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Construction grammar

Construction grammar (often abbreviated CxG) is a family of theories within the field of cognitive linguistics which posit that constructions, or learned pairings of linguistic patterns with meanings, are the fundamental building blocks of human language. Constructions include words (aardvark, avocado), morphemes (anti-, -ing), fixed expressions and idioms (by and large, jog X's memory), and abstract grammatical rules such as the passive voice (The cat was hit by a car) or the ditransitive (Mary gave Alex the ball). Any linguistic pattern is considered to be a construction as long as some aspect of its form or its meaning cannot be predicted from its component parts, or from other constructions that are recognized to exist. In construction grammar, every utterance is understood to be a combination of multiple different constructions, which together specify its precise meaning and form.

Advocates of construction grammar argue that language and culture are not designed by people, but are 'emergent' or automatically constructed in a process which is comparable to natural selection in species  or the formation of natural constructions such as nests made by social insects. Constructions correspond to replicators or memes in memetics and other cultural replicator theories. It is argued that construction grammar is not an original model of cultural evolution, but for essential part the same as memetics. Construction grammar is associated with concepts from cognitive linguistics that aim to show in various ways how human rational and creative behaviour is automatic and not planned.

History
Construction grammar was first developed in the 1980s by linguists such as Charles Fillmore, Paul Kay, and George Lakoff, in order to analyze idioms and fixed expressions. Lakoff's 1977 paper "Linguistic Gestalts" put forward an early version of CxG, arguing that the meaning of an expression was not simply a function of the meanings of its parts. Instead, he suggested, constructions themselves must have meanings.

Another early study was "There-Constructions," which appeared as Case Study 3 in George Lakoff's Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. It argued that the meaning of the whole was not a function of the meanings of the parts, that odd grammatical properties of Deictic There-constructions followed from the pragmatic meaning of the construction, and that variations on the central construction could be seen as simple extensions using form-meaning pairs of the central construction.

Fillmore et al.'s (1988) paper on the English let alone construction was a second classic. These two papers propelled cognitive linguists into the study of CxG. Since the late 1990s there has been a shift towards a general preference for the usage-based model. The shift towards the usage-based approach in construction grammar has inspired the development of several corpus-based methodologies of constructional analysis (for example, collostructional analysis).

Concepts
One of the most distinctive features of CxG is its use of multi-word expressions and phrasal patterns as the building blocks of syntactic analysis. One example is the Correlative Conditional construction, found in the proverbial expression The bigger they come, the harder they fall. Construction grammarians point out that this is not merely a fixed phrase; the Correlative Conditional is a general pattern (The Xer, the Yer) with "slots" that can be filled by almost any comparative phrase (e.g. The more you think about it, the less you understand). Advocates of CxG argue these kinds of idiosyncratic patterns are more common than is often recognized, and that they are best understood as multi-word, partially filled constructions.

Construction grammar rejects the idea that there is a sharp dichotomy between lexical items, which are arbitrary and specific, and grammatical rules, which are completely general. Instead, CxG posits that there are linguistic patterns at every level of generality and specificity: from individual words, to partially filled constructions (e.g. drive X crazy), to fully abstract rules (e.g. subject–auxiliary inversion). All of these patterns are recognized as constructions.

In contrast to theories that posit an innate universal grammar for all languages, construction grammar holds that speakers learn constructions inductively as they are exposed to them, using general cognitive processes. It is argued that children pay close attention to each utterance they hear, and gradually make generalizations based on the utterances they have heard. Because constructions are learned, they are expected to vary considerably across different languages.

Grammatical construction
In construction grammar, as in general semiotics, the grammatical construction is a pairing of form and content. The formal aspect of a construction is typically described as a syntactic template, but the form covers more than just syntax, as it also involves phonological aspects, such as prosody and intonation. The content covers semantic as well as pragmatic meaning.

The semantic meaning of a grammatical construction is made up of conceptual structures postulated in cognitive semantics: image-schemas, frames, conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, prototypes of various kinds, mental spaces, and bindings across these (called "blends"). Pragmatics just becomes the cognitive semantics of communication—the modern version of the old Ross-Lakoff performative hypothesis from the 1960s.

The form and content are symbolically linked in the sense advocated by Langacker.

Thus a construction is treated like a sign in which all structural aspects are integrated parts and not distributed over different modules as they are in the componential model. Consequentially, not only constructions that are lexically fixed, like many idioms, but also more abstract ones like argument structure schemata, are pairings of form and conventionalized meaning. For instance, the ditransitive schema [S V IO DO] is said to express semantic content X CAUSES Y TO RECEIVE Z, just like kill means X CAUSES Y TO DIE.

In construction grammar, a grammatical construction, regardless of its formal or semantic complexity and make up, is a pairing of form and meaning. Thus words and word classes may be regarded as instances of constructions. Indeed, construction grammarians argue that all pairings of form and meaning are constructions, including phrase structures, idioms, words and even morphemes.

Syntax–lexicon continuum
Unlike the componential model, construction grammar denies any strict distinction between the two and proposes a syntax–lexicon continuum. The argument goes that words and complex constructions are both pairs of form and meaning and differ only in internal symbolic complexity. Instead of being discrete modules and thus subject to very different processes they form the extremes of a continuum (from regular to idiosyncratic): syntax > subcategorization frame > idiom > morphology > syntactic category > word/lexicon (these are the traditional terms; construction grammars use a different terminology).

Grammar as an inventory of constructions
In construction grammar, the grammar of a language is made up of taxonomic networks of families of constructions, which are based on the same principles as those of the conceptual categories known from cognitive linguistics, such as inheritance, prototypicality, extensions, and multiple parenting.

Four different models are proposed in relation to how information is stored in the taxonomies:

 * 1) Full-entry model
 * In the full-entry model information is stored redundantly at all relevant levels in the taxonomy, which means that it operates, if at all, with minimal generalization.
 * 1) Usage-based model
 * The usage-based model is based on inductive learning, meaning that linguistic knowledge is acquired in a bottom-up manner through use. It allows for redundancy and generalizations, because the language user generalizes over recurring experiences of use.
 * 1) Default inheritance model
 * According to the default inheritance model, each network has a default central form-meaning pairing from which all instances inherit their features. It thus operates with a fairly high level of generalization, but does also allow for some redundancy in that it recognizes extensions of different types.
 * 1) Complete inheritance model
 * In the complete inheritance model, information is stored only once at the most superordinate level of the network. Instances at all other levels inherit features from the superordinate item. The complete inheritance does not allow for redundancy in the networks.
 * 1) Complete inheritance model
 * In the complete inheritance model, information is stored only once at the most superordinate level of the network. Instances at all other levels inherit features from the superordinate item. The complete inheritance does not allow for redundancy in the networks.
 * In the complete inheritance model, information is stored only once at the most superordinate level of the network. Instances at all other levels inherit features from the superordinate item. The complete inheritance does not allow for redundancy in the networks.

Principle of no synonymy
Because construction grammar does not operate with surface derivations from underlying structures, it adheres to functionalist linguist Dwight Bolinger's principle of no synonymy, on which Adele Goldberg elaborates in her book.

This means that construction grammarians argue, for instance, that active and passive versions of the same proposition are not derived from an underlying structure, but are instances of two different constructions. As constructions are pairings of form and meaning, active and passive versions of the same proposition are not synonymous, but display differences in content: in this case the pragmatic content.

Some construction grammars
As mentioned above, Construction grammar is a "family" of theories rather than one unified theory. There are a number of formalized Construction grammar frameworks. Some of these are:

Berkeley Construction Grammar
Berkeley Construction Grammar (BCG: formerly also called simply Construction Grammar in upper case) focuses on the formal aspects of constructions and makes use of a unification-based framework for description of syntax, not unlike head-driven phrase structure grammar. Its proponents/developers include Charles Fillmore, Paul Kay, Laura Michaelis, and to a certain extent Ivan Sag. Immanent within BCG works like Fillmore and Kay 1995 and Michaelis and Ruppenhofer 2001 is the notion that phrasal representations—embedding relations—should not be used to represent combinatoric properties of lexemes or lexeme classes. For example, BCG abandons the traditional practice of using non-branching domination (NP over N' over N) to describe undetermined nominals that function as NPs, instead introducing a determination construction that requires ('asks for') a non-maximal nominal sister and a lexical 'maximality' feature for which plural and mass nouns are unmarked. BCG also offers a unification-based representation of 'argument structure' patterns as abstract verbal lexeme entries ('linking constructions'). These linking constructions include transitive, oblique goal and passive constructions. These constructions describe classes of verbs that combine with phrasal constructions like the VP construction but contain no phrasal information in themselves.

Sign Based Construction Grammar
In the mid-2000s, several of the developers of BCG, including Charles Fillmore, Paul Kay, Ivan Sag and Laura Michaelis, collaborated in an effort to improve the formal rigor of BCG and clarify its representational conventions. The result was Sign Based Construction Grammar (SBCG). SBCG is based on a multiple-inheritance hierarchy of typed feature structures. The most important type of feature structure in SBCG is the sign, with subtypes word, lexeme and phrase. The inclusion of phrase within the canon of signs marks a major departure from traditional syntactic thinking. In SBCG, phrasal signs are licensed by correspondence to the mother of some licit construct of the grammar. A construct is a local tree with signs at its nodes. Combinatorial constructions define classes of constructs. Lexical class constructions describe combinatoric and other properties common to a group of lexemes. Combinatorial constructions include both inflectional and derivational constructions. SBCG is both formal and generative; while cognitive-functional grammarians have often opposed their standards and practices to those of formal, generative grammarians, there is in fact no incompatibility between a formal, generative approach and a rich, broad-coverage, functionally based grammar. It simply happens that many formal, generative theories are descriptively inadequate grammars. SBCG is generative in a way that prevailing syntax-centered theories are not: its mechanisms are intended to represent all of the patterns of a given language, including idiomatic ones; there is no 'core' grammar in SBCG. SBCG a licensing-based theory, as opposed to one that freely generates syntactic combinations and uses general principles to bar illicit ones: a word, lexeme or phrase is well formed if and only if it is described by a lexeme or construction. Recent SBCG works have expanded on the lexicalist model of idiomatically combining expressions sketched out in Sag 2012.

Goldbergian/Lakovian construction grammar
The type of construction grammar associated with linguists like Goldberg and Lakoff looks mainly at the external relations of constructions and the structure of constructional networks. In terms of form and function, this type of construction grammar puts psychological plausibility as its highest desideratum. It emphasizes experimental results and parallels with general cognitive psychology. It also draws on certain principles of cognitive linguistics. In the Goldbergian strand, constructions interact with each other in a network via four inheritance relations: polysemy link, subpart link, metaphorical extension, and finally instance link.

Cognitive grammar
Sometimes, Ronald Langacker's cognitive grammar framework is described as a type of construction grammar. Cognitive grammar deals mainly with the semantic content of constructions, and its central argument is that conceptual semantics is primary to the degree that form mirrors, or is motivated by, content. Langacker argues that even abstract grammatical units like part-of-speech classes are semantically motivated and involve certain conceptualizations.

Radical construction grammar
William A. Croft's radical construction grammar is designed for typological purposes and takes into account cross-linguistic factors. It deals mainly with the internal structure of constructions. Radical construction grammar is totally non-reductionist, and Croft argues that constructions are not derived from their parts, but that the parts are derived from the constructions they appear in. Thus, in radical construction grammar, constructions are linked to Gestalts. Radical construction grammar rejects the idea that syntactic categories, roles, and relations are universal and argues that they are not only language-specific, but also construction specific. Thus, there are no universals that make reference to formal categories, since formal categories are language- and construction-specific. The only universals are to be found in the patterns concerning the mapping of meaning onto form. Radical construction grammar rejects the notion of syntactic relations altogether and replaces them with semantic relations. Like Goldbergian/Lakovian construction grammar and cognitive grammar, radical construction grammar is closely related to cognitive linguistics, and like cognitive grammar, radical construction grammar appears to be based on the idea that form is semantically motivated.

Embodied construction grammar
Embodied construction grammar (ECG), which is being developed by the Neural Theory of Language (NTL) group at ICSI, UC Berkeley, and the University of Hawaii, particularly including Benjamin Bergen and Nancy Chang, adopts the basic constructionist definition of a grammatical construction, but emphasizes the relation of constructional semantic content to embodiment and sensorimotor experiences. A central claim is that the content of all linguistic signs involves mental simulations and is ultimately dependent on basic image schemas of the kind advocated by Mark Johnson and George Lakoff, and so ECG aligns itself with cognitive linguistics. Like construction grammar, embodied construction grammar makes use of a unification-based model of representation. A non-technical introduction to the NTL theory behind embodied construction grammar as well as the theory itself and a variety of applications can be found in Jerome Feldman's From Molecule to Metaphor: A Neural Theory of Language (MIT Press, 2006).

Fluid construction grammar
Fluid construction grammar (FCG) was designed by Luc Steels and his collaborators for doing experiments on the origins and evolution of language. FCG is a fully operational and computationally implemented formalism for construction grammars and proposes a uniform mechanism for parsing and production. Moreover, it has been demonstrated through robotic experiments that FCG grammars can be grounded in embodiment and sensorimotor experiences. FCG integrates many notions from contemporary computational linguistics such as feature structures and unification-based language processing. Constructions are considered bidirectional and hence usable both for parsing and production. Processing is flexible in the sense that it can even cope with partially ungrammatical or incomplete sentences. FCG is called 'fluid' because it acknowledges the premise that language users constantly change and update their grammars. The research on FCG is conducted at Sony CSL Paris and the AI Lab at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Implemented construction grammar
Most of the above approaches to construction grammar have not been implemented as a computational model for large scale practical usage in Natural Language Processing frameworks but interest in construction grammar has been shown by more traditional computational linguists as a contrast to the current boom in more opaque deep learning models. This is largely due to the representational convenience of CxG models and their potential to integrate with current tokenizers as a perceptual layer for further processing in neurally inspired models. Approaches to integrate constructional grammar with existing Natural Language Processing frameworks include hand-built feature sets and templates and used computational models to identify their prevalence in text collections, but some suggestions for more emergent models have been proposed, e.g. in the 2023 Georgetown University Roundtable on Linguistics.

Criticism
Esa Itkonen, who defends humanistic linguistics and opposes Darwinian linguistics, questions the originality of the work of Adele Goldberg, Michael Tomasello, Gilles Fauconnier, William Croft and George Lakoff. According to Itkonen, construction grammarians have appropriated old ideas in linguistics adding some false claims. For example, construction type and conceptual blending correspond to analogy and blend, respectively, in the works of William Dwight Whitney, Leonard Bloomfield, Charles Hockett, and others.

At the same time, the claim made by construction grammarians, that their research represents a continuation of Saussurean linguistics, has been considered misleading. German philologist Elisabeth Leiss regards construction grammar as regress, linking it with the 19th century social darwinism of August Schleicher. There is a dispute between the advocates of construction grammar and memetics, an evolutionary approach which adheres to the Darwinian view of language and culture. Advocates of construction grammar argue that memetics takes the perspective of intelligent design to cultural evolution while construction grammar rejects human free will in language construction; but, according to memetician Susan Blackmore, this makes construction grammar the same as memetics.

Lastly, the most basic syntactic patterns of English, namely the core grammatical relations subject-verb, verb object and verb-indirect object, are counter-evidence for the very concept of constructions as pairings of linguistic patterns with meanings. Instead of the postulated form-meaning pairing, core grammatical relations possess a wide variability of semantics, exhibiting a neutralization of semantic distinctions. For instance, in a detailed discussion of the dissociation of grammatical case-roles from semantics, Talmy Givon lists the multiple semantic roles of subjects and direct objects in English. As these phenomena are well-established, some linguists propose that core grammatical relations be excluded from CxG as they are not constructions, leaving the theory to be a model merely of idioms or infrequently used, minor patterns.

As the pairing of the syntactic construction and its prototypical meaning are learned in early childhood, children should initially learn the basic constructions with their prototypical semantics, that is, 'agent of action' for the subject in the SV relation, 'affected object of agent's action' for the direct object term in VO, and 'recipient in transfer of possession of object' for the indirect-object in VI. Anat Ninio examined the speech of a large sample of young English-speaking children and found that they do not in fact learn the syntactic patterns with the prototypical semantics claimed to be associated with them, or with any single semantics. The major reason is that such pairings are not consistently modelled for them in parental speech. Examining the maternal speech addressed to the children, Ninio also found that the pattern of subjects, direct objects and indirect objects in mothers’ speech does not provide the required prototypical semantics for the construction to be established. Adele Goldberg and her associates had previously reported similar negative results concerning the pattern of direct objects in parental speech. These findings are a blow to the CxG theory that relies on a learned association of form and prototypical meaning in order to set up the constructions said to form the basic units of syntax.

title: Construction grammar


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Tree of Jesse

The Tree of Jesse is a depiction in art of the ancestors of Jesus Christ, shown in a branching tree which rises from Jesse of Bethlehem, the father of King David. It is the original use of the family tree as a schematic representation of a genealogy.

The Tree of Jesse originates in a passage in the biblical Book of Isaiah which describes metaphorically the descent of the Messiah and is accepted by Christians as referring to Jesus. The various figures depicted in the lineage of Jesus are drawn from those names listed in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke.

The subject is often seen in Christian art, particularly in that of the medieval period. The earliest example is an illuminated manuscript that dates from the 11th century. There are many examples in medieval psalters, because of the relation to King David, son of Jesse, and writer of the Psalms. Other examples include stained glass windows, stone carvings around the portals of medieval cathedrals, and painting on walls and ceilings. The Tree of Jesse also appears in smaller art forms such as embroideries and ivories.

Origins
Depictions of the Jesse Tree are based on a passage from the Book of Isaiah. "'And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots' (King James Version)."

From the Latin Vulgate Bible used in the Middle Ages: "et egredietur virga de radice Iesse et flos de radice eius ascendet."

Flos, pl flores is Latin for flower. Virga is a "green twig", "rod" or "broom", as well as a convenient near-pun with Virgo or Virgin, which undoubtedly influenced the development of the image. Thus Jesus is the Virga Jesse or "stem of Jesse". In the New Testament the lineage of Jesus is traced by two of the Gospel writers, Matthew in descending order, and Luke in ascending order. Luke's Gospel's description in chapter 3 begins with Jesus himself and is traced all the way back, via Nathan to David and then on to "Adam, which was [the son] of God.". Matthew's Gospel opens with the words: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." With this beginning, Matthew shows the Abrahamic and royal descent, passing through David, but then through Solomon.

See Genealogy of Jesus for more explanation of the differences, but both lineages permit the interpretation that Jesus is the "stem of Jesse" by his descent from Jesse's son, David.

Use
Pictorial representations of the Jesse Tree show a symbolic tree or vine with spreading branches to represent the genealogy in accordance with Isaiah's prophecy. The 12th-century monk Hervaeus expressed the medieval understanding of the image, based on the Vulgate text: "The patriarch Jesse belonged to the royal family, that is why the root of Jesse signifies the lineage of kings. As to the rod, it symbolises Mary as the flower symbolises Jesus Christ." In the medieval period, when heredity was all-important, much greater emphasis than today was placed on the actual royal descent of Jesus, especially by royalty and the nobility, including those who had joined the clergy. Between them, these groups were responsible for much of the patronage of the arts.

During the Medieval era the symbol of the tree as an expression of lineage was adopted by the nobility and has passed into common usage initially in the form of the family tree and later as a mode of expressing any line of descent. The form is widely used as a table in such disciplines as biology. It is also used to show lines of responsibility in personnel structures such as government departments.

Modes of depiction

The Jesse Tree has been depicted in almost every medium of Christian art. In particular, it is the subject of many stained glass windows and illuminated manuscripts. It is also found in wall paintings, architectural carvings, funerary monuments, floor tiles and embroidery. Generally only a few of the most well-known individuals, like Kings David and Solomon, are represented on Jesse Trees, rather than an attempt to display the entire lineage.

The first representations of the passage in Isaiah, from about 1000 AD in the West, show a "shoot" in the form of a straight stem or a flowering branch held in the hand most often by the Virgin, or by Jesus when held by Mary, by the prophet Isaiah or by an ancestor figure. The shoot as an attribute acted as a reminder of the prophecy, see also the tradition, apparently older, of the Golden Rose given by the Pope. In the Byzantine world, the Tree figures only as a normal-looking tree in the background of some Nativity scenes, also a reminder to the viewer. Indeed, the Tree was always far more common in Northern Europe, where it may have originated, than in Italy.

There exist also other forms of representation of the Genealogy of Jesus which do not employ the Jesse Tree, the most famous being that painted in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo.

The typical form of the image

The most typical form which the Jesse Tree takes is to show the figure of Jesse, often larger than all the rest, reclining or sleeping (perhaps by analogy to Adam when his rib was taken) at the foot of the pictorial space. From his side or his navel springs the trunk of a tree or vine which ascends, branching to either side. On the branches, usually surrounded by formally scrolling tendrils of foliage, are figures representing the ancestors of Christ. The trunk generally ascends vertically to Mary and then Christ at the top.

The number of figures depicted varies greatly, depending on the amount of room available for the design. As a maximum, if the longer ancestry from Luke is used, there are 43 generations between Jesse and Jesus. The identity of the figures also varies, and may not be specified, but Solomon and David are usually included, and often all shown wear crowns. Most Jesse Trees include Mary immediately beneath the figure of Jesus (or, in the Gothic period, show a Virgin and Child), emphasising that she was the means by which the shoot of Jesse was born. See for example, Sermon 24 of St Leo the Great: "In which rod, no doubt the blessed Virgin Mary is predicted, who sprung from the stock of Jesse and David and fecundated by the Holy Ghost, brought forth a new flower of human flesh, becoming a virgin-mother". Saint Joseph is rarely shown, although unlike Mary he is a link in the Gospel genealogies. It was believed in the Middle Ages that the House of David could only marry within itself, and that she was independently descended from Jesse. Sometimes Jesus and other figures are shown in the cups of flowers, as the fruit or blossom of the Tree. The Jesse Tree was the only prophecy in the Old Testament to be so literally and frequently illustrated, and so came also to stand for the Prophets, and their foretelling of Christ, in general. Both the St-Denis and Chartres windows include columns of prophets, as do many depictions. Often they carry banderoles with a quotation from their writings, and they may point to Christ, as the foretold Messiah. The inclusion of kings and prophets was also an assertion of the inclusion and relevance in the biblical canon of books that some groups had rejected in the past.

While particularly popular in the Medieval era, there were also many depictions of the Jesse Tree in Gothic Revival art of the 19th century. The 20th century has also produced a number of fine examples.

The Vysehrad Codex and Lambeth Palace Bible
The earliest known representation of the Jesse Tree can be firmly dated to 1086 and is in the Vyšehrad Codex, the Coronation Gospels of Vratislav II, the first king of Bohemia, which was previously a dukedom.

In a paper analysing this image, J.A. Hayes Williams points out that the iconography employed is very different from that usually found in such images, which she argues relates to an assertion of the rightful kingship of the royal patron. The page showing the Jesse Tree is accompanied by a number of other illuminated pages of which four depict the Ancestors of Christ. The Jesse Tree has not been used to support a number of figures, as is usual. Instead, the passage from Isaiah has been depicted in a very literal way. In the picture, the prophet Isaiah approaches Jesse from beneath whose feet is springing a tree, and wraps around him a banner with words upon it which translate literally as:- "A little rod from Jesse gives rise to a splendid flower", following the language of the Vulgate. Instead of the ancestors seen in later depictions, seven doves (with haloes) perch in the branches. These, in a motif from Byzantine art, represent the Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit as described by the Apostle Paul. Williams goes on to compare it with two other famous images, the Tree of Jesse window at Chartres Cathedral and the Lambeth Bible in England.

Williams says:- "'While depictions of the Jesse Tree originated in Bohemia, the concept became widely popular throughout Europe and the British Isles. Within sixty years the composition had exploded and expanded, with rearranged original elements and new ones added.'"

However this claim of Bohemian origin may be somewhat overstated, as there is an incipient version in an Anglo-Norman manuscript of similar date to the Vysehrad Codex.

In the first decades of the 12th century, the early Cistercian illuminators of Cîteaux Abbey played an important part in the development of the image of the Tree of Jesse, which was used to counter renewed tendencies to deny the humanity of Mary, which culminated in Catharism. However, as Bernard of Clairvaux, strongly hostile to imagery, increased in influence in the order, their use of imagery ceased. The Lambeth Bible is dated between 1140 and 1150. The Jesse Tree illustration comes at the start of Isaiah and differs greatly from the earlier one, having much more the form that is familiar from both manuscript and stained glass versions. In it, Jesse lies at the border of the page with the tree springing from his side. The branches of the tree are depicted as highly formalised circular tendrils which enclose six pairs or trios of figures. At the centre, tall and highly stylised in the same manner as 12th-century columnar statues, stands a full-length Blessed Virgin Mary from whose head spring tendrils which enclose a bust of her Son, Jesus. He is encircled by the seven doves, with outspread wings; this became the usual depiction of them. Four Prophets with scrolls occupy medallions in the corners.

Other illuminated manuscripts
The Tree appears in several other Romanesque Bibles apart from the Lambeth Bible, usually as a large historiated initial at the start of either Isaiah or Matthew. The Saint-Bénigne Bible is perhaps the earliest appearance, with just Jesse and the doves of the "Seven Gifts". The Capuchin's Bible (see picture) is a later example, c. 1180, in which a Jesse Tree forms the L of Liber generationis.. at the start of the Gospel of Matthew.

The Tree is also often found in Psalters, especially English manuscripts, illustrating the B initial of Beatus Vir, the beginning of Psalm 1, which often occupies a whole page. Sometimes this is the only fully illuminated page, and if it is historiated (i.e. contains a pictured scene) the Tree is the usual subject. When not historiated, the initial had for about two hundred years been most often made up of, or filled with, spiraling plant tendrils, often with animals or men caught up in them, so the development to the tree was a relatively easy step. Indeed, although Jesse's son David was believed to be the author of the Psalms, it has been suggested that the tradition of using a Jesse Tree here arose largely because it was an imposing design that worked well filling a large B shape.

An early example is the late 12th-century Huntingfield Psalter, and an especially splendid one from the early 14th century is the Gorleston Psalter in the British Library. In these and most other examples Jesse lies at the bottom of the B, and the Virgin is no larger than other figures. In the recently re-discovered Macclesfield Psalter of about 1320 another very elaborate Tree grows beyond the B, sending branches round the sides and bottom of the text. In the Psalter and Hours of John, Duke of Bedford (British Library Add MS 42131), of about 1420–23, the Tree frames the bottom and both sides of the page, while the initial B at the top of the page contains the anointing of King David.

Some continental manuscripts give the scene a whole page with no initial. "Various selections" of the elements appear, and prophets and sometimes even the Cumaean Sybil (Ingeburg Psalter c. 1210) stand in the corners or to the side. A Lectionary of before 1164 from Cologne unusually shows Jesse dead in a tomb or coffin, from which the tree grows. Romanesque depictions usually show Jesse asleep on open ground or on a simple couch - all that can be told from the Bible about his circumstances is that he had sheep, which David herded. By the Gothic period small Trees are found in many types of manuscript, and Jesse is often more comfortably accommodated in a large bed.

Stained glass
Stained glass was a popular medium used in many eras to illuminate the sacred mysteries of the Old Covenant's relationship with the genealogy of Christ in the New Covenant.

Jesse Tree at Chartres Cathedral
Among the famous stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral in Northern France is the Jesse Tree window, of 1140–50, the far right of three windows above the Royal Portal and beneath the western rose window. It derives from the oldest known (and almost certainly the original) complex form of the Jesse Tree, with the tree rising from a sleeping Jesse, a window placed in the Saint-Denis Basilica by Abbot Suger in about 1140, which is now heavily restored.

The Chartres window comprises eight square central panels, with seven rectangular ones on either side, separated, as is usual in 12th-century windows with no stone tracery, by heavy iron armatures. In the lowest central panel reclines the figure of Jesse, with the tree rising from his middle. In each of the seven sections it branches out into a regular pattern of scrolling branches, each bearing a bunch of leaves that take on the heraldic form of the Fleur de Lys, very common in French stained glass. Central to each panel is a figure:- David, Solomon, two more crowned figures, Mary (mother of Jesus) and, surrounded by the doves bearing the gifts of the Spirit, a majestic figure of Christ, larger than the rest. In each of the narrower panels, edged by richly patterned borders, are the figures of fourteen prophets bearing scrolls.

Apart from the theological importance the design is one of the few subjects that works very well as a unified composition for one of the tall vertical spaces of the windows of Romanesque and Gothic churches; most other tall windows were divided into separate scenes. Saint-Denis and Chartres provided a model for many other such windows, notably the Jesse Tree windows of Canterbury Cathedral, c. 1200, probably also made in France, and St. Kunibert, Cologne of 1220–35. Section references:- Brown, Lee, Seddon and Stephens.

York Minster, England
A small and much fragmented panel from a Jesse Tree window, at York Minster is thought to be the oldest surviving stained glass in England, dating from perhaps as early as 1150.

Canterbury Cathedral, England
This window, dating from c. 1200, had an unfortunate history. Having survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the depredations of the Puritans and the ravages of time, it was dismantled and removed, with many other original windows during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and replaced by a copy. Fortunately two surviving panels were later returned and are in place in the Corona Chapel at the eastern end of the building.

Wells Cathedral
Wells Cathedral has a rare example of an intact 14th-century Jesse Tree window which survived the iconoclasm of the 17th-century and the losses of World War II. The window is located high up in the eastern end of the choir. The colours of this window are red, yellow, green, white and brown, with very little blue. The window is wide for its height, having seven lights, and being topped by tracery. Consequently, the tendrils of the Tree spread out sideways and the central panel has only three figures: the reclining Jesse at the bottom; the Blessed Virgin holding the Christ Child in her arms and above, the crucified Christ. There are fourteen more figures in the window, identifiable in some cases by their attributes, such as David's harp and Solomon's model of the Temple of Jerusalem. As well as the tendrils, the figures are framed by typical 14th-century canopies and bases displaying the name of each person. The window is currently undergoing extensive conservation.

St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury
St Mary's Church in Shrewsbury, England contains an enormous 14th-century depiction of the Jesse Tree. By tradition, it was made for the Franciscan church in Shrewsbury, moved to St Chad's Church after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and then to St Mary's in 1792. Although it was much restored in 1858 by David and Charles Evans, much of the original glass remains and is dated between 1327 and 1353.

Other examples are at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (1247), the Cathedral of Le Mans (13th century) and Evreux Cathedral in Normandy (15th century).

Renaissance and classical
Dorchester Abbey, Dorchester, Oxfordshire

The north window in the sanctuary is unique as it combines tracery and sculpture with stained glass in a single theme. It shows the ascent of Christ from Jesse. The tree with five undulating branches carved in foliage rises from the sculptured recumbent form of Jesse. Much of the 14th-century glass is fragmentary, but still in its original tracery. The figures of Christ and the Virgin and Child with other figures are intact. The glass contains figures from a Tree of Jesse and additional figures are carved on stone mullions.

St. Leonard's Church, Leverington, Cambridgeshire

A 15th-century restored Tree of Jesse window in the chapel of the east end of the church. Thirteen of the figures are original, seventeen are partly restored and thirty-one are modern. The kings are dressed in short doublets which are compared with similar figures in the manuscript of 1640 representing the victories of Edward IV which is in the British Library at Harley MS 7353.

Holy Well and St. Dyfnog's Church, Llanrhaeadr, Denbighshire, Wales.

The Tree of Jesse window was made in 1533. The window depicts Jesse asleep in a walled garden, from him springs a many branched family tree, in which can be seen the ancestor kings of christ. The figures resemble 'court' playing cards, which took their form at about the time the window was made.

Saint-Étienne church, Beauvais, France

A magnificent Renaissance three-light window by Engrand Le Prince (1522–1524), with the royal ancestors richly dressed in fashionable garments, rising from large flower-pods. Jesse has a splendid four-poster bed. In the tracery, the central section has the form of a Sacred Heart and contains the Virgin and Christ Child rising from a lily and surrounded by radiant light.

Cathedral Notre-Dame, Moulins, Central France

Tree of Jesse window above Jesse can be seen a king on horseback from the 15th or 16th century.

19th and early 20th century
St. Bartholomew's Church, Rogate, West Sussex.

The Jesse window of 1892 by Lavers & Westlake is a colourful design. All the figures are seated in the vine except for the Virgin Mary who is seated within a flowering virga, outside the vine. Above her head are seven doves representing the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. The figures in the window are; in the first light – Hezekiah, Solomon, Melchizedek. Middle light – Jesse, David, the Virgin and Christchild on her knee. Third light – Jehoshaphat, Asa, and Isaiah. The three light window is dedicated to the Honourable J J Carnagie born 8 July 1807 died 18 January 1892, placed in the church by Henry Allen Rolls (brother of the co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited) in 1892.

Pusey House Chapel, Oxford, Oxfordshire.

In the east window there is a Tree of Jesse commemorating Pusey, who was one of the leaders of the 19th-century Oxford Movement in the Church of England. Pusey died in 1882 and Pusey House was established as his memorial. The window is by Sir Ninian Comper and contains figures of Old Testament prophets, and fathers of the Church, representing some of the areas of his study, surrounding Christ in Majesty and the Virgin and Child. The figure of Pusey can be seen, kneeling at the base of the second light from the right.

St. Mary of the Assumption Church, Froyle, Hampshire

The Tree of Jesse 5 light east window is by Kempe/Burlison & Grylls 1896. Nineteen figures can be seen including Jesse, King David, King Solomon, the Blessed Virgin Mary and Child.

St. Matthew's Church, Newcastle, Northumberland.

Tree of Jesse window by Kempe 1899.

St. Peter's Church, Stonegate, Wadhurst, E.Sussex

The 5 light west window is a Tree of Jesse window made by James Powell & Sons, London in 1910. Depicting 21 characters including Jesse, King David, King Solomon, The Virgin Mary and Child.

All Saints Church, Hove, East Sussex

The Tree of Jesse window at the west end of the south aisle is by Clement Bell, installed by the firm Clayton & Bell in 1924. The window embodies a profusion of rich deep colours, reds, blues, dark green, mauve and gold. It has four upright sections, surmounted by quatrefoil insets depicting the Mother & Child, flanked by Joseph and Jacob. Below, shown in kingly attire is the genealogical lineage of Joseph with some of his forebears from the house of David, Salathiel, Zorobabel, Sadoc, Matthan, Ozias, Jehoshaphat, Ezekias, Josias, Roboam, King David, Solomon and Asa. Below these are the prophet Isaiah a recumbent Jesse, and in the bottom corner Matthew recording these details in the opening of his gospel.

St. George's Church, Slough, Britwell, Berkshire.

A five light Tree of Jesse window is mentioned in the church inventory. A huge and spectacular window in 1 in glass, set in concrete, and made by James Powell & Sons and John Baker in 1960, it was demolished in October 2004.

St. John the Baptist Church, Claines, Worcester

This church has a fine 19th-century mosaic paving depicting the Tree of Jesse. It was designed and executed by Aston Webb.

Modern
St. James's Church, Portsmouth, Milton, Hampshire

The consecration of St. James Church took place in 1913, built on a north–south axis in Gothic form. The addition of the Tree of Jesse stained glass east window, inserted to mark the church's 21st anniversary (1954). The window by Sir Ninian Comper shows the descent of Jesus, through Mary, from King David, the youngest son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite.

St. Andrew's Church, Swavesey, Cambridgeshire

The east window in the Lady Chapel contains a 1967 Tree of Jesse by Francis Skeat. In the letters to the incumbent and the churchwardens Skeat writes:

"'The window scheme of my design is intended to symbolise the descent of Our Lord from Abraham and the patriarchs as detailed in the opening chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. It is not merely a Jesse Tree since it goes back before his time...........'"

Jesse appears in the right hand light and is in a standing position facing left. The figures in the window are:- first light, Boaz; second light, Ruth and above her Jacob; middle light, Abraham and Isaac; above them, the Blessed Virgin Mary and Child; at the top, Asa; fourth light, David with Solomon above him; fifth light, Jesse.

The text at the bottom of the window reads:-

"Who for us men, and for our Salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man."

Cathedral Notre-Dame, Clermont-Ferrand, France

Tree of Jesse rose window 1992; with at the centre the Virgin seated, crowned, and on her lap the Christ-child with his arms extended. Eight glass medallions surrounding contain Jesse lying in the lower medallion, other figures including David and Solomon each holding scrolls, and in the top medallion the Holy Spirit represented by a Dove.

'''Saint Louis Abbey, St. Louis. United States'''

This newly built abbey has a Jesse Tree window, a fine arts project by students who made the window over a period of 4½ years. Twenty-one panels make up the 16' × 5' Jesse Tree window, based on the 12th-century Jesse Tree from Chartres Cathedral. Inspired by the design, the students have begun creating their own stained glass window depicting the lineage of St. Louis Priory School.

Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, Wales

The Tree of Jesse window by Geoffrey Webb is a feature of the Lady Chapel and marks the first stage in the restoration of the cathedral following damage in the Second World War.

Virga Jesse Basilica, Hasselt

After World War II destruction of the building.

Collégiale de Romont (Fribourg), Switzerland

Series of stained glass windows by Franco-Argentinian painter Sergio de Castro on the subject The Prophets, featuring the Tree of Jesse, 1980.

Painting

The large flat wooden ceiling in the Church of St Michael, Hildesheim of c. 1200 has the space to include a complex iconographic scheme based around the tree, which encompasses Adam and Eve, the Prophets and the Four Evangelists.(whole ceiling illustrated below) Panel paintings are rare, but a German example of c. 1470 (Darmstadt) shows a Tree on the outside of the wings of a triptych. A large Polish baroque oil by Michael Willmann (1678, Kościół Wniebowzięcia NMP, Krzeszów) shows a typically crowded Baroque apotheosis scene, with thin tendrils lacing round the figures, but not supporting them.

The nave ceiling of Ely Cathedral was painted with a scheme rather similar to Hildesheim by the gentleman artist Henry Styleman Le Strange, who began in 1858. After his death (leaving no detailed drawings for the remainder) in 1862, it was completed by another amateur artist, Thomas Gambier Parry using his special Gambier Parry process with lavender oil.

Architectural stone-carving

Relatively small-scale Jesse Trees feature in prominent positions in many medieval churches, most notably under a statue of St James on the central column of the famous main entrance (the Portico de la Gloria of 1168–88) of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Another masterpiece of Romanesque stone-carving, the cloister of the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, has a Tree on a flat panel carved in relief. Several 13th-century French cathedrals have Trees in the arches of doorways: Notre-Dame of Laon, Amiens Cathedral, and Chartres (central arch, North portal - as well as the window). However these mostly show the ancestors in archivolts on both sides of an arch, and although they are connected by tendrils, the coherence of the image is rather lost. Another popular way of showing the ancestry of Christ was to have a row or gallery of statues of the Kings of Judah (part of the ancestral line from Jesse) on the facade, as at Notre Dame de Paris, but these too go beyond the image of the Tree. In a shorthand version, a statue of the Virgin and Child on an entrance trumeau to Freiburg Minster is supported by a Jesse sleeping on a chair (c. 1300).

Church of St Cuthbert, Wells, Somerset. St Cuthbert's Church formerly held a sculpted Tree of Jesse forming the reredos in its south transept, its components arranged around the east window. The contract survives, and shows that it was made in 1470 by John Stowell. It was destroyed during the Reformation or Interregnum, but the outline of the figure of Jesse is still visible, and many fragments of sculpture also survive.

Christchurch Priory, Dorset. Christchurch Priory contains a boldly carved reredos in high-relief of the 1350s in the form of the Tree of Jesse. The figures of Jesse, King David and another prophet all survive; and Christ is represented as part of a nativity scene.

Wood carving
Priory Church of St Mary, Abergavenny, Wales. The Priory Church of St Mary, Abergavenny, formerly held a 15th-century composition, described by Thomas Churchyard in 1587 as "a most famous worke in maner of a genealogie of Kings, called the roote of Jesse". By this date it had been destroyed during the Reformation, but what survives is the larger than life-sized recumbent figure of Jesse himself, carved from a single piece of oak. It has been described by Andrew Graham-Dixon as "the most impressive wood carving to have escaped the bonfires of the Reformation in Wales"; and by Phillip Lindley as "without doubt one of the finest pieces of fifteenth-century wood sculpture remaining in England or Wales". It is unclear what form the rest of the tree originally took, but in 2016 a new stained-glass Jesse window designed by Helen Whittaker was installed in the church, incorporating the wooden Jesse at its foot.

Abbotsford House Chapel, Abbotsford, Nr Melrose, Borders, Scotland. The Chapel of Abbotsford House, built in 1855 by Sir Walter Scott's granddaughter Charlotte, houses a Flemish Gothic carved and painted wooden altar front of c. 1480, depicting the Tree of Jesse. It was purchased by her husband, James Hope-Scott.

Church of Saint Francis, Porto, Portugal. An 18th-century Tree of Jesse carved in wood in Baroque style, it is three-dimensional and has coloured and gilded figures perched among its branches. Thirteen figures with the black bearded figure of Jesse lying on the bottom. The tree culminates with a picture of the Madonna and Child and a dove above them. On either side of the tree are other figures who appear to be either singing or reading from an open book which they are holding.

Other pictural art
Ivory from Bavaria The rectangular back of an ivory comb (right) from Bavaria, from about 1200, is delicately carved with a Tree of Jesse scene, showing Jesse lying with the tree emerging from his navel. Two branches form a mandorla around the Blessed Virgin Mary who raises one hand to support the infant Christ, while with her other, she holds a scroll. A prophet stands to either side.

San Zeno, Verona A bronze west door from the Basilica of St Zeno in Verona has a Tree in relief of about 1138 on a single panel, with Jesse, Christ and four ancestors.

St Mark's Basilica, Venice A large mosaic Tree was put on the north wall of the north transept in the 1540s, by the Bianchini brothers as mosaicists, following a design by Salviati.

Monstrance from Augsburg A late 17th-century monstrance from Augsburg incorporates a version of the traditional design, with Jesse asleep on the base, the tree as the stem, and Christ and twelve ancestors arranged around the holder for the host.

Cathedral Notre-Dame, Antwerp, Belgium. An embroidered cope depicting the Tree of Jesse.

Abbey Church, Buckfast Abbey, Devon

The church was rebuilt on medieval foundations between 1905 and 1937. The marble floor of the Lady chapel depicts the Tree of Jesse made in the Abbey's own workshops in Byzantine style mosaic.

The Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Palestinian Territories A large bas-relief of the Tree of Jesse by religious sculptor Czesław Dźwigaj was incorporated into the Church of St. Catherine within the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2009, as the gift of Pope Benedict XVI during his trip to the Holy Land. Measuring 3.25 metres wide by 4 metres high, its focus is an olive tree representing the Tree of Jesse, which displays Christ's lineage from Abraham to St. Joseph and other biblical motifs. Situated in the passage used by pilgrims making their way to the Grotto of the Nativity, the bas-relief also incorporates symbolism from the Old Testament. The upper portion is dominated by a crowned figure of Christ the King posed with open arms blessing the Earth.

Poetry and music
The symbolic device of the Tree of Jesse has featured in Christian hymns since at least the 8th century, when Cosmas the Melodist wrote a hymn about the Virgin Mary flowering from the Root of Jesse, Ραβδος εκ της ριζης (translated in 1862 by John Mason Neale as "Rod of the Root of Jesse").

Virga Jesse floruit, an expression referring to the Virgin Mary and the birth of Christ, put to music, e.g., In addition, the Tree of Jesse is also referenced in the medieval series of lyrical poems known as the Cantigas de Santa Maria, written during the reign of Alfonso X in the thirteenth century. Cantiga 20, "Virga de Jesse" makes use of the Tree of Jesse in the refrain of the song, further demonstrating its influence on medieval culture and thought:
 * As a Gradual:
 * (Alleluja, alleluja.)
 * Virga Jesse floruit:
 * Virgo Deum et hominem genuit:
 * pacem Deus reddidit,
 * in se reconcilians ima summis.
 * Alleluja.
 * William Byrd, included in his first book of Gradualia.
 * Virga Jesse by Anton Bruckner
 * As part of a longer Christmas hymn, the text of which is given by Vopelius and Spitta:
 * Virga Jesse floruit
 * Emanuel noster apparuit
 * Induit carnem hominis
 * Fit puer delectabilis.
 * Alleluja
 * used in a Christmas cantata by Johann Kuhnau
 * included in Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a by Johann Sebastian Bach
 * Virga de Jésse
 * quen te soubésse
 * loar como mereces
 * e sen ouvésse per
 * que dissésse quanto
 * por nós padeces.

The symbol of the Virgin Mary as a rose flowering from the Tree of Jesse forms the central image of the 15th-century German hymn, Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, commonly sung to a melody by Michael Praetorius. Various translations exist of this popular hymn, including Theodore Baker's "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"(1894) and "A Spotless Rose" by Catherine Winkworth. Popular musical settings include works by Johannes Brahms and Herbert Howells.

Modern use
The Chrismon tree and the Advent calendar have been used by Christians, who may use the term "Jesse Tree" to refer to these, although the tree does not usually show Jesse or the Ancestors of Christ, and so may have little or no relation to the traditional Tree of Jesse. This form is a poster or a real tree in the church or home, which over the course of Advent is decorated with symbols (Chrismons) to represent stories leading up to the Christmas story, for the benefit of children. The symbols are simple, for example a burning bush for Moses and a ram for Isaac.

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

title: Tree of Jesse


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SDRLJRI

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was DELETE BOTH. Carrp | Talk 04:02, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

SDRLJRI and Stranka Dobrih Ljudi Rijeka
Although getting drunk and stoned in Croatia might be an appealing prospect for some, this is a vanity page for a group of friends Cnwb 00:44, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Vanity. Not notable. Zzyzx11 01:25, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. I wouldn't mind getting drunk/stoned in Croatia. DaveTheRed 01:32, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete -- Curps 04:29, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, not notable, trivial. Megan1967 05:49, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete -- Will they even notice it gone? :~ -- Longhair | Talk 14:17, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

title: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SDRLJRI


text:
Category:Medical treatment stubs

Related stub categories: Pharmacology stubs (pharma-stub), Medicine stubs (med-stub), Psychology stubs (psych-stub), Alternative medicine stubs (CAM-stub)

title: Category:Medical treatment stubs


text: User talk:69.193.78.241

title: User talk:69.193.78.241


text:
Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Internet background noise

I'm afraid the talk pages of VfDs don't get used. If you want your comments to be read you'd better use the actual VfD page. As for what to say there, if you want my advice, it's best to consult the deletion policy and then phrase your argument for keeping in terms of the policy. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:36, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)


text:
FLP

FLP may refer to:

Computer science

 * FLP impossibility proof in computer science
 * Functional logic programming

Organizations

 * Family Limited Partnership, holding companies
 * Forever Living Products, a US MLM company

Politics

 * Farmer–Labor Party, a former US party
 * Fatherland Party (Norway), a former party (Norwegian: Fedrelandspartiet)
 * Fiji Labour Party
 * Finnish Rural Party, a former party (Swedish: Finlands landsbygdsparti)
 * Le front de libération populaire, a former party in Quebec, Canada
 * Popular Liberation Front (Spain), a former party (Spanish: Frente de Liberación Popular)

Science

 * Flurbiprofen
 * Frustrated Lewis pair

Transportation

 * Lugano–Ponte Tresa railway (Italian: Ferrovia Lugano–Ponte Tresa)
 * Marion County Regional Airport, in Arkansas, United States
 * Satish Dhawan Space Centre First Launch Pad, in India

title: FLP


text:
Choice (Australian consumer organisation)

Most commonly known as CHOICE (all capitals), the Australian Consumers' Association is an Australian not for profit consumer advocacy organisation. It is an independent membership based organisation founded in 1959 that researches and campaigns on behalf of Australian consumers. It is similar to the Consumers Union in the United States and Which? in the United Kingdom, who are considered sister organisations. It is the largest consumer organisation in Australia.

Operations
According to CHOICE, their job is to stand up against companies doing the wrong thing. The aim of the organisation is to provide up-to-date information across a wide range of  consumer issues that allows individuals to make informed consumer decisions. It also lobbies for change on behalf of consumers when required. CHOICE tests and rates a range of products and services, including appliances, baby products, electronics and home entertainment, computers, food and health, and financial products and services. More than 200,000 people subscribe to the CHOICE magazine.

In 2003, revenue for the organisation was over $10m and by 2019 had grown to over $20m. It is a multi-faceted business with a staff of 80, which includes the scientists and technicians who test the products, policy specialists who devise campaigns, lobby politicians and speak on issues, as well as the journalists who write for CHOICE magazine.

CHOICE buys most of the products it tests on the open market. Its income is mainly derived from subscriptions and from the sale of its publications and products.

Campaigns and policy
CHOICE also campaigns on behalf of consumers and is a representative on many national and state-based government committees, councils and independent bodies related to consumer rights and issues including food regulation and labelling, health and financial services, telecommunications and digital technology, standards codes, ecologically sustainable development and the environment.

The organisation also holds the annual "Shonky Awards" that highlight dubious or dishonest behaviour. They name and shame that year's most suspect products and companies.

Every year CHOICE and the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission host the Ruby Hutchison Memorial Lecture presenting consumer and rights topics.

History
Following World War II, the economy and population of Australia was booming, but it was becoming clear that consumers did not have much guidance or protection. Ruby Hutchison, the first woman to be elected to the Western Australian Legislative Council, had been receiving complaints from her constituents about the quality and value for money of goods. She knew of overseas consumer organisations in the US and UK, so she found out how they worked with a goal of creating something similar in Australia.

By the late 1950s there was an increase in market competition, a fall in product standards and what was seen as industry-wide manipulation by marketers. It was in this context that in 1959 Hutchison travelled to Sydney to discuss her idea with a group of like-minded people, including Roland Thorp, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Sydney. Discussions culminated at public meeting on 17 September 1959 at the Sydney Town Hall with the establishment of the Australasian Consumers' Association, which was renamed the Australian Consumers' Association in 1963. The primary aim was to produce a magazine that would inform consumers about their rights and about products, their value and safety.

The first magazine was launched in April 1960 and distributed to 500 subscribers. Membership grew quickly and in 1961 the organisation was represented at an international Conference of Consumers’ Associations in The Hague, where it became a founding member of the International Organisation of Consumers Unions (IOCU — now Consumers International, CI), along with consumer organisations in the US, UK, Belgium and the Netherlands.

At first, the Australian Consumers' Association reprinted material from its UK and US counterparts. In 1962 it participated in the first international IOCU test (of watches). It also conducted tests in university labs outside work hours and established a scientific testing panel. The experts on the panel were responsible for one test each per year, which they'd oversee on behalf of the ACA and the organisation established a reputation for thoroughly verifying its test data.

In 1983, CHOICE moved from Chippendale to Marrickville, where its head office and laboratories are still located.

List of chairpeople
Wayne Haylen 1988–1994
 * Justice Paul Stein 1974-1986
 * Chris Field 2002–2006
 * Jenni Mack 2006–2013
 * Nicole Rich 2013–2017
 * Sandra Davey 2017–2020
 * Anita Tang and Robert Southerton, co-chair 2020–present

CHOICE magazine
CHOICE is a publication of the Australian consumer organisation of that name, a non-profit organisation founded in 1959 (as the Australian Consumers Association) to research and advocate on behalf of Australian consumers.

History and profile
CHOICE was established in 1960 by Ruby Hutchison and Roland Thorp. The magazine tests and compares different consumer products and services and reports their findings. It is published eleven times per year. The headquarters is in Marrickville, New South Wales.

Other publications
The organisation publishes several products including:
 * CHOICE magazine — a monthly magazine, published eleven times a year.
 * CHOICE Computer — a magazine, published six times a year.
 * CHOICE Health Reader — Reports on developments in the health area, published ten times a year.
 * CHOICE Books — various titles, including The CHOICE Guide to Baby Products and Sustainable House.

The Shonky Awards
CHOICE also holds the annual "Shonky Awards" that highlight dubious or dishonest behaviour from companies. The awards help consumers to identify the worst of the worst, and name and shame that year's shonkiest products and companies. "Shonky" is Australian slang meaning "unreliable, unsound, dishonest, poor or of dubious quality; shoddy".

Notable past Shonky Award winners

 * Qantas Airline - 2022 - for being the Spirit of Disappointment.
 * Retailer Harvey Norman - 2020 - for their partnership with Latitude Finance, which Choice called "one of Australia's most predatory finance companies". It was revealed vulnerable people with low financial literacy had been signed up for credit cards in-store.
 * The Australian pet insurance industry - 2019 - "For catch-22 pet insurance whose conditions make it worthless". "Bad insurance riddled with exclusions".
 * The Ikea Nedkyld refrigerator - 2019 - "Failed on so many fronts", "it uses a lot more electricity than it claims on its energy star rating label. It's also one of the worst performing fridges we've seen", "you're also going to be paying extra for replacing all the spoiled food".
 * The KitchenAid 2-Slice toaster - 2018 - ($189) "Loaded it, and waited for the familiar pop, only to pluck out slightly dried, warm bread - even on the highest browning setting".
 * The Australian divisions of Honda, Toyota, Lexus, BMW and Mazda - 2017 - "For repeatedly failing to disclose a safety device that can actually kill you. The recall of Takata airbags".
 * Nature's Way Kids Smart natural medicines - 2012 - "This range of homeopathic 'remedies' for children was deemed "an affront to public health and medical science".
 * Peachy Pink briefs - 2011 - "Peach-infused super-tight pants also got a nod, with their "clinically-proven" weight loss effect. The ethos of the test lab behind the clinical trial, Spincontrol Laboratories, didn't exactly fill us with confidence".
 * The Power Balance wristband - 2010 - "The only power this bracelet seems to have, placebo effect notwithstanding, is in tipping its distributor's bank balance well and truly into the black".
 * L'Oréal Elvive - 2009 - "With their dizzying names for miracle ingredients proven in so-called clinical trials - which they clarify in the fine print as 'consumer perception' studies."
 * Nutella Hazelnut Spread - 2007 - "'Less fat than most peanut butters, less sugar than most jam' say the ads. Maybe, but equally it contains more sugar than most peanut butters and more fat than jam".

Two of the 2017 Shonky Award finalists were referred on to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for alleged breaches of Australian Consumer Law. Finalist Coles Complete Cuisine cat food was referred on for misleading labelling and contradictory claims in the small print. Also, finalist Nature's Way (Pharmacare Laboratories) Kids Smart Vita Gummies was referred on for potentially misleading consumers about the supplement's health benefits for children and failing to list the amount of sugar contained in each serving.

Controversy
In 2018 the company Australian Hearing was prosecuted and fined for multiple breaches of competition and consumer laws. At the time of the breaches in 2017, the company was led by Bill Davidson who at the time was also the Deputy Chairman of CHOICE. CHOICE issued a statement rebuking Australian Hearing's actions after Davidson had left Australian Hearing in early 2018.


text:
Talk:Treehouse of Horror II

Userbox
A userbox for people who loves cursed Frogurt!

Nice touch with the alternate Halloween credits. -Kaizersoze 00:50, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

Lose the trivia section
Please see WP:Trivia and Avoid trivia sections in articles L0b0t 02:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Simpsons 8F02.png
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Fair use rationale for Image:Simpsons 8F02.png
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Reference to the story of the golem
Could the robot story be a reference to the Hebrew golem story? It involves a greedy proprietor creating a slave, then being dissappointed in it, trying to destroy it, and getting crushed in the process. It seems deliberate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.82.215.200 (talk) 13:59, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

That scene is a reference to the golem story (and it seems to me that it's a re-enenactment of a scene in a film somewhere). The rest of the story is largely based on Frankenstein, though. (Which, itself, is based on the golem stories.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.116.101 (talk) 14:42, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

a "Duck Amuck" reference?
in the beginning of Bart's Nightmare, Bart uses his powers to make snowball II the cat "more interesting" and turns it into a creature that resembles daffy duck as he's redrawn at one point in the famous 1953 animated short "Duck Amuck". that includes the amphibian lower part of the cat's body and the umbrella for a tail (a flag in the original cartoon). and yet i see no mentioning of that in the article, any particular reason? Moleculo (talk) 17:29, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably no reliable source can be found to confirm that. C T J F 8 3  20:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

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Do the individual segments of this episode have their own names?
I think the title of this section covers the question adequately. If a source discusses such names, that could be particularly helpful, though screenshots of the title cards might be sufficient to resolve the question as well. DonIago (talk) 12:30, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Treehouse of Horror II


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Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson

Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson (October 17, 1864 – April 26, 1901) was an American physician and the first woman to be licensed as a physician in the U.S. state of Alabama.

Early life and education
Johnson was born Halle Tanner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on October 17, 1864, the oldest daughter of Benjamin Tucker Tanner and Sarah Elizabeth Tanner, prominent figures in the local African-American community. She was the oldest of nine siblings, including four sisters, two brothers, and two siblings who died in infancy. Johnson's father was a minister at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh that also wrote several books, and Halle worked with him to publish The Christian Recorder, a publication of the church. Her brother was the painter Henry Ossawa Tanner. Her niece was Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, the first black woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D and the first president of Delta Sigma Theta.

In June 1886, Johnson married Charles Dillon and moved to Trenton, New Jersey. In 1887, they had a child together named Sadie Dillon who died from pneumonia about two years after their marriage.

Career
After her husband's death, Johnson, then Halle Dillon returned home to her family and entered the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania at the age of 24, graduating with honors in 1891.

Around the time of her graduation, Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, had written to the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, seeking an African-American physician to work at the school. Dillon began working at the Tuskegee Institute soon after her graduation.

In Alabama, Johnson was tutored by Dr. Cornelius N. Dorsette at Hale Infirmary to prepare for the medical exam. Johnson began her career by taking the Alabama state medical examination, a 10-day oral examination administered by the leading physicians of the state. She began this process by submitting her application to the board of examiners on August 17, 1891, and started the exam soon after. This rigorous exam required participants to give written responses to verbal questions from the state health office. Dr. Dillon scored a 78.81%, 3.81% higher than the requirement to pass (75%).

Johnson was under heavy scrutiny and the public eye due to her race and gender, but successfully passed the examination to become the first woman physician in Alabama.

Johnson worked at the Tuskegee Institute from 1891 to 1894. She also was accompanied by her father, who lectured for a year at the institute's Bible School. Johnson's taught up to two classrooms per term, teaching courses on anatomy and hygiene. She also supervised the medical care of 480 students, families, faculty, and officers. Johnson cultivated her own medicines to treat them. This is where she was also required to compound the prescriptions for the town and institute. Her contributions at Tuskegee Institute earned her a salary of 600 dollars a year, including room and board, and she was given a month of vacation each year. Additionally, Johnson founded a nursing school as well, practiced medicine and pharmacy in the community, and founded the Lafayette Dispensary for locals.

Later life and death
In 1894, Johnson married Reverend John Quincy Johnson, an African Methodist Episcopal minister and mathematics professor at the Tuskegee Institute, and left her position at the Institute when they moved to Columbia, South Carolina. Her husband became president of Allen University, a private university for black students. They then moved to Hartford, Connecticut, Atlanta, Georgia, and Princeton, New Jersey, for his education in theology. They had three sons together: John Quincy Jr., Benjamin T., and Henry Tanner. In 1900, the Johnsons moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where John became a minister at Saint Paul's AME Church.

Johnson died from dysentery during childbirth on April 26, 1901. She is buried at Nashville's Greenwood Cemetery.

title: Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson


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Riverdale Park (Toronto)

Riverdale Park is a large park spanning the Lower Don River in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, between Cabbagetown to the west and Broadview Avenue in Riverdale to the east.

Description
The park has recreational fields for soccer, baseball, and Ultimate on both sides of the river. There is also a swimming pool, tennis courts and outdoor hockey rink to the northeast, and a running track in the centre. A footbridge crosses the Don Valley Parkway, Bayview Avenue, the Canadian National Railway Bala subdivision tracks, and the river and joins the two sides of the valley as well as the Lower Don Recreational Trail that follows the river. The bridge is located near the site of a butternut tree bridge built by Ely Playter that provided access to his property and mill around the 1790s. The bridge is depicted by Elizabeth Simcoe's watercolour painting Playter's Bridge near York, ca. 1796.

At the south-east corner of the park is Bridgepoint Hospital and a monument to Sun Yat-Sen. Immediately to the west of the park in Cabbagetown is Riverdale Farm, a city operated, publicly accessible farm.

In the summer, a free movie series takes place in the park. According to its website, "Everyone is welcome ~ Bring a picnic, friends and family to enjoy great PG rated films under the stars. All the films begin at dusk"

History
The land on the east side of the Don River was originally owned by John Scadding, one of the early settlers to Toronto and the estate manager and clerk for John Graves Simcoe, Governor of Upper Canada. John Scadding's cabin, built in 1794 just south of the present day park, was relocated to the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition in 1879. 120 acre of Scadding's farm property had been purchased by the City of Toronto in 1856 for the Don Jail, and the rest of the lands opened as a park in 1880. The park acquired a 32-pounder cannon from Quebec City and since relocated to Marie Curtis Park. More land was added later to bring the park up to 162 acre in size, but the construction of the Don Valley Parkway in the 1960s reduced this to the current figure of 104 acre. On Broadview Avenue east of the park is John Cox Cottage, an 1807 log home.

In 1886, road construction immediately east of the park uncovered artifacts of a First Nations settlement or encampment on the area above the valley. A small number of artifacts are on display in a display case at Withrow Avenue Junior Public School. A plaque is affixed to the main entrance of the school on Bain Avenue.

The eastern side of the park was also used as a landfill in the 1920s. A walk along Broadview Avenue shows the evidence of this in the form of green exhaust pipes to vent the methane gas from the former dump beneath the park.

In the 1970s, the park was the original site proposed for a new 40,000 seat stadium, a project that would eventually become SkyDome. The plan was eventually abandoned, in part due to the strong objections of local Alderman John Sewell.

In 1990, a grassy slope on the eastern side was planted with trees. This was the first public event hosted by the Task Force to Bring Back the Don. The slope is now moderately forested with trees averaging 3–4 metres in height. In 2002, Bring Back the Don created a small marsh at the bottom of the slope. Water collects there from the slope as well as from adjacent playing fields. Other restoration projects include trees planted along a berm adjacent to the Don Valley Parkway.

title: Riverdale Park (Toronto)


text: Template:Treatment-stub

title: Template:Treatment-stub


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Wayne Community College

Wayne Community College is a public community college in Goldsboro, North Carolina. It offers more than 70 credit programs on campus with nine buildings and over 287,000 square feet (27,000 m2). Over 14,000 curriculum and extension students are enrolled at the college per year. The college is part of the North Carolina Community College System.

History
Wayne Community College began as the Goldsboro Industrial Education Center (I.E.C.), established on April 3, 1958. The original on-campus building was completed in November 1960, and until Fall 1962 all courses were taught in the evening, and all students were part-time.

In the 1962–63 school year, the first full-time courses were offered leading to diplomas in automotive mechanics, electronics, drafting, and practical nursing. At that time, Goldsboro I.E.C. had 47 students enrolled with eight faculty members. From 1963 through 1965, three extension units of Goldsboro I.E.C. were established in Morehead City, Kenansville, and Clinton, which later became Carteret Community College, James Sprunt Community College, and Sampson Community College.

In January 1964, Goldsboro I.E.C. became Wayne Technical Institute. By Fall 1966, the enrollment had increased to approximately 550 curriculum students and more than 1500 extension students. During the late 1960s, several additional classroom buildings were added to the campus.

In November 1967, a community vote approved the necessary financial support, and Wayne Technical Institute became Wayne Community College. By the fall of 1968, enrollment had risen to nearly 700 curriculum students. Since 1968, the enrollment of Wayne Community College has steadily grown each year.

In January 1974, the campus relocated from the U.S. 70 bypass to Wayne Memorial Drive due to the rapid student population growth.

The 1997-1998 college year marked the 40th Anniversary of Wayne Community College, celebrated with the theme "Forty and Proud!" The college's rapid growth has paralleled that of the North Carolina Community College System, which is one of the largest in the United States.

Notable Wayne Community College graduates include psychologist Russell Barkley (June 1972).

Wayne Early Middle College High School is located on the campus of Wayne Community College. It accepted 60 students into the first freshman class in August, 2007.

2015 shooting
On April 13, 2015, 20-year old Kenneth Stancil, a recently ousted student, walked onto campus with a shotgun, entered the print shop near the library, and fatally shot the print shop operator, with whom he had been performing work-study duties until dismissed in March. On April 14, 2015, the shooter was arrested in Daytona Beach, Florida and extradited to North Carolina. Stancil was sentenced to life without parole and is incarcerated in the Eastern Correctional Institution in North Carolina.

title: Wayne Community College


text:
When the President Talks to God

"When the President Talks to God" is a protest song by Bright Eyes. pointed political message directed towards George W. Bush and his policies. It was originally released as a free download on iTunes but was subsequently released as a promotional 7" vinyl and as a B-side to "First Day of My Life".

On May 2, 2005, Conor Oberst performed the song on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

In June 2006, Oberst expressed that he was "over" the song from having played it too many times.

It won Song of the Year at the 2006 PLUG Independent Music Awards.

Early in the morning on December 19, 2006, the song was offered as a featured free download on the front page of the iTunes Store, but was removed within hours without explanation.

Track listing

 * 1) "When the President Talks to God" (Conor Oberst) – 2:36

title: When the President Talks to God


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James waugh

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was SPEEDILY DELETED as patent nonsense. jni 09:40, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

James waugh
Patent nonsense. slambo 00:57, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC) This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.
 * Delete. Total nonsense. --Cnwb 01:02, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)