as the everyday language for the majority of the population of Jersey; even as late as the beginning of the Second World War, up to half the population could still communicate in the language. Despite this, awareness of the decline of language use became apparent in the 19th century in scholarly circles. Among foreign linguists, Louis Lucien Bonaparte visited Jersey and interested himself in the language and its literature. Victor Hugo, during his exile in Jersey, took an interest in the language and numbered some Jèrriais writers among his circle of acquaintances and supporters.

Sir Robert Pipon Marett's prestige and influence helped to reinforce the movement toward standardisation of the writing system based on French orthography, a trend which was also helped by the Norman literary revival beginning in the neighbouring Cotentin Peninsula of mainland Normandy, where writers inspired by the example of the Norman writers of Jersey and Guernsey, also began to produce literary works. However, differing (if mutually comprehensible) writing systems have been adopted in Jersey, Guernsey, and mainland Normandy. It is sometimes asked whether Jèrriais should move to a writing system based on French orthography; however, this would have implications for the continuity of the literary tradition over two centuries or more, though some features of the language's writing system, such as the digraph "th" for the typical dental fricative of Jèrriais, have evidently been borrowed from English orthography.

As English became dominant in Jersey in the 20th century, efforts were made to preserve the Jèrriais language. The Jersey Eisteddfod has included a Jèrriais section since 1912. Associations were founded; L'Assembliée d'Jèrriais was founded in 1951, while Le Don Balleine is a trust set up in accordance with the will of Arthur E. Balleine (1864–1943), who bequeathed funds for the promotion of the language. L'Assembliée d'Jèrriais launched a quarterly magazine in 1952, which has been published since (with the occasional hiatus, and latterly under the editorship of Le Don Balleine); a standard grammar Lé Jèrriais pour tous (by Paul Birt) appeared in 1985; cassettes, booklets and other materials have also been produced.

George d'la Forge's maintenance of the language in the North American diaspora is not as surprising as it might seem, as considerable numbers of Jersey people had been involved in the economic development and exploitation of the New World (see New Jersey). Much of the concentration focused on the cod fisheries of the Gaspé peninsula in Quebec, Canada, which were controlled into the early 20th century by Jersey-based companies or companies of Jersey origin employing Jersey labour. The common language of business was Jèrriais, and it is reported that there were still some Jèrriais-speakers in Gaspé villages in the 1960s. The Gaspesian expression "faire une runne" (to go and work outside the region) comes from the Jèrriais word "run" applied to a fishing station.

The use of Jèrriais is also noted during the German Occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War; the local population used it among themselves as a language which neither the occupying Germans, nor their French interpreters, could understand. However, the social and economic upheaval of the War meant that use of English increased dramatically after the Liberation.

It is considered that the last monolingual adult speakers probably died in the 1950s, although monolingual children were being received into schools in St. Ouen as late as the late 1970s.

Famous Jèrriais speakers include Lillie Langtry and Sir John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, who are reported to have spoken to each other in the language when he was painting her portrait.

Dictionaries
The history of Jèrriais dictionaries goes back to 19th century manuscript glossaries of Philippe Langlois, A. A. Le Gros, and Thomas Gaudin. These were later revised and expanded into the Glossaire du Patois Jersiais published in 1924 by La Société Jersiaise. The 1960 Glossary of Jersey French (Nichol Spence) recorded Jèrriais in a phonetic script. The 1924 Glossaire inspired the research by Frank Le Maistre that culminated in the Dictionnaire Jersiais–Français published in 1966 to mark the 900th anniversary of the Norman Conquest of England. The first practical English–Jèrriais dictionary was the English-Jersey Language Vocabulary (Albert Carré in collaboration with Frank Le Maistre and Philip de Veulle, 1972) which was itself based on the Dictionnaire Jersiais–Français. A children's picture dictionary, Les Preunmié Mille Mots, was published by La Société Jersiaise in 2000. In 2005, a Jèrriais–English dictionary, Dictionnaithe Jèrriais-Angliais was published by La Société Jersiaise, in collaboration with Le Don Balleine. A revised, modernised and expanded English–Jèrriais dictionary, Dictionnaithe Angliais-Jèrriais, was published in 2008 by Le Don Balleine.

Status
The latest figures come from the Jersey Annual Social Survey issued on 5 December 2012. The survey of 4200 households took place in June 2012 and resulted in 2400 returns. It showed that 18% of the population could speak some Jèrriais words and phrases, with more than 7% of those over 65 being fluent or able to speak a significant amount of Jèrriais. Two-thirds of adults said that they could not understand spoken Jèrriais, but more than a quarter were able to understand some, and 5% could usually or fully understand someone speaking Jèrriais. 4% of people said that they could write some Jèrriais, although under 1% could write fluently. Just under a third (32%) said that they could understand something written in Jèrriais.

These figures update those of the census of 2001, which showed that approximately 3% of the island's population spoke Jèrriais in their personal interactions, although research suggests that up to 15% of the population have some understanding of the language. The latest census figures also showed an increase in declarations of children speaking the language: the first such increase recorded in census figures (although this may be due to greater consciousness among parents rather than to language use), doubtless encouraged by the introduction of a Jèrriais teaching programme into Jersey schools.

The parish with the highest proportion of Jèrriais speakers (8%) is Saint Ouen, and the parish with the lowest proportion (2.1%) is Saint Helier, although that is the largest parish and has the highest number of Jèrriais speakers. The number of census respondents who stated that they "usually" spoke Jèrriais was 113; 2,761 respondents stated that they "sometimes" spoke it. A survey carried out among a sample of Jèrriais speakers in 1996 found that 18% spoke the language more often than English, 66% spoke it as often as English, and 16% spoke it less often than English.

The States of Jersey fund the teaching programme in schools and provide some support in terms of signage, such as welcome signs at harbours and the airport. Ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is under discussion. In September 2005, the States approved the development of a cultural strategy, one of whose strategic objectives was as follows:

"Jersey almost lost its language in the 20th century. By 2001 there were less than 3,000 speakers of Jèrriais. In the 21st century strenuous efforts are being made to re-establish it. Le Don Balleine, funded by the States, is leading a programme in schools teaching Jèrriais. L'Assembliée d'Jèrriais promotes the language generally. Language brings distinctiveness, a sense of localness and a whole new set of skills all of which are important qualities in attracting the creative economy. It is fundamental to the Island's identity. This objective is to work with these organisations to help in the revival and status of the language."

In September 2009, a partnership agreement was signed by the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture and the President of Le Don Balleine to formalise the role of L'Office du Jèrriais in protecting and promoting Jèrriais and to develop a language plan to help make the language more prominent on a daily basis; there is newspaper and radio output in the language, and as part of the language's promotion, from 2010, Jersey banknotes carry the value of the note written out in Jèrriais. Jèrriais is currently classified as "threatened" by the Endangered Languages Project.

Jèrriais is recognised as a regional language by the British and Irish governments within the framework of the British–Irish Council. On 13 February 2019, the States of Jersey adopted Jèrriais as an official language, and the language is set to be used on signage and official letter headings.

Literature
The tradition of literature in Jèrriais can be traced back to Wace, a 12th century Jersey-born poet, although there is little surviving literature in Jèrriais dating to before the introduction of the first printing press in Jersey in the 1780s. The first printed Jèrriais appeared in the first newspapers at the end of the 18th century, and the earliest identified dated example of printed poetry is a fragment by Matchi L'Gé (Matthew Le Geyt 1777 – 1849), dated to 1795. A boom in competing newspapers and journals throughout the 19th century provided a platform for poets and writers to publish regularly – typically, satirical comment on the week's news, elections, Jersey politicians and notables. The first printed anthology of Jèrriais poetry, Rimes Jersiaises, was published in 1865.

Influential writers include "Laelius" (Sir Robert Pipon Marett 1820 – 1884, Bailiff of Jersey, 1880–1884), "A.A.L.G." (Augustus Aspley Le Gros, 1840–1877), and "St.-Luorenchais" (Philippe Langlois, 1817–1884). "Elie" (Edwin J. Luce, 1881–1918) was editor of the French language newspaper La Nouvelle Chronique de Jersey, and a poet who wrote topical poems for the newspaper. He was also active in promoting the development of drama in Jèrriais and organised performances, ultimately leading to the establishment of a Jèrriais section of the Jersey Eisteddfod in 1912.

During the German occupation of the Channel Islands, Nazi censors permitted little original writing to be published. However, many older pieces of literature were re-published in the newspapers as an act of cultural self-assertion and morale-boosting. Following the end of Occupation, and with the re-establishment of the free press, Edward Le Brocq (1877–1964) revived a weekly column in 1946 with a letter from "Ph'lip et Merrienne", supposedly a traditional old couple who would comment on the latest news or recall times past.

The most influential writer of Jèrriais in the 20th century was a U.S. citizen, George Francis Le Feuvre (1891–1984), whose pen-name was "George d'la Forge". He emigrated to North America after the First World War, but for almost forty years maintained a flow of articles in Jèrriais back to Jersey for publication in newspapers. Selections of his articles have been published in book form.

Frank Le Maistre (1910–2002), compiler of the dictionary Dictionnaire Jersiais–Français, maintained a literary output starting in the 1930s with newspaper articles under the pseudonym "Marie la Pie", poems, magazine articles, research into toponymy and etymology. Since Le Maistre, Geraint Jennings has been influential in preserving the language by compiling thousands of pages of Jèrriais text online in Les Pages Jèrriaises, including parts of the Bible.

Vocabulary
Although Jèrriais is occasionally misleadingly described as a mixture of Old Norse and French, it is more linguistically accurate to describe the language as Norse adapted to langue d'oïl; when Norse-speaking Normans (lit. "North-man") conquered the territory now known as Normandy, they began speaking the language of their new subjects, leading to its influence on the language. The Norman language is therefore in essence a Romance language with a certain amount of vocabulary of Norse origin, with the inclusion of later loanwords from other languages.

Influence of Norse
Norse origins can be seen in Jèrriais words such as these:
 * mielle (sand dune)
 * mogue (mug)
 * bel (yard)
 * gradile (blackcurrant)
 * mauve (seagull)
 * graie (to prepare)
 * hèrnais (cart)
 * bète (bait)
 * haûter (to doze)

Influence of Breton
Jèrriais has also adopted a small number of words from the Breton language (e.g. pihangne 'spider crab', from Breton bihan 'small'; quédaine 'fast', from Breton gaden 'hare'), although the influence on today's language has overwhelmingly been from French and, increasingly, English.

Influence of French

A large number of gallicisms have been introduced into the language due to the use of French as an official language and the cultural influence of France and French literature. Some French words have displaced in modern usage Jèrriais words that can still be found in older texts from the 18th and 19th centuries, for example:
 * French leçon (in the form léçon) has displaced native lichon (lesson)
 * French garçon has displaced native hardé (boy)
 * French chanson has displaced native canchon (song)

Efforts are being made to maintain some Jèrriais words which are competing in usage with French forms, for example:
 * native hielle is being promoted over French huile (oil)
 * native huiptante (eighty) is being promoted over French quatre-vingts (fourscore)

Influence of English
Some maritime vocabulary was borrowed from English at an early date, for example baûsouîn (boatswain), but by the late 18th century some domestic vocabulary, such as: entered the language through the employment of Jèrriais-speaking servants in the houses of bourgeois English-speaking immigrants.
 * bliatchinner (to polish shoes, from blacking)
 * coutchi (to cook)
 * grévîn (gravy)
 * ouâchinner (to rub in soapy water, from washing)
 * scrobbine-broche (scrubbing brush)
 * sâsse-paine (saucepan)
 * stchilet (skillet)
 * ticl'ye (from tea-kettle)
 * code à phôner (phone code)

Other words borrowed from English before 1900 include: However, care needs to be taken in attempting to identify anglicisms because some words, such as mogue (mug) and canne (can), which are often assumed to have been borrowed from English, were in fact Norman words exported to England in the wake of the Norman Conquest; and words such as fliotchet (flock) and ridgi (rig) are Norman cognates of English words.
 * chârer (to share)
 * drâses (underpants, from drawers)
 * ouothinner (to worry)
 * ouadinne (cotton wool, from wadding)
 * nosse (nurse)
 * souîndgi (to throw, from swing)
 * sténer (to stand, to endure)

More recently, words such as boutchi (to book), partchi (to park) and tyeur (tyre) have been absorbed into the language, although current initiatives in creating neologisms for technological and social innovations prefer to avoid wholesale borrowing where possible. Among recent coinings are words such as textéthie for texting, maître-pêtre for webmaster (literally master-spider) and mégabouochi for megabyte.

Phonology
may also be heard as an approximant sound.

The phonological influence of Norse is debated, although the aspirated "h" may be due to Norse influence.

Palatalisation
The palatalisation of Latin and  before  that occurred in the development of French did not occur in northern dialects of Norman, including Jèrriais:

However the palatalisation of before front vowel produced different results in the Norman dialect that developed into Jèrriais than in French. (Many developments are similar to those in Italian, cf. cento-hundred and faccia-face).

At a later date surviving and  underwent a secondary process of palatalisation:

This palatalisation continues to operate (except in initial position) as can be seen by recent borrowings from English:

Dental fricative
A feature of Jèrriais that is immediately noticeable and distinguishes it from neighbouring languages is the voiced dental fricative, written th, that typically occurs in intervocalic position:

Or in final position:

The fricative devoices to assimilate with a neighbouring unvoiced consonant in words such as paqu'thie (packing) or malaûc'theux (disgusting).

The fricative developed from + front vowel, but evidently after the 16th century as this feature is unknown in the language of Sark (colonised by Jersey families). Although the voiced dental fricative is standard in the literary language, it is not found in the eastern dialects.

Some older speakers in St. Ouen use a dental fricative in positions where other dialects show a. This may be represented in the orthography of particular writers.

The dental fricative in the dialect of such speakers may also be heard in liaison:

Length
Length is phonemic in Jèrriais. Long vowels are usually indicated in writing by a circumflex accent. A noun ending in a vowel lengthens the final vowel to indicate the plural (shown in writing by adding an s).

Gemination occurs regularly in verb tenses, indicated by a consonant-apostrophe-consonant trigraph, for example: ou pâl'la (she will speak); jé c'mench'chons (we will begin); i' donn'nait (he would give). Gerunds will also regularly contain geminate consonants, for example: faîs'sie (doing, making); chant'tie (singing); tith'thie (shooting); brîng'gie (sweeping); gângn'nie (winning).

Aspect
Jèrriais distinguishes between simple, progressive and perfect aspect:

Past:

Future:

Present:

Iterative
Verbs can be made iterative in aspect by prefixing èr- (long form) or r' (short form):

Gerunds
Verbs can be transformed into gerunds, which are commonly used:

Literature

 * Lé Jèrriais Pour Tous by Paul W. Birt, 1985.
 * Dictionnaire Jersiais–Français, 1966.
 * A Grammar of the Norman French of the Channel Islands: The Dialects of Jersey and Sark by Anthony J. Liddicoat, 1994. ISBN 978-3-11-087728-1
 * Jersey Norman French: A Linguistic Study of An Obsolescent Dialect . Mari C. Jones, 2001
 * Jèrriais: Jersey's Native Tongue by Mari C. Jones, 2003. ISBN 978-1-904210-03-0
 * Dictionnaithe Jèrriais-Angliais. 2005. ISBN 0-901897-40-X
 * Les Chroniques du Don Balleine/Les Nouvelles Chroniques du Don Balleine (magazine). Jersey 1979 – current.

title: Jèrriais


text:
Visual meteorological conditions

In aviation, visual meteorological conditions (VMC) is an aviation flight category in which visual flight rules (VFR) flight is permitted—that is, conditions in which pilots have sufficient visibility to fly the aircraft maintaining visual separation from terrain and other aircraft. They are the opposite of instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). The boundary criteria between IMC and VMC are known as the VMC minima and are defined by: visibility, cloud ceilings (for takeoffs and landings), and cloud clearances.

The exact requirements vary by type of airspace, whether it is day or night (for countries that permit night VFR), and from country to country. Typical visibility requirements vary from one statute mile to five statute miles (many countries define these in metric units as 1,500 m to 8 km). Typical cloud clearance requirements vary from merely remaining clear of clouds to remaining at least one mile away (1,500 m in some countries) from clouds horizontally and 1,000 feet away from clouds vertically. For instance, in Australia, VMC minima outside controlled airspace are clear of cloud with 5,000 m visibility below 3,000 ft AMSL or 1,000 ft AGL (whichever is higher), and 1,000 ft vertical/1,500 m horizontal separation from cloud above these altitudes or in controlled airspace. Above 10,000 ft, 8,000 m visibility is required to maintain VMC. Air traffic control may also issue a "special VFR" clearance to VFR aircraft, to allow departure from a control zone in less than VMC – this reduces the visibility minimum to 1,600 m.

Generally, VMC requires greater visibility and cloud clearance in controlled airspace than in uncontrolled airspace. In uncontrolled airspace there is less risk of a VFR aircraft colliding with an instrument flight rules (IFR) aircraft emerging from a cloud, so aircraft are permitted to fly closer to clouds. An exception to this rule is class B airspace, in which ATC separates VFR traffic from all other traffic (VFR or IFR), which is why in class B airspace lower cloud clearance is permitted.

European and UK VFR minima
The following minima apply in Europe and the UK.

Uncontrolled airspace (class F & G)
At and above FL 100:
 * 8 km flight visibility, 1500 m horizontally from cloud, 1000 ft (300m) vertically from cloud

Below FL 100:
 * 5 km flight visibility, 1500 m horizontally from cloud, 1000 ft (300m) vertically from cloud

At or below 3,000 ft:
 * 5 km flight visibility, clear of cloud and in sight of the surface
 * or, for an aircraft, other than a helicopter, operating at 140 kt or less:
 * 1,500 m flight visibility, clear of cloud and in sight of the surface
 * For helicopters:
 * Clear of cloud and in sight of the surface at a speed which is commensurate with the visibility.

Controlled airspace (classes C to E) By Day
At and above FL 100:
 * 8 km flight visibility, 1,500 m horizontally from cloud, 1,000 ft (300m) vertically from cloud

Below FL 100:
 * 5 km flight visibility, 1,500 m horizontally from cloud, 1,000 ft (300m) vertically from cloud

Alternatively at or below 3,000 and operating at 140kt or less ft:

 * For helicopters:
 * Clear of cloud and in sight of surface with a flight visibility of 1500m

Controlled airspace (classes C to E) By Night
At and above FL 100:
 * 8 km flight visibility, 1,500 m horizontally from cloud, 1,000 ft (300m) vertically from cloud

Below FL 100:
 * 5 km flight visibility, 1,500 m horizontally from cloud, 1,000 ft (300m) vertically from cloud

Surface to 1000 feet AGL
"Day: Clear of Cloud. 2 statute miles for fixed wing, 1 statute mile for helicopter"

"Night: Clear of Cloud. 3 statute miles visibility."

Above 1000 feet AGL
"Day: 2000 feet horizontally, 500 feet vertically from cloud. 1 statute mile visibility"

"Night: 2000 feet horizontally, 500 feet vertically from cloud. 3 statute miles visibility"

Controlled Airspace (any class B, C, D, E)
"1 mile horizontally, 500 feet vertically from cloud. 3 statute miles visibility."

Control Zones (can consist of B thru E)
"Maintain at least 500 feet AGL except when taking off or landing."

Class A airspace
"VFR flight prohibited in Class A airspace."

US VFR minima
United States Visual Flight Rules are provided in Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 91, Section 155:

 * Notes

title: Visual meteorological conditions


text:
Pietro Colletta

Pietro Colletta (January 23, 1775 – November 11, 1831) was a Neapolitan general and historian.

Biography
Colletta was born in Naples. He entered the Neapolitan artillery in 1796 and took part in the campaign against the French in 1798. On the entry of the French into the Kingdom of Naples and the establishment of the Parthenopaean Republic (1799), Colletta adhered to the new government. When the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV reconquered the city, Colletta was thrown into prison and only escaped the death penalty by means of judiciously administered bribes. Turned out of the army, he became a civil engineer. When the Bourbons were expelled a second time in 1806 and Joseph Bonaparte seized the throne of Naples, he was reinstated in his rank and served in the expedition against the brigands and rebels of Calabria.

In 1812, Colletta was promoted to general, and made director of roads and bridges. He served under Joachim Murat and fought the Austrians at the Battle of the Panaro in 1815. On the restoration of Ferdinand, Colletta was permitted to retain his rank in the army, and was given command of the Salerno division. At the outbreak of the revolution of 1820 the king called him to his councils, and, when the constitution had been granted, Colletta was sent to put down the separatist rising in Sicily, which he did with great severity.

He fought in the constitutionalist army against the Austrians at Rieti (March 7, 1821). On the re-establishment of autocracy, he was arrested and imprisoned for three months by order of the Prince of Canosa, the chief of police and his particular enemy. He would have been executed had not the Austrians intervened in his favour, and he was exiled instead to Brünn in Moravia. In 1823, he was permitted to settle in Florence, where he spent the rest of his days engaged on his Storia del reame di Napoli.

Works

 * Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1734 sino al 1825, Capolago: Tipografia Elvetica, 1834 (vol. I, vol. II, vol. III, vol. IV). English translation by Susan Horner as History of the Kingdom of Naples, 1734–1825 (with a supplementary chapter 1825–1856), Edinburgh: T. Constable, 1858 (vol. I, vol. II)
 * Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1734 sino al 1825, Capolago: Tipografia Elvetica, 1834 (vol. I, vol. II, vol. III, vol. IV). English translation by Susan Horner as History of the Kingdom of Naples, 1734–1825 (with a supplementary chapter 1825–1856), Edinburgh: T. Constable, 1858 (vol. I, vol. II)

His Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1734 sino al 1825 (first published in 1834), which deals with the reigns of Charles III and Ferdinand IV (1734–1825), is still the standard work for that period, but its value is somewhat diminished by the authors bitterness against his opponents and the fact that he does not provide references for his statements, many of which are based on his recollection of documents seen, but not available at the time of writing. Still, having been an actor in many of the events recorded, he is on the whole accurate and trustworthy.

title: Pietro Colletta


text:
User:William M. Connolley/Trend estimation

This page now released into the real world as: Trend_estimation

If a given set of measurements are taken of some process that is incompletely understood, one may construct a model, independent of anything known about the physics of the process, to explain the behaviour of the measurement. In particular, one may wish to know if the measurements exhibit an increasing or decreasing trend, that can be statistically distinguished from random behaviour.

This page does not attempt a full mathematical treatment, merely an exposition. It may help to consider the series at issue to be daily average temperatures at a given location, from winter to summer; or the global temperature series over the last 100 years. Particularly in the latter case, issues of homogeneity (is the series equally reliable throughout its length) and so forth are important; for the moment we shall simplify the discussion and neglect them.

Fitting a trend: least-squares
Given a set of data, and the desire to produce some kind of "model" of that data (model, in this case, meaning a function fitted through the data) there are a variety of functions that can be chosen for the fit. But if there is no prior understanding of the data, the simplest function to fit is a straight line and thus this is the "default".

Continuing, once it has been decided to fit a straight line, there are various ways to do so, but the overwhelming default is the least-squares fit, equivalent to minimisation of the L2 norm.

There is a rather poor wiki page on least squares. I'll continue here, for the while.

Thus, given a set of data points x_i, and data values y_i, one choses a and b so that sum(((a*x_i + b) - y_i))^2) is minimised. This can always be done. Someday I'll write this out neatly, for now you can find the formula at http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LeastSquaresFitting.html.

For the rest of this article, "trend" will mean the least squares trend. Its what it means in 99% of cases everywhere else.

Now, we have a trend. But is it significant? And what do we mean by significant?

Trends in Random data
Before we can consider trends in real data, we need to understand trends in random data.

If we take a series which is known to be random - fair dice falls; or computer-generated random numbers - and fit a trend line through the data, the chances of a truely zero trend are negligible. But we would probably expect the trend to be "small". If we take a series with a given degree of noise, and a given length (say, 100 points), and generate a large number of such series (say, 100,000 series), we can then calculate the trends from these 100,000 series, and empirically establish a distribution of trends that are to be expected from such random data. Such a distribution will be normal (Central limit theorem except in pathological cases, since (in a slightly non-obvious way of thinking about it) the trend is a linear combination of the y_i) and (if the series genuinely is random) centered on zero. We may now establish a level of statistical certainty, S, desired - 95% confidence is typical; 99% would be stricter, 90% rather looser - and say: what value, V, do we have to choose so that S% of trends are within V? (complication: we may be interested in positive and negative trends - 2-tailed - or may have prior knowledge that only positive, or only negative, trends are of interest).

In the above discussion the distribution of trends was calculated empirically, from a large number of trials. In simple cases (normally distributed random noise being a classic) the distribution of trends can be calculated exactly.

Suppose we then take another series, which we do not know in advance whether it "really" has a trend in it, calculate the trend, T, and discover that it is less than V. Then we may say that, at degree of certainty S, any trend in the data cannot be distinguished from random noise.

However, note that whatever value of S we choose, then a given fraction, 1-S, of truely random series will be declared (falsely, by construction) to have a significant trend. Conversely, a certain fraction of series that "really" have a trend, will be declared to have no trend.

Data as Trend plus Noise
To analyse a (time) series of data, we assume that it may be represented as trend plus noise:

$$x_i = a * t_i + b + e_i$$

where a and b are (usually unknown) constants and the e's are independent randomly distributed "errors". Unless something special is known about the e's, they will be assumed to have a normal distribution. It is simplest if the e's all have the same distribution, but if not (if some have higher variance, meaning that that data point is effectively less certain) then this can be taken into account during the least squares fitting, by weighting each point by the inverse of the variance of that point.

In most cases, where only a single time series exists to be analysed, the variance of the e's is estimated by fitting a trend, thus allowing a*t+b to be removed and leaving the e's as residuals, and calculating the variance of the e's from the residuals - this is often the only way of estimating the variance of the e's.

One particular special case of great interest, the (global) temperature time series, is known not to be homogeneous in time: apart from anything else, the number of weather observations has (generally) increased with time, and thus the error associated with estimating the global temperature from a limited set of observations has decreased with time. In fitting a trend to this data, this can be taken into account, as described above.

Once we know the "noise" of the series, we can then assess the significance of the trend by making the null hypothesis that the trend, a, is not significantly different from 0. From the above discussion of trends in random data with known variance, we know the distribution of trends to be expected from random (trendless) data. If the calculated trend, a, is larger than the value, V, then the trend is deemed significantly different from zero at significance level S.

Noisy time series, and an example
It is harder to see a trend in a noisy time series. For example, if the true series is 0, 1, 2, 3 all plus some independent normally distributed "noise" e of standard deviation E, and we have a sample series of length 50, then if E=0.1 the trend will be obvious; if E=100 the trend will probably be visible; but if E=10000 the trend will be buried in the noise.

If we consider a concrete example, the global surface temperature record of the past 140 years as presented by the IPCC:, then the interannual variation is about 0.2 oC and the trend about 0.6 oC over 140 years, with 95% confidence limits of 0.2 oC (by coincidence, about the same value as the interannual variation). Hence the trend is statistically different from 0. This alone, however, tells us nothing about the physical causes of the temperature change.

Real data is auto-correlated
The above discussion assumed the data could be represented as trend + noise, with the noise at each data point being independent. This is important, as it makes an enormous difference to the ease with which the statistics can be analysed. Real (climate) data rarely fulfills this criterion.

Other stuff not covered here but should be
Discussion of autocorrelation, reduced d.o.f, etc etc.

Averaging reducing noise.

authors: ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ


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Pérez Prado

Dámaso Pérez Prado (December 11, 1916 – September 14, 1989) was a Cuban bandleader, pianist, composer and arranger who popularized the mambo in the 1950s. His big band adaptation of the danzón-mambo proved to be a worldwide success with hits such as "Mambo No. 5", earning him the nickname "King of the Mambo". In 1955, Prado and his orchestra topped the charts in the US and UK with a mambo cover of Louiguy's "Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)". He frequently made brief appearances in films, primarily of the rumberas genre, and his music was featured in films such as La Dolce Vita.

Pérez Prado began his career as pianist and arranger for the Sonora Matancera, an internationally successful dance music ensemble from his hometown of Matanzas. He later established his own group and made several recordings in Havana in 1946, including "Trompetiana", a self-penned mambo and one of the first examples arranged for big band. He then moved to Mexico where he developed this particular genre in multiple forms, including bolero-mambo (with María Luisa Landín), guaracha-mambo (with Benny Moré) and two forms of instrumental mambo he created: mambo batiri and mambo kaen. The success of his 1949 recordings landed him a contract with RCA Victor in the US, which led to a prolific career in the 1950s. His number 1 hit "Cherry Pink" was followed by other charting singles, such as a cover of "Guaglione" and his own "Patricia", both released in 1958. In the 1960s, Pérez Prado's popularity waned with the advent of other Latin dance rhythms such as pachanga and, later, boogaloo. Despite several innovative albums and a new form of mambo he called "dengue", Pérez Prado moved back to Mexico in the 1970s, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1980. He died there in 1989. His son, Pérez Jr., continues to direct the Pérez Prado Orchestra in Mexico City to this day.

Early life
Dámaso Pérez Prado was born in Matanzas, Cuba, on December 11, 1916; his mother Sara Prado was a school teacher, his father Pablo Pérez a journalist at El Heraldo de Cuba. He studied classical piano in his early childhood, and later played organ and piano in local clubs. For a time, he was pianist and arranger for the Sonora Matancera, Cuba's best-known musical group at the time. He also worked with casino orchestras in Havana for most of the 1940s. He was nicknamed "El Cara de Foca" ("Seal Face") by his peers at the time.

In 1949, Pérez Prado moved to Mexico where he formed his own band and signed a recording contract with the International division of RCA Victor in Mexico City. He quickly specialized in mambos, an upbeat adaptation of the Cuban danzón. Pérez Prado's mambos stood out among the competition, with their fiery brass riffs and strong saxophone counterpoints, and most of all, his trademark grunts (he actually says "¡Dilo!" ("Say it!") in many of the perceived grunts ). In 1950, arranger Sonny Burke heard "Qué rico el mambo" while on vacation in Mexico and recorded it back in the United States. The single was a hit, which led Pérez Prado to launch a US tour. He was to record the song again some years later under the title "Mambo Jambo". Pérez Prado's appearances in 1951 were sell-outs. Producers Herman Diaz Jr. and Ethel Gabriel signed Pérez Prado to RCA Victor in the US and produced his best-selling recording of "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.

Pérez Prado and his Orchestra performed at the famed tenth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on June 20, 1954.

Famous pieces
Pérez Prado is the composer of such famous pieces as "Mambo No. 5" (later a UK chart-topper for both Lou Bega in 1999 and animated character Bob the Builder in 2001) and "Mambo No. 8". The mambo craze peaked in the US in 1955, when Pérez Prado hit the American charts at number one with a cha-cha-chá version of "Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)" (by French composer Louiguy). This arrangement, featuring trumpeter Billy Regis, held the spot for 10 consecutive weeks, sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The song also went to number one in the UK and in Germany. Pérez Prado had first recorded this title for the movie Underwater! in 1954, where Jane Russell can be seen dancing to "Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)". In 1958, one of Pérez Prado's own compositions, "Patricia", became the last record to ascend to No. 1 on the Jockeys and Top 100 charts, both of which gave way the following week to the then newly introduced Billboard Hot 100 chart, where in its first week had the song at #2 behind Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool." The song also went to number one in Germany, and in the UK it reached number eight. The Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini chose to feature "Patricia" twice in his 1960 masterpiece, La Dolce Vita.

International popularity
Pérez Prado's popularity in the United States matched the peak of the first wave of interest in Latin music outside the Hispanic and Latino communities during the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. He also performed in films in the United States and Europe, as well as in Mexican cinema (Rumberas film), always with his trademark goatee and turtle-neck sweaters and vests.

In 1953, during the height of his popularity in Mexico, Pérez Prado was unexpectedly deported from that country and wouldn't be able to return until 1964. A popular legend among Mexicans is that he was deported for having done a mambo arrangement of the Mexican National Anthem, which would have constituted a crime under Mexican law. However, according to journalist Iván Restrepo, the actual reason for his exile was that a Mexican businessman who had hired Pérez Prado to work at the Margo theater in Mexico City became enraged when Pérez Prado decided to work with another businessman who paid him more, prompting the first businessman to report him to the migration authorities as Pérez Prado lacked a work permit. Pérez Prado, who had just finished recording the soundtrack for the movie Cantando nace el amor, was then approached by two migration agents who asked him to show them his work permit; since he did not have the permit, Pérez Prado bribed the officers to let him finish recording the mambo Alekum Salem before being deported. His eleven-year exile came to an end after Mexican singer and actress María Victoria interceded with then-President Adolfo López Mateos to allow Pérez Prado back into Mexico.

By 1960, Pérez Prado's popularity in the United States began to wane, with the new decade giving way to new rhythms, such as rock and roll and changing trends in pop music. His association with RCA Victor ended in the mid 1960s, and afterward his recorded output was mainly limited to smaller labels with limited distribution mostly in Latin America and recycled Latin-style anthologies. After returning to Mexico, he had a final hit there with the self-penned danzón "Norma, la de Guadalajara", which topped the Mexican charts in 1968.

Later life
In the early 1970s, Pérez Prado retired to his spacious apartment off Mexico City's grand Paseo de la Reforma to live with his wife and two children, son Dámaso Pérez Salinas (known as Pérez Prado Jr.) and daughter María Engracia. While his career in the US had declined, his popularity in Latin America was still strong, and he toured and continued to record material released in Mexico, Central and South America, as well as Japan, where he was still revered as one of the reigning giants of the music industry. Prado was a regular performer on Mexican radio and television; a live concert recording from his 1973 tour was released by RCA in Japan on LP in Quadraphonic sound.

In 1981, Pérez Prado was featured in a musical revue entitled Sun, which enjoyed a long run in Mexico City. In 1983, his brother Pantaleón Pérez Prado, a musician who was also known professionally as Pérez Prado, died, and the press erroneously reported Dámaso's death. His final appearance in the US was in Hollywood on September 12, 1987, when he played to a packed house. This was also the year of his final recording.

Persistent ill health plagued him for the next two years, and he died of complications from a stroke in Mexico City on September 14, 1989, at age 72.

Legacy
Although he did not create the genre—Orestes López and his brother Cachao did in 1937—Pérez Prado has been recognized as a key figure in the refinement and popularization of mambo and Cuban dance music in general across the world in the 1950s. His success came from his adaptation of the fast mambo rhythm to the American-style big bands of the 1940s and away from the quieter Cuban charanga.

He also worked with a variety of musicians who would go on to have successful careers. In 1946, he worked with guaracha singer Orlando Guerra "Cascarita", who became one of the leading exponents of the genre. In Mexico, he helped launch the career of Beny Moré in 1949, with hits such as "Anabacoa". In America, he worked with West Coast trumpeters such as Maynard Ferguson, Pete Candoli and Ollie Mitchell (featured on "Flight of the Bumble Bee"), trombonist-vocalist Ray Vasquez, and a variety of percussionists, including Armando Peraza, Mongo Santamaría and Alex Acuña.

In 1999, Pérez Prado was posthumously inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame.

In popular culture
Pérez Prado's mambo records and the joyous dancing they caused, are described in a later chapter of Jack Kerouac's seminal novel On the Road (1957). Many of Prado's recordings have been featured in film soundtracks. "Patricia" was included in La Dolce Vita (1960), Goodbye, Columbus (1969) and Space Cowboys (2000), as well as the episode "Some Enchanted Evening" (1990) of the animated sitcom The Simpsons. His songs "Caballo Negro", "Lupita", and "Mambo no. 8" featured in the film Santa Sangre (1989) by Alejandro Jodorowsky. His recording of "Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)" featured in the films Deal of the Century (1983), Cookie (1989) and Parents (1989), and his recording of "Que Rico Mambo" was featured in The Irishman (2019).

In the decade after his death, the popularity of Pérez Prado's music was on the rise again. CD reissues of his RCA recordings continue to sell steadily. "Guaglione" peaked at number 2 in the UK Singles Chart in 1995 and reached number 1 in the Irish singles chart, following its use in the Guinness television commercial Anticipation. "Mambo No. 5" was featured in another Guinness commercial, Swimblack, in 1998 (the year before Lou Bega took his sampled cover version of that same song to the top of the UK chart).

The soundtrack to the 1997 action thriller Mean Guns heavily features the music of Pérez Prado, as it is the favorite choice of Ice T's character in the film. The soundtrack to the 1999 movie Office Space featured two of his performances, "Mambo No. 8" and "The Peanut Vendor". The soundtrack to the 2004 movie Diarios de Motocicleta featured Pérez Prado's "Qué rico el mambo", more commonly known as "Mambo Jambo".

Avant-garde musician Nurse With Wound recorded a tribute, Funeral Music for Perez Prado, exceeding 30 minutes in length.

Pérez Prado's song "La Chunga" has been used as the theme music for several versions of The Spud Goodman Show.

Singles

 * "April in Portugal"
 * "Ballin' The Jack"
 * "Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)"
 * "Chicago Dengue"
 * "La Chula Linda"
 * "Claudia"
 * "Concierto para Bongó"
 * "Fantasia"
 * "A Go Go Mambo"

 * "Guaglione"
 * "The High and Mighty"
 * "Lupita"
 * "Mambo No. 5"
 * "Mambo No. 8"
 * "Mambo a la Kenton"
 * "Mambo del Politécnico"
 * "Mambo del Ruletero"
 * "Mambo en Sax"

 * "Mambo del Taconazo"
 * "Mambo en trompeta"
 * "Mambo Universitario"
 * "Marilyn Monroe Mambo"
 * "La Niña Popoff"
 * "Paris"
 * "Patricia"
 * "Que Rico el Mambo" (aka Mambo Jambo)
 * "St. Louis Blues Mambo"
 * "Tico, Tico, Tico"
 * "Tomando Café"

Albums
All albums, RCA Victor.

 * Pérez Prado Plays Mucho Mambo For Dancing (1951)
 * Voodoo Suite (1955)
 * Mambo By The King (1955)
 * Mambo Mania (1955)
 * Havana 3 A.M. (1956)
 * Latin Satin (1957)
 * Cha Cha Cha (1958)
 * Mambo Happy! (1958)
 * Dilo (Ugh!) (1958)
 * "Prez" (1958) - Pérez Prado's only US Top 40 album, reaching the No. 22 spot in May 1959
 * Pops and Prado (1959)
 * A Touch of Tabasco with Rosemary Clooney (1959)
 * Big Hits By Prado (1960)
 * Perez Prado's Rockambo (1961)
 * ''Latino! (1961)
 * La Chunga (1961)
 * Exotic Suite of the Americas (1962)
 * Now! Twist Goes Latin (1962)
 * Our Man In Latin America (1963)
 * Dance Latino (1965)
 * The Best Of Perez Prado (1967) Reissue of Big Hits By Prado
 * This Is Perez Prado (1971)
 * Perez Prado - Pure Gold (1976) Another reissue of Big Hits By Prado

Filmography

 * Serenade in Acapulco (1951)
 * Underwater! (1955)
 * Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! (1956)
 * Girls for the Mambo-Bar (1959)

title: Pérez Prado