text:
Talk:Germanic peoples

Question
What specific sources say that the Germanics stopped being a grouping of people that are categorized by being made up of generally Germanic speaking Ethnicities and Nations? Zyxrq (talk) 02:35, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The question seems to be written in order to make a point "between the lines", but when read as a serious question it is difficult to understand. On the one hand, people who speak Germanic languages are categorized as people who speak Germanic languages, and so there is no "stopping" and no controversy because we are just talking about languages.
 * On the other hand, if we think separately about ethnicities, the wording is "begging the question". In other words, it demands that we make a certain assumption which would already be an answer to the question. Strictly speaking we do not know if there was ever any single Germanic-speaking "ethnicity". But even if we accept the simplified logic that any people sharing a single language must by definition be a single nation or ethnicity, which is questionable, then you still have to remember that Germanic is not a single language. So at best, we could only apply that logic to very early, prehistoric, phases of the language family when the peoples involved could still understand each other, and presumably lived in a single region. People certainly can't automatically be assumed to share a single ethnicity just because they speak related languages. Urdu and Spanish are related languages.
 * The other gorilla in the room here is that our modern concept of Germanic peoples is originally based upon classical authors like Caesar and Tacitus who used a more geographical conceptualization of what being Germanic meant. Much confusion is created by people writing as if the classical "Germani" were a single united people speaking a single language. There are many good reasons to say that they were not. The classical "Germani" and the Germanic-speaking peoples of the classical period are overlapping sets, but certainly not identical.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:02, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for helping me understand. Zyxrq (talk) 20:11, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Why it is not the same for Slavic languages and slavic peoples? Or Baltic peoples for instance. All the same arguments could be made, yet those are classified as ethno-linguistic groups 37.84.23.1 (talk) 09:35, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Those articles are now corrected. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:42, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @37.84.23.1 it could be that those other topics should also eventually be changed in Wikipedia, but on the other hand I see no particular reason why every group of languages will have the same type of connection to cultures and ethnicities. The Baltic speaking peoples might not have spoken one language recently but they do come from a specific identifiable region, and ethnicities or nationalities are often geographical in nature. So there might be some reason that scholars still treat them as sharing a common ethnic identity although I am not confident about this myself. In the case of Slavic peoples I suspect that things are fuzzier, but it could be that this identification is specifically a modern one with an ancient name, so to speak, as with the so-called Celtic peoples whose feeling of being connected is a modern phenomenon, and not reflective of any historically continuous connection between language and identity. Short version: every case is different.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Germanic peoples also come from a specific identifiable region, just as Baltic peoples do. In fact, every ethnic group does have their "homeland" and it is strange to think otherwise, since it is basically how ethnicities and languages originated in the first place. 37.84.23.1 (talk) 13:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This is WP:NOTAFORUM. Discussion here should be limited to improving the article, not discussing the competing definitions of ethnicity. Further forum-like posts will be removed.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:27, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

once occupied?
I think this should be updated, its not like the germanic people no-longer live in england/netherlands/france/germany etc, so to refer to where we live in the past tense seems a bit strange 84.71.92.188 (talk) 21:03, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The past tense is correct. Presumably you are assuming that "Germanic-speaking peoples" are the same as the subject of this article, the "Germanic peoples" of the Roman era. While there is real debate about whether such an equation can or should be made in specific periods of history and in specific regions (read the article) there is no modern ethnicity uniting modern Jamaicans, Nigerians, Australians, Scots, Austrians etc. Unfortunately Wikipedia itself was once one of the internet sources which promoted such confusion, but the article is now more carefully written. Unless you are bringing new sources, please take your time to read the article. It is likely to contain answers to whatever doubts you have.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * What means here—in the event that it is not clear to you—is that scholars no longer make the conflation between the ancient Germanic peoples and the contemporary German-speaking world. These ancient peoples were not some monolithic assembly of ethnically related groups as promulgated by 19th and early 20th century racialists, who passed on specific idealized characteristics to modern Europeans. Just as Andrew makes plain, you'll want to carefully read the article in its entirety to understand why these once pseudo-scientific eugenicist ideas connecting the ancient past and modernity were specious in so many ways.--Obenritter (talk) 13:04, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Two pre-print articles to watch
Witnessing a huge amount of discussion about two pre-print articles from a plethora of scholars (including Guus Kroonen and Peter Heather) with the potential for big impact on this and related articles. They are as follows: I'll be following. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:25, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * "Steppe Ancestry in western Eurasia and the spread of the Germanic Languages" (2024): https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.13.584607v1
 * "High-resolution genomic ancestry reveals mobility in early medieval Europe" (2024): https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.15.585102v1.full

 * Interesting, we will have to see when they come out and how we should incorporate their conclusions into the article.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:14, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The main new data in the first article is Danish, which is certainly a good thing. As is frequently true, the conclusions are not so simple and readers should be careful of the artificial cluster names. For example the name South Scandinavian might be seen as implying that the researchers discovered a strong genetic distinction between South Scandianvians and their neighbours in what is now Germany and Poland. Although they use selected data from other studies none of those include data from neighbouring areas to the south, so they can't really test the Jordanes-based "womb of nations" idea against its competitor, the Jastorf culture. Indeed, that culture is only mentioned in the abstract, despite the fact that the abstract implies that it will be a critical topic to be examined. The article will in any case add to ongoing discussion, along with many other such articles. At key moments Y DNA is used to justify decisions, which I think is methodologically questionable.
 * The second article is also interesting and also worth careful reading. It also discusses the Viking age. The wording concerning clusters is more careful in this article. See the following examples. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:51, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

 * Our modelling provides direct evidence of individuals with ancestry originating in northern Germany or Scandinavia appearing in these regions as early as the first century CE
 * We reveal evidence of expansion southwards and/or eastwards of likely Germanic speakers carrying Scandinavian-related ancestry in the first half of the first millennium CE. We note that ‘Scandinavian-related’ in this context relates to the ancient genomes available, and so it is entirely possible that these processes were driven e.g. from regions in northern-central Europe.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:51, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The gap about the Jastorf culture in the paper by the Willerslev team is explained in the section "Expansions of Scandinavian ancestry during the Migration Period": The period between 2800 and 1575 BP is described in the archaeological and historical literature as the time of Germanic migrations moving south into continental Europe. The lack of samples from this period, especially from Germany, limits our ability to determine when these migrations may have occurred. Even before the emergence of archaeogenetics, cremation as the default burial practice has proven to be a source of frustration for physical anthropologists.
 * Maybe we can already try to draft a preliminary version for expanding this article by making use of the preprints in draft- or user-space, and incubate these changes until the papers have been published (and after cross-checking for potential changes made to the manuscripts in the meantime). –Austronesier (talk) 16:00, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * We currently have a very short section on genetics - I'd suggest leaving the caveat statement the same as they currently are, namely: The use of genetic studies to investigate the Germanic past is controversial, with scholars such as Guy Halsall suggesting it could represent a hearkening back to 19th-century ideas of race. Sebastian Brather, Wilhelm Heizmann, and Steffen Patzold write that genetics studies are of great use for demographic history, but cannot give us any information about cultural history.. I leave it to those wiser than I in archaeogenetics to drafts the rest.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:22, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Ermenrich (talk) 17:22, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I am personally not so sure yet what we could safely take out of these articles. The stronger conclusions are mostly unexciting, matching other articles (which is indeed where most of the data comes from). The more controversial implications are likely to be difficult to agree how to summarize. (One might even think the more controversial stuff is deliberating written in an obfuscating way.) So as a first step I agree with Ermenrich. But I would personally be open to proposals. I just did not yet see anything easy or practical yet.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:36, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

A plea for short sentences
FWIW, I would like to make a gentle suggestion that this edit might not be an improvement:. The edsum: "the first sentence of the lead needs to give a definition of some sort, it can't just say "thing x existed"." The change is that a few words are added: The Germanic peoples lived in Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. => The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people who lived in Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. The shorter sentence is at least as definition-like as the longer one. The added words (in bold) add no meaningful information. Note: Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:22, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * They are "peoples", so adding "groups of people" is meaningless. The ... peoples ... were historical groups of people.
 * They lived "during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages", so "historical" also adds nothing?

 * I don't see how we can give a definition without saying what we mean. Just saying "the Germanic people lived" is certainly not enough for the opening sentence of an encyclopedia article (who/what were they?), nor is the sentence particularly long. "Historical" indicates that they no longer live there, "people group" or "groups of people" provides what exactly we are defining them as (not, e.g. a "nation" or "tribes"). If "Germanic people" were self-explanatory and we only needed to say that they lived in a particular place, then we wouldn't need the article!--Ermenrich (talk) 19:52, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll say this though: if someone can come up with a better definition than "historical groups of people", then by all means do so. We need something though.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:58, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Not sure "assemblage of peoples" is any better, since each Germanic group was a distinct assemblage/group. I am at a loss myself, since it's not really wrong.--Obenritter (talk) 20:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

 * Maybe I am just missing something, but I'll just explain myself anyway. The short and long sentence both say they were peoples which necessarily means more than one group of people. They also both say where and when they lived. So clearly the short version says more than "that they lived in a particular place". "Historical" indicates that they no longer live there, yes, but so does the tense of "lived". I honestly don't see how the extra words add meaning, at least from a purely logical point of view. The repetition of equivalent words seems like something editors should trim. There are of course arguments for repetition and redundancy in specific situations, but that does not seem to be what you mean?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:25, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The Germanic peoples consisted of tribal groups (referenced as "barbarians" in some literature) who once occupied Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Perhaps this satisfies what you mean Andrew. --Obenritter (talk) 20:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * It looks like an improvement to me, but I suspect there will be objections to the term "tribal". A pity we can't just call them gentes like the Germans do!--Ermenrich (talk) 20:32, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * If you'll recall, I wanted to either reference them as "ancient Germanic peoples" or Germanen when all of us originally debated the naming convention. Tribal is an accurate description, despite people's misgivings. Let's see how this develops. Tightening my sphincter now. --Obenritter (talk) 20:45, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not taking sides, but I'll take a stab at it:
 * "The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages." It tells us that the Germanic tribal groups were the peoples who are the subject of the article and sets them historically in antiquity on into the early Middle Ages, in as few words as possible. Carlstak (talk) 22:06, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with either 's or 's wording.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:50, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I might be missing something again but haven't we been trying to avoid the word tribal as part of the definition for some years now? (I don't believe I raised it.) The argument was that it is a loaded word within a definition because it implies a certain type of technology-level and social structure which historians now tend to see as part of Caesar's political rhetoric. What is the argument FOR using the word as part of the definition? Concerning the word barbarian I think it has a similar problem for normal readers who will see it as implying something about technology and society. If it is intended to mean that they were not Romans then this hardly needs to be mentioned? (I also still don't understand from a logical or policy point of view why the first sentence can't be simpler, at least given the broad scope that the article currently has.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:27, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

 * Can you point to any encyclopedia article that starts by saying "Thing X existed in place x" without first saying, in the most general terms, what "thing x" is? If it really is just my personal preference I'll drop the matter, but it strikes me as a really bad way to begin an article.
 * I've pointed to the issue of people objecting to tribal above as well. I have no opinion either way. I think Carlstak and Obenritter's version are fine, but if we want to get rid of tribal than we might need to rethink the sentence entirely. Could we say "various groups"? Or could we say "Germanic peoples is a term used by scholars to refer to" or something to that effect?--Ermenrich (talk) 21:53, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll just leave my remark about "tribal" here as a vote for now, and see what others think, and what rationales can be given. Concerning the short sentence proposal you are caricaturing, and ignoring my previous replies. The proposed short version had the same information as the long version, and they all contain more information than you claim: type of thing (peoples, plural), region and period. (The longer versions just used redundancy.) I don't find this amount of information is unusual for an opening definition. (Not all types of encyclopedia open with such definitions BTW.) I can't really follow your chain of reasoning to be honest. Do you seriously think it would be hard to find examples like this? A was one or more types of B, which existed in region(s) C during period(s) D. I think that format is pretty much ideal. I think run-on opening sentences are OTOH an unfortunate habit on WP that have nothing to do with policy, but just the way people keep adding adjectives and clauses to them. The best way to avoid that IMHO is to make the first sentence cover the lowest common denominator characteristics, and move non-consensus aspects to other sentences and paragraphs. This all seems pretty uncontroversial to me. I honestly can't see why you are reacting so strongly to this as if this is shocking you?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Here's my two cents which will not really come as a surprise to you, I guess :)
 * My first issue with "tribal" that this term is often connected to a specific kind of sociopolitical organization (whether understood in an evolutionary framework or not) that does not necessarily apply to all gentes that were labelled as Germanic in antiquity, for most of which we know little more than their name and location, and occasionally some anectodical characteristics. And even if the known features of their sociopolitical organization match with extant definitions of "tribe" or "tribal", I'd hesitate to use the labels in the same way I wouldn't be too happy for obivous reasons if these labels were applied to contemporary people groups let's say in interior South America, the highlands of NE India and SE Asia, or in New Guinea.
 * But that's just me. I am aware that "tribe" and Stamm are commonly used in the relevant literature of all "schools", and also that we use tribe all over the place in the article, so I won't object just because it now has become a question of the opening lede sentence. –Austronesier (talk) 19:15, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Bernard Mees's "The English Language before England" (Routledge, 2023)
Runologist Bernard Meet recently published The English Language before England (Routledge, 2023 — note that this says 2022 but my copy says "first published 2023"). Mees focuses primarily on early runic inscriptions in this one and it contains a huge amount of discussion very relevant to this article. We definitely need more runology coverage here (runes were developed by and, as far as can be seen, used solely by Germanic-speakers) but it gets little discussion on this article. This is an excellent source for contemporary discussion on the matter from one of the most visible runologists in the field. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:37, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

 * Perhaps you can point to errors and oversights in the current section on Germanic peoples? What isn't included there that should be? Keep in mind, the article is already overlong, and we already devote several paragraphs to runes - I'd suggest removing something from that section (perhaps the etymology) if we're going to be making any substantial additions.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:10, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Should runes and their relationship to the development of one Germanic language (English) really have that much shrift? Certainly, Mees deserves inclusion, but this article is about Germanic peoples writ large and the current section on runes keeps it fairly generic. Additional depth on runes might be better directed to the page specifically dedicated to it. Surely can find a way to integrate salient points in a manner that does not overburden the article.--Obenritter (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Although the title may imply otherwise, Mees's book is mainly about early Germanic stuff in general with a focus on early West Germanic inscriptions. I don't have time to contribute much right now but I will probably return to it in the future. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:06, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Germanic peoples


text:
Slurge

In the political science of the United States Congress, slurge is the arithmetic mean of retirement slump and sophomore surge. The term was coined by John Alford and David R. Brady in a 1988 academic paper.

The slurge is one of the more accurate means of measuring incumbency advantage in congressional elections. If the "retirement slump" is the difference in percentage of the vote share between a retiring incumbent and a new candidate, and the "sophomore surge" is the difference in percentage between a new candidate's first campaign and second campaign as an incumbent, then the slurge, being an average of the two, indicates a higher incumbency advantage when higher.

Example of usage: "The slurge was too high to miss, yet the American people did."

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

title: Slurge


text:
Legge's flowerpecker

Legge's flowerpecker  (Dicaeum vincens) or the white-throated flowerpecker, is a small passerine bird. It is an endemic resident breeder in Sri Lanka. It is named after the Australian ornithologist William Vincent Legge.

The Legge's flowerpecker is a common resident breeding bird of forests and other well-wooded habitats including gardens. Two eggs are laid in a purse-like nest suspended from a tree.

Description

This is a very small passerine but a relatively stout flowerpecker, measuring 10 cm in total length and weighing approximately 9 g, with a short tail, short thick curved bill and tubular tongue. The latter features reflect the importance of nectar in its diet, although berries, spiders and insects are also taken.

The male Legge's flowerpecker has blue-black upperparts, a white throat and upper breast, and yellow lower breast and belly. The female is duller, with olive-brown upperparts.

In culture
In Sri Lanka, this bird is known as in Sinhala. This bird appears in a one rupee Sri Lankan postal stamp.

title: Legge's flowerpecker


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The Flash Girls

The Flash Girls are a now defunct folk music duo based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The duo consisted of Emma Bull, a noted science fiction author, and Lorraine Garland, also known as "The Fabulous Lorraine". Garland is also notable as Neil Gaiman's personal assistant; the group formed at a Guy Fawkes Day party at Gaiman's home. The connections that both Bull and Garland had with the science fiction and fantasy communities allowed them to have an unusually notable group of people writing songs for and with them, including Jane Yolen, Alan Moore, and Neil Gaiman. These songs are mixed in with their own original works, traditional songs such as Star of the County Down and Lily of the West, as well as poems put to music, including works by Dorothy Parker and A.A. Milne.

The group has three albums, The Return of Pansy Smith and Violet Jones (1993), Maurice and I (1994), and Play Each Morning Wild Queen (2001). Following their second album, the pair split up due to Bull moving to California to pursue screenwriting. Since then, Garland joined the band Folk UnderGround. During their time apart between "Maurice and I" and "Wild Queen," the duo continued to write material, and in early 2001 Bull flew back to Minneapolis for an intense two-weeks of recording sessions. They intended to perform a concert with the new material, but while the band was setting up for the concert Bull fell and broke both her arms. The Flash Girls did manage to do a few performances in 2001 with a session musician covering Bull's guitar parts, but apparently have performed together infrequently since.

One recent appearance was at ConFusion 2005, aka 31 Flavors of ConFusion, where Bull with Will Shetterly were Author Guests of Honor. ConFusion is held in the Metro Detroit area every January. Garland and Bull performed together, per Steven Brust, ConFusion's Toastmaster that year.

Bull and Garland somehow landed their third-ever gig as the opening band for Warren Zevon to a packed crowd at Minneapolis' First Avenue Club. They were both extremely nervous, having been together for only a month. Garland said that if they screwed up in front of such a huge crowd, she was going to change her name to Pansy Smith and move into Gaiman's basement; in his blog, Gaiman says this was his suggestion. Bull agreed and said she'd join Garland and change her name to Violet Jones. Although the concert went off without a hitch, the pair adopted these names as their alter egos and made up a fictional history of a female Irish folk duo in the 1920s and used it as a theme for their first record, "The Return of Pansy Smith and Violet Jones." Pansy Smith and Violet Jones became characters in the DC Comics series Sovereign Seven, where they run a coffee shop.

The group's name came from the old Irish slang term "flash," which means well-dressed and of dubious reputation, or "knowing more than is socially acceptable." A number of folk songs mention "flash girls," most notably the one attributed by Bull's husband Will Shetterly as being the source for the group's name, "House-husband's Lament (Rocking the Cradle)." The line in question goes, "Come all you young men with a notion to marry/Oh, pray, won't you leave those flash girls alone."

Both The Flash Girls and Bull's former group, Cats Laughing, have been mentioned in Shetterly's stories for the fantasy fiction shared universe Borderland.

title: The Flash Girls


text:
Lily of the West

"Lily of the West" is a traditional British and Irish folk song, best known today as an American folk song, listed as number 957 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The American version is about a man who travels to Louisville and falls in love with a woman named Mary, Flora or Molly, the eponymous Lily of the West. He catches Mary being unfaithful to him, and, in a fit of rage, stabs the man she is with, and is subsequently imprisoned. In spite of this, he finds himself still in love with her. In the original version, the Lily testifies in his defense and he is freed, though they do not resume their relationship.

The lyrics to the first verse, as famously sung by Joan Baez:"When first I came to Louisville, some pleasure there to find A damsel there from Lexington was pleasing to my mind Her rosy cheeks, her ruby lips, like arrows pierced my breast And the name she bore was Flora, the lily of the West"- and every verse ends with a repetition of the phrase, Flora, the lily of the West.

Britain and Ireland
Many broadsides of the song were collected in England and Ireland around 1820–50; the English and Scottish versions generally begin "It's when I came to England some pleasure for to find",   whilst the Irish broadsides began "When first I came to Ireland some pleasure for to find". Sabine Baring-Gould collected several versions from traditional singers in the English West Country in the 1890s,    and George Gardiner and Charles Gamblin collected another in Dummer, Hampshire in 1906. The traditional tune is a variant of that also commonly used for the Irish folk song The Lakes of Pontchartrain and it belongs to the same Irish melody-family as a song variously known as On the Trail of the Buffalo / Buffalo Skinners / The Hills of Mexico / The State of Arkansas / Boggus Creek.

Below is the first verse of a version printed in 1857 in Glasgow, Scotland, described as a "highly popular song": It's when I came to England some pleasure for to find,

When I espied a damsel most pleasing to my mind,

Her rosie cheeks, and rolling eyes like arrows pierced my breast,

And they called her lovely Flora the Lily of the West.

America
In "The Collected Reprints from Sing Out! the Folk Song Magazine Volumes 7-12, 1964-1973" (on page 6, preceding the song's notation and lyrics), it is stated that:

“This old ballad has been kept alive over the centuries by both print and oral tradition. Originally an English street ballad (or broadside), the song became particularly popular in the United States by parlor singers and ballad-printers. During the 19th century it was known throughout the country and, in time, became part of the folk heritage. Its popularity was such that in Kansas, local versifiers used the song for a parody:"

Come all you folks of enterprise who feel inclined to roam Beyond the Mississippi to seek a pleasant home; Pray take a pioneer's advice, I'll point you out the best - I mean the state of Kansas, the lily of the West The song survived long enough in North America for audio recordings to be made of traditional versions, particularly in the Ozark region of the United States. Recordings collected by Max Hunter and performed by C.W. Ingenthron of Walnut Shade, Missouri (1958) and Fred High of Arkansas (1959) are available online via the Max Hunter Folk Collection. Irene Sargent of West Fork, Arkansas was recorded performing a version in 1960, and Lowell Harness of Leslie, Arkansas was recorded performing another in 1962. The song also had a presence in Appalachia, where Alan Lomax recorded a version performed by Eliza Pace of Hyden, Kentucky in 1937, and Evelyn Ramsey of Sodom Laurel, North Carolina had her version recorded by Mike Yates in 1980. Several Canadian versions were recorded in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in the 1950s and 60s by Helen Creighton, Herbert Halpert and Kenneth Peacock.

Popular recordings
Joan Baez recorded the song in 1961, including it on her second album; her live concerts have frequently included performances of the song well into the 2010s. Bob Dylan, The Chieftains, Bert Jansch - Live At The 12 Bar, Josh Andrews, The Flash Girls, Caroline Groussain, Sheri Kling, Show of Hands, Peter, Paul and Mary (as "Flora"), Mark Knopfler, Crooked Still, Dirty Linen, Branimir Štulić (in Croatian, titled "Usne Vrele Višnje" ) and Pat Gubler (PG Six) on the album Slightly Sorry (Amish Records 2010) among others. The "Green Mountain Bluegrass Band" does a version of this song as well. Arizona road band Major Lingo performed a long jam version of the song using an electric slide guitar and slightly different lyrics. Holly Near recorded a parody of the song about the lesbian scene in which the singer, a woman, was obsessed with Lily, the flora of the West.

The Irish experience
The song is often interpreted as a metaphor for the English, Scots-Irish and general British and Irish experience in western early and colonial America, with nods to their earlier experiences on the margins of Ireland, Scotland, and the Borders.

The first Chieftains recording of the song, from their mid 1990s album The Long Black Veil and sung by Mark Knopfler, is set in Ireland. A later recording by The Chieftains and Rosanne Cash from The Chieftains' album Further Down the Old Plank Road, ends with the man's being released and traveling across the Atlantic to "ramble through old Ireland/And travel Scotland o'er". Despite leaving America, he finds that he is still in love and mentally fixated on the woman, known in this version as Flora.

title: Lily of the West


text:
Hayim Nahman Bialik

Hayim Nahman Bialik (חיים נחמן ביאַליק; January 9, 1873 – July 4, 1934) was a Jewish poet who wrote primarily in Hebrew and Yiddish. Bialik is considered a pioneer of modern Hebrew poetry, part of the vanguard of Jewish thinkers who gave voice to a new spirit of his time, and recognized today as Israel's national poet. Being a noted essayist and story-teller, Bialik also translated major works from European languages.

Biography
Hayim Nahman Bialik was born in Radi, Volhynia Governorate in the Russian Empire to Itzik Yosef Bialik, a wood merchant from Zhytomyr, and his wife, Dinah Priveh. He had an older brother Sheftel (born in 1862) and two sisters Chenya-Ides (born in 1871) and Blyuma (born in 1875). When Bialik was 8 years old, his father died. His mother took him to Zhytomyr to live with his Orthodox grandfather, Yankl-Moishe Bialik. Bialik would not see his mother for over twenty years, when he brought her to Odessa to live with him.

In Zhytomyr, Bialik explored European literature alongside the traditional Jewish religious education he received. At the age of 15, he convinced his grandfather to send him to the Volozhin Yeshiva in Vilna Governorate to study under Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, where he hoped he could continue his Jewish schooling while expanding his knowledge of European literature. There, Bialik encountered the Haskala or Jewish Enlightenment movement and, as a result, drifted away from yeshiva life. A story in the biography of Chaim Soloveitchik cites an anonymous student, presumably Bialik himself, being expelled from the Yeshiva for involvement in the Haskala movement. As Rabbi Chaim was escorting him out, Bialik asked, "Why?" In response, the rabbi said he had spent the time convincing Bialik not to use his writing talents against the yeshiva world. Poems such as HaMatmid ("The Talmud student"), written in 1898, reflect Bialik's great ambivalence toward that way of life: on the one hand, admiration for the dedication and devotion of the yeshiva students to their studies; on the other, a disdain for their narrow world.

At 18, Bialik left for Odessa. A center of modern Jewish culture in the southern Russian Empire, drawn by his admiration for authors such as Mendele Mocher Sforim and Ahad Ha'am. There, Bialik studied Russian and German language and literature while dreaming of enrolling in the Orthodox Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. Alone and penniless, Bialik made his living teaching Hebrew.

The 1892 Bialik published his first poem, El Hatzipor "To the Bird", which expresses a longing for Zion, in a booklet edited by Yehoshua Hana Rawnitzki (1859–1944), which opened the doors into the Jewish literary circles in Odessa. There, he joined the Hovevei Zion movement where he befriended the author Ahad Ha'am, who had a significant influence on his Zionist outlook.

In 1892, Bialik heard news that the Volozhin Yeshiva had closed and returned home to Zhytomyr to prevent his grandfather from discovering that he had discontinued his religious education. He arrived to find both his grandfather and his older brother close to death. Following their deaths, Bialik married Manya Averbuch in 1893.

For a time, he served as a bookkeeper in his father-in-law's lumber business in Korostyshiv, near Kyiv. This proved unsuccessful so, in 1897, he moved to Sosnowiec, a small town in the Dąbrowa Basin in Vistula Land in Congress Poland, which was controlled by the Russian Empire. There, Bialik worked both as a Hebrew teacher and, to earn extra income, a coal merchant. In 1900, feeling depressed by the provincial life of Sosnowiec, Bialik secured a teaching job in Odessa. Bialik visited the United States, where he stayed with his cousin Raymond Bialeck in Hartford, CT. He is the uncle of actress Mayim Bialik's great-great-grandfather.

Literary career
The year 1900 marked the beginning of Bialik's "golden period": he continued his activities in Zionist and literary circles, and his literary fame continued to rise. In 1901 his first collection of poetry was published in Warsaw, where it was greeted with much critical acclaim, being hailed as "the poet of national Renaissance". Bialik relocated to Warsaw briefly in 1904 to serve as literary editor of the weekly magazine HaShiloah founded by Ahad Ha'am, a position he served for six years.

In 1903, in the wake of the Kishinev pogroms, the Jewish Historical Commission in Odessa asked Bialik to travel to Kishiniev (today Chișinău) to interview survivors and prepare a report. In response to his findings, Bialik wrote his epic poem "In the City of Slaughter" (originally published under the name "Massa Nemirov"), a powerful statement of anguish at the situation of the Jews. The poem's condemnation of passivity against anti-Semitic violence is said to have inspired thousands of Jewish youths to cast off their pacifism and join the Russian underground against the Czar, the founding of Jewish self-defense groups in the Russian Empire, and, later on, the Haganah in Palestine.

It was during his visit to Odessa that Bialik first met the painter Ira Jan, with whom he conducted a secret love affair for many years.

In the early 1900s, Bialik, together with Yehoshua Rawnitzki, Simcha Ben Zion and Elhanan Leib Lewinsky, founded Moriah, a publishing house aimed at issuing Hebrew classics and school texts. He translated into Hebrew various European works, such as William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Friedrich Schiller's William Tell, Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote, Heinrich Heine's poems, and S. Ansky's The Dybbuk.

Throughout the years 1899–1915, Bialik published about 20 of his Yiddish poems in differen periodicals throughout the Russian Empire. These poems are often considered to be among the best of modern Yiddish poetry. Starting in 1908, Bialik switched to writing in prose: In collaboration with Rawnitzki, Bialik published Sefer HaAggadah (The Book of Legends, 1908–1911), a three-volume edition of the folk tales and proverbs scattered throughout the Talmud. The book comprises a selection of hundreds of texts arranged thematically. It was immediately recognized as a masterwork and has been reprinted numerous times. Bialik also edited the poems of the Andalusi poet and philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol and began a modern commentary on the Mishna, but only completed Zeraim, the first of the six Sedarim (Orders), of the Mishna. For this, Bialik intentionally chose to use the traditional Vilna edition of the Mishnah instead of a more scientific text and created, arguably, the first modern commentary to a Seder of Mishnah that included, in its introduction, a summary of the content as well as all of the relevant biblical passages. In the 1950s, under the direction of Hanoch Albeck, the Bialik Institute published a commentary on the entire Mishnah, an expansion of Bialik's project.

In 1919 in Odessa, Bialik founded the Dvir publishing house. The institution, now based in Israel, is known today as Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir after it was purchased by the Zmora-Bitan publishing house in 1986, and subsequently merged with Kinneret Publishing. It was in Odessa, where BIalik befriended the soprano Isa Kremer, and inspired her to become the first woman sing Yiddish music on the concert stage.

Bialik remained in Odessa until 1921, when the Moriah publishing house was closed by Soviet authorities as a result of mounting paranoia following the Bolshevik Revolution. Through the intervention of Maxim Gorky, a group of Hebrew writers were given permission by the Soviet government to leave the country;

Move to Germany
Bialik moved, via the Second Polish Republic and Revolutionary Ankara Turkey, to Berlin, where, together with his friends Yehoshua Rawnitzki and Shmaryahu Levin, he re-established the Dvir publishing house. There, in collaboration with the rabbinical college Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Bialik published the first Hebrew language scientific journal.

In Germany, Bialik joined a community of noted Jewish authors and publishers. Among them were Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Salman Schocken (owner of Schocken Department Stores and founder of Schocken Books), the historian Simon Dubnow, Israel Isidor Elyashev, Uri Zvi Greenberg, Jakob Klatzkin (cofounder of the Eshkol publishing house in Berlin), Moyshe Kulbak, Zeev Latsky ("Bertoldi") (cofounder of Klal-farlag publishing house in Berlin in 1922), Simon Rawidowicz (co-founder of Klal-farlag), Zalman Shneour, Nochum Shtif, Shaul Tchernichovsky, Shoshana Persitz (founder of Omanut publishing house) and Martin Buber. They met routinely at the Hebrew Committee House בת וועד העברי) in Berlin's Scheunenviertel, in Café Monopol, which had a Hebrew-speaking corner, or Café des Westens (both in Berlin's more elegant western boroughs).

Bialik succeeded Klal Publishing's Hebrew chief editor, Saul Israel Hurwitz, upon his death on August 8, 1922, during which time 80 titles were published.

In January 1923, Bialik's 50th birthday was celebrated in the old concert hall of the Berlin Philharmonic, bringing together everybody who was anybody.

Move to Tel Aviv
Bialik first visited Palestine in 1909. In 1924, he relocated with his publishing house Dvir to the township of Tel Aviv, devoting himself to cultural activities and public affairs and becoming a celebrated literary figure in the Yishuv. In 1927, Bialik was elected as head of the Hebrew Writers Association, a position he retained for the rest of his life. That year, he founded the Oneg Shabbat society of Tel Aviv, which sponsored communal gatherings on Shabbat afternoons to study Torah and sing. Even though he was not an observant Jew, Bialik believed that public observance of Shabbat was essential to preserving the Jewish people. In response to criticism regarding his community activism, Bialik responded: "Show me the judge who can say which is preferable: a good poem or a good deed."

Works and influence
Bialik wrote several different kinds of poetry: he is perhaps most famous for his long, nationalistic poems, which call for a reawakening of the Jewish people. Bialik had his own awakening even before writing those poems, arising out of the anger and shame he felt at the Jewish response to pogroms. In his poem In the City of Slaughter, Bialik excoriated the Jews of Kishinev who had allowed their persecutors to wreak their will without raising us to defend themselves. No less admired are his passionate poems on love, nature, the yearning for Zion and children's poems.

Bialik wrote most of his poems using Ashkenazi pronunciation. Today, modern Israeli Hebrew uses the Sephardi pronunciation (what Miryam Segal called the "new accent"), i.e., an amalgam of vowels and consonantal sounds from variety of sources. Consequently, Bialik's poems are rarely recited in the meter in which they were written, although according to Segal, the Ashkenazi (penultimate) stress pattern is still preserved.

Bialik contributed significantly to the revival of the Hebrew language, which, before his days was used almost exclusively for liturgy. The generation of Hebrew language poets who followed in Bialik's footsteps, including Jacob Steinberg and Jacob Fichman, are known as "the Bialik generation".

Bialik is honored as Israel's national poet. Bialik House, his former home at 22 Bialik Street in Tel Aviv, has been converted into a museum and a center for literary events. The Bialik Prize for literature was established by the municipality of Tel Aviv; Kiryat Bialik, a suburb of Haifa, and Givat Hen, a moshav bordering the city of Raanana, are named after him. He is the only person to have two streets named after him in the same Israeli city – Bialik Street and Hen Boulevard in Tel Aviv. There is a Bialik Hebrew Day School in Toronto, ON, Canada; a Bialik High School in Montreal, QC, Canada, and a cross-communal Jewish Zionist school in Melbourne called Bialik College; in Caracas, Venezuela, the Jewish community school is named Herzl-Bialik and the Jewish school in Rosario, Argentina is named after him.

Bialik's poems have been translated into at least 30 languages, with some set to music as popular songs. These poems, and the songs based on them, have become an essential part of the education and culture of modern Israel and throughout the Jewish world.

Death
Bialik died in Vienna, Austria, on July 4, 1934, from a sudden heart attack a week after undergoing a successful prostate operation. His burial in Tel Aviv had a large mourning procession followed from his home, the street named after him, to his final resting place.

Selected bibliography in English

 * Selected Writings (poetry and prose) Hasefer, 1924; New York, New Palestine, 1926; Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society, 1939; New York, Histadrut Ivrit of America, 1948; New York, Bloch, 1965; New York, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1972; Tel Aviv, Dvir and the Jerusalem Post, 1981; Columbus, Alpha, 1987
 * The Short Friday Tel Aviv, Hashaot, 1944
 * Knight of Onions and Knight of Garlic New York, Jordan, 1939
 * Random Harvest – The Novellas of C. N. Bialik, Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press (Perseus Books), 1999
 * The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself (2003), ISBN 0-8143-2485-1
 * Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 2000
 * Selected Poems: Bilingual Edition, (translated by Ruth Nevo), Jerusalem: Dvir, 1981.

title: Hayim Nahman Bialik


text:
Jane Yolen

Jane Hyatt Yolen (born February 11, 1939) is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, and children's books. She is the author or editor of more than 350 books, of which the best known is The Devil's Arithmetic, a Holocaust novella. Her other works include the Nebula Award−winning short story "Sister Emily's Lightship", the novelette "Lost Girls", Owl Moon, The Emperor and the Kite, and the Commander Toad series. She has collaborated on works with all three of her children, most extensively with Adam Stemple.

Yolen delivered the inaugural Alice G. Smith Lecture at the University of South Florida in 1989. In 2012 she became the first woman to give the Andrew Lang lecture. Yolen published her 400th book in early 2021, Bear Outside.

Early life
Jane Hyatt Yolen was born on February 11, 1939, at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. She is the first child of Isabell Berlin Yolen, a psychiatric social worker who became a full-time mother and homemaker upon Yolen's birth, and Will Hyatt Yolen, a journalist who wrote columns at the time for New York newspapers, and whose family emigrated from the Ukraine to the United States. Isabell also did volunteer work, and wrote short stories in her spare time. However, she was not able to sell them. Because the Hyatts, the family of Yolen's grandmother, Mina Hyatt Yolen, only had girls, a number of the children of Yolen's generation were given their last name as a middle name in order to perpetuate it.

When Yolen was barely one year old, the family moved to California to accommodate Will's new job working for Hollywood film studios, doing publicity on films such as American Tragedy and Knut Rockne. The family moved back to New York City prior to the birth of Yolen's brother, Steve. When Will joined the Army as a Second Lieutenant to fight in England during World War II, Yolen, her mother and brother lived with her grandparents, Danny and Dan, in Newport News, Virginia. After the war, the family moved back to Manhattan, living on Central Park West and 97th Street until Yolen turned 13. She attended PS 93, where she enjoyed writing and singing, and became friends with future radio presenter Susan Stamberg. She also engaged writing by creating a newspaper for her apartment with her brother that she sold for five cents a copy. She was accepted to Music and Art High School. During the summer prior to that semester, she attended a Vermont summer camp, which was her first involvement with the Society of Friends (Quakers). Her family also moved to a ranch house in Westport, Connecticut, where she attended Bedford Junior high for ninth grade, and then Staples High School. She received a BA from Smith College in 1960 and a master's degree in Education from the University of Massachusetts in 1978. After graduating she moved back to New York City.

Career
During the 1960s, Yolen held editorial positions at various magazines and publishers in New York City, including Gold Medal Books, Routledge Books, and Alfred A. Knopf Juvenile Books. From 1990 to 1996 she ran her own young adult fiction imprint, Jane Yolen Books, at Harcourt Brace.

Although Yolen considered herself a poet, journalist and nonfiction writer, she became a children's book writer. Her first published book was Pirates in Petticoats, which was published on her 22nd birthday.

Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens, Favorite Folktales From Around the World, Xanadu and Xanadu 2 are among the works that she has edited.

Her book Naming Liberty tells the story of a Russian girl and Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the designer of the Statue of Liberty.

She has co-written two books with her son, the writer and musician Adam Stemple, Pay the Piper and Troll Bridge, both part of the Rock 'n' Roll Fairy Tale series. She also wrote lyrics for the song "Robin's Complaint," recorded on the 1994 album Antler Dance by Stemple's band Boiled in Lead.

Regarding the similarities between her novel Wizard's Hall and the Harry Potter series, Yolen has commented on J. K. Rowling, the author of that series:

Personal life
In 1962, Yolen married David W. Stemple. They had three children, including musician Adam Stemple, and six grandchildren. David Stemple died in March 2006. Yolen lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts. She also owns a house in Scotland, where she lives for a few months each year.

Awards

 * 1987 Special World Fantasy Award (for Favorite Folktales From Around the World)
 * 1989 Sydney Taylor Book Award for Older Readers (for The Devil's Arithmetic)
 * 1992 The Catholic Library Association's Regina Medal (for her body of children's literature)
 * 1999 Nebula Award for Novelette (for "Lost Girls")
 * 2009 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement at the 2010 World Fantasy Convention. A panel of judges selects about two people annually.
 * 2017 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award

Nominations

 * 1984 World Fantasy Award for Anthology/Collection (for Tales of Wonder)
 * 1986 World Fantasy Award for Anthology/Collection (for Dragonfield and Other Stories)
 * 1987 World Fantasy Award for Anthology/Collection (for Merlin's Booke)
 * 1989 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella (for Briar Rose)
 * 1993 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel (for The Devil's Arithmetic)
 * 2009 Sydney Taylor Book Award Younger Reader Honor	(for Naming Liberty, illustrated by Jim Burke)
 * 2021 Sydney Taylor Book Award Picture Book Honor (for Miriam at the River, illustrated by Khoa Le)

title: Jane Yolen


text:
Pimp My Ride

Pimp My Ride is an American television series produced by MTV and hosted by rapper Xzibit, which ran for six seasons on MTV from 2004 to 2007. In each episode, a car in poor condition is both restored and customized. The work on the show was done by West Coast Customs until season 5 and was done by Galpin Auto Sports thereafter.

The show had several international adaptations, including Pimp My Ride UK, Pimp My Ride International (in central Europe), and other adaptations in Brazil, Indonesia and the Baltic countries. It also spawned similar spinoffs, including the series Trick My Truck on MTV's sister network CMT.

The show was criticized by several participants for exaggerating or faking several aspects of the restorations and many aspects of the show.

Format
This show picks young vehicle owners and drivers from Los Angeles or elsewhere in Southern California. An episode of Pimp My Ride generally begins with the participant showing his or her vehicle, and convincing MTV that it needs to be "pimped". After this segment, the host (normally rapper Xzibit, but there are occasionally guest hosts such as Chamillionaire) shows up at the participant's house, takes a look at the car himself, makes wisecracks about the particular things that are wrong with it, and promises the owner a complete makeover of the vehicle.

After examining the car, Xzibit takes it to a custom body shop (West Coast Customs (WCC), in Corona, California, in Seasons 1–4; replaced by Galpin Auto Sports (GAS) in Van Nuys starting Season 5), where the shop team generally replaces most of the components and rebuilds the interior and exterior from scratch.

Each car is a custom "pimp", tailored to the personalities and interests of the owners. For example, a Need for Speed: Underground fan had his car painted to look like one specially customized in the Need for Speed video game series, while a bowler had a ball spinner installed in his trunk, a badminton player had a badminton net installed in the back of his Dodge Caravan, and a surfer got a clothes dryer in the back of his Volkswagen Type 2. Work usually includes new paint, accessories, chrome, tires, rims, and internal electronics (DVD players, video games, large TFT screens, and other cutting-edge accessories). Most changes are only cosmetic, and mechanical work is generally only done to enable the car to run; the show has replaced entire engines with new engines. Both WCC and GAS are well known for putting their own whimsical touches in their work, such as the aforementioned tumble-dryer, or an electrical fireplace in this trunk of another vehicle.

At the end of the show, the car is revealed to its owner, as well as all the details of the renovation and the custom features; in addition, the participant is usually given a gift somehow related to the car or the owner's hobby.

Seasons 1–4
The West Coast Customs employees shown on the series included:
 * Good-natured manager Quinton "Q" Dodson (seasons 1–3)
 * Owner Ryan Friedlinghaus
 * The heavily pierced tire-specialist Alex
 * Tough-looking interior and fabric maven Ishmael "Ish" Jimenez
 * Electronics (and outrageous engineering) expert Michael "Mad Mike" Martin
 * Accessories specialist, the appropriately named "Big Dane"
 * Paint guys Aren, Buck, 2Shae, and Luis. The latter carried on into the following seasons.

After the third season, WCC manager "Q" announced that he would not be willing to take a role in the show anymore. Q cited a desire to expand the company's business with a customs shop in St. Louis, Missouri called Coast 2 Coast Customs. Ryan Friedlinghaus, the owner of WCC, was featured in Season 4 as the "lead" for discussions on customizing the cars.

Seasons 5–6
In the fifth season, the show moved to another garage, Galpin Auto Sports (GAS), as Ryan, the WCC Owner, moved his shop to Corona, California and signed a deal with another television production company. However, the show retained Mad Mike (who quit at WCC and signed at GAS), now dubbed a "car customization specialist". The new cast consisted of:
 * "Owner" Beau Boeckmann (in reality, Vice President of Galpin Auto; the owner of Galpin Auto was his father, Bert Boeckmann )
 * Electronics expert and "The Wizard of Wiring" Michael "Mad Mike" Martin
 * Wiring and fiberglass fabrication "Jason" Ewing
 * The wheels & tires specialist Gyasi
 * Paint & body Luis
 * Accessories specialist Diggity Dave
 * Interiors Rick
 * Fabricator Cabe Sipes
 * Shop crew Z

Replacement vehicles
On three occasions – all season finales – the show did not "pimp" the original automobile.

 * In the final episode of season 1, the car to be pimped was actually two-halves of Ford Escorts welded together to make one car, a "cut and shut" job, and was declared unsafe.
 * In the final episode of season 2, the participant was studying to be an auto mechanic, and WCC decided to let him "pimp" his car as a study project.
 * In the final episode of season 5, Xzibit felt that the owner's car, a Nissan Pulsar, was not worth fixing, as heat from the car's engine and battery fluid was leaking into the cab, creating a fire hazard.

In all these instances, the vehicles of the participants were replaced with brand new cars, with extensive modifications made to customize each new car for the owner.

Worldwide popularity
Pimp My Ride was one of MTV's most popular shows with nearly all of its worldwide viewers, and also in the U.S., where it ranked second only to The Real World.

Canada's music network, MuchMusic, aired the show until MTV Networks signed a deal with CTV, which resulted in MuchMusic losing their rights to MTV programs. MuchMusic's French-language sister station, MusiquePlus, aired the show subtitled in French under the title Pimp mon char ("char" is Quebec French slang for "car"). The show would eventually re-air on Much in the Summer of 2008, showing the later seasons.

Pimp My Ride was broadcast in Arab countries on both MTV Arabia and MBC Action.

In 2012, MTV Southeast Asia aired the first episode of Pimp My Ride Malaysia, which is sponsored by Celcom Axiata under its Xpax’s Whatchuwant? campaign, giving Xpax customers a chance to have their vehicles worked on by MTV, hosted by Altimet and Herrera.

Claims of deception by participants
Several participants who appeared on seasons 4 and 6 of Pimp My Ride later stated that elements of the show were either exaggerated or faked. The houses where Xzibit would surprise contestants with the news they were selected were often rented by MTV. The initial poor condition of some of the vehicles was staged to look worse, including the removal of paint, trash in the interior, and bumpers loosened to the point of falling off. Some features added during filming were removed immediately afterwards due to potential issues with local and state traffic laws, and the participants noted that multiple takes were needed to film their reactions during the final reveal. Some were coached to express more amazement and enthusiasm between takes. The overhaul process, which appeared on the show to only last a few days or weeks, actually lasted 6–7 months, and the shows participants had to find their own transportation while their cars were being upgraded with no support from the network. In addition, the modifications made to the cars were often purely cosmetic and any problems with how the car ran-wheel alignment, engine, transmission, etc-was still up to the participants to fix. In an interview with HipHopDX, Xzibit explains about how he was the target of backlash on social media over his involvement in the show even though he was merely the host and had no input in the actual vehicle modification.

International adaptations
Official adaptations of Pimp My Ride, produced or co-produced by international MTV affiliates, include:

For cars

 * Pimp My Ride International (across Europe), a European version of the show where cars are pimped from all over Europe in the Netherlands at All Stoff. The show is hosted by American rappers Lil' Jon and Fat Joe.
 * Pimp My Ride UK (United Kingdom, 2005-2007), presented by the DJ Tim Westwood. Carisma Automotive are the customizers for the UK version.
 * Pimp My Ride Baltic (2008).
 *  (Brazil, 2007-2008), presented by singer Jimmy London from the rock band Matanza.
 * Pimp My Car (Indonesia), which aired on MTV Indonesia.
 * Pimp My Ride France (France, 2009-2011), which aired on MTV France. The show was presented by Ramzy and had two seasons.

Others

 * Pimp My Fahrrad (Germany), which aired on the German-language MTV Central. In the show, the Hamburg-based bike shop Junior's Club (referred to as "Elbcoast Psycles" on the show) redoes almost an entire bicycle ("fahrrad" being the German word for bicycle), usually leaving only the frame intact. While the show could be seen as a parody of the American original, it is also a loving tribute, using all the elements of the American show with a bicycle twist (Germany's safety guidelines are among the strictest in the world, and getting a road permit for thoroughly customized vehicles borders on the impossible. Similar rules apply in most of continental Europe). It is hosted by German actor Oliver Korittke.
 * Pimp My Whatever (Germany). A spin-off of Pimp My Fahrrad in which ElbCoast Psychos return to "pimp" anything from a bathroom and a doghouse to a birthday party or even someone's brother. Pimp My Whatever is hosted by MTV presenter Patrice Bouédibéla. Both shows are located in Hamburg
 * Pimp My Wheels (Italy). Airing on MTV Italy, this show turns old rusty motorscooters or motorcycles into brand-new shiny vehicles. Hosted by the Italian hip hop group Gemelli Diversi.
 * Pimp My Room (The Netherlands) features some friendly competition between three students to see who will win the university student bedroom or apartment overhaul. Subsequently, the room is "pimped".
 * Pimpa Meu Feed (Brazil). Airing on MTV Brazil social media, the show helps participants to boost their instagram, leverage the number of followers and get involved in this (much desired) life of influencer. It is hosted by Leo Picon and Ste Viegas.

Legal action against business that used "Pimp My..."
Viacom, owner of the Pimp My Ride franchise, threatened legal action against a number of small businesses in 2006 over the use of the phrase Pimp My... in business names. Pimp My Snack, a recipe-sharing website, received one such warning letter and later renamed the business to Pimp That Snack. A British lawyer specializing in copyright concerns criticized the move, stating that trademark infringement cannot apply to companies that are providing different goods and services.

United States

 * Monster Garage: Also features outrageous custom engineering of vehicles, albeit within an entirely different program format.
 * NASCAR Angels: Rebuilds cars (cosmetic, and mechanical) for needy, or deserving fans.
 * Overhaulin': Car restoration, but with an emphasis on performance enhancements, and focused around American muscle cars and pickup trucks.
 * Trick My Truck: CMT's equivalent to Pimp My Ride features the Chrome Shop Mafia customizing semi-trailer trucks for lucky fans.
 * Unique Whips: The East Coast equivalent of West Coast Customs

Other countries

 * Meke My Waka (New Zealand) A similar program shown on Māori Television.
 * All the Gear No Idea! (United Kingdom), on the Men & Motors channel, dealt with motorcycles, with the bike being shipped to US customiser LA County Choprods for work. Unlike other similar shows, the owner of the bike also received a makeover.
 * Dale' Sayaratak (دلع سيارتك "Spoil Your Car"), which aired on MBC 1. The popular malt beverage company "Barbican" sponsored this show and they also "pimped" the cars and showed them in their commercials.
 * Wheeler Dealers, a British television program about car makeover and restoration.
 * Lata Velha, a Brazilian television program hosted by Luciano Huck

title: Pimp My Ride


text:
The Continental Op

The Continental Op is a fictional character created by Dashiell Hammett. He is a private investigator employed as an operative of the Continental Detective Agency's San Francisco office. The stories are all told in the first person and his name is never given.

Profile
The Continental Op is a master of deceit in the exercise of his occupation. In his 1927 Black Mask story "$106,000 Blood Money" the Op is confronted with a dilemma: should he expose a corrupt fellow detective, thereby hurting the reputation of his agency; and should he also allow an informant to collect the $106,000 reward in a big case even though he is morally certain—but cannot prove—that the informant has murdered one of his agency's clients? The Op resolves his two problems neatly by manipulating events so that the corrupt detective and the informant get into an armed confrontation in which both are killed.

Decades of witnessing human cruelty, misery, and ruin, as well as being instrumental in sending hundreds of people to jail, or to the gallows, have greatly weakened the Op's natural sympathy with his fellow men. He fears becoming like his boss, "The Old Man", whom he describes as "a shell, without any human feelings whatsoever".

In the penultimate chapter of The Dain Curse, a female client, whose life the Op has saved three times, while also curing her of morphine addiction, says to him:

":'You came in just now, and then I saw—'
 * She stopped.
 * 'What?'
 * 'A monster. A nice one, an especially nice one to have around when you're in trouble, but a monster just the same, without any human foolishness like love in him, and—What's the matter? Have I said something I shouldn't?'"

The Op is one of the first major hardboiled detectives later developed in such characters as Hammett's own Sam Spade, Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer and others.

Publication history
As many of Hammett's short stories were later published in collected volumes, the publishing history of these works is sometimes confused. The Continental Op made his debut in the October 1923 issue of Black Mask, making him one of the earliest hard-boiled private detective characters to appear in the pulp magazines of the early twentieth century. He appeared in 36 short stories, all but two of which appeared in Black Mask.

With the intent of transitioning from short stories to novels, Hammett began writing linked stories in 1924, "The House in Turk Street" and "The Girl with the Silver Eyes". Two other related stories, "The Big Knockover" and "$106,000 Blood Money" appeared in Black Mask in 1927. The transition culminated in 1927, with the linked stories which formed the basis for his first two novels, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse, both novels released in 1929. The texts in the novels differ from the pulp magazine versions as they were revised by an editor at Alfred A. Knopf.

Starting in the Second World War, many of the short stories were reprinted as serials in American newspapers, sometimes under different titles. Ten collections of Hammett short works, including most of the Continental Op stories, were published by Mercury Publications under an imprint, either "Bestsellers Mystery", "A Jonathan Press Mystery" or "Mercury Mystery". The majority of these collections printed as paperbacks contained introductory essays by Ellery Queen. Frederic Dannay, half of the duo using the pseudonym Ellery Queen, compiled and edited the Hammett's stories such that these versions are not complete. Of the ten, the following contain Continental Op stories: $106,000 Blood Money (later republished as The Big Knock-Over), The Continental Op, The Return of the Continental Op, Hammett Homicides, Dead Yellow Women, Nightmare Town, Creeping Siamese, and Women in the Dark. When the paperback collections proved popular, World Publishing under their "Tower Books" imprint, published them in hardcover. Many of these edited versions were later republished as Dell mapbacks.

In the late 1960s, Hammett's writing was rediscovered and republished with somewhat confusing titles. Of the 28 stories not a part of Red Harvest or The Dain Curse, 26 have been made available in one of three collections, The Big Knockover, The Continental Op, and Nightmare Town. These new anthologies do not include the same stories as the similarly titled Mercury Publications. Up until the 21st century these three volumes were the easiest way to access most of the stories. However, all of these collections used the abridged versions Dannay created for his compilations.

The Library of America's Complete Novels includes both Red Harvest and The Dain Curse as printed by Knopf. The companion collection Crime Stories and Other Writings does not include the original pulp magazine texts. For the first two printings of this collection, as is said in the Notes on the Texts: "No copy is known to be extant of the issue of the pulp magazine Mystery Stories in which 'This King Business' initially appeared, in January 1928." When a copy was located a third printing was issued with the integral text.

In 2017, Vintage Crime published a complete collection of all 36 Continental Op stories also based on the pulp magazine texts and an, until then, unpublished story fragment entitled "Three Dimes."

List of stories
Using the texts that were first published in the pulp magazines, The Big Book of the Continental Op includes all 37 entries of the list; the 28 short stories, the unfinished story and the eight parts of the two serialized novels, The Cleansing of Poisonville (Red Harvest) and The Dain Curse as they first appeared in the pulp magazines.

Dramatic adaptations

 * In 1939, The Farewell Murder was adapted as Another Thin Man, the third entry in the Thin Man film series. The story was modified to star Hammett's Nick and Nora Charles in place of the Continental Op.
 * In 1978, The Dain Curse was made into a six-hour CBS television miniseries starring James Coburn. For the miniseries, the Op was named Hamilton Nash (his creator's name 'spelled sideways').
 * In 1982, Peter Boyle played the Continental Op in the opening of Hammett, while Hammett (Frederic Forrest) writes a story about the detective character. Boyle later appears as Jimmy Ryan, Hammett's former co-worker and mentor from his Pinkerton days, who expresses a conviction that the Op is based on him and criticizes Hammett for not giving the character a name.
 * In 1995, Christopher Lloyd played The Continental Op in "Fly Paper", in season 2 episode 7 of the TV anthology series Fallen Angels adapted from Hammett's short story, co-starring Darren McGavin as The Old Man.

title: The Continental Op


text:
H-cobordism

In geometric topology and differential topology, an (n + 1)-dimensional cobordism W between n-dimensional manifolds M and N is an h-cobordism (the h stands for homotopy equivalence) if the inclusion maps

 * $$ M \hookrightarrow W \quad\mbox{and}\quad N \hookrightarrow W$$

are homotopy equivalences.

The h-cobordism theorem gives sufficient conditions for an h-cobordism to be trivial, i.e., to be C-isomorphic to the cylinder M × [0, 1]. Here C refers to any of the categories of smooth, piecewise linear, or topological manifolds.

The theorem was first proved by Stephen Smale for which he received the Fields Medal and is a fundamental result in the theory of high-dimensional manifolds. For a start, it almost immediately proves the generalized Poincaré conjecture.

Background
Before Smale proved this theorem, mathematicians became stuck while trying to understand manifolds of dimension 3 or 4, and assumed that the higher-dimensional cases were even harder. The h-cobordism theorem showed that (simply connected) manifolds of dimension at least 5 are much easier than those of dimension 3 or 4. The proof of the theorem depends on the "Whitney trick" of Hassler Whitney, which geometrically untangles homologically-untangled spheres of complementary dimension in a manifold of dimension >4. An informal reason why manifolds of dimension 3 or 4 are unusually hard is that the trick fails to work in lower dimensions, which have no room for entanglement.

Precise statement of the h-cobordism theorem
Let n be at least 5 and let W be a compact (n + 1)-dimensional h-cobordism between M and N in the category C=Diff, PL, or Top such that W, M and N are simply connected. Then W is C-isomorphic to M × [0, 1]. The isomorphism can be chosen to be the identity on M × {0}.

This means that the homotopy equivalence between M and N (or, between M × [0, 1], W and N × [0, 1]) is homotopic to a C-isomorphism.

Lower dimensional versions
For n = 4, the h-cobordism theorem is false. This can be seen since Wall proved that closed oriented simply-connected topological four-manifolds with equivalent intersection forms are h-cobordant. However, if the intersection form is odd there are non-homeomorphic 4-manifolds with the same intersection form (distinguished by the Kirby-Siebenmanm class). For example, CP2 and a fake projective plane with the same homotopy type are not homeomorphic but both have intersection form of (1).

For n = 3, the h-cobordism theorem for smooth manifolds has not been proved and, due to the 3-dimensional Poincaré conjecture, is equivalent to the hard open question of whether the 4-sphere has non-standard smooth structures.

For n = 2, the h-cobordism theorem is equivalent to the Poincaré conjecture stated by Poincaré in 1904 (one of the Millennium Problems ) and was proved by Grigori Perelman in a series of three papers in 2002 and 2003,  where he follows Richard S. Hamilton's program using Ricci flow.

For n = 1, the h-cobordism theorem is vacuously true, since there is no closed simply-connected 1-dimensional manifold.

For n = 0, the h-cobordism theorem is trivially true: the interval is the only connected cobordism between connected 0-manifolds.

A proof sketch
A Morse function $$f:W\to[a,b]$$ induces a handle decomposition of W, i.e., if there is a single critical point of index k in $$f^{-1}([c,c'])$$, then the ascending cobordism $$W_{c'}$$ is obtained from $$W_c$$ by attaching a k-handle. The goal of the proof is to find a handle decomposition with no handles at all so that integrating the non-zero gradient vector field of f gives the desired diffeomorphism to the trivial cobordism.

This is achieved through a series of techniques.

1) Handle rearrangement

First, we want to rearrange all handles by order so that lower order handles are attached first. The question is thus when can we slide an i-handle off of a j-handle? This can be done by a radial isotopy so long as the i attaching sphere and the j belt sphere do not intersect. We thus want $$(i-1)+(n-j)\leq\dim\partial W-1=n-1$$ which is equivalent to $$i\leq j$$.

We then define the handle chain complex $$(C_*,\partial_*)$$ by letting $$C_k$$ be the free abelian group on the k-handles and defining $$\partial_k:C_k\to C_{k-1}$$ by sending a k-handle $$h_{\alpha}^k$$ to $$\sum_\beta \langle h_\alpha^k\mid h_\beta^{k-1}\rangle h_\beta^{k-1}$$, where $$\langle h_\alpha^k\mid h_\beta^{k-1}\rangle$$ is the intersection number of the k-attaching sphere and the (k − 1)-belt sphere.

2) Handle cancellation

Next, we want to "cancel" handles. The idea is that attaching a k-handle $$h_\alpha^k$$ might create a hole that can be filled in by attaching a (k + 1)-handle $$h_\beta^{k+1}$$. This would imply that $$\partial_{k+1}h_\beta^{k+1}=\pm h_\alpha^k$$ and so the $$(\alpha,\beta)$$ entry in the matrix of $$\partial_{k+1}$$ would be $$\pm 1$$. However, when is this condition sufficient? That is, when can we geometrically cancel handles if this condition is true? The answer lies in carefully analyzing when the manifold remains simply-connected after removing the attaching and belt spheres in question, and finding an embedded disk using the Whitney trick. This analysis leads to the requirement that n must be at least 5. Moreover, during the proof one requires that the cobordism has no 0-,1-,n-, or (n + 1)-handles which is obtained by the next technique.

3) Handle trading

The idea of handle trading is to create a cancelling pair of (k + 1)- and (k + 2)-handles so that a given k-handle cancels with the (k + 1)-handle leaving behind the (k + 2)-handle. To do this, consider the core of the k-handle which is an element in $$\pi_k(W,M)$$. This group is trivial since W is an h-cobordism. Thus, there is a disk $$D^{k+1}$$ which we can fatten to a cancelling pair as desired, so long as we can embed this disk into the boundary of W. This embedding exists if $$\dim\partial W-1=n-1\geq 2(k+1)$$. Since we are assuming n is at least 5 this means that k is either 0 or 1. Finally, by considering the negative of the given Morse function, −f, we can turn the handle decomposition upside down and also remove the n- and (n + 1)-handles as desired.

4) Handle sliding

Finally, we want to make sure that doing row and column operations on $$\partial_k$$ corresponds to a geometric operation. Indeed, it isn't hard to show (best done by drawing a picture) that sliding a k-handle $$h_\alpha^k$$ over another k-handle $$h_{\beta}^k$$ replaces $$h_\alpha^k$$ by $$h_\alpha^k\pm h_\beta^k$$ in the basis for $$C_k$$.

The proof of the theorem now follows: the handle chain complex is exact since $$H_*(W,M;\mathbb{Z})=0$$. Thus $$C_k\cong \operatorname{coker} \partial_{k+1}\oplus\operatorname{im} \partial_{k+1}$$ since the $$C_k$$ are free. Then $$\partial_k$$, which is an integer matrix, restricts to an invertible morphism which can thus be diagonalized via elementary row operations (handle sliding) and must have only $$\pm 1$$ on the diagonal because it is invertible. Thus, all handles are paired with a single other cancelling handle yielding a decomposition with no handles.

The s-cobordism theorem
If the assumption that M and N are simply connected is dropped, h-cobordisms need not be cylinders; the obstruction is exactly the Whitehead torsion τ (W, M) of the inclusion $$M \hookrightarrow W$$.

Precisely, the s-cobordism theorem (the s stands for simple-homotopy equivalence), proved independently by Barry Mazur, John Stallings, and Dennis Barden, states (assumptions as above but where M and N need not be simply connected):
 * An h-cobordism is a cylinder if and only if Whitehead torsion τ (W, M) vanishes.

The torsion vanishes if and only if the inclusion $$M \hookrightarrow W$$ is not just a homotopy equivalence, but a simple homotopy equivalence.

Note that one need not assume that the other inclusion $$N \hookrightarrow W$$ is also a simple homotopy equivalence—that follows from the theorem.

Categorically, h-cobordisms form a groupoid.

Then a finer statement of the s-cobordism theorem is that the isomorphism classes of this groupoid (up to C-isomorphism of h-cobordisms) are torsors for the respective Whitehead groups Wh(π), where $$\pi \cong \pi_1(M) \cong \pi_1(W) \cong \pi_1(N).$$

title: H-cobordism


text:
John C. McLaughlin

John Cameron McLaughlin (December 1, 1921 − June 16, 2013) was an American philologist who for many years served as Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Iowa.

Biography
John Cameron Mclaughlin was born in Albany, New York on December 1, 1921 to Allan A. and Ethel M. (MacDonald) McLaughlin. From 1942 to 1946 McLaughlin served in World War II as a heavy machine gun platoon leader of the 43rd Infantry Division in the Solomon Islands and the Philippines. During this time he received a Purple Heart and four battle stars.

After the war McLaughlin pursued a career in academia. He earned a master's degree in 1952 at the University of Toledo with the thesis Joseph Conrad: Persistent Stylistic Habits and Meaning, and completed his Ph.D. in 1960 at Indiana University with the dissertation A Graphemic-Phonemic Study of a Middle English Manuscript, later published as a book. He then served for 35 years as Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Iowa. He died at his home in Portage, Michigan on June 16, 2013.

Books
McLaughlin was the author of:
 * A Graphemic-Phonemic Study of a Middle English Manuscript, 1963
 * Aspects of the History of English, 1970
 * Old English Syntax: A Handbook, 1983

title: John C. McLaughlin


text:
Andante favori

The Andante favori is a work for piano solo by Ludwig van Beethoven. In catalogues of Beethoven's works, it is designated as WoO 57.

Composition and reception
The Andante favori was written between 1803 and 1804, and published in 1805. It was originally intended to be the second of the three movements of Beethoven's Waldstein Piano Sonata, Op. 53. The following extract from Thayer's Beethoven biography explains the change:

 * Ries reports (Notizen, p. 101) that a friend of Beethoven's said to him that the sonata was too long, for which he was terribly taken to task by the composer. But after quiet reflection Beethoven was convinced of the correctness of the criticism.  The andante... was therefore excluded and in its place supplied the interesting Introduction to the rondo which it now has.  A year after the publication of the sonata, the andante also appeared separately.

It was composed as a musical declaration of love for Countess Josephine Brunsvik, but the Brunsvik family increased the pressure to terminate the relationship. She could not contemplate marrying Beethoven, a commoner.

The reason for the title was given by Beethoven's pupil Czerny, quoted in Thayer: "Because of its popularity (for Beethoven played it frequently in society) he gave it the title Andante favori ("favored Andante").

The music
The Andante favori is in F major (the subdominant of the Waldstein key), in 3/8 time, and is marked Andante grazioso con moto. Formally, the work is a rondo, with each return of the theme appearing in varied form. The theme itself is fairly extended and in ternary form. The work takes about nine minutes to play.

Adaptations in popular culture
The makers of the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice used the Andante favori as the musical content of a concocted scene in which Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy exchange tender glances while his sister Georgiana plays the andante on the fortepiano. The action of the scene is timed to match two modulations in the music, from F to D♭ major and then back again.

title: Andante favori


text:
Piano Sonata No. 21 (Beethoven)

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53, known as the Waldstein, is one of the three most notable sonatas of his middle period (the other two being the Appassionata, Op. 57, and Les Adieux, Op. 81a). Completed in summer 1804 and surpassing Beethoven's previous piano sonatas in its scope, the Waldstein is a key early work of Beethoven's "Heroic" decade (1803–1812) and set a standard for piano composition in the grand manner.

The sonata's name derives from Beethoven's dedication to his close friend and patron Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein, member of Bohemian noble Waldstein family (Valdštejn). It is the only work that Beethoven dedicated to him. It is also known as L'Aurora (The Dawn) in Italian, for the sonority of the opening chords of the third movement, thought to conjure an image of daybreak.

It is considered one of Beethoven's greatest and most technically challenging piano sonatas. The first section of the rondo requires a simultaneous pedal trill, high melody and rapid left hand runs, and the coda features glissando octaves written in dialogue between the hands.

An average performance of the entire Waldstein lasts about twenty-five minutes.

Movements
The Waldstein has three movements:

1. Allegro con brio (in C major and common time)

2. Introduzione: Adagio molto (in F major and compound duple time)

3. Rondo. Allegretto moderato — Prestissimo (in C major and duple time)

The first and last movements of the sonata are the most substantial, each taking about 11 minutes to perform.

I. Allegro con brio
The first movement is in sonata form: it has a repeated exposition with two subject groups, a development section, a recapitulation and a coda.

The movement opens with repeated pianissimo chords in a straightforward but anxious rhythm, devoid of melody for two bars:

It then swiftly ascends, followed by a three-note descent in the middle register and a four-note descent in the upper. This phrase is then repeated starting on B♭ major – a whole tone lower – a device Beethoven also used for the opening of the Sonata No. 16 in G Major (Op. 31 No. 1). After a half cadence to the dominant (G major), the opening phrase returns again but this time in a tremolo variation. The second subject group, marked dolce, is a chordal theme in E major, the mediant key. Modulation to the mediant for the second subject area is another feature shared by this sonata and the Sonata No. 16. Beethoven would employ the same shift again in later works (in the Hammerklavier Sonata, for example).

For the recapitulation, Beethoven transposes the second subject into A major, quickly changing into A minor and then back to C major for the coda.

II. Introduzione. Adagio molto

The Introduzione is a short Adagio in time that serves as an introduction to the third movement. This replaced an earlier, longer middle movement, later published as the Andante favori, WoO 57. The music gradually gets more agitated before calming down to segue into the rondo.

III. Rondo. Allegretto moderato – Prestissimo

The rondo begins with a pianissimo melody played with crossed hands that soon returns fortissimo, over daringly fast scales in the left hand and a continuous trill on the dominant in the right, as described above. The second theme, a series of broken chords in triplets, is soon interrupted by a turbulent section in A minor that foreshadows the central episode.

The music returns to C major and the sweet theme is repeated, followed by a series of staccato octaves in C minor that mark the start of the central episode, one of the few cases where such a melodic change is seen, a tactic repeated in larger works like the Emperor Piano Concerto. Soon the octaves are accompanied by swirling triplets in the left and then the right hand. The music grows more tense and eventually reaches a cadence in C minor. The next section brings back the opening theme in chords and further develops it: it appears in A♭ major (bars 221–224), then F minor (225–228) and then D♭ major (229–232); it is fragmented into shorter phrases (233–238) and then transits into a quiet section with major 7th arpeggios, returning after much drama to the C major theme played fortissimo.

The second theme reappears, followed by another characteristic long line of beautiful dance-like music. Another series of fortissimo chords announces a short, delicate pianissimo section: the movement seems to die away but then unexpectedly segues into a virtuosic prestissimo coda that plays with the various themes of the movement, ending in a triumphant rush of grandeur.

title: Piano Sonata No. 21 (Beethoven)


text: User talk:66.189.1.248

title: User talk:66.189.1.248


text:
Gary Owen (snooker player)

Gary Owen (5 March 1929 – July 1995) was a Welsh snooker player. He won the World Amateur Snooker Championship in 1963 and 1966, and was runner-up at the 1969 World Snooker Championship.

Career
Owen was born in Tumble, Carmarthenshire. He was the inaugural British Under-16 champion in 1944 and reached the final of the prestigious English Amateur Championship six years later. He then gave up competitive play for a number of years, returning only in the early 1960s.

In 1963 he matched the achievement of his brother Marcus, winning the English Amateur Championship. This qualified him to compete for England at the inaugural World Amateur Championship in Calcutta that year. He won all his matches in a round-robin format and took the title. He became world amateur champion for a second time in 1966, beating future world professional champion John Spencer who was the runner-up.

In 1968 Owen, Spencer and Ray Reardon become the first players in a generation to turn professional. His best performance as a professional came in 1969 when he reached the final of the reconstituted World Professional Snooker Championship, losing to old rival Spencer by 37 frames to 24. A semi-finalist in 1970, he was defeated in the last eight in 1973 and 1975. In 1970 Owen defeated Ray Reardon 6–4 in the final of the Stratford Professional.

Owen emigrated to Australia, taking a job as the resident professional at a snooker club in Sydney, and was runner-up to Eddie Charlton in the 1972 and 1973 Australian Professional championships. After gaining Australian citizenship, he represented his new country at the Snooker World Cup in 1979. He died in Brisbane, Australia.

title: Gary Owen (snooker player)


text:
Pillai (surname)

Pillai or Pillay, meaning "Child of King" (Prince) or "Child", is a surname found among the Malayalam and Tamil-speaking people of India and Sri Lanka.

In Kerala, Pillai is the most common title among upper-caste Nairs, often bestowed by the ruling royal families of Kerala and less commonly found among some Brahmins, Nazrani Mappila and Marars of travancore.

In Tamil Nadu, it is a common surname among various Vellalar subcastes. It is also used by many Tamil-speaking castes, including Chetti, Rowther, Isai Vellalar, Agamudayar, etc. A minority population of Tamil Pillais, including Vellala, Chetti and Rowther, have migrated and can be found in some parts of Kerala and Karnataka.

In general, the concept of "the Pillai title of Kerala" and "the Pillai surname of Tamilnadu" have two different meanings and no direct relation with each other.

Etymology and Origin
According to epigraphic records, Pillai is an ancient title back to the Sangam Era that was used as a suffix and given to junior members of the royal family. Originally a title meaning "royal child" or "Child of King" (prince), denoting nobility. The title occurs both as a single name or as a suffix to the name, it came to be given to administrators of temples; often holding large estates on behalf of the latter.

Early English records also address these hereditary ruling chiefs as the princes of Kerala ranking below the monarch. The most well known are the Pillais of the Eight Nair Noble Houses, the Ettuveettil Pillamar of Travancore.

Pillais of Kerala
In Kerala, the usage of the Pillai surname began with the royal family of Kerala. "Pillai" traditionally signifies a child of a royal family or prince. Pillai is a surname reserved for junior members of the Kerala royal family who are descendants of Survyanshi and Chandravanshi Kshatriyas.

In the 12th century, with the formation of the Kulashekara Kingdom based in Kollam (later known as Venad), the culture of Pillai nomenclature underwent significant changes. The Kulashekara Kings started using Pilla as an honorific title for their chieftains and lords, rather than members of the royal family. Members of the royal family now have a uniformed surname - Varma, while children of the King who are not part of the royal family (due to the following of Marumakathayam laws where lineage moves via females of the house), their surname shall be Thampi and Thangachi.

During the Venad era, Pillai was the title given to Nair Landlords and Provincial governors, and those who had taxation power over Quilon and Trivandrum regions. The most famous among them being the Ettuveetil Pillaimar. Gradually, it became one of the common surnames of the highest echelon of Nairs, who were mostly referred to as Madambi or barons. These Nairs had the right to use the Pillai surname for all their family members.

However, with the formation of the Travancore Kingdom, the concept of Pilla underwent significant changes under the reign of Anizham Thirunal Marthanda Varma Maharaja, who centralized the rule of Travancore. The Pillai surname was given to those who were part of the Royal service, which includes advisors, bureaucrats, administrators, military commanders, etc., most of whom were of Nair and Brahmin origin.

The Pillai surname of Venad and Travancore is fully reserved for savarna subjects, most of whom are equivalent to Kshatriyas and Brahmins in the northern caste system. It's important to note that the caste system in Kerala differs from that in other parts of India.

Pillais of Tamilnadu
"Pillai" is an ancient Tamil word meaning "child" or "younger ones." In the Chola court, a specific group of Vellalars had a dispute over rights to certain land, with one faction claiming based on seniority, referred to as Mudaliar, meaning "first one" and the other based on tenancy rights, referred to as Pillaiyar, meaning "younger one".

In Tamil Nadu, the surname "Pillai" holds a respected status from earlier times and is commonly found among Vellalars, who were primarily engaged in landlordship, trade, high-ranking military service, aristocracy and agriculture. The surname "Pillai" is prevalent across various subcastes among Vellalars, with diverse origins. Vellalar or Vellalar pillai pursued different occupations, comparable to the Kshatriya Varna and Vaishya class in the northern caste system.

Unlike the traditional Indian caste system that divided society into Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras, Vellalars did not strictly adhere to this four-fold Varna division. They had diverse professions.

The Tamil surname "Pillai" was also recently adopted by many Tamil-speaking communities in Tamil nadu and Srilanka, including Maravar, Isai Vellalar, and Eelathu Pilla (ezhavar), with the meaning "child". They adopted it as means to present themselves as superior to the social status which they actually held.

Notable Tamil-speaking Pillais
Notable people with this surname or its variants include:

 * Ashan Pillai (born in Sri Lanka, 1969), British violist and academic
 * Anton Sebastianpillai (1944/5–2020), author and consultant geriatrician
 * Ananda Ranga Pillai (1709–1761), dubash in the service of French East India Company
 * Ariranga Pillay (born 1945), former Chief Justice and briefly Acting President of Mauritius
 * Arumuka Navalar, born as Kandarpillai Arumugapillai, a Sri Lankan Hindu reformer
 * Bastiampillai Anthonipillai Thomas (1886–1964), Sri Lankan Tamil priest and founder of Rosarians Order
 * Bastiampillai Deogupillai (1917–2003), Sri Lankan Tamil Roman Catholic bishop
 * C. W. Thamotharampillai (1832–1901), publisher of ancient Tamil texts
 * Candice Pillay (born 1981), singer and songwriter
 * Chempakaraman Pillai (1891–1934), freedom fighter from Travancore of Tamil descent
 * Chinna Migapillai, 17th century feudal lord and rebel leader from the Jaffna Kingdom
 * Dhanraj Pillay (born 1968), Indian hockey player
 * Gerald Pillay (born 1953), South African theologian and ecclesiastical historian, Vice Chancellor and Rector of Liverpool Hope University.
 * Gooty Kesava Pillai (1860–1933), Indian journalist and freedom-fighter. Delegate from Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh at the first session of the Indian National Congress.
 * Jerry Pillay (born 1965), South African Reformed pastor, theologian and General Secretary of the World Council of Churches.
 * K. C. Pillai (1900–1970), Bishop-at-large of the Indian Orthodox Church, Antiochean Succession, Chennai (Madras), India
 * K. Appavu Pillai (1911–1973), Indian politician
 * K. Perumal Pillai, Indian politician
 * K. Thamboosamy Pillay (1850–1902), a prominent member of the Tamil community in British Malaya
 * Kavimani Desigavinayagam Pillai (1876–1954), Indian freedom fighter, poet
 * L. D. Swamikannu Pillai (1865–1925), Indian astronomer, Speaker of Tamil Nadu Assembly
 * Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai (1855–1897), writer in Tamil literature; his poem "Niraarum Kadal Udutha" is the official Tamil Anthem
 * Maraimalai Adigal (Nagai Vedachalam Pillai, 1876–1950), eminent Tamil orator and writer, started Pure Tamil movement Tanittamil Iyakkam
 * Marimutha Pillai (1712–1787), musician
 * Maruthanayagam Pillai (1725–1764), Indian soldier and administrator also known as Muhammed Yusuf Khan
 * Naraina Pillai, social entrepreneur and businessman
 * Navanethem Pillay (born 1941), South African judge, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
 * Palani Subramaniam Pillai (1908–1962), Carnatic music percussionist
 * Panchaksharam Rangasamy Pillai (born 1943), known as Vijayakumar, is an Indian actor who works in Tamil cinema
 * Periyapillai, 16th century king of the Jaffna Kingdom
 * Pradani Muthirulappa Pillai, 18th-century minister of Ramnad during the reign of Muthuramalinga Sethupathy
 * Prem Nath Pillai (born 1982), Malaysia-based filmmaker and editor
 * Simone Ashwini Pillai, British Actress of Tamil native
 * Sivathanu Pillai, Rocket Scientist
 * Subbayya Sivasankaranarayana Pillai (1901–1950), Indian mathematician
 * T. S. Ramasamy Pillai (1918–2006), Freedom-fighter, politician and former Member of the Legislative Assembly (India)
 * Trevin Bastiampillai (born 1985), Sri Lankan Canadian cricketer
 * Vella Pillay (1923-2004), South African economist and political activist
 * V. O. Chidambaram Pillai (1872–1936), Indian freedom fighter, popularly known as V.O.C. and as Kappalottiya Tamilan
 * Venkatarama Ramalingam Pillai (Namakkal Kavignar Ramalingam Pillai, 1888–1972), poet and freedom fighter.

Notable Malayali Pillais

 * B. Ravi Pillai (born 1953) Dubai-based Indian billionaire businessman
 * Changampuzha Krishna Pillai (1911-1948) was a celebrated Malayalam poet from Kerala
 * C. V. Raman Pillai (1858–1922), also known as C. V., was one of the major Indian novelists and playwrights and a pioneering playwright and novelist of Malayalam literature
 * Devasahayam Pillai (1712–1752) was an Indian layman and martyr of the Catholic Church
 * Divya Pillai Indian actress who appears in Malayalam films
 * Elamkulam Kunjan Pillai (1904 – 1973), known as Elamkulam, was an Indian historian, linguist and academic from Kerala
 * Janardhanan pillai (born 1946), also known as Janardhanan Nair, is an Indian actor, producer and a former Indian Air Force personnel who predominantly acts in Malayalam films
 * Kollam G. K. Pillai (1934-2016), Indian actor
 * K. M. Vasudevan Pillai (born 1946 in Kerala, India) is an Indian educationist, social entrepreneur, institution-builder, and philanthropist
 * K. Shankar Pillai (1902–1989), better known as Shankar, was an Indian cartoonist
 * Kumbalathu Sanku Pillai (1898-1969) Social reformer, politician and freedom fighter
 * Mannathu Padmanabha Pillai (1878-1970) was an Indian social reformer and freedom fighter from the south-western state of Kerala. He is recognised as the founder of the Nair Service Society (NSS)
 * Murali Pillai (1967), Singaporean politician and lawyer
 * Nanoo Pillai (1827–1886) was a Travancore statesman who served as the Diwan of Travancore from 1877 to 1880.
 * Nisha Pillai, Indian journalist based in London. She is a main news anchor for BBC World News
 * N. Krishna Pillai (1916-1988) was an Indian dramatist, literary critic, translator and historian of Malayalam language
 * N. N. Pillai (1918–1995) was an Indian playwright, actor, theatre director, orator, screenplay writer, lyricist and an I.N.A Freedom fighter
 * Omchery N. N. Pillai (born 1924) is an Indian Malayalam–language playwright, novelist and poet from Kerala
 * Pattom A. Thanu Pillai (1885-1970) was an Indian politician and freedom fighter who served as the 2nd Chief Minister of Kerala from 1960 to 1962. He was considered as a central figure in Kerala politics
 * Paravoor T. K. Narayana Pillai (1890-1971) was an Indian freedom fighter during the British Raj in India and was a member of the Indian National Congress (INC)
 * P. Govinda Pillai (1926 – 2012), Indian politician
 * P. S. Sreedharan Pillai (born 1954) is an Indian politician, attorney, and author, who is currently serving as the 19th and current Governor of Goa since 2021
 * Rajan Pillai (1947 – 1995) was an Indian businessman from Kerala, popularly known as the Biscuit Baron
 * Rajeev Pillai, Indian actor in Malayalam cinema
 * Ranj Pillai (born 1974) is a Canadian politician and premier of Yukon
 * Rhea Pillai, Indian model
 * Shobana Chandrakumar Pillai (1970) is an Indian actress and Bharatanatyam dancer
 * Swadeshabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai (1878–1916), journalist and political activist. Translated Karl Marx's biography into Malayalam
 * Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (17 April 1912 – 10 April 1999) Indian writer
 * V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai (born 1949), current Vice Chancellor of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)

title: Pillai (surname)