text:
Principal Triangulation of Great Britain

The Principal Triangulation of Britain was the first high-precision triangulation survey of the whole of Great Britain and Ireland, carried out between 1791 and 1853 under the auspices of the Board of Ordnance. The aim of the survey was to establish precise geographical coordinates of almost 300 significant landmarks which could be used as the fixed points of local topographic surveys from which maps could be drawn. In addition there was a purely scientific aim in providing precise data for geodetic calculations such as the determination of the length of meridian arcs and the figure of the Earth. Such a survey had  been proposed by William Roy (1726–1790) on his completion of the Anglo-French Survey but it was only after his death that the  Board of Ordnance initiated the trigonometric survey, motivated by military considerations in a time of a threatened French invasion. Most of the work was carried out under the direction of Isaac Dalby, William Mudge and Thomas Frederick Colby, but the final synthesis and report (1858) was the work of Alexander Ross Clarke. The survey stood the test of time for a century, until the Retriangulation of Great Britain between 1935 and 1962.

History
In the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745 it was recognised that there was a need for an accurate map of the Scottish Highlands and the necessary survey was initiated in 1747 by Lieutenant-Colonel David Watson, a Deputy Quartermaster-General of the Board of Ordnance. Watson employed William Roy as a civilian assistant to carry out the bulk of the work. Subsequently, Roy, having enlisted in the army and having become a very competent surveyor, proposed (1763) a national survey which would be a plan for defence at a time when French invasions were threatened. The proposal was rejected on grounds of expense.

Roy continued to lobby for a survey and his ambitions were realised to a certain extent by an unexpected development. In 1783 the French Academy of Sciences claimed that the latitude and longitude differences between the Royal Observatory, Greenwich and the Paris Observatory were incorrect, and it was proposed (to the  Royal Society) that the differences could be reconciled by high precision triangulation over the intervening terrain. The Royal Society agreed and, jointly with the Board of Ordnance, they invited Roy to oversee the project. (Main article; Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790).)

Roy's first task (1784) was to measure a base line between Hampton Poor House (51.4265°N, -0.3657°W) and King's Arbour (51.4798°N, -0.4503°W) on Hounslow Heath, a distance of just over 5 miles (8 km). This was a painstaking process: three rods of about 20 ft. were supported on trestles and the ends aligned to an accuracy of a thousandth part of an inch. The first rod was then carried to the end of the third, an operation to be repeated 1,370 times. The final measurement gave the length of the base as 27,404.01 ft. (8,352 metres). For the subsequent triangulation Roy ordered a new theodolite from leading instrument-maker Jesse Ramsden. This Ramsden theodolite, delivered in 1787, for the first time divided angular scales accurately to within a second of arc. The theodolite was the largest ever constructed but, despite its massive size, it was carried from London to the Channel coast and employed on hills, steeples and a moveable tower. At each location the angles to other vertices of the triangulation mesh were measured many times, often at night time using newly devised lights. Finally the angle data was used to calculate the sides of the triangles by using spherical trigonometry.

The final results were inconclusive, for triangulation was inferior to the precision of astronomical measurements, but the survey paved the way for all future work in terms of high precision measurements of length and angle, together with the techniques of calculating on an ellipsoidal surface. In his final report, published posthumously, Roy once again pressed for the extension of the survey to the rest of Britain. His successors would oblige. As Master of the Board of Ordnance (from 1782), Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, viewed Roy's work with great interest, At the same time he was acutely aware that Britain, lacking a national survey, was falling behind the standards of many other European countries. Moreover, the renewed threat of French invasion made him alarmed at the lack of accurate maps, particularly of the southern counties. The catalyst for action was the sudden availability of a new improved Ramsden theodolite which had been intended for the East India Company. The purchase of this instrument on 21 June 1791 by the Board is taken as the inauguration of the Ordnance Survey. The very next day Richmond appointed Isaac Dalby as its first employee, with a brief to extend Roy's survey. In the following month Richmond appointed William Mudge and Edward Williams, the latter as the first superintendent of the survey.

Re-measurement of the Hounslow baseline
For the 1784 measurement of the original base-line across Hounslow Heath, Roy had ordered three deal rods cut from a new mast in the Admiralty dock yards. These were intended to be used for the precision measurement but Roy also ordered a 100 ft steel chain from Ramsden which could be used for a quick preliminary measurement. The deal rods proved ineffective because of their changes with humidity and they were replaced with glass rods for the final measurement; however Roy observed that the chain itself was just as accurate as the rods. For this reason the 1791 survey started by remeasuring the base with two new 100 ft chains, the second to be kept unused as a reference against which any stretching of the first would be detected.

The process of measurement was exceedingly precise. Since the ground was undulating along the length of the base, the measurement was carried out over 26 stages with varying slopes, the chains for any one stage being constrained to a perfectly straight line by many intermediate supports. These hypotenuse measurements were then projected to the horizontal. Furthermore, the temperature varied from day to day and each measurement was corrected to the length that a chain would take at 62 °F. Finally, the length of the base was reduced to its projection at sea level using the height of the south base above the Thames and the fall in the Thames down to its estuary. The final result was approximately 3 inches less than that of Roy and the mean value of 27,404.2 ft. was taken of the baseline. The difference of the two values meant that the accuracy of the measurement could be claimed to be 1 inch in 27,404 ft, which is 3 parts per million.

Corrections
As the survey proceeded westwards, Mudge decided to check its accuracy by measuring a new baseline between two points established by the triangulation. He chose Salisbury Plain, measuring between a point near Old Sarum Castle (51.0955°N, -1.7984°W) and Beacon Hill, near Bulford (51.1835°N, -1.7221°W), in June 1794. The difference between the distance calculated by triangulation and that established by measurement was less than one inch (over a length of more than seven miles). The result verified not only the accuracy of the triangulation, but also the measurement of the original baseline on Hounslow Heath. After remeasurement in 1849 the "Salisbury Base" (rather than the original base on Hounslow Heath) provided the baseline for subsequent triangulation.

During subsequent triangulation, errors due to atmospheric refraction, deflection of plumb-bobs, temperature, and the spherical nature of the earth (meaning there were more than 180 degrees in a triangle) were all allowed for.


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Talk:Pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩

æ tensing in General American
Ajd: Angr's edit was correct. You should give some time (a week at least?) for an editor to provide references before you go hacking away at something like that. ANAE is not the last word LiuLanDi 07:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC).
 * ANAE doesn't use the term "General American". But I would be interested to know what published source does describe General American (using that term!) as having the distribution of tense and lax /æ/ described in your edit. —Angr 07:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

 * I apologize for just blanking it; that was uncalled for. However, I stand by my claim that it's probably incorrect, based on (a) the fact that "General American" itself is very poorly defined and (b) although ANAE isn't the only game in town, it goes into great detail on the variety of /æ/-tensing systems that have been found and attested in the literature (since the distribution of /æ/-tensing is one of the main theoretical issues of present-day dialectology) and nothing like this has been even mentioned, let alone as being prevalent enough to be "General American". AJD 13:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

LiuLanDi, what is your intention in adding these links? If you want to back up your claim that "American Broadcast English" has the distribution of æ-tensing that you say it does by providing audio of Walter Cronkite and Johnny Carson speaking, that's still original research. It sounds like a great way to gather data to write your own paper to be published in a peer-reviewed venue, but that's not what Wikipedia is for. —Angr 09:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

 * Angr, you're too damn fast! Keep your pants on!  I made the changes first and then started explaining them in the comments, but before I could press "Save page", you've already commented on it!  So far I wrote:

 * OK guys, I changed "General American" (a term I like, but it is indeed not well defined). Angr: the sources I used are not journal articles, they're videos.  However, Wikipedia's citation standards do allow those kinds of sources.  I spent a lot of time reviewing the standards before I added the citations.  Adj: interestingly, the Cronkite video shows that he is not so consistent with his pronunciation.  For example, he says "passengers"  with no tensing; then "passing" and "Titanic" with a little tensing.  Later, he clearly says "postmaster", "man", and "average" with tensing.  He says "amateurs" both ways, first with no tensing and then with.  Carson follows what I described exactly.  In his piece, the only tensing-causing consonants that are missing that would be tense are  (with you can clearly hear in Cronkite's "ham"), , , which is rare anyway, and  (which you can hear if you look on YouTube for the end of Cronkite's final newscast[] where he says "Dan Rather".

 * As far as "original research" goes, I really beg to differ. You and anyone else can clearly hear the tensing in the sources I provided.  There's nothing in the Wikipedia guidelines that say that only peer-reviewed journals can be used as citations.  What you're suggesting is kind of like saying that if someone reports that the sky looks grey today, that that's not acceptable unless an acceptable number of Ph.D's have agreed and verified it as acceptable fact.  Wikipedia is not simply a repository of conclusions made in journals.  That would be way too limiting.  Please 1) note the fact that I changed GenAm to A.B.E., and 2) listen to at least the "Amateur Radio Today" (6 mins), and the Carson (short, and you'll laugh your ass off!).  Looking forward to your remarks.  I'll also write a few more things later.LiuLanDi 10:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * For academic subjects like linguistics, there aren't really any reliable sources but peer-reviewed journals, books, and dissertations. If it's relevant to an article that the sky was gray on some particular day, I would expect it to be sourced at least from a weather report. And yes, encyclopedias as tertiary sources are in fact repositories of established knowledge that's already been published elsewhere. Changing GenAm to ABE doesn't really make any difference when American Broadcast English is just a redirect to General American and when that article implies there's no difference between the two terms. —Angr 11:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Please direct me to where Wikipedia guidelines say the likes of "for academic subjects like linguistics, there aren't really any reliable sources but peer-reviewed journals, books, and dissertations". So far I'm having trouble finding anything like that.  The sources I cited have been published elsewhere.  The pronunciations are clear, and are as I described them.  Did you listen to them?  Changing GenAm to ABE does matter because that way it's not such a sweeping statement.  Part of your and Ajd's complaint was that what I was describing was not (according to ANAE and the like) as widespread as I was implying.  Now, what it implies is that it is used by broadcasters (and therefore is considered a kind of "standard").LiuLanDi 11:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * That statement is mine, not Wikipedia's. Wikipedia's verifiability policy, however, does say "Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources" (emphasis added). The links you provided are not publications of the claim that you have made; they are raw data from which an analysis could be made. If you want the statement you've written to stay, you have to show that someone has already published the claim about the distribution of tense and lax æ made in that paragraph. Giving us recordings where we can hear it for ourselves is not good enough. —Angr 12:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

 * OK. I'm going to remove it.  I can't say you're wrong at this point.  I am however interested in what you think of this "original idea".  You've been very careful to avoid mentioning any personal opinion on it, naturally.  But I am interested in your idea, as a linguist, of it's disputability.  If you have 15 minutes to look at those videos, please do.  The verifiability policy also says "Editors should provide a reliable source for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged".  I want to know if you challenge it.  Maybe I will in fact write my own paper about this.  : )  Thank you for your comments and guidance.  LiuLanDi 13:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll look at the videos when I get a chance. At the moment I'm at work and have no speakers on my computer anyway. I certainly don't challenge the assertion that Walter Cronkite and Johnny Carson have æ-tensing in some words. But in the absence of published sources on the matter, I do challenge the assertion that observed facts from the speech these two elderly men can be generalized to all of "American Broadcast English", and that "American Broadcast English" is a well enough defined construct for anyone to be able to say what does and does not belong to it. I think writing your own paper would be a great idea, but (1) you need to gather much more data than 15 minutes of video from two speakers, (2) you should avoid implying that a monolithic accent called "American Broadcast English" or even "General American" exists, (3) you should do acoustic analysis of the vowels to compare the formants of various tokens of /æ/ in various environments and not rely only on your ear to tell you "this one's tense, this one's lax". —Angr 13:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Nasal system
ANAE says in one place (I'm looking at the crappy online demo version) that æ is tensed before front nasals. "In New York City and the Mid-Atlantic States, short-a is split into tense (raised, fronted, ingliding) and lax (low front) categories by a complex set of phonetic, grammatical and lexical conditions. The core group of tense vowels is found before front nasals (ham, man, stand) and voiceless fricatives (half, last, bath) in closed syllables. Function words like am, can) remain lax." I want to edit that paragraph about the mid-Atlantic tensing to reflect this.  Does anyone know of a source that documents tensing before ?  I can't imagine someone saying "hang" like, except maybe in the North where they usually tense.LiuLanDi 15:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe [heŋ] for hang is characteristic of California English. There might be sources for it in that article. Certainly I remember User:Nohat, a Californian, reporting of his own speech that bank and bake have the same vowel, the only difference between them being the [ŋ]. —Angr 15:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I've heard that from people from Utah as well. But that has an upward glide (if any at all), not a centering glide.  Anyway, I've certainly never heard that in the Midwest or the East Coast.LiuLanDi 15:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

 * Also, I don't think they tense before the other nasals in the West, e.g., so that wouldn't be much of a "nasal system".LiuLanDi 16:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

 * I am a native of Louisiana. I also have [heŋ] for hang. And [siŋ] for sing, [pɪn] for pen, [mɛn] for man. However, am and can dont rhyme for me (pace the above), can is like man (but functional can is unstressed usually so it's not a good comparison).

My vowel in man is probably between the vowels in met and mat. I've never measured the formants though. With [ŋ] there's also the voiced velar phenomenon, where I have [eg] for egg and [leg] for leg (but I dont have this vowel for peg, beg, keg). It would be nice if someone pointed out a reference that summarizes this. peace – ishwar  (speak)  04:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The fact that "can" is a function word means that the vowel is usually reduced to a schwa. The auxiliary verb "have" does the same, as does "as".  This fact may have been overlooked by ANAE in their assessment of æ-tensing, causing the whole idea of "phonemic æ-tensing" to be wrong.LiuLanDi 14:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Not at all. Both "can" and "have" have strong, nonreduced pronunciations as well, as in "Yes, I can!" and "Yes, I have!" In accents with phonemic æ-tensing, those strong pronunciations of "can" and "have" are distinct from the pronunciations of the noun "can" and the verb "halve". I wouldn't expect to find the contrast in Louisiana, though. It's generally described as being confined to the NYC/Philadelphia area. —Angr 14:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * For me it's not contrastive, just a neutralization of [e~ɛ~æ] before [ŋ] that is realized as [e]. It's more like the Non-phonemic æ-tensing section in the article. So, can (aux) and can (n) are the same, as are have and halve. I have a contrast of [e] and [ɛ] before [n] when I speak self-consciously, however: bane [ben] vs Ben [bɛn] (although usually Ben is [bɪn] natively). bane has the same vowel as bang, bank, bake. Anyway, this is alluded to with the following: "many speakers from the South have the nasal æ-tensing system described above, particularly in Charleston, Atlanta, and Florida, and speakers from New Orleans have been reported to have a system very similar to the phonemic split of New York". It would be nice if someone identified these reports. I wasnt suggesting that ANAE is wrong, just that their different functions may make them different (as in the ANAE quote above). – ishwar  (speak)  15:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Angr, I agree. But I don't think ANAE brings that to light.  At least not in their crappy online demo version!

 * ishwar, I was the one who was suggesting that ANAE is wrong, or not wrong per se, but somewhat sloppy in taking some things into account.LiuLanDi 17:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

 * ANAE: "As noted above, the nasal short-a system is the simplest of the short-a patterns. The /æ/ class is raised and fronted before any nasal consonant...; otherwise the nucleus remains in low front position. Figure 13.8 shows a typical example.... Words with /æ/ before velar nasals (banking) are among the lowest of the raised class, but still distinct from the unraised vowels. Many short-a systems show small variations from the pattern of Figure 13.8. Words with velar nasal codas (bank, bang) may be lax...."
 * I read this as meaning that tensing before /æ/ is the normal situation for the nasal short-a system, though exceptions exist. On the basis of that I'm reverting LiuLanDi's edit. AJD 23:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
 * What does figure 13.8 show? Are you looking at the online version?  Could you give a link?  Or a page number if you're looking at the print version?LiuLanDi 23:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. It's page 175, and it shows the short-a system of a woman from Columbus, Ohio. AJD 00:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't have the print version, but I'm looking at the online version. Can you tell me which woman from Columbus so I can listen to her sample?  I grew up in Cincinnati and while some people tense the "a" in bank a little, I don't think it's that widespread there.  Different neighborhoods have slightly different accents.
 * The point of your quote from ANAE above is that the "nasal system" is the simplest system. The reason I made the change in the article is that is says there that it is "geographically the most widespread".  That is what I am questioning.  Where did you get that?  I'm assuming you got it from ANAE, but as with the whole article, there are no numbered or otherwise specific references, so I can't verify.
 * I think this article needs those kinds of references (notes) because it is not clear what information comes from which source(s).LiuLanDi 05:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The woman from Columbus is Danica L., age 35. Cincinnati doesn't have quite a nasal system: it's got heavy influence from the New York pattern (according to Labov's paper "Transmission and Diffusion"), so it's unsurprising if /æ/ isn't much tensed before the velar nasal there.
 * The point of my quote from ANAE is merely to show that the source says that the nasal system includes tensing before all nasals, not just non-velar ones. Whether the nasal system is geographically the most "widespread" is hard to say precisely without a clear definition of "widespread": the continuous system is probably found over a greater area of territory, but the nasal system is predominant in a larger number of unrelated regions. I take no position on whether the nasal system is the simplest system. (Actually, I do take a position—I think it is the simplest, or at least the least marked—but it's not relevant to the discussion at hand.) AJD 05:45, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Then can you revise the sentence in [] that reads: "Geographically the most widespread is the 'nasal system'...."

Also, could you please insert inline numbered citations? Or if you think that's going to be too big a project for this article, could you insert inline citations in the style (Author, year), and page number for bigger works like ANAE? I think it would greatly improve the article. LiuLanDi 06:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I see you're already doing that! Thanks! LiuLanDi 06:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I clarified the intro sentence for the nasal system to reflect your explanation above. LiuLanDi 04:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oops! I meant to change it to "one of the most widespread", which there's no doubt that it is. Any objection to that? AJD 04:09, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Personally I have a hard time with saying it's so widespread. But my personal opinions aren't so important here.  As Angr pointed out, even though one can clearly hear a more complex system (the one I outlined before and then later removed) in accents like Carson's and many (or most) of the predominant late 20th century newscasters', and that those announcers undoubtedly had a profound effect on the way people speak (especially on the perception of speaking "correctly"), there has been no published research in that direction, so that isn't supposed to be in Wikipedia.

 * After the introductory sentence there is a sentence describing the geographical distribution of the nasal system anyway, and that sentence is far more detailed than "one of the most...", so I think that's quite sufficient.

 * Objectively, "widespread" may not be the best word because it has two senses, one being 'occupying a wide space', and the other 'scattered over a wide space'. From what you have shown me and what I have been able to read in ANAE's online version, the nasal system exists in many places that are not connected to each other.

 * OK, what do you think? LiuLanDi 04:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I beg to differ
According to the article:

 * Mass (truncation of Massachusetts) has /æ/, not /eə/ like mass

 * Function words and irregular verb tenses have lax /æ/, even in an environment which would usually cause tensing:
 * and (a function word) has /æ/, not /eə/ like sand
 * ran (an irregular verb tense) has /æ/, not /eə/ like man

In my experience, "Mass" for "Massachusetts" and (especially) "ran" often do have /eə/ in New York (as in my own speech). (/æ/ does seem to be regular in "and" and in "Massachusetts.")

38.117.238.82 03:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

 * The source for that claim is Benua (1995), listed in the references. —Angr 06:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Not sure how relevant sources from Labov in the 70s and 80s, or even Benua in 1995 (now 20 years ago) are. This page doesn't seem to reflect the reality in many of the relevant parts of the US-- i.e. nowadays in the many non-urban areas of the Northeast as well as California (the former supposedly being originally the source of the /ae/ tensing as per Labov?), /ae/-tensing doesn't even seem productive anymore. Bad, mass, clap and so on are all pronounced with /ae/, little difference from the British pronunciation except that it is occasionally long; sad and glad rhyme, and the only cases with something resembling /ae/-tensing seem to be before nasals (but this phenomenon is absent in New York City, Long Island, etc). Speakers seem to still consider this a "short A" and treat it so in speech, and yet the (former) /ae/ of rang, sang is pronounced, and considered, almost universally as /e/ (across at least non-Southern accents), the "long A". Only the elderly still pronounce rang with /ae/. --91.185.179.158 (talk) 15:55, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I disagree. /e/ in rang is common but not universal among young speakers. I certainly know 20-somethings who say /æ/. Wolfdog (talk) 23:39, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I also disagree. I have a "tense" a in bad and mass (though not in clap).  (Though I raise the a, I usually don't put in a schwa after it.  This seems quite common throughout the country.)  Also, in my experience, the a of rang, sang, thank, etc. was usually /ae/, but with a short y glide after (/aej/), as in my own speech.  What seems to me to be the case is that this is merging with the I of thing, think, etc. (which is usually higher than a "normal" short i).  (I call it the "think/thank" merger.)  Anyone else think so? Kostaki mou (talk) 18:41, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

bad-lad
What does long æ (æː) sound like? (It's hard to find in English IPA charts as it's not standard.) Njál 15:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I imagine it sounds just like the short æ, only longer. —Angr 15:20, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, how do you lengthen a sound? The closest thing I can imagine is doubling it, which would give you two discrete instances of the short vowel. Njál 19:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It varies a bit from language to language, but in general a long vowel is held about 50% longer than a short vowel. Thus if the [æ] of lad is held for 100 milliseconds, the [æ:] of bad is held for about 150 milliseconds or so (warning: I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass for the sake of the argument; I have no idea what the actual durations are). —Angr 20:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * You can't really hear it if you're a native speaker of English, as short and long vowel distinction isn't phonemic. 128.192.98.204 (talk) 19:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it isn't phonemic, but it is audible. See Lfh's comment below, under .  I agree that "lad" isn't a terribly good choice to illustrate the split as it may be said long when stressed, and I think that's why the difference can be hard to hear.  "Had" or "ad" would be better for the short example of the pair, and for the longer one personally I think "mad" is clearer.  I find the difference immediately audible in the phrase "mad ad", and switching the vowels in those two words sounds very odd indeed. Richard New Forest(talk) 08:46, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me rephrase. It's not that you can't hear it... it's just that most native speakers don't notice it and don't realize there's a difference. Same thing with "lock" and "log."128.192.98.201 (talk) 19:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see what you mean, though I think most people would notice the wrong one. Not about "lock" and "log" though, or are you talking about American? (I think perhaps you must be American because you're not using logical quotes...) The difference between dark and clear "l" is another that English-speaking people don't easily notice.  Richard New Forest (talk) 10:57, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Vowel length is phonemic in Australia and New Zealand (sometimes also in England, e.g. when is realized as, or when the speaker has the bad-lad split). Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 12:45, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Try saying this sentence, which contains three variants of the "short a": Ann's lad can can bad ads. (Meaning her son has the ability to take inferior advertisements off the air.) In my own speech, the long vowel is held more than 50% longer, in fact it is almost double the length.ralmin 23:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that sentence is a great demonstration but a poor experiment. Say "Ann's lad should nix bad ads", for example.  There's an added stress on the verb anyway, isn't there? 70.15.116.59 (talk) 16:56, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

jam
The example given for a distinction in "jam" is interesting, but I'm not sure it really applies only to fruit preserves. I think someone who is "caught in a jam" might have the same somewhat lenghthened æː (relative to "jam it in there") - but that's by American standards, which might be different, and I'm not sure about it. 70.15.116.59 (talk) 16:56, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

This distinction also exists in the New York metropolitan area
I'm not sure if the actual two vowels are exactly the same, but the split is the same as described. The only minimal pair I can think of is "have" and "halve". Rhyming with "have": dad, fad, had, lad, tad. Rhyming with "halve": bad, mad, pad, sad. (When Garrison Keilor's radio actors try to do a NY accent, they use the "mad" pronunciation for all such words, which isn't accurate. Probably using a Chicago pronunciation.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.242.72.225 (talk) 21:33, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

 * To my knowledge, such a split does not exist in New York English. And living within the area, I rarely hear the vowel in bad, mad, etc. elongated.  With "halve," as the word is infrequently used, its pronunciation can be borrowed from an area with such a split.  However, I doubt the split is actually found in New York.  Typically, in the New York area, we use the "have" pronunciation for all words except "halve."74.102.216.186 (talk) 00:52, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

 * I think there's more variation than you think. I myself would use the elongated vowel in fad and tad, as well as in bad, mad, pad and sad.  Though I raise it, I don't diphthongize it. Of course, exposure to the media results in the blending of many accents.  Kostaki mou (talk) 18:25, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

 * You say you personally elongate the vowel in all of the words. There probably is more variation than I think. I'll take your word on that.  However, does the bad-lad split actually exist in New York English?

 * Also, I am actually from Central Jersey. So, that may make the difference.  However, I have heard New York accents for most of my life.  If there were a distinction between the vowels in "had" and "bad," I think I probably would have heard it by now.  Yet again, there is a chance that the split exists and I just didn't hear it.[f.k.a 74.102.216.182]LakeKayak (talk) 20:37, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

 * I think we often tend to be unaware of pronunciation differences until they are pointed out to us. I assure you the difference does exist.  No doubt there are individual and perhaps local and generational differences.  Kostaki mou (talk) 20:53, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

 * I'll take your word for it.LakeKayak (talk) 02:43, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Rather
Rather has the broad A in Southeastern English English, right? I'm pretty sure I've heard it pronounced that way, but it's not mentioned in the article. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 23:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does, but the article makes no attempt (nor should it!) to give an exhaustive list of all "BATH" words. —Angr 05:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not a typical BATH word, as it has in northern England as well as the south-east; it is actually included in a list of words like this in the "British accents" section of the article.--JHJ (talk) 07:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Rather, half, calf, can't, and aunt. Note that in the word rather, the "A" is not followed by either a voiceless fricative or a sequence of nasal+consonant.  I have never heard a British speaker say rather, can't, or half with .  Wells says that half with a short vowel is confined to Northumberland and Tyne and Wear.  Jack (Lumber) 22:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't forget the expression "If I had my 'druthers." Kostaki mou (talk) 19:32, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

'Half' pronounced 'haff' is certainly traditionally heard across the North, eg 'haff past ten'. I'm sure a flat A in 'rather' is traditional in Yorkshire as it is in 'father' Vauxhall1964 (talk) 00:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think banana is another one. —Angr 06:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep. Two or three centuries ago, whenever loanwords like banana entered the language BritEng would often map the low central vowel to .  USEng is inconsistent: banana has, lava has , pajama may have either, tomato is pronounced as it's spelled.  More recent loans, however, have  in BritEng (e.g. pasta), but consistent  in USEng--and the same goes for proper names like Nissan or Datsun.  Interestingly, Canadian English tends to have  in most such words; some Canadian speakers will even say , although this is a minority usage.  (We might argue that these tendencies are related at least in part to phonetic change, right?)  But there's more to it, of course; kebab entered the language in 1673, but it has  in Britain and  in the U.S.  And then there's khaki, or car key if you will...  Jack (Lumber) 19:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

bad-lad part two
I am really confused about the bad-lad split. I thought the vowel in bad was always lengthened when compared to the vowel in bat; is it lengthened even more with this split? I thought there was always a fortis vs. lenis distinction or voiceless vs. voiced distinction even in American English to some extent. Why wouldn't lad also be lengthened compared to bat? Thegryseone (talk) 15:18, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The article doesn't say anything about the vowel of lad compared to that of bat; the point is just that in dialects with this split the vowel of lad is shorter than that of bad. It could still be longer than that of bat. (Though not necessarily - in Scottish English, there is no vowel lengthening before voiced stops as there is in American English and English English, see Scottish Vowel Length Rule. So maybe there is none in lad in Australian English either.) +Angr 15:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This looks dubious: "The word lad does in fact have a long /æː/ in most British accents affected by the split today; a more accurate name would be the bad-had split, with the latter retaining short /æ/ in the vast majority of these accents." Proposing a "more accurate" name comes pretty close to original research.  (Also, for what it's worth, I have the bad-lad split in my accent and I do not pronounce "lad" with the long /æː/ of "bad" - but I guess that's OR too.) Lfh (talk) 21:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Mistitled?
This is more of a dialectal survey than a phonological history. The title implies that you would find information on, for example, what happened to the Old English /æ/ in Middle English; everything discussed in this article is from the past two or three centuries. -Branddobbe (talk) 07:22, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Audio Clips?
Considering that this is an article with a lot to do with pronunciation, a few audio clips may be very helpful for those who are not very familiar with the IPA and such.Monkeyface13 (talk) 03:45, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, someone was just asking about this on the lang ref desk but I had nothing to link to. μηδείς (talk) 21:04, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

æ tensing or æ-tensing?
I have changed the name of the section from the capital digraph to the lower case IPA symbol, since IPA letters don't have capital forms. But the question remains, should we hyphenate æ-tensing or not? I slightly favor hyphenation, but what I really care about is consistency. If anyone's got an opinion they should edit the article so the hyphenated or unhyphenated term is used consistently. μηδείς (talk) 21:03, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Broad and flat
This article sometimes uses the familiar terms 'short' and 'long' in relation to vowels, but at other times uses 'flat' and 'broad' apparently with the same meanings. I have never read any modern work of phonetics that uses the latter terms (except that 'flat' used to be used as a distinctive feature label with a completely different meaning). I would be glad of a reference to published work using 'flat' and 'broad' in a scientific way. If there isn't one, I would like to remove them from the article. Too often these terms crop up in ill-informed journalistic writing about local accents. RoachPeter (talk) 10:33, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure John Wells uses "broad" and "flat" informally in Accents of English, since "long" and "short" don't cover the difference in quality between /ɑː/ and /æ/, and constantly saying "the PALM vowel" and "the TRAP vowel" gets old quickly. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:40, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You are right. Wells' 'Accents of English' vol.1 p. 134 explains that 'broad' and 'flat' can be useful in certain contexts, though he warns against confusing their meaning with other widely-used senses of the words. Apologies for raising this. RoachPeter (talk) 12:02, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Nothing to apologize for! It's certainly a point worth discussing. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:35, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Also, in American schools, the terms "long a" and "short a" are typically used specifically to mean /eɪ/ and /æ/, respectively. Thus, in order to avoid confusion from American readers, the terms "broad" and "flat" are used in the article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.102.218.18 (talk) 21:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

"Broad" written for "flat"?
"Broad /æð/ in blather, gather, slather"

That "broad" should be "flat", right? —JerryFriedman (Talk) 19:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep. Angr (talk) 05:36, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Raising towards [ɛ]
In Cockney, it is noted that the TRAP vowel /æ/ may be raised, resulting in [ɛ] (or [ɛɪ]), and surprisingly, Received Pronunciation notes that in RP, there used to be a similar tendency, even though the southeast, including Estuary English (often described as intermediate between RP and Cockney), preserves the [æ] realisation, and in the rest of England except East Anglia, it is even lowered to [a]. Is the raising of the TRAP vowel a southeastern innovation that was later pushed back again (say, in the course of the 20th century)? Also, is there any full-blown merger of the TRAP and DRESS vowels in any variety of English, at least for some positions (such as in Pat and pet), or is it generally avoided by raising or centralising the DRESS vowel too as in NZ English? I miss a discussion of the raising and any mergers like that here. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:07, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of a variety of English that merges TRAP and DRESS. As far as I know, only foreigners do that, e.g. my German roommate who once mentioned Medicine, Wisconsin, and I didn't know what he was talking about. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:25, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I had a hunch, so I looked and offer you broad South African English, for one (under Afrikaans influence?), and that's a pretty major variety. Some more "exotic" varieties of English spoken in Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Caribbean (which you're less familiar with) may do the same – there are various semi-creolised varieties or true creoles such as Singlish which I don't know if they count, as Phonological history of English vowels does mention Malaysian and Singaporean English. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:52, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * See Open-mid front unrounded vowel and now again Phonological history of English high front vowels. (Special:WhatLinksHere/Zulu English set me on the right path.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:33, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, practically all Germans raise [æ] to [ɛ], with some very few intent on sounding British might think of lowering it to [a] (which then would be basically the same as the shut vowel, German-style pronounced). Even if some realize the difference, the two vowels are just too near to each other to actually make a difference when speaking. One other so hard sound is - no, not th; that is easy. Not w, that is easy too. What is hard is to pronounce jump in a manner any different from chump.--2001:A61:260D:6E01:E116:8772:EE65:4D70 (talk) 01:46, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

"Metropolitan Western U.S."
I can't speak for the current situation of /æ/ in Boston, but I've not seen the the western "Metropolitan"what? region's /æ/ described as such in the table: Apart from what's already noted in California_English, California has regularly shown to be a pure nasal split system with a shift of /æ/ before non nasal consonants in any environment, /r/ notwithstanding, to [a]
 * Environment: /b/, /d/, /dʒ/,/ʃ/, /v/, /z/, /ʒ/ /f/, /s/, /θ/ and all other consonants = tense/lax [ɛə]~[æ]
 * E.g.: Grama, J., & Kennedy, R. (2009). Acoustic analysis of California vowels / Holland, Cory (2014). Shifting or Shifted The state of California vowels / Podesva, Robert J. et al (2013). The California Vowel Shift in a Rural Inland Community / Kennedy, R., & Grama, J. (2012). Chain shifting and centralization in California vowels: An acoustic analysis, etc...

Which puts it apart from Boston, never mind that Boston is an attested marry-merry-mary split area, opposed to the merged West, which should put them in separate columns for /r/. The /r/ row itself is also missing attested variations of the split/merger English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/

As for Oregon/Washington aka Pacific_Northwest_English, they've been shown to back /æ/ as well, along with raising of /æ/ before /g/
 * E.g.: Best,Katelyn et al 2013. Keep Portland weird Vowels in Oregon English / Conn, J. C. 2000. Portland Dialect Study: The Story of/æ/in Portland / Wassink, Alicia, et al. 2009. Effects of Gender and Style on Fronting and Raising of/æ/,/e:/, and/ε/before/g/in Seattle English / Wassink, A. B. 2011. Vowel reduction and merger in Pacific Northwest English / Freeman, Valerie 2014. Bag, Beg, Bagel: Prevelar Raising and Merger in Pacific Northwest English, etc...

There's really no reason for these simple inaccuracies to be here, especially next to the complicated systems of New York/Philadelphia/Baltimore being accurately presented Traptraptrap (talk) 08:22, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It is not a split if there was never any historical splitting. Boston doesn't split merry, Mary and marry, the Midwest just merges them. Try not to give unwarranted weight or credence to speech errors like the merger in question, if you could. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 14:15, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Title
Nothing vastly better springs immediately to mind, but I'm not very happy with the title of this article. It seems to be largely about A's that might very well not be short in Modern English. W. P. Uzer (talk) 13:00, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * How about Pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩ (on the pattern of Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩ and Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩)? It still doesn't quite get the scope, but it's much closer, as well as being more user-friendly, and we can link to other articles that deal with other aspects of ⟨a⟩ pronunciations. W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:47, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm going to change this then (probably without the angle brackets to begin with, since that requires admin powers). Any objectors please move it back and discuss - if it turns out there are none, then I'll ask for the angle brackets. W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:54, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Distinction between phonemic and non-phonemic /æ/ tensing
Note that I have made one change in the list section. Previously, it said, "In some dialects, though, including the New York and Mid-Atlantic ones (such as spoken in Philadelphia), the "short a" sound can actually split into two entirely distinct phonemes, so that using a tense vowel rather than a lax vowel can potentially change the meanings of words or phrases." Note that this is actually inaccurate for New York English. I live in Central Jersey. And at least around here, there is a split between /eə/ and /æ/. However, no minimal pairs are formed in the split. Furthermore, when I have spoken to people New York accents, there were never any confusions between words like caf (meaning cafeteria) and calf.

On the other hand, which could be the cause of the confusion, when the short a proceeds /f/, /θ/ to a lesser extent, or /s/, it could be pronounced either way, even in the same sentence. I'll use the following sentence as an example: "A half of a mile is a half of a mile." This could be pronounced as any of these:
 * /ə hæf əv ə maɪˈəl ɪz ə hæf əv ə maɪˈəl/,
 * /ə heəf əv ə maɪˈəl ɪz ə hæf əv ə maɪˈəl/,
 * /ə hæf əv ə maɪˈəl ɪz ə heəf əv ə maɪˈəl/,
 * or /ə heəf əv ə maɪˈəl ɪz ə heəf əv ə maɪˈəl/.

Personally, I feel that this is more phenomenal, and that it is interesting; but it might just be me. Over and out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.102.218.18 (talk) 22:34, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

 * The NYC system is a phonemic split in the classic sense; the fact that no misunderstandings were created in communication between someone who doesn't have the split and someone who does doesn't prove that it's not a split. However, the NYC system is highly sociolinguistically stigmatized, and speakers can vary between using and avoiding the split system. That doesn't mean that the NYC system doesn't contain a phonemic split, just that people don't always use the NYC system. AJD (talk) 18:32, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

In that case, I am afraid I misunderstand the page. Could you, sir/ma'am, clear me up on what the classical definition of the split is? Thank you.74.102.216.186 (talk) 15:27, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

 * The classic definition of a phonemic split is: a sound change such that what was originally one sound (e.g., [æ]) becomes two (e.g., [æ] and [eə]), in such a way that it is not possible to determine simply from phonetic context which sound appears in which words. The variability of the NYC system complicates this a bit, but only insofar as speakers vary in terms of whether they use the NYC system or not; it doesn't affect the phonemic status of sounds within in NYC system itself. AJD (talk) 20:38, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Now I understand. There is such a split in New York City English. Some words with an are still pronounced [æn], and others are pronounced [eən]. (There are irregularities like any, Han (as in Han Solo), etc.) As a side note, such a split both has and has not taken hold of rhotic varieties of New York English found in New Jersey. In such varieties, we actually do perceive the two to be separate sounds. However, we pronounce all of the an class words as [eən]. Finally, as your understanding is better than mine, I have one more question to ask you. In New York English, are there any examples where the use of a tense [æ] versus a lax [æ] could result in a different meaning? However, I would prefer that the example not be can (as to be able) and can (as in a metal can) for two reasons. For one, the former is usually pronounced [kɛn]. For another, this pronunciation is sometimes used to prevent it from sounding like can't. But any other would be fine. I do thank you for all of your input.74.102.216.186 (talk) 03:06, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

 * I mean, I don't really accept your thesis that can is "usually" pronounced [kɛn] in NY English, at least according to the sociolinguistic literature. Anyway, it's hard to find a good example of a minimal pair other than that (especially since I don't know as much about the NYC system as I do about the Philadelphia system), but something like banner 'flag' vs. banner 'someone who bans something' would probably do it. AJD (talk) 10:31, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

It dawned on me a few days ago. One time, I was speaking to my parents about my brother's friend Aaron, which I pronounced as. However, my father thought that I said "Erin", which I would have pronounce as. My father misunderstood me because he pronounces "Aaron" as. Another good example of a minimal pair is "Mary" vs. "marry". Almost all of the minimal pairs in New York English occur before r. They rarely occur before n.

Typically, New Yorkers have a three-way distinction between "Mary", "marry", and "merry". Sometimes, in the NY metropolitan area of New Jersey, especially for younger speakers, we only have a two-way distinction, pronouncing "Mary" and "marry" both as, while "merry" is still pronounced as. I'm sorry, sir/ma'am. It dawned on me after you had already replied.74.102.216.186 (talk) 01:18, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

a before r
In the section describing the vowel changes before r, the pages says that was lengthened before r, shifting to. Then, the page jumps right to describing the words cat and cart differing by vowel quality and length in Received Pronunciation, the former pronounced as and the latter as, without ever mentioning the retracting of  to. (The fronting of to  is described.)  Could anybody add in a line saying when  was retracted to ? Thank you.LakeKayak (talk) 22:37, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

trap-bath split and ae tensing
I personally think these should have their own articles. They are long and significant enough for articles on their own. Have all the information about them here makes the article lengthy. I have created articles for them. Fish567 (talk) 23:15, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

 * I feel there should be some time before the sections on this page are reduced. However, I have no objection to either split.LakeKayak (talk) 23:25, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

 * As the page /æ/ tensing has stood for a few months, now I have condensed the section on this page. I can let somebody else be the judge on Trap–bath split.  I don't know the topic well enough.LakeKayak (talk) 01:22, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

What is the origin of the terms "broad a" and "flat a"?
This one I am only a little curious about. And I want to see if anybody knows the answer – because I don't. Any help with this question is appreciated.LakeKayak (talk) 01:03, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

No æ lowering in Australian
As a native speaker of Standard or General AusE, cat [kæt] is noticeably higher/closer than cart [ka:t]. I can't say that I ever hear Aussies say caht [kat] for the feline unless they were affecting a toffee-nosed Queen's English. A low caht would likely be misheard as cut [kʌt].

To put it another way: in the triples cat–cart–cut, bat–Bart–but the cat and bat sound more distinct.

I hope we can find a reference that supports this observation and amend the table, which currently has a big tick for æ-lowering in AusE. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 22:23, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Cox and Fletcher p. 65 give /æ/, /ɐ/, /ɐ:/ for bat, but, part in AusE. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 23:26, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Ohno, I've fallen into the rabbit-hole of MD versus HCE transcription of Australian English. Does the frequency diagram at mean that the æ–ɐ distinction is more front-back rather than height? ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 00:55, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The lowering is sourced at Australian English phonology, which uses different symbols. Basically, ⟨a⟩ in this article (Pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩) stands for the open front unrounded vowel in bat, cat and trap, the same as the one found in RP. In Australian English phonology, it stands for the open central unrounded vowel in but, cut and strut (and part, cart and father when followed by a length mark: ⟨aː⟩). The latter is more narrowly transcribed as ⟨ä⟩ (a centralized cardinal ), but the diacritic is omitted because the vowel in bat is already transcribed with a different symbol, namely ⟨æ⟩ which captures its backness but not the exact height (you can specify it as ⟨æ̞⟩, a lowered ). Plus, the open central unrounded vowel is one of the most common vowels in human languages, and ⟨a⟩ (without any diacritic) is the most common symbol for it. It can also be transcribed as a lowered (⟨ɐ̞⟩), which is equivalent to ⟨ä⟩. Many Australian sources use ⟨ɐ⟩ without the diacritic, which captures its backness but not height (same as with ⟨æ⟩). But they do that without retranscribing  as, which is weird (because they could use ⟨a⟩ instead of ⟨ɐ⟩). Using ⟨a⟩ for the open central unrounded vowel is SO extremely common (Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish, Russian, Hungarian - just to name a few languages in which it is done) that nobody would bat an eye if they did that as well.
 * does not exist in Australian English, except maybe as a starting point of for some speakers. Sol505000 (talk) 03:56, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply, @Sol505000. I just found which talks about the very low-front sound. I could have been thinking wrongly about where æ-a-ä are meant to be, ignorant that descriptions like “/æ/ as in hat” refer to a higher sound in other dialects. If my /æ/ is really [a], then I need to rethink things. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 11:41, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/EL KuBRio

 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. Joyous 23:47, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

EL KuBRio
Wanna-be band that has been working on its first album for the past four years. Radiant! 16:13, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes-- "EL KuBRio" garners 10 hits on google.   What are the distinguishing factors that elevate Dagoberto Flores Rios, who only receives one Google hit, above this rock band?  No vote.  GRider\talk 17:30, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Maybe the fact that decisions Rios makes affect thousands of people in significant ways. Kappa 23:43, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Maybe there aren't any, considering that both get mainly delete votes. Radiant! 15:10, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Gamaliel 17:34, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. More band vanity. -R. fiend 18:45, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, not notable, band vanity. Megan1967 22:46, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete for not meeting the Notability and Music Guidelines. Tuf-Kat 04:57, Feb 27, 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.


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Electronic negotiation (0th nomination)

 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 no consensus, so keep. Deathphoenix 19:03, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Electronic negotiation
Circular definition, with some opinions as to its possible usefulness somewhere in the future. Radiant! 16:13, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Might be original research; being unreadable, it's hard to tell. My strong suspicion is that this is machine generated parody cruft. -- Smerdis of Tlön 20:34, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. —Lowellian (talk) 22:21, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * As has just been demonstrated, context is vital. This is a real term in the field of electronic commerce.  At the very best, this is keep with a humungous dose of  .  But instead I'm going to vote Merge with Business-to-business electronic commerce. Uncle G 01:44, 2005 Feb 24 (UTC)
 * Keep, deleting all of the content and turning it into a substub if needed. It is a very valid subject, and it's surprising that it hasn't been developed yet. --Sn0wflake 01:44, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep but rewrite. Megan1967 00:25, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep but rewrite. Papertiger 18:19, 8 Feb 2006 The topic is a very relevant one, electronic negotiation being a very active research area with a lor of practical applications. I agree it needs complete re-write, though. I might take the time to do it, but no promises.
 * If it needs a complete rewrite (and I agree that it does) and if no one has done so by the end of the discussion period, delete and post to "requested articles". A redlink is better than this.  Rossami (talk) 05:52, 28 Feb 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.


text:
Voltage-regulator tube

A voltage-regulator tube (VR tube) is an electronic component used as a shunt regulator to hold a voltage constant at a predetermined level.

Physically, these devices resemble vacuum tubes, but there are two main differences:
 * Their glass envelopes are filled with a gas mixture, and
 * They have a cold cathode; the cathode is not heated with a filament to emit electrons.

Electrically, these devices resemble Zener diodes, with the following major differences: When sufficient voltage is applied across the electrodes, the gas ionizes, forming a glow discharge around the cathode electrode. The VR tube then acts as a negative resistance device; as the current through the device increases, the amount of ionization also increases, reducing the resistance of the device to further current flow. In this way, the device conducts sufficient current to hold the voltage across its terminals to the desired value.
 * They rely on gas ionization, rather than Zener breakdown
 * The unregulated supply voltage must be 15–20% above the nominal output voltage to ensure that the discharge starts
 * The output can be higher than nominal if the current through the tube is too low.

Because the device would conduct a nearly unlimited amount of current, there must be some external means of limiting the current. Usually, this is provided by an external resistor upstream from the VR tube. The VR tube then conducts any portion of the current that does not flow into the downstream load, maintaining an approximately constant voltage across the VR tube's electrodes. The VR tube's regulation voltage was only guaranteed when conducting an amount of current within the allowable range. In particular, if the current through the tube is too low to maintain ionization, the output voltage can rise above the nominal output—as far as the input supply voltage. If the current through the tube is too high, it can enter an arc discharge mode where the voltage will be significantly lower than nominal and the tube may be damaged.

Some voltage-regulator tubes contained small amounts of radionuclides to produce a more reliable ionization.

The Corona VR tube is a high-voltage version that is filled with hydrogen at close to atmospheric pressure, and is designed for voltages ranging from 400 V to 30 kV at tens of microamperes. It has a coaxial form; the outer cylindrical electrode is the cathode and the inner one is the anode. The voltage stability depends on the gas pressure.

A successful hydrogen voltage regulator tube, from 1925, was the Raytheon tube, which allowed radios of the time to be operated from AC power instead of batteries.

Specific models
In America, VR tubes were given RETMA tube part numbers. Lacking a heater (filament), the tube's part numbers began with "0" (zero).

In Europe, VR tubes were given part numbers under the professional system ("ZZ1xxx") and under a dedicated system.

In USSR, glow-discharge stabilitrons were given designation in Cyrillic with serial number of development. For example, "СГ21Б", "СГ204К" and i.e.

VR tubes were only available in certain voltages. Common models were:

Octal-based tubes, 5–40 mA current:
 * 0A3 – 75 volts
 * 0B3 – 90 volts
 * 0C3 – 105 volts (best regulation of these four)
 * 0D3 – 150 volts

Miniature tubes, 5–30 mA current:
 * 0A2 – 150 volts
 * 0B2 – 108 volts (best regulation of these three)
 * 0C2 – 72 volts

Miniature tubes, 1–10 mA current:
 * 85A2 – 85 volts (equivalents: 0G3, CV449, CV4048, QS83/3, QS1209)

Voltage reference 1.5–3.0 mA current:
 * 5651 – 87 volts (the most popular voltage reference ever made)
 * 5651A – 85.5 volts

Subminiature tubes:
 * Various models such as the 991 that resembled neon lamps, but were optimized for more-accurate voltage regulation

Miniature corona tubes, 5–55 μA current:
 * CK1022 1 kV

Wire-ended, subminiature corona tubes:
 * CK1037 (6437) 700 volts, 5–125 μA
 * CK1038 900 volts, 5–55 μA
 * CK1039 (6438) 1.2 kV, 5–125 μA

Design considerations
Some voltage regulator tubes have an internal jumper connected between two of the pins. This jumper could be used in series with the secondary transformer winding. Then, if the tube was removed, rather than leaving the voltage unregulated, the output would turn off.

Because the glow discharge is a "statistical" process, a certain amount of electrical noise is introduced into the regulated voltage as the level of ionization varies. In most cases, this can be easily filtered out by placing a small capacitor in parallel with the VR tube or using an RC decoupling network downstream of the VR tube. Too large a capacitance (>0.1 μF for an 0D3, for instance), however, and the circuit will form a relaxation oscillator, definitely ruining the voltage regulation and possibly causing the tube to fail catastrophically.

VR tubes can be operated in series for greater voltage ranges. They cannot be operated in parallel: because of manufacturing variations, the current would not be shared equally among several tubes in parallel. (Note the equivalent behavior with series and parallel connected Zener diodes.)

In the present day, VR tubes have been almost-entirely supplanted by solid state regulators based on Zener diodes and avalanche breakdown diodes.

VR tube information
Correctly operating VR tubes glow during normal operation. The color of the glow varies depending upon the gas mixture used to fill the tubes.

Though they lack a heater, VR tubes often do become warm during operation due to the current and voltage drop through them.

title: Voltage-regulator tube


text:
Hell-O

Hell-O! is the debut album by Gwar. The album was released in September 1988, on Shimmy Disc Records.

Gwar's angle on the album is that of a morbid punk band (a la The Mentors, The Misfits, Butthole Surfers) obsessed with debauchery, violence and toilet humor. The songs generally support the theme of the group quite well, expanding the band's concept to comic proportions and supporting the back story.

Overview
The band play sooth-sayers to the United States ("Americanized" and "Ollie North") and modern human civilization in general ("Slutman City"), who have come to torture and enslave Earth for their own perverse sadistic pleasures ("Time For Death", "Bone Meal", "War Toy", "I'm In Love (With a Dead Dog)").

Despite having superpowers, Gwar is not without enemies - a character known as Techno-Destructo has followed the band to Earth to recruit or enslave them to serve "The Master" in a holy jihad against the universe ("Techno's Song"). Don Drakulich plays Techno on the album (the part would soon be taken over by Hunter Jackson). Other songs follow similarly crazy themes - the "Gwar Theme" is a car-eating anthem, "Je M' Appelle J. Cousteau" features famous aquanaut Jacques-Yves Cousteau in a Dada-esque romp, and "AEIOU" disputes whether the English alphabet is the property of Satan or Gor-Gor, another Gwar character who would later surface in the song/video of the same name.

"Rock N' Roll Party Town", the first song ever written by the band, concludes the album in scenes of rock debauchery vaguely reminiscent of Kiss, of whom the band, with their showmanship and larger-than-life personas, seemed to be an 80s underground version. The original vinyl album contained a comic book about the band, featuring artwork parodying Picasso's Guernica (renamed "Gwarnica" here) and poking fun at the "this is your brain on drugs" commercials ("This is your brain on Gwar...").

The album's cover art features the band gleefully terrorizing Earthlings, particularly skinheads, who would attend the band's early shows and harass them with heckling, violence and throwing food, such as toast, onstage, and bulldozing their bodies into ditches.

Musically and conceptually, the record fits in with and came from the arty 80s noise rock or "scum rock" scene (Butthole Surfers, Pussy Galore, early Ween) with similarities to grunge (Tad, Mudhoney), funny punk (Meatmen, Angry Samoans, Dead Milkmen, Happy Flowers, Nig-Heist), punk (The Mentors, The Misfits, Black Flag, Samhain), hardcore (Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, Ministry) and heavy metal (M.O.D., S.O.D., Slayer).

This last genre would be where the band would move on later releases (similar to the transition Suicidal Tendencies underwent between first and second albums). As such, when the album was released on CD, it was remastered (possibly remixed) to bring out the bass and make the production smoother. However, the original vinyl release finds the band squarely in the punk or indie rock universe. In this context, producer Kramer's work on the album makes sense.

Release
Shimmy Disc released "Hell-O!" on cassette and on vinyl 33$1⁄3$ format. The vinyl album was produced in regular black vinyl and a limited rare red vinyl, which was limited to 500 copies. The European Shimmy Disc release of Hell-O! features a bonus track, "Black And Huge," found on Gwar's next album, Scumdogs of the Universe. The song found on some copies of Hell-O! is an earlier version originally recorded to be released as a single on Sub Pop records, and is the first Gwar song to feature Michael Derks as a member, having replaced Stephen Douglas as BalSac The Jaws of Death.

The remastered Metal Blade release of the album does not feature this song. This version of the song fits in with Hell-O! more than it does with Scumdogs, as the guitars are not tuned down a half-step, and the tempo is faster and Oderus' vocals are more of the singing style from this album. A video for the track was also filmed and included on the TVD and The Next Mutation video collections.

Reception
The album is a divisive point among fans of the band, who generally love it or hate it. Hell-O is the least-frequently played album in concert and discussed by the band in interviews, although this could be because the band's line-up has changed to the point where no one from this period has remained a constant member of the band (Michael Bishop rejoined in 2014 as new frontman Blothar following the death of Dave Brockie, who portrayed previous frontman Oderus Urungus). "Gwar Theme" and "Pure As The Arctic Snow" are the two songs most often played live (though they are rare in appearance), and occasionally, the band will play a medley of songs from the album, ranging anywhere from three songs to twelve songs, which is more than half the album.

Detractors of the album criticize its raw production. Chuck Varga, who played The Sexecutioner, posted on the Gwar fan page Bohab Central that he was so disgusted with the sound quality of the recording that he walked out of the session after hearing a few tracks. "I know the band's music and it sounded much better than it did on Hell-О!," he said, going on to say that producer Mark Kramer "didn't care how Gwar sounded" and "gave us one of the most embarrassingly recorded LP's in history."

The [low] quality of the production is further indicated by the length of the recording session - the course of a single weekend. However, consensus across the board is that the album wasn't as bad as We Kill Everything, an album especially reviled by Dave Brockie and Michael Derks.

Personnel
Gwar
 * Dave Brockie (Oderus Urungus) – lead vocals
 * Dewey Rowell (Flattus Maximus) – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals
 * Steve Douglas (Balsac the Jaws of Death) – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals
 * Michael Bishop (Beefcake the Mighty) – bass, backing vocals
 * Rob Mosby (Nippleus Erectus) – drums
 * Don Drakulich (Techno Destructo) – lead vocals on "Techno's Song"

Production
 * Kramer – engineering
 * Adam Green – engineering assistant, assistant producer

title: Hell-O


text:
Burry Holms

Burry Holms (Ynys Lanwol), a tidal island with the height of (98 ft) is at the northern end of Rhossili Bay in the Gower Peninsula, Wales. During spring and summer, Burry Holms is covered by flowers such as thrift and sea campion.

Etymologies
The island was well known within Celtic Christianity as it was heavily associated with traditions of Saint Cenydd, who is said to have lived on the island as a hermit and is linked to the contemporary archeological remains found there. As such, the island is certain to have had an identifiable name in both Old Welsh and Ecclesiastical Latin, likely using Cenydd as an eponym. Indeed, early English records give the name as "Saint Kenyth atte Holmes", suggesting that at least one of these pre-Norse conventions was still known and recorded centuries later.

"Holmes" is a common element of English place-names in Wales, ultimately deriving from the Old Norse holmr, which denotes "a small and rounded islet". The island appears as "Holmes" and "Holmes en Gower", in the Calendar of Patent rolls entries for the 1440s, where it is listed as a "chapel or hermitage". Variations on the Norse/English name continued into the modern era, with the island simply named as Holmes Island on early tithe maps (listed as a "Rectorial Glebe" of the parish of Llangennith). The Modern Welsh name, Ynys Lanwol ("tidal island") is thought to have only come into common usage in recent history, with the modern English name, Burry Holms another recent appellation with the word Burry likely referring to the island's archaeological remains.

History
9,000 years ago, the sea was up to 12 miles (19 km) away. Inhabited by nomadic Mesolithic hunters, flint tools provide the first evidence of their existence. Charcoal-charred hazelnut tools made out of wood and bone were found in 1919. A 1998 excavation by the National Museums and Galleries of Wales found that Burry Holms was used as a Mesolithic seasonal camp. Iron Age people subsequently built a 5 acre hillfort and ditch on the island, while in Medieval times it was home to a monastery. The island is popular among collectors of shells.

title: Burry Holms


text:
Ian Robb

Ian Robb is an English-born folk singer and songwriter, currently based in Ottawa, Ontario. He was a founding member of Friends of Fiddler's Green, and a columnist for Sing Out! He is also a member of the Canadian folk trio Finest Kind. He wrote a parody of Stan Rogers song "Barrett's Privateers", titled "Garnet's Homemade Beer". He was the recipient of the 2005 Canadian Folk Music Award for Best Traditional Singer, for his work on the CD Jiig.

Notable songs written by Robb

 * "They're Taking It Away"
 * "The Old Rose and Crown"
 * "Garnet's HomeMade Beer"
 * "Diana" (commemorating Lady Diana's 1981 marriage to Prince Charles)

Recordings

 * Solo CDs
 * Ian Robb and Hang the Piper, Folk-Legacy Records
 * Rose and Crown, Folk-Legacy Records
 * From Different Angels, 1994

 * CDs as part of Finest Kind
 * Lost in a Song 1996
 * Heart's Delight 1999
 * Silks& Spices 2004
 * Feasts & Spirits (with John D. Huston) 2004
 * For Honour & For Gain 2010
 * Other CDs
 * Ian Robb and Hang the Piper with Grit Laskin, Seamus McGuire, John Goodman, Terry Rudden, 1979
 * Margaret Christl & Ian Robb with Grit Laskin The Barley Grain for Me 1998

 * CD as part of jJiig
 * Jiig 2005

title: Ian Robb


text:
Antonín Puč

Antonín Puč (16 May 1907 – 18 April 1988) was a Czech footballer who played as a forward; he is the all-time leading scorer for the Czechoslovak national team.

Puč's international career lasted from 1926 to 1939; in that time, he played 61 matches for Czechoslovakia, scoring 35 goals. He played for Czechoslovakia in the 1934 FIFA World Cup scoring two goals, including one in the final, a 2–1 loss against Italy, and also played in the 1938 edition. Puč spent most of his club career with Slavia Prague.

After the split of the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia and the corresponding national teams, Jan Koller surpassed Puč's record in 2005. Puč died in 1988 aged 80.

Career statistics

 * Scores and results list Czechoslovakia's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Puč goal.

title: Antonín Puč


text:
Swing trading

Swing trading is a speculative trading strategy in financial markets where a tradable asset is held for one or more days in an effort to profit from price changes or 'swings'. A swing trading position is typically held longer than a day trading position, but shorter than buy and hold investment strategies that can be held for months or years. Profits can be sought by either buying an asset or short selling. Momentum signals (e.g., 52-week high/low) have been shown to be used by financial analysts in their buy and sell recommendations that can be applied in swing trading.

Swing trading methods
Using a set of mathematically-based objective rules for buying and selling is a common method for swing traders to eliminate the subjectivity, emotional aspects, and labor-intensive analysis of swing trading. The trading rules can be used to create a trading algorithm or "trading system" using technical analysis or fundamental analysis to give buy-and-sell signals.

Simpler rule-based trading approaches include Alexander Elder's strategy, which measures the behavior of an instrument's price trend using three different moving averages of closing prices. The instrument is only traded Long when the three averages are aligned in an upward direction, and only traded Short when the three averages are moving downward. Trading algorithms/systems may lose their profit potential when they obtain enough of a mass following to curtail their effectiveness: "Now it's an arms race.  Everyone is building more sophisticated algorithms, and the more competition exists, the smaller the profits," observes Andrew Lo, the Director of the Laboratory For Financial Engineering, for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Identifying when to enter and when to exit a trade is the primary challenge for all swing trading strategies. However, swing traders do not need perfect timing—to buy at the bottom and sell at the top of price oscillations—to make a profit. Small consistent earnings that involve strict money management rules can compound returns over time.

Risks involved
Risks in swing trading are commensurate with market speculation in general. Risk of loss in swing trading typically increases in a trading range, or sideways price movement, as compared to a bull market or bear market that is clearly moving in a specific direction.

Day Trading vs. Swing Trading
The distinction between swing trading and day trading is usually the holding time for positions. Swing trading often involves at least an overnight hold, whereas day traders close out positions before the market closes. To generalize, day trading positions are limited to a single day, while swing trading involves holding for several days to weeks.

title: Swing trading


text:
Scumdogs of the Universe

Scumdogs of the Universe is the second album by American satirical heavy metal band Gwar. The album is their first album on Metal Blade Records and was released on January 8, 1990. To date, it is the band's best-selling album.

A deluxe 30th anniversary box set of Scumdogs was released in August 2020, with remixed and remastered audio by producer Ronan Chris Murphy, as well as an exclusive cassette containing rehearsal demos and previously unreleased tracks. Those that pre-ordered the box set received a digital download of the remastered album on August 7, 2020, with the first single, "Maggots", being made publicly available the same day. The remaster saw a wide release on October 30, 2020.

Overview
As the title implies, it is a concept album about the Scumdogs' (Gwar) reign of terror on planet Earth. The song "Death Pod" explains exactly how they came to Earth to begin with. The production is very refined compared to the independent, rushed first attempt Hell-O. Gwar began to experiment with samples to some degree, e.g. in the song "Maggots".

The songs are more socially relevant in this album as well. Examples include "Slaughterama", which involves Gwar killing hippies and nazi-skinheads in a game show-style fashion and the opening track, "The Salaminizer", in which the first verse was inspired by/based on "Gangsta, Gangsta", a song by the breakthrough rap group N.W.A. Other references include history Vlad the Impaler and Lovecraft mythology, Horror of Yig. Most of the album is centered on twisted jokes about insane medical practices and sexual perversion.

This album is viewed by many of Gwar's fans, as well as Gwar themselves, as their ultimate masterpiece. The band plays more songs from Scumdogs than any other album. "Sick of You" is the most frequently played song in concert, generally the grand finale.

This is the first Gwar album on which more than two people sing lead (Hell-O had Oderus Urungus and Techno Destructo): "Slaughterama" features Sleazy P. Martini, Sexecutioner sings his namesake song, and the album's CD exclusive closer, "Cool Place To Park", debuts bassist Beefcake the Mighty as a vocalist. All other songs feature Oderus.

Danielle Stampe (Slymenstra Hymen), Michael Derks (Balsac the Jaws of Death), Chuck Varga (Sexecutioner), and Brad Roberts (Jizmak Da Gusha) make their debuts on this album.

Reception
In 2016, Scumdogs of the Universe was ranked #90 on Loudwire's Top 90 Hard Rock + Metal Albums of the 1990s lists.

Track listing
Note
 * The tracks "The Years Without Light" and "Cool Place to Park" do not appear on versions released under the Master label, only versions released under Metal Blade label. For the original 1990 Metal Blade release of the album, "Cool Place to Park" is a CD-only track.

Note
 * The 30th anniversary track order has been changed to match the remastered vinyl release, while the pre-order download version featured the tracks numbered to match the 1990 release order. The remastered CD's track listing erroneously omits "Sexecutioner", with the numbering jumping from track 8 to track 10, similar to censored versions of This Toilet Earth.

Note
 * The demo cassette contains an unlisted hidden track after "Jellyfish", a studio demo of "Horror of Yig" that was originally intended to be released through Sub Pop's Singles Club program.

Personnel

 * Dave Brockie (Oderus Urungus) - lead vocals, bass on "Cool Place to Park"
 * Dewey Rowell (Flattus Maximus) - lead guitar, backing vocals
 * Mike Derks (Balsac the Jaws of Death) - rhythm guitar, backing vocals
 * Michael Bishop (Beefcake the Mighty) - bass, backing vocals; lead vocals on "Cool Place to Park"
 * Brad Roberts (Jizmak Da Gusha) - drums
 * Danielle Stampe (Slymenstra Hymen) - backing vocals
 * Chuck Varga (Sexecutioner) - vocals on "Sexecutioner"
 * Don Drakulich (Sleazy P. Martini) - vocals on "Slaughterama"

title: Scumdogs of the Universe


text:
Hold-up problem

In economics, the hold-up problem is central to the theory of incomplete contracts, and shows the difficulty in writing complete contracts. A hold-up problem arises when two factors are present:

 * 1) Parties to a future transaction must make noncontractible relationship-specific investments before the transaction takes place.
 * 2) The specific form of the optimal transaction (such as quality-level specifications, time of delivery, what quantity of units) cannot be determined with certainty beforehand.

The hold-up problem is a situation where two parties may be able to work most efficiently by cooperating but refrain from doing so because of concerns that they may give the other party increased bargaining power and thus reduce their own profits. When party A has made a prior commitment to a relationship with party B, the latter can 'hold up' the former for the value of that commitment. The hold-up problem leads to severe economic cost and might also lead to underinvestment.

Underinvestment
It is often argued that the possibility of a hold-up can lead to underinvestment in relation-specific investment and thus inefficiency. Underinvestment occurs because investors cannot guarantee themselves a sufficient share of the return through ex post bargaining. Consequently, predictions of the outcome are very sensitive to assumptions made about the bargaining process. The bargaining process can be seen as a game with multiple equilibria. Underinvestment may occur only when the agent fails to coordinate on an efficient equilibrium.

Principle
In a scenario where two risk-neutral parties S (supplier) and B (Buyer) can make profit by working together, it is efficient to work together as long as the buyers' valuation exceeds the sellers' costs (Schmitz, 2001). When the two parties could agree on a binding contract covering the whole period of the investment and anticipating all possible outcomes and providing protection for both parties in every situation that may arise at the time the investment is made, the parties would have enough confidence to make the investment, and both parties could enjoy high profits. Then, it can be assumed that there are no wealth constraints and there is no private information. According to the Coase theorem, voluntary bargaining results in trade whenever it is efficient. However, making such a contract is often not possible for these four reasons:

 * Unforeseeable external factors
 * Lack of trust
 * Quality problems
 * Asymmetric information

The initial contract can cover only short-term situations. Eventually, renegotiation is needed, which provides an opportunity for e.g. S to hold up B. As S knows that the investment is a significant cost to B and tries to use this as leverage to negotiate an increase in its prices. In that case, S has more bargaining power, compared to B, and tries to use it to its own advantage. The source of power lies in the investment of B. For B it is hard to find out whether or not the raise in prices is reasonable. In an extreme case, S could demand 100% of the profits if the only alternative to B is to lose the entire initial investment. Even if the outcome would be Pareto efficient, B might not accept the agreement. If the renegotiations turn out to be unsuccessful both parties are worse off: B has made an investment that goes to waste, and S lost a customer.

Inefficiency is caused by the hold-up problem when B is reluctant to make the investment ex ante from the fear that S uses its extra bargaining power to its own advantage. In that case the supplier is 'holding up' the buyer.

Auto industry
A historic example concerns the US car industry, but the example is sharply disputed by Coase (2000). Fisher Body had an exclusive contract with General Motors (GM) to supply car body parts and so Fisher Body was the only company to deliver the components according to GM's specifications. In 1920, a sharp increase in demand occurred that was above expectations. It is claimed that Fisher Body used the unforeseen situation to hold up GM by increasing the price for the additional parts produced. It has been said that the hold up led to GM acquiring Fisher Body in 1926.

Democratization of South Africa
During transition out of South African apartheid, many white elites feared that democratization would result in tyranny of the majority. Now that fair elections were held, many wealthy whites feared that the longtime poor blacks (or their elected representatives) would expropriate wealth from the white minority. For this reason there was white resistance against democratic and fair elections. To ensure a peaceful transition (and to uphold the credibility of the elections), the African National Congress needed to make a commitment to protect the incomes and wealth of the white minority. This commitment allowed whites to respect the results of a democratic election which would put the majority blacks in power. That credible commitment from the ANC made the new democratic regime sufficiently attractive to whites in South Africa, otherwise they would not have agreed to transition out of minority rule.

This problem arises more generally in a political context: dictators such as Saddam Hussein do not surrender to superior force and leave power when it should be rational to do so, because they have no means of assurance that their property and their lives will be protected if they leave power.

Contractual
Rogerson (1992) showed the existence of a first-best contractual solution to the hold-up problem in even extremely complex environments involving x agents with arbitrarily complex transaction decisions and utility functions. He shows that three important environmental assumptions must be made:

 * 1) No externalities so that the investment of each agent directly affects only its own type. Therefore, the following situation is not allowed: a situation where a seller's investment has influence on the quality of the product that he sells to the buyer.
 * 2) Risk neutrality.
 * 3) Only one investor has partially private information so that only one agent makes an investment decision.

Furthermore, the solution also requires 'powerful' contracts to be written.

 * 1) Complex contracts can be written.
 * 2) Each party commits to participate so all parties are willing to sign the contract at the time of signing.
 * 3) The contract prevents from renegotiating the outcomes of the contract so that renegotiation in equilibrium is not possible.

According to Rogerson (1992) the hold-up problem does not necessarily create inefficiencies; when it does, one of the above requirements is not satisfied. The requirements are necessary to come to an absolutely best solution.

If there are direct externalities and renegotiation cannot be prevented, even under symmetric information, underinvestment cannot be avoided. If there are direct externalities, the seller's investment is a hidden action and the buyer has private information about its valuation, the absolutely best solution may not be attained even when the parties have full commitment power. In the absence of direct externalities, simple contracts may solve the hold-up problem even when each party has private information about its valuation. Maskin and Tirole (1999) argue that complex contracts can solve the hold-up problem when there are ex ante indescribable contingencies, and Hart and Moore (1999) argue that the solution does not work when renegotiation cannot be ruled out. Taken together, whether or not suitable contracts can solve the hold-up problem is disputed in contract theory. In an experimental study, Hoppe and Schmitz (2011) found that option contracts may alleviate the hold-up problem even when renegotiation is possible, which may be explained by Hart and Moore's (2008) idea that contracts may serve as reference points.

Option contracts and renegotiation
Nöldeke and Schmidt (1995) argued that the underinvestment problem due to the hold-up problem is eliminated if parties are able to write a simple option contract. Such a contract gives the seller the right but not the obligation to deliver a fixed quantity of the good and also makes the contractual payment of the buyer dependent on the delivery decision of the seller. Thus, this contract does not depend on renegotiation or complicated mechanisms, but its crucial feature is that one of the parties can unilaterally decide whether the trade takes place. However, such a contract is unachievable unless it is possible to enforce the payments conditional on the delivery decision of the seller. That means that the court must be able to verify delivery of the good to the buyer by the seller. The possibility was ruled out in earlier research where it was assumed that when trade fails, it is not possible for the court to distinguish whether the buyer did not accept the delivery or the seller refused to supply.

Vertical integration
The organization and governance structure of a firm might be seen as a mechanism for dealing with a hold-up problem. A solution to the hold-up problem is vertical integration such as a merger in which all parts of the body are being produced internally rather than outside. Vertical integration shifts the ownership of the organizational asset of the firm and therewith creates more flexibility and avoids potential of a hold-up. In that way, the (transaction) costs associated with contractually induced hold-ups are saved and also the costs associated with the number of contracts written and executed. Hold-up problems are created from the existence of firm-specific investments, but also from the set of long-term contracts that are used in the presence of the certain investments. Whether a vertical integration is adopted as a solution to the hold-up problem depends on the magnitude of the specific investment and the ability to write long-term contracts, flexible enough to avoid a potential hold-up. However, the ability to write flexible long-term contracts strongly depends upon the underlying market uncertainty and the reputation of the company. Therefore, those factors will also influence the likelihood of vertical integration. The extent to which vertical integration can alleviate the hold-up problem also depends on the information structure. While traditional incomplete contracting models of vertical integration such as Grossman and Hart (1986) assume symmetric information, Schmitz (2006) has extended the incomplete contracting framework to allow for asymmetric information.

General and cited references

 * Balkenborg, D., Kaplan, T.R., & Miller, T. (2010). A simple economic teaching experiment on the hold-up problem. MPRA Paper No. 24772.
 * Che, Y.K., & Sákovics, J. (2008). H old-up Problem. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
 * Edlin, A. & Reichelstein, S. (1996). Holdups, Standard Breach Remedies, and Optimal Investment. American Economic Review, 86(3), pp. 478–501.
 * Grossman, S. J. and O. D. Hart, 1986. The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration. Journal of Political Economy, 94(4), p. 691-719..
 * Coase, R.H. (2000). The Acquisition of Fisher Body by General Motors. Journal of Law and Economics, 1(43), 15-32.
 * Ellingsen, T., & Johannesson, M. (2004). Is There a Hold-Up Problem? The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 3(106), 475-494.
 * Hart, O. (1995). Firms, contracts, and financial structure. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press.
 * Hart, O., & Moore, J. (1988). Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation. Econometrica, 4(56), 755-785.
 * Holmström, B., & Roberts, J. (1998). The Boundaries of the Firm Revisited. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 4(12), 73-94.
 * Hoppe, E. I., & Schmitz, P. W. (2011). Can contracts solve the hold-up problem? Experimental evidence. Games and Economic Behavior, 73(1), 186-199.
 * Klein, B. (1998). Vertical Integration as Organizational Ownership: The Fisher Body-General Motors Relationship Revisited. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 1(4), 199-213.
 * Nöldeke, G., & Schmidt, K. (1995). Option Contracts and Renegotiation: A Solution to the Hold-up Problem. The RAND Journal of Economics, 2(26), 163-179.
 * Rogerson, W.P. (1992). Contractual Solutions to the Hold-Up Problem. The Review of Economic Studies, 4(59), 777-793.
 * Schmitz, P.W. (2001). The Hold-Up Problem and Incomplete Contracts: A Survey of Recent Topics in Contract Theory. Bulletin of Economic Research, 1(53), 1-17.
 * Schmitz, P.W. (2006). Information Gathering, Transaction Costs, and the Property Rights Approach. American Economic Review, 96(1): 422–434.
 * Tirole, J. (1988). The Theory of Industrial Organization. Massachusetts : Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
 * Williamson, O.E., 1979. Transactions-Cost Economics: The Governance of Contractual Relations. Journal of Law and Economics, 22(2), pp. 233–62.

title: Hold-up problem


text:
George Strother Gaines

George Strother Gaines (1 May 1784 – 21 January 1873) was a federal Indian agent in the Mississippi Territory (today's Alabama and Mississippi). He began as the US Indian agent to the Choctaw, explored the country west of the Mississippi River, and supervised the removal of the Choctaw to Indian Territory in the 1830s. He worked as a banker, and served as a state senator and railroad lobbyist, becoming even more influential in the early history of the region.

Life
Gaines was born in North Carolina on 1 May 1784, the 11th of 13 children of Captain James Gaines and Elizabeth (née Strother) Gaines. His father had served in the Revolutionary War, and both parents came from prominent Virginia families. His older brother, Edmund Pendleton Gaines, for whom Gainesville, Florida was named, rose to the rank of major general in the U.S. Army. Not long after George's birth, the family moved to Gallatin, Tennessee.

In 1804 Gaines was appointed to work for the federal government as an assistant Indian factor at the Choctaw Trading House in St. Stephens, Mississippi Territory (now in Alabama). Indian factors coordinated trading practices and served as personal contacts between the government and the tribes. St. Stephens was a small settlement on the banks of the Tombigbee River.

In 1806 the senior Indian factor, Joseph Chambers, resigned and Gaines succeeded him. In this position he earned the respect of Indians and settlers. As tensions grew as settlers encroached on Choctaw land and competed for natural resources, Gaines was able to maintain a degree of calm in the region. After the Fort Mims massacre in 1813 by a faction of the Creek Indians, Gaines convinced the Choctaw and Chickasaw to help defend the lower Tombigbee River valley. He outfitted Choctaw volunteers to fight against the Creek during the Creek War of 1813-1814, when the US was also involved in the War of 1812.

Gaines resigned his position at the Choctaw Trading House in 1818 to join the Tombeckbee Bank in St. Stephens, by then designated as the temporary capital of the new Alabama Territory. Financial difficulties made worse by the Panic of 1819, forced Gaines to resign in 1822. He moved to Demopolis, Alabama and purchased the Choctaw Trading House from the federal government. Gaines assumed responsibility for its operation, and continued trading with the Choctaw.

Gaines served as a member of the Alabama State Senate from 1825 to 1827. Gaines also served as the president of the Mobile, Alabama, branch bank from 1833 to 1846. Gaines negotiated the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek between the United States and the Choctaw people, acquiring most of their lands in Alabama and Mississippi. At the request of the Choctaw tribe, Gaines led an expedition to scout the prospective Choctaw lands in the Indian territory, before the Choctaw reluctantly agreed to emigrate there. Gaines was criticized for spending too much money on moving the Choctaw. In comparison to the removal of the Cherokee and other of the Five Civilized Tribes, he accomplished the task in a relatively humane fashion.

He is buried at State Line, Mississippi.

title: George Strother Gaines