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7bfad9 | What made certain languages, like English, to continue being used, while other languages, like Latin, do die down? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Latin didn't really die at all -- it split into several languages, many of which are very popular today: Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese, and more. We call these the Romance languages due to their Roman origin as Latin. But in general, a language dies down when the group that speaks it is conquered by another group that doesn't.",
"All languages change and evolve over time. The English we speak today is nothing like the \"original\" English that was spoken around 1,000 years ago -- so in a sense, Old English has disappeared, and Modern English is a new language. Latin is about twice as old as English and has continually changed and evolved during this whole period, going through several distinct stages: Old Latin, Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin, Mediaeval Latin, Renaissance Latin, New Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin. As the language spread through Europe, it mixed with other languages to give us Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and several other languages. In some places, Latin *didn't* mix with other languages but simply continued to evolve, in different ways in different places: languages like Ladin survive in a small area of the Alps, for example, Rhaeto-Romansch is one of Switzerland's four official languages, and Romanian also falls into this category (it evolved from the military slang used by Roman soldiers in the area). Incidentally, English has also been busy mixing with other languages to give us languages like Singlish, Tok Pisin, Gullah, Krio, Bahamian Creole and many others. At the moment, English happens to be the language of international business, so is likely to continue to be very prominent for at least a few generations to come. But there's no guarantee it won't go the same way as Latin.",
"Latin didn't die out, it evolved into the Romance languages, which include Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Romanian, and others. In much the same way, Proto-Germanic didn't die out, it became German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Faroese, Frisian, and of course, English.",
"Every generation changes their language slightly. Over time these changes accumulate to a point where the language spoken is vastly different than the one that was previously spoken. Latin is still spoken today, just everyone calls it by the daughter languages, i.e. Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan, Portuguese, Occitan, etc.",
"Latin is considered a dead language because no \"new\" words are being added to it, to put it simply. It can still be spoken by people who wish to do so, such as in Harvard's annual salutatory address. However, as Concise_Pirate mentioned, languages began to branch off from Latin and develop differently for a variety of factors, including the establishment of distant settlements (dialect changes and greater differences that arose to be classified as a different language altogether), groups conquering other groups (and thus introducing their own language as the main language), religious and political changes, contact and trade between other civilizations (eg. learning a new system of writing/reading/speaking), and so on."
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7bfbkt | Why is crossing your fingers considered both a sign of wishing someone good luck and a sign of someone lying? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The sign of the cross, made with your fingers, is a form of quiet Christian prayer. While the origins are lost to time, people theorize that it means \"God forgive me for lying\" and \"God please grant good luck.\"",
"It originates with Christianity as an invocation of God's protection and as a ward against bad consequences. From this we get the generic \"good luck\" version where you hope someone succeeds at some act, but also the \"lying\" version, which you see mainly in children who would wish to be protected against the bad consequences of their lying.",
"Fun fact: in Germany crossing fingers doesn’t help luck, but ‘pressing your thumb’ does. Given the religious background in Germany you’d think the fingers crossed would be the same."
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7bgtnq | What exactly do film critics mean by a movie "having heft", and how do directors make movies have this quality? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Stems from the slang term \"heavy\" meaning emotionally dramatic. A movie having heft means that it touches on emotionally dramatic events, like murder or rape or divorce. A movie that is poorly paced or doesn't connect the viewer with it's characters might not be able to justify it's heft. I've even heard movies that do this described as \"overweight\", as in, the subject matter is too heavy for the movie to be believable. A director, as the chief creative influence on a production, affects this on every level. The most important of which is likely casting and direction of talent. Choosing the right people who can really make something believable, and guiding them to be consistent with your vision is an essential part of directing. Other than that, every aspect of the movie aids it's believability. Even holes in production that the audience can see through, poorly planned special effects, bad CG, etc. can take a viewer right out of \"the zone\" and draw attention to the production quality rather than the story. Hollywood movies largely try to be \"invisible\" - the goal is for the viewer to be able to forget they are watching a movie and become emotionally invested in the story. There are a million and one approaches to the intricacies of how this is done but that is the general idea in how a movie can justify it's heft."
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7bp8c7 | In which cases is the letter Y a vowel. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Whether Y is used as a vowel or consonant is based on how it is pronounced in a word. If it's a hard Y sound, like yolk, yodel, yam, then it's acting as a consonant. If it's a soft Y sound, like fly, sky, smelly, cycle then it's acting as a vowel. These are pronounced \"aye\" or \"ee\""
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7btp9m | What did Aristotle mean when he said man was a "political animal"? | In his book "Politics", Aristotle says the following, "it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, that man is by nature a political animal. Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident". Any answers appreciated, open ended/rhetorical responses also welcome, I understand there may be no concrete answer but a suggestion as to how to start thinking about it may be warranted. Thanks! | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It appears to me that he's describing our natural tendencies to establish hierarchies within social groups. This can be on a large scale, like civilization-type shit, or even within friend groups. You generally see back and forths of shifting dominance and submission between individuals, which, in my mind, is what Aristotle is describing here. Thoughts?",
"Aristotle constructs man as a fundamentally political animal as opposed to other philosophers like Hobbes or Locke who construct man as individuals who just happen to enter into a society for individual benefit. Aristotle was a realist, and since the only men who exist purely alone were either \"beasts or gods\", it makes no sense to construct society as a conglomeration of fundamental individuals. Like bees, we exist *only* as part of a broader social structure. What makes us more political than bees is what Aristotle calls ορισμος, translated as \"definition.\" Humans can understand and, more importantly, describe to each other abstract concepts through the use of definition and language. This allows us to discuss things like ethics and debate the purpose/nature of our societies, something that bees cannot do. They are more akin to robots. There's *a lot* more to this, my thesis on the topic was 100 pages long, but that's a condensed two-paragraph explanation."
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7c5v1x | Why is Smith such a common last name? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is an English surname. So let's go with just England Long ago, people didn't have surnames. They may have been called \"Bob of York\" or similar. Then a few hundred years ago, those in charge said everyone needed a surname! A name tied to the family rather than the individual. If you didn't want a surname, tough luck. Choose one or get given one! (And some of the surnames offered if you refused were NOT flattering. For an example, I'm not saying my surname, but it does mean 'block head' or 'stubborn' in old English. I bet we didn't choose that!). But people were allowed to choose their surname. Some people did it based on their location. Bob York. But some people did it based on their profession. Now if you were a craftsman, you were a 'Smith'. Blacksmith worked with iron. Whitesmith worked with silver. So on and so forth. Thus, Smith pretty much just meant 'craftsman'. So in a way, a surname of Smith is just a way of saying \"Bob the Craftsman\". It's probably not a surprise that there were lots and lots and lots of craftsmen (and women!) in England a few hundred years ago. Just because a person has a surname of Smith doesn't mean that they are super closely related or anything. It just means that they most likely had an ancestor that was a craftsmen."
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7c7lpq | Why do we switch over to other mammals milk, instead of sticking with breast milk, if it is made specifically for humans? Wouldn't it be better for us, then say cows milk? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We aren't at a stage where it is socially palatable to milk women on an industrial scale yet.",
"To answer part of your question, yes breast milk is much better for us. Each mother's body literally makes that milk for exactly what that exact baby needs. It even changes day by day! If there's some kind of illness, like a cold, the milk produced will be different than even milk from the day before. Cow's milk, science is discovering, isn't all that good for humans to drink at all, but especially not as infants. That's why babies who can't breastfeed, for a plethora of reasons, usually get formula, or donated/bought breast milk from another nursing mother.",
"Animal milk (including human) is made for fattening up baby animals during a crucial time in their growth, and that is all. An adult should not be drinking it. Cows milk causes way more health problems for us than it does health benefits. For all the practical uses of cows milk in the modern adult diet, nut milks such as almond, coconut, soy, cashew, etc. are a much better alternative. *edit: It should be noted that it is ideal to vary them however. Rather than, lets say - exclusively drinking almond milk. Sometimes pick up coconut, a different time pick up cashew etc.* *edit 2: downvoting me will not make dairy any less awful for your health*"
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7c935c | How does one properly present a well-sourced argument without enraging the other side? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You don't. That's not how reality works. Outside of a formal debate, all a well-sourced argument proves is that you want to win badly enough to do homework. Dropping a few obscure Supreme Court rulings then declaring victory when your opponent doesn't recognize them isn't compelling, it is annoying and childish. > Is there a psychologically proven approach to motivate them to change sides, instead? If there was, do you think we would still have passionate debates? Debate is informed by your values, and two people with different values can agree on the facts and logic, yet still hold different points of view. If your values say it is okay to occasionally sacrifice an innocent life for the good of society, you are going to be more open to capital punishment than some who believe all life is sacred. There is no argument to be had."
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7cc5ds | Why are cheese curds so popular in the northern states? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Have you tried good cheese curds? That'll answer your question. I'm not far from Canada",
"Canadian winters are terribly harsh. Only those with several extra layers of fat can survive a Canadian winter. While Eskimos have natural fat layers to survive the cold, most Caucasian Canadians do not. In order to adapt and acclimate, Canadians have taken to consuming cheese curd and lager beer. Cheese curd when eaten alongside Moosehead and LaBatts beers creates several layers of fat in the Caucasian Canadian which enables them to survive the brutal winters.",
"It is less about being a northern state, and more about being a cheese state. States like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont were typically big cheese producers, so cheese was cheap and available enough to be a bar snack. Even though cheese production has shifted to other states in recent decades, they haven't had time to develop the same sort of cheese culture.",
"Because they are delicious, and dairy is quite common in some northern states around the Great Lakes and Canada.",
"It all has to do with the harsh winters. Cheese curds are essentially fried cheese which is a great way to pack a ton of caloric intake into a small meal. This gives advantages two-fold: 1. The human body tends to adjust to the cold weather by increasing metabolism(which requires many calories from cheese curds) to internally generate heat. This is why 40 degrees Fahrenheit is shorts and t shirt weather after a long winter. Everyone's body has adjusted to the cold. 2. The large caloric intake also produces a layer of blubber around the body to act as extra insulation to hold in heat. This layer of blubber is the same that allows other mammals such as Arctic seals swimming in water to withstand extreme cold temperatures"
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7cffio | Why is it socially acceptable to take pics of strangers and shame them online without their knowledge? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I don’t think it is socially acceptable and I agree with you that it’s a terrible thing to do. I bet that the people who do it wouldn’t appreciate it being done to them.",
"[Dani Mathers]( URL_0 ) former playmate, got her just desserts for publicly shaming someone online. It isn't socially acceptable. What she did was disgusting.",
"It is? Good to know... *grabs camera* Joke aside: it is done but its in a wide range of society not a bit acceptable. In some countries it's even illegal. I would love to take pictures of people but I would have to ask everyone for a signed paper to be on the safe side."
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"http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/playboy-playmate-dani-mathers-body-shame-woman-gym-naked-photo-snapchat-sentence-graffiti-remove-a7755771.html"
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7cgdof | Why do Europeans have "drinking songs" but American's don't? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Drinking songs can be thought of as a form of folk song, or a historical song shared by people of the same culture that has no real creator, but has been passed to generationally to members of a certain folk group. The U.S. is interesting culturally because it does not have this underlying folk culture, since the people that came to the U.S. came from a variety of different culture with different folk traditions. While this combination resulted in an interesting mixture of cultures, it means there is really no underlying folk tradition for drinking songs to arise from.",
"You have apparently never been in a bar when \"Sweet Caroline\" comes on... But seriously, \"drinking songs\" are reflective of the culture of the people singing them, and in Europe, many of their cultures are eons old. In the US, our only references are far more recent, so we unite over songs we know collectively, though can't be traced back to more ancient origins. I would say some of the US's common drinking songs would include, as mentioned above, \"Sweet Caroline\" by Neil Diamond, \"Friends In Low Places\" by Garth Brooks, \"One Bourbon, One Scotch, And One Beer\" by George Thorogood, and any other common bar staples. source: I am a full-time entertainer and musician who caters to Americas drinking class. Cheers!",
"Americans have plenty of drinking songs. Friends in low places, I love this bar, and pretty good at drinking beer, immediately come to mind. Country music is good for those types of songs.",
"Here in England we don’t have any drinking songs but if you started singing oasis aloud, everybody would join in!!! I guess old drinking song are just popular song that pissed blokes sing."
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7chzp3 | Why do neo-Nazis also deny the Holocaust? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If I was a neo-Nazi (NOT A NEO-NAZI HERE), I sure would be interested in denying the event that makes most people hate me. Are they only denying it outwardly? Who can say? You'd have to ask each one, I don't think every neo-Nazi is of the same opinion on this one. If you're asking if they get together amongst themselves and go \"...Yeah, of course it happened but we're not going to _say_ that\", we'd have to find one and ask. Even then I doubt someone would fess up to that.",
"It discredits their movement. Regardless of it they think that it happened or not or if they deserved what was coming for them it is terrible PR to be held responsible for what is generally considered to be one of the greatest atrocities in the history of mankind. There are various levels of denial, ranging from outright denial to claiming that the death toll has been (greatly) exaggerated, or acknowledging that many people did indeed die but they died as a result of e.g typhus and starvation, not elaborate death contraptions and so on.",
"The Nazis really never viewed the holocaust as murder. They viewed it as an extermination. Holocaust denial comes from the fact Jews got a lot of sympathy out of the ordeal. Deniers look at this as another Jewish conspiracy. How we portray the holocaust is different from how deniers view it. Some may say that there was an outbreak that only affected Jewish populations and that the equipment left behind was evidence of dealing with the outbreak. But you add in a lot of cognitive dissonance - like why be afraid of a Jewish virus and round them up if they’re sub human. Why steal their wealth if they have a virus. Why make them non-citizens? I’m sure deniers can have answers, but they’ll just keep moving out goalposts."
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7ckd1l | Why does the raidio only play certain songs by an artist and not any song that is good by them? Even old artists with no albums to promote. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"To put it simple, it's been analysed that the audience stay on the station when the music is recognisable.",
"A local radio morning show actually explained this a few weeks ago in my area. Basically, the stations quickly lose listeners if they play \"unknown\" music. Playing popular and recognizable songs is what most people actually want and will stick to a station for. E: a word"
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7ckeou | The German Education System | I'm currently in the U.S. taking a German 101 course. My professor tried explaining the German Education system, but didn't do too well. She sparked my curiosity, as it's so different from the United States and seems to be somewhat complex. Danke! | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In Germany all children go to a primary school (Grundschule) when they're 6 years old and stay there for 4 years. After that they're usually \"sorted\" into one of 3 school types, depending on their grades (and how much their parents try to override those recommendations). The \"Hauptschule\" is the most basic one, the kids stay there for another 4 school years. After that they usually try to get an apprenticeship or something similar. The \"Realschule\" is the \"middle one\" and is slowly replacing/absorbing the Hauptschule in most areas. It offers 6 years of school (so, 2 more than the Hauptschule). At its end you have an exam called \"Mittlere Reife\" which is roughly equivalent to a high school diploma in the US or the GCSE in the UK. This exam is standardized (on the state-level), so all students graduating in the same year in the same state have the same exams. There are a few special types of Realschule (Werkrealschule is one that comes to my mind), but essentially they all function the same way. (and generally they aim to get people that would traditionally be sent to the Hauptschule to get a \"Mittlere Reife\"). Then there is is the Gymnasium. There are essentially 2 types of those: the 8- and the 9- yearlong ones. (for a total of 12 or 13 years of school). After 6 years you also take the exam to get the \"Mittlere Reife\" (see Realschule). After that you prepare for the standardized (again, state-level) Abitur. The abitur is comparable to the A-levels in the UK or the SAT in the US. With an Abitur you may apply to any university in Germany for any subject of your choice. Besides the classic Gymnasium there's also specialised ones that give you the lower \"Fachhochschulreife\" instead. With this you are limited in your choices when it comes to college/university. Usually these are for people who want to get into engineering or economics and dont care about languages/history/etc. In grade 5/6 (the first two after leaving the primary school), students may still move between the different school types (essentially they can get up/downgraded if they outperform their peers in their school). This is pretty rare, though, in my experience. (I heard that some schools also just extend the \"Grundschule\" to 6 years, but to my knowledge this is rather uncommon) Also of note is that the students who fail to meet expectations can (and often will) have to repeat a year. At the Gymnasium in Baden-Württemberg that I went to almost 1/3 of the students we started with in 5th grade (after the Grundschule) had to repeat (and thus prolonged their stay at school) before getting their \"Mittlere Reife\". After that the kids usually decide to drop out/opt for the (limited) Fachhochschulreife instead of the Abitur, so seeing people repeat a year after passing the Mittlere Reife is rather uncommon. In Germany the final decision for schools always lies with the state, which, well, has its downsides. While an Abitur should qualify for any university in Germany it is well known that getting the Abitur in Berlin is MUCH easier than getting it in Munich. This leads to universities sometimes prioritizing students from some states and generally causes tons of issues.",
"Nordrhein Westfalen: The German school system starts with the 4 years of elementary schools. In these 4 years the teachers try to see the potential of every kid. Depending on how intelligent and willing to learn a child is, the kid gets an different recommendation (for the middle school) at the end of the elementary school. After that, the middle school of 6 years comes. There are 4 types of middle schools in Germany. - One of them is to teach the kids just some relevant basics. After this school, the teens mostly look for simple jobs. - the second one is more like a school for bureau jobs. - the third one is the school with the highest education (Gymnasium). After that school, most teens go to high school and afterwards attend to universities. - the last one is an mixture of the 3 above. This school provides classes with 2 different difficulties. The kids with good grades get better education, the kids with bad grades get less education. Although after this school the teens with good grades can go to high school too, most of them don't attend to universities afterwards. The highschool is a 3 year school and available for the teens from gymnasium or for teens from other schools with good grades. Although in theory it is possible for a kid to change the type of school one attends, once you are in middle school; I've never seen someone from the lower schools go to higher schools. So the grades in elementary school are really relevant for the future of children. Edit: of course, this is an simplified approach without too much details. I thought this would be enough for an ELI5.",
"The German education system is a complicated topic with many details, the important parts to know that differ from the US version is that University/college is much less required for careers. The schools usually split up students after a few years of school into different tracks some end up going to the Gymnasium (which has little to do with sports or nudity despite the name) it is for kids who are good at theoretical and academic stuff and might want to go to college. Finishing this high-school with an \"Abitur\" diploma is a requirement to go to college. In addition to the Gymnasium there also is the \"Realschule\" which is for the slightly less academic pupils who might want to go into a trade rather than college after school. In the past there was also the \"Hauptschule\" for unlearned laborer who only got the minium of schooling, bu that has fallen by the wayside in recent times. There also is a \"Gesamtschule\" that unites the three or two types of school in one single form and exist either instead of in addition to them. Once you are finished with school you can either go to college, start a vocational education or very rarely start some job as an unlearned laborer. The last one is no longer very common. University/college is generally free but some states require a payment of a few hundred euro per semester under certain circumstances or just in general. Luckily the government will also give you a so called Bafög credit that you can use to finance your life while you study. the credit is without interest and you might not even have to pay it all back. So with the combination of free or cheap college and easy credit generally the sort of high figure decade long college debt you get in the US is not really a thing. If you decide you are not an academic and rather want a real job. you go the vocational track instead. It covers everything from traditional trades like carpentry or mechanic to office workers to medical jobs like nurses and doctors assistants to IT-workers or hair-cutters and cooks. It is based on the traditional apprentice-journeyman-master system where young people get taught on the job. They spend half their time working for a company being taught what to do and the other half in a school where the theoretical aspects are being filled in. They get paid during that time. In the end they are a learned professional and either get hired by the company that taught them or try their luck elsewhere with the understanding that they have been educated to a certain standard. If they do end up being good at it they might later become a Master of their trade, which is something to be proud of. There are plenty of ways to switch between those two main tracks and alternatives and special tracks, but college and vocational school are the main components."
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7cl48w | How do Chinese writers express their characters in their books as speaking in different ways depending on where they are from? | How do Chinese writers express accents of characters in books? In English, one can leave out different letters in words, or add different ones, to express ways of speaking from different regions, such as the deep south. But since the Chinese use characters instead of letters for words, how is this achieved there? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You are right that written *standard* Chinese is the same, but there are lots of regional variations in words used, slang, etc. One of the most well-known differences is, Mandarin spoken by Northerners (esp. in Beijing) tends to use a lot more 'erhua' （儿化）。 This is to say they often use a strong 'er' (think a pirate \"arr\") at the end of syllables, usually replacing a consonant. This can be expressed through the written symbol 儿。 So the word for park 公园 is pronounced \"gong yuan\", but most northerners will pronounce it 公园儿 \"gong yuarrr\". So a writer wishing to express this can do so by adding in the written 儿, and this is commonly done. Otherwise, there are also phrases and words (especially slang) that different regional accents/dialects favour. I cannot think of any to mind - but just as you might use \"Y'all\" to give away someone using an American, possibly Southern, accent (as no British/Aussie would use it), you can use certain Chinese words that would give a hint to a reader that they have a certain accent. And finally, a writer, just as they would when writing an English book, may more just write descriptively about the character's accent. \"Xiao Gao, with his precise, effeminate enunciation, clearly had an affection for Taiwanese and Japanese popculture\", \"Old Li, with his Beijing accent that leaves an impression of a 40-a-day smoker...\" etc etc. Obviously I'm not a writer so I am sure they would do it much more stylishly than this but just to give you an idea :) More broadly, China has a bit of a blurred difference between what it considers a regional \"accent\" versus a regional \"dialect\". Some \"accents\" - to me as a foreigner - sound more different to standard Mandarin than some \"dialects\" do.",
"There are regional dialects like Cantonese Vs Mandarin that use different words and grammar. Other similar regional variation in speech and such exists in different areas."
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7coqjq | What does the "farian" in words like rastafarian and pastafarian mean? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Rastafari religion centers on the former emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, also known (among other names) as Ras Tafari Makonnen. Tafari was his personal name, Ras was his title (meaning head, or prince - it was basically a title of nobility), and he took the name Haile Selassie when he became Emperor. He's treated as either a prophet or a Christ-like incarnation of Ja (god) in the religion (depending on who you ask). So Rastafarian comes from Ras Tafari and the suffix -an, meaning \"person of this group\" in the same way that Jamaic**an** or Americ**an** does. \"Pastafarian\" is the name of a parody religion created in the early 2000's to point out the ridiculous elements of many religions and the problems inherent with accepting or teaching religions in schools. The original idea was \"if schools are teaching Creationism alongside evolution, then they might as well also teach the doctrines of the Flying Spaghetti Monster too, to be fair.\" The name \"Pastafarian\" was chosen to spoof the name \"Rastafarian,\" with a spaghetti twist. So the \"-farian\" suffix isn't its own thing, it just happens to come up in those two words.",
"In the case of Rastafarian, 'farian' isn't a proper suffix. 'Jah Rastafari' is the name of God in human form. Rastafarian, or just Rastafari, is the name given to those who follow the religion. Pastafarian is just a play on Rastafarian. A little insulting, maybe, but the Rastafarians don't seem too angry about it."
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7cps66 | The opiates crisis | Why did this happen? How do we as a society fix it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The short answer is, in the 80's and 90's, ideas about pain changed in the medical community, and doctors began to believe that pain could and should be managed very aggressively. This belief was helped along by companies like Purdue Pharma which were producing new formulations of opioid painkillers, intended for long term use. Purdue aggressively pushed its painkiller (OxyContin) as a safe, non-addictive formulation of opiates that could be used to control pain. If this were true, it would have been a godsend for people who suffered from pain. Sadly, it was not true, and in an obvious in hindsight series of events, millions of people got addicted to the drugs. Now it turns out that OxyContin is pretty expensive. So if you can't pay for OxyContin any more, or your doctor won't prescribe you any more, but you're addicted and the withdrawals feel like sheer hell, where do you turn? Well, heroin is cheap..."
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7cr1la | Why are there still relatively low speed limits on most highways throughout the United States? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Name one besides the Autobahn? Canada is 66, China is 75, Belgium is 56, England is 70. The US is pretty much on par with the rest of the world. EDIT: Even Germany uses 80 on the rest of its highways",
"The answer is mostly safety with an element of energy efficiency too. Higher speed limits mean more highway deaths. There's no escaping this fact: it's true even if other countries have higher limits; and it's true even if cars are safer now. People want their car safety dividend in fewer fatalities, not shorter trip times or, at least, so the politicians who ultimately set the limits have judged. It will be interesting to see if autonomous cars can do well enough to have higher limits. Energy efficiency, the thing that drove the 55 limit for a time, hasn't gone away either. Fuel use is something like the square of speed so already 70 uses 60% more fuel than 55."
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7ctnp7 | Why does basically no one speak Latin anymore even though it is used in many popular countries? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is a very slow language with very complex grammar that isn't very intuitive. The sheer amount of declensions, verb tenses, gender words, and verb forms are staggering, and makes for a very cumbersome, formal language. The trend for languages is to become less formal over time, which is probably one of the major reasons that people find English so easy to learn the basics of (although the mastery/fluency of English is a little more difficult than some other languages).",
"All languages change and evolve over time. Latin was no exception: during its existence it went through many changes, evolving from Old Latin to Classical Latin to Vulgar Latin and then Mediaeval Latin, Renaissance Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin. Ecclesiastical Latin is still spoken, but only by the clergy of the Catholic Church and in certain situations (usually in the context of liturgy). But also, as the Roman Empire expanded, the Latin language spread out and came into contact with other languages, resulting in the Romance languages of today: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and so on. In some areas, the Latin language was much more isolated and so continue to survive in more or less \"pure\" form -- but since these were small pockets cut off from each other, they evolved in different ways. In the Alps, for example, Latin survives as a collection of related languages known as the Rhaeto-Romance languages: one of them, Romansch, is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, while another one spoken in South Tyrol, Trentino and Belluno still calls itself \"Ladin\". Further to the east, the Latin spoken by Roman soldiers posted to Dacia evolved into modern Romanian -- one reason we know this is that many words in Romanian are derived from Roman military slang. So in fact, a lot of people do still speak Latin. It's just that in the last 2,000 years or so, it has changed so much it's barely recognizable.",
"Once the Roman Empire fell, there was nobody forcing people to speak proper Latin anymore. The common people, who weren't terribly educated, probably illiterate & didn't have anything like TVs and movies to keep them following the same things, so the language slowly diverged. Over a few hundred years, the language that people in different regions spoke became different enough to be considered separate languages rather than just dialects.",
"As the Roman Empire declined the Latin language fractured in its various regions and evolved into the Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian). Proper Latin stopped being used in common speech as they started to use these languages and became a language only used by Scholars and the Clergy. While it is still taught in many countries as a secondary or tertiary language, and a number of degrees in college still require it, it is not actually popular as that would require it being a vernacular language and it is not.",
"Lots of people speak Latin. The world has perhaps a billion Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian speakers. People didn't stop speaking Latin, their Latin slowly evolved to the point it became a distinct language. Academics and clergy preserved forms of Classical Latin as a convenient, ostensibly unchanging neutral language they could share knowledge with. It too, would change over time, diverging from Vulgar Latin, that last form natively spoken that went on to become the Romance languages of today."
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7cuy4p | Why are most fighters (especially in MMA) bald? | I didn't find anything useful in either [Google]( URL_1 ) or this [sub]( URL_0 ) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No hair for the other fighter to grab and pull, as tough as u are pulling hair can be extremely painful as well .... also some fighters I imagine would rather not go 2 5 mins rounds with another fighter then lose cus he got some sweat in his eyes of his hair and kissed the duck/ dodge for a big hit"
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7cv526 | How do pubs get their names? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Basically, in the days before everybody could read, public houses were distinguished by the signs, which would portray some distinctive image, like an animal or the portrait of the monarch. And so people would arrange to meet \"at the sign of the white horse\", for example. Pub signs might depict anything: people, historic events, local legends -- the only real limit was people's imaginations. A large number of pub signs had images taken from heraldry, and these sometimes had specific meanings: the white horse, for example, is taken from the coat of arms of the House of Hanover, and so a pub called the White Horse might date back to the 18th century when that dynasty inherited the British throne and the landlord wanted to show his support for the new royal family. Similarly, the swan was a badge used by the House of Lancaster, and was often white. Nag's Head is an example of a pun: the sign might depict the head of a horse, but a nag can also describe a woman who is constantly scolding her husband -- thus a man might go to the Nag's Head to escape his nagging wife. I'm not sure about the Crown and Shuttle: I suspect that's a modern invention, which may not have any particular story behind it but just *sounds* like a traditional pub name.",
"Every pub has its own story, as whoever owns the pub gets to choose what it's called. Sometimes it's a local reference (my old local was called The Nightingale because it was on Nightingale Lane), sometimes it's a topical reference (lots of pubs are named after the monarch at the time or a local noble), sometimes it's some weird quirk (the Elephant and Castle pub is presumed to be named after the elephant and castle iconography on the original building, which was there because the site was a cutlery before it was a pub, and the elephant with a castle on its back is the symbol of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers), sometimes it's just something the owner came up with because it sounded like the name of a pub (this mostly happens with newer pubs). If you ask the publican, they might know, though it's possible the source of the name has been lost to time."
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7cvoy2 | Why was "Fake News" added to the dictionary this year when its just made of two standard words being used appropriately? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The phrase \"fake news\" has acquired a meaning beyond merely \"news which is fake.\" Specifically, the news is deliberately false, hides this fact, and is ofte written for political purposes. Satirical programs like *The Daily Show* used to be referred to as \"fake news,\" but that wouldn't match the definition used today. It's appropriate for a dictionary to explain special meanings and connotations of phrases.",
"Because it isn't just literally fake news. \"Fake news\" is a term in and of itself and means \"false, often sensational, information disseminated under the guise of news reporting\".",
"The Oxford English Dictionary contains idioms as well as words. For example, you could look up *call a spade a spade* and get the definition of that phrase. *Fake News* just happened to be noticed enough to merit inclusion in the lexicon.",
"Most dictionaries these days are Descriptive not Proscription. Which means they record the language in how it is being used and not how it should be used. So when they were making edits to the dictionary someone submitted Fake News as a candidate and it fulfilled the criteria of being used as a definite idea over a large portion of the culture in a way that shows permanence. or more simply they feel that Fake News is now a specific description that publications agrees on, and it looks like it is here to stay. Therefore it goes into the dictionary. For more information of dictionaries get the Book \"Word By Word: the secret life of dictionaries\" It is the only book about dictionaries that will make you laugh."
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7czxds | Since juries (in America) decide a person's guilt, why in pop culture do we see judges banging their gavel and declaring "guilty!"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You can choose to have a jury trial or not. If you choose not to have a jury, then the judge makes the decision. But even if you have a jury trial, the jury tells the judge what their finding is, and the judge then pronounces it. The judge has some power to affirm or not the decision of the jury. It's not a power that is commonly used, but it exists.",
"you can choose to have a bench trial (judge decides) or you can have a jury trial (jury decides). it's more dramatic to have a judge bang the gavel and declare guilty than it is to have the jury foreman tell the judge they decided the defendant was guilty. URL_0"
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7d0r2p | As a kid, tv shows showed treasure chests to be large. In reality, how big was a traditional 1600-1700's treasure chest? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The facts are that there is no such thing as a \"treasure chest\" and various valuable goods were stored in all manner of containers. A strongbox designed to hold gold coins or bullion for example would be no larger than shoe box sized, because a shoe box full of gold is around 100lbs of gold Edit: A 12\" x 6\" x 6\" box full of gold would weigh approximately 250 pounds. A little less if the gold is in the form of coins, since there will be some leftover empty space."
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7d1j0j | How Rose McGowan can be charged for drug residue found on her belongings when 90% of US paper money has drug residue on it? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Considering we can't see the actual text of the criminal complaint, we can only surmise. The amount of residue is probably the issue. Drug dogs don't key to any and all paper money, but they do for more recent and higher concentration amounts. The warrant was also issued in February. Courts generally don't like being ignored on these things.",
"She is being setup for sure. She threatens to name names then goes to jail for nothing? l don’t buy lt.",
"> What is the official government rational behind this seemingly unfair law? There is no law. Drug residue is *evidence* of drug possession. It is still up to a prosecutor to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. In fact, we discovered that money had drug residue by someone successfully showing that in their defense. Nor is drug residue and either/or proposition. It is highly likely that someone charged due to the residue is going to have way more of it on them than is found on money.",
"Im out of the loop on this. Was the warrant actually served on McGowan or only issued by the court? The court can write (issue) whatever it likes but unless that is conveyed (served) to the relevant parties the actual date of writing has little effect. The fact is an issued warrant is unknown to the 'defendant' until it has been served (delivered/conveyed) by the police or an agent of the court."
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7d41p9 | Is is ok to call a black man a black man? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's amazing how the only people who get offended by calling black people \"black people\" are white people.",
"White guy here. My opinion of it is it is the same as calling me White or someone from Central America Latino. That being said, the teacher probably took it as you were making fun of him for being black, or that it was more funny that he is black.",
"2 weeks? No way you got a 2 week suspension for this. Prove it",
"Hmm, if you're the class clown I could see the teacher being completely fed up with your shit. If you were just saying it passively it doesn't make any sense. Tell us the *whole*story..."
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7d600y | Aside from being able to perform harder music, what makes someone a good percussionist? And what differentiates the absolute best from the "just good"? | For most other instruments, there are aspects of playing like tone and stability that don't exist on most percussion instruments. So what exactly separates a good percussionist from a professional? Is it just the ability to play hard music? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Percussion is most of all about rhythm, and rhythm is much more complex than the perfectly uniform timing that a drum machine puts out. A good percussionist is immensely sensitive to the tiny shifts in timing that build and release tension, that create emphasis or space, and that generally make the mood of the whole piece what it needs to be.",
"> tone and stability that don't exist on most percussion instruments Tone *absolutely* exists on a percussion instrument. Nearly every percussion instrument can be struck in different ways to produce different tones. And lots of care and attention needs to be given ahead of time to tuning and setup to get exactly the sound one wants from a drum or other struck object. One thing that separates good drummers from great drummers is care and attention to the smallest details of tone."
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7d6r94 | Why do we have capital letters? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse.",
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why are there capital and lowercase letters? Where did this all begin? ]( URL_2 ) 1. [why are there upper case and lower case letters? ]( URL_6 ) 1. [ELI5: Why do we have upper and lower case letters, but not numbers? ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5: The need for both uppercase and lowercase letters. ]( URL_9 ) 1. [ELI5:Why do we use capital letters and lowercase letters? ]( URL_1 ) 1. [ELI5: Why do we have uppercase and lowercase letters? ]( URL_7 ) 1. [What does it matter that we have uppercase and lowercase letters? ]( URL_8 ) 1. [ELI5:Why do capital letters exist? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [Why do capital letters exist? ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5:why must we start a sentence with a capital letter? is it not enough to finish one with a . ]( URL_3 )",
"The question is backwards because capital letters came first. We have lower-case letters because try writing a letter to your mother in all caps. You'll find smaller, more rounded letter forms are quicker and easier to write than larger, more angular ones. Same reason we evolved cursive writing. This is of course besides the usefulness of indicating sentence beginnings, proper nouns, initialisms, etc. to make reading more clearly understood."
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7d90o5 | Why is mental health so misunderstood and is not funded as much as other diseases? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Mental health is not something you can *see*. Humans, historically, have a huge problem with stuff they can't see and understand, so they make up explanations. So \"mental health\" for the longest time was basically explained as stuff like demonic possession, and treated as such. Many stigmas remain attached to mental illness to this day. It's not so much that it's not funded, but those stigmas do deter a lot of people from taking them seriously, or even trying to understand them.",
"Mental health psychology is a newer field of science and medicine being only a few hundred years old. Sure, you might be able to find some rando group of people in history that consider mental health important, but as far as a bonafide field of science: nah. On top of being a new science, the brain is so complex we cave a good understanding of what it all does but not a complete understanding. And like others have said, you can’t see mental health. If someone is depressed it’s easy to say, “yo get your ass out the bed.” If someone’s leg is glowing yellow and bent in several directions it’s like, “let’s get you to the hospital and throw some money at that shit and find out what it is... I’ll call Uber cuz I don’t want you in my car.”",
"Bachelors in Psychology here (so take my advice both slightly more seriously than others' and simultaneously with a grain of salt). Mental health is on a steeper gradient than most physical illnesses. If you have all of the flu symptoms, you generally have the flu (bacterial mutations notwithstanding). Just because you may be sad or unmotivated (two symptoms of depression) does not mean you have clinical depression. Similarly, when you compare physical illnesses to each other, they vary slightly less than do mental health problems. For example, using the same flu analogy, if someone has flu symptoms, their body can only deal with it in so many ways. It coughs, it sneezes, and it sniffles its way back to healthiness. Once your symptoms are gone, it is generally understood that you no longer have the flu (again, this is an example, please do not read too much into the specifics of these analogies). On the other hand, you can deal with mental health issues in a number of ways: if you have depression, you can cope and still be functional, even if you are depressed constantly. There are definitely greater gradients that exist in the mental health world because you can be drastically depressed with good coping mechanisms or you can be lightly depressed with poor coping mechanisms, both situations resulting in very different outcomes for the patients. I hope I explained this with the right amount of ambiguity because there are *many* other factors at play. The flu/depression analogy may not be the most relevant or ideal, but I think it covers the idea that there are certain differences between physical and mental health illnesses that make mental health illnesses both harder to diagnose and also easier to hide. The final point is that physical illnesses are *usually* more life threatening and therefore illicit more news coverage, media response, and funding in the medical sector. \"You have depression? Yeah, just deal with it. This guy has cancer and only has days to live without chemo!\" That about wraps it up, feel free to ask for more clarification."
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7dbw31 | Why is it socially acceptable now to target harassment at individuals for alleged crimes with no hard proof? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because proof of some crimes is impossible to verify, so it becomes one vs one. and sadly in this day and age those accused are usually in positions of power and privilege, and are able to shout down arguments and accusations loud enough. Victims are often vilified for being victims, not believed, and made to feel shame for even daring to accuse their abusers. If you don't believe me, take a good hard look at the Brock Turner case and tell me that even with due process in place, the victim and the criminal got the appropriate levels of punishment or support for the crime."
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7dbylg | Why does old music (30's, 40's) always have this typical "old music" sound? | Bit of an odd question, but hear (read?) me out. Whenever I hear music from these early periods of music, whether on early movies or gramophone records, it always has this very unique sound. Like, the first couple songs in this video. URL_0 It's not just lower quality or such, it's... recognizably 'oldies', even taking into account the different styles of music - nothing modern that I've heard of any style sounds like it. Voices, instruments, everything. Why does old music sound the way it does? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Recording and playback equipment had a very limited frequency range tending toward the higher frequencies. Lower bass frequencies weren't picked up when recording, so music and vocal recordings from the turn of the 20th century have a very tinny sound. It's also the reason early broadcasters adopted a higher tone when speaking. They knew their voice would carry better like that.",
"Various reasons include: * the limitations of sound recording technology of the day * the inevitable degredation of recorded music over time, especially on vinyl or magnetic tape * different musical styles (1940s: swing and jazz; 2010s: alternative R & B and synthpop) * different instrumentations (e.g. muted trumpets, very common in the 1940s, much less common now) * different singing techniques (enunciation, breathing, etc.) * different approaches to harmonization There are probably other factors as well, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.",
"It was a pretty effective formula. just like how modern music sound the same as well. its effective now..",
"The first episode of “Between the Liner notes” podcast series tells the history of the transition from tinny recording of music to the modern broad frequency hifi sound. This is one of the most fascinating stories ore ever heard! Let just say it involves WW2 nazis, smuggling and radio superstars of the 1950s URL_0",
"Hi: Audiophile here. Recording and reproduction methods started out really primitively. In fact, early microphones were not electrical but used mechanical force? Do you know that image of the dog listening to the old fashioned gramophone? The one with the big petal speaker connected to the needle? Such devices could play back and record. You shouted into the cone and the force of the sound displaced the needle. Eventually electrical microphones replaced that and greater fidelity could be created. However the sound still wasn't great and you can hear them placing the drums far from the mic to keep the primitive electrical device from getting overwhelmed. Eventually multiple input soundboards let audio technicians balance the recordings and eventually multitrack recording helped make sounds that were even more complex. Another factor in this is the playback method. For a long time, people had simplistic record players. These gave way to stereo systems in the 1950 and 1960s. Nowadays, most sound systems have a sub to handle the deep bass mono sound, and two or three speakers per channel. Sound engineered for such systems sounds crappy on a mono sound system. So musicians would often make arrangements that sounded great on single speaker sound systems. Here is the Hawaii 5-0 theme song. Play it on your earphones with the earphones on your desk but cranked really loudly. You can hear every note even though it's not under ideal listening conditions. URL_0 The instrumentation -- bass, melody, horns, percussion, winds, keyboard, mid tones and highs are all there -- but only one is ever in the foreground at any given time. That highly differentiated sound is a notable feature of older music and was needed because of the limitations of recording and playback."
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7dck6h | How do people learn languages by just bring thrown in a new culture? | For example, Napoleon Chagnon. I know he was basically dumped right into lands of the Yanomamo, but I can't wrap around my head how he can learn and language without any translator. They could point to a tree and say in their language what it is, but you can show how to say where, what, how, why ect. Edit: I have a basic anthropology background (Antro 101) | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Context - if someone keeps pointing to a fork and says: \"ooga\", then you might infer he means \"fork\". Later, if you are watching the foreign shopping channel and they're selling a fork, but calling it a dagla ooga, then you have now learned what the word ooga means. But what about dagla? It could mean shiny or expensive or a whole host of other meanings. Then say, one day, you see a road sign that says dagla meguolda near some new construction. You might infer dagla means \"new\" and meguolda means \"construction\". It would be a slow process, and prone to misunderstanding often, but you would learn with time. You might not learn any deeper nuances than nouns and verbs, but you would have enough to get by after a time. Eventually, someone might be able to teach you sentence structure once they understood the basic gist of what you were asking for (ooga + holding hands up in questioning gesture = where is the fork?)",
"The exact same way children learn their native language; a combination of observation, imitation, and exposure. There are a set of important words that comprise most of what a spoken language is, which are generally small conjoiners, prepositions, or pronouns; \"I, am, if, but, for, it, that, the, be, he, she\" etc, etc. These words make up 80-90% of our speech, so learning a list of 10 or 20 words will allow you to understand the vast majority of common, everyday speech. The other words, the ones with substance and useful meaning, are ones you can pick up from conversation to conversation, throughout a day. For example, you might not know the word for \"store\", but if someone said \"I'm going to the store\", they're only using one word you don't know by learning the 10-20 most common words. You can figure out the meaning of the word \"store\" by inference and observation; if they return with groceries, you know it was a store, because you know what a store is, you just didn't know the word in that language. In fact, we now believe that the **easiest** method of learning a new language is to live in a place where that is the only spoken language, and attempting to use it instead of your native language. If you were plopped onto a street in rural China, you'd pick up enough Chinese to get water, food, and shelter within a few days."
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7dcure | Why are the Rohingya people being persecuted so viciously by Myanmar? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"As I know, this movement is lead by Ashir Wirathu, a Buddhist monk which is anti-Muslim. He believes that there can be no peace if Rohingyas and Muslims are still in Myanmar. In one of his interviews, he said that Muslims are \"destroying\" the country, and he likened them to African carps. He isn't even comfortable even if they are the minority, because he believes that they will take over Myanmar. From what I know, this movement is nationalistic, and since Myanmar is largely Buddhist, they don't treat Rohingyas as citizens. They look at them as invaders."
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7ddlht | How does a show like Survivor / The Amazing Race capture so many angles in a scene, especially the critical ones in the plotline? | In Survivor, if there was say a plot to overthrow some alliance, how do the cameramen capture it? It seems to me that if there is some silent discussion, at least 4 people will be there...the 2 castaways, the soundmen and the cameramen. In The Amazing Race, it seems that before a team gets eliminated especially in the later episodes, some big fight / quarrel / trouble happens. How do cameramen capture that moment with so much anguish? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I have an anecdotal answer for you. Several years ago, I spent a while working with a guy who won a season of the Israeli Survivor. Talking about how \"real\" it was, he said that all the tasks and results were legit, but that they often reenacted them shortly after they finished to allow the camera crew to get better angles.",
"They have several camera crews, not just one. They ask the participants to cooperate by not having crucial discussions off-camera.",
"In addition to having numerous cameras running at all times, the \"storyline\" doesn't come together until the editing room. In most every reality tv show, if the show isn't heavily scripted, there is NO story until the editor gets ahold of it."
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7dee6t | If someone gets punched in the face in response to saying "hit me" or "I want/beg you to punch me", is there a legitimate legal defense for the person who punched them? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yes, consent is usable as a defense, but the court may or may not buy it. > Consent may be available as a defense to an assault/battery charge, depending on the jurisdiction. Where available, if an individual has consented voluntarily to a particular act, then that same act generally cannot be asserted to constitute an assault and battery. But if the extent of the act exceeds the permission provided, it can still provide grounds for assault and battery charges. Also, it should be noted that courts scrutinize consent as a defense closely, and tend to find that harmful actions, even if consented to, violate public policy and should still be punished under assault, battery, or other laws. [source]( URL_0 )"
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7dis4f | Why do rich people spend hundreds of millions on famous paintings? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I bought some artwork for one million Two years later, that shit worth two million Few years later, that shit worth eight million",
"Veblen refers to this as conspicuous consumption. By spending your money in a very visible way, you can communicate your wealth and power to those around you, like a peacock with its glorious plumage.",
"It could be an investment with plans the painting appreciates. It could also be to preserve it and possibly loaning it to be displayed at a museum. It could also be for egotism: to show their other rich friends that they have something the other doesn't.",
"No one spends 500 million on a piece of art to hang it in their living room, or even one of their many living rooms. It is rented to museums, etc. It's an investment. Those who invest are likely big fans of art, but it is an investment nonetheless",
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that this question is related to the recent [$450 million sale of a da Vinci painting]( URL_0 ) To answer your question -- can you think of a better way to move or store hundreds of millions of wealth? If this was solid gold, $450 million dollars would be about 10,922 kilos of gold at current prices. Or about 24,078+ pounds. As a painting? Even with crating and packaging it probably is not more than 30 lbs. It is highly transportable wealth. This is the currency of the uber-rich. Of course, art is subjective. The value may well fluctuate, and perhaps the risk of value fluctuation is not a risk some high net worth investors are willing to take. On the other hand, art is exclusive. There is only \"ONE\" of these paintings. Anyone with $450 million laying about can buy gold. Only one person gets to own this painting."
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7djb9n | Why does China have the "One-Child-Policy" and what happens if twins are born? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Chinas policy is poorly understood here in the states. The basic difference between the US and China with respect to children and the government, is that in the US families are given a tax break for each child born, and in China, depending on your ethnic background and where you live, families are given a tax burden for each child after the first. For example a 2 parent, 2 child family in the United States will give the family a tax break which provides a financial incentive an makes it easier on families finances. In China everyone is free to have as many children as they want, but after the first child, heavy tax penalties begin to accrue, so instead of incentivizing large families, it incentivizes smaller families because the extra children end up costing a fair amount of money in taxes. There are also many exceptions to this depending upon the ethnic background of the family, and where they live. China is geographically diverse and the people there come from many races and cultures, from Eurasian, to Middle Eastern, to Pacific peoples. There are many minority groups within the country as well, and these people are not penalized by the one child system. People in rural areas outside of cities may also fall outside of the scope and not be penalized. In fact the % of families in China who are impacted by the one child laws is not that great. As for the reasons that China chose to do this, they have the highest population in the world and as people live longer and longer, the population is expected to grow exponentially over the coming decades. If China doesn't find a way to reduce population growth to a manageable level, it will be in serious trouble in the decades to come. Reproductive rights are a sensitive subject no matter who you are, or where you live, so the current taxation system was chosen as a compromise measure to promote smaller families, without outright denying anyone from having children.",
"They no longer have a one child policy actually. When they did have it they had it to combat overpopulation and famine issues that they were having after the communist revolution. What happened if you had more than one child was that you were issued a punitive tax for every child that you had over one. If twins were born some would pay said tax, some would try to hid the child, some would give one or both up for adoption, and rarely some would kill one or both child (but these stories are mostly fictions made up to demonize the one child policy)."
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7djjzx | In America do you have an amateur set up for American Football? Such as local town clubs for people of all abilities, or is it just the professional leagues? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are kids leagues, amateur leagues, and semi-pro leagues for American football, but by far the most rabid fanbase and 99% of the attention is for high school, college, and pro teams."
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7dko57 | The controversy surrounding Electronic Artz like I’ve never played a game before. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"SUPER simple version EA bought rights to showcase something you like (Star Wars license). They made a game and targeted a specific crowd, like kids and teens. They know people want simple shit, like they wanna be vader and stuff They created two roads: one road allows you to be patient enough, I think 4,500hrs worth of patience, to unlock everything normally. The other road allows you to simply buy the things you want Okay, now here's where it gets nasty. You CANT directly buy vader, you have to buy in game currency to then buy these loot boxes to then open them and have a chance at getting him. Their goal seems like they're banking on people, probably their target crowd - teens and shit, getting impatient and spending money of the these boxes to just be vader. Players feel manipulated, hiding something they really want behind door with a lock that continues to change combinations, but you have to pay each time to try a new one"
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7dlfjh | When and why did saluting start in the military? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I've never looked into the validity of it, but what I was told while I was in the service is that it dates back to the time of medieval jousters raising the faceplates on their helmets as a sign of respect to each other. When they flip it up, it put their hand up into the position that we recognize as a salute today",
"A long long time ago, middle ages. The \"salute\" originated out of people lifting the facial armor in order to reveal ones identity to another.",
"An unsatisfying answer sadly, but nobody knows. See [this post]( URL_0 ) on /r/AskHistorians by /u/TheJucheisLoose > There are a variety of competing theories for the origin of the modern salute, but the truth is that [nobody really knows]( URL_1 ). > **Potential Origin Stories** > There are a variety of potentially apocryphal origins of salutes. > * The most common is that it derived from the tradition of armored knights lifting the visors of their helmets so that they could properly identify themselves to their peers or give respect to their enemies. There is no historical evidence that this is the case however, and the practice of heraldry would seem to suggest that identification was an issue that had been chosen to be handled through symbology. > * Another potential origin was that it came from the practice of \"doffing the hat\" to officers by seamen in the navies of Western Europe. Called \"making obeisance,\" this practice dates back to at least the early 18th Century, where we know that sailors and soldiers were remanded not to remove their head covers entirely in the presence of officers, but merely to \"clap up their hands to their hats and bow as they pass.\" It may have been that because sailors hands were often dirty, they tried to avoid displaying these to officers (or to avoid dirtying their hats), and so they merely placed their hands up to their heads, palms down. Alternatively, the British-style salute would suggest that sailors had some reason for showing their palms to others, but we don't know. At any rate, by the late 18th Century, average seamen (and to a lesser extent, soldiers) did not wear brimmed hats (or any hats at all), so they needed something to approximate the gesture, sans cover. > * Still another potential origin story is that the modern salute originated from the Roman salute. Traditionally, we think of the Romans as having made a classic motion where they placed their fist to their hearts and then extended their arms straight out, palm down (which the Nazis famously ripped off), but, like many Roman gestures (including the famous *pollice verso*), we don't know exactly how the Roman salute looked. It may have had an element of touching the head, or the stiff-armed salute may have simply been transferred upwards. > * Finally, the salute may have originated in the raising of the sword hilt up to the forehead before a sword duel/fight, or the raising of the lance hilt the same way before a joust. If this is the case, saluting as we know it would be very old, indeed."
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7dnr87 | If people are constantly going to film school and learning how to properly make films, why are so many bad directors, editors, cinematographers, writers, etc. still getting work? Why are they not fired and replaced by someone who can do the job better? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Thats kind of like thinking a pro athlete is shitty so they should be replaced. Sure they aren't doing that well, and they are struggling, but the playing field is at such an absurdly high level you can't say the are 'bad'. Especially if you want to talk about the people who come out of film school. go watch \"The Room\", thats a movie that was self funded and produced with little to no oversight/screening, and then rewatch the other movies you think are bad. They aren't bad movies, for the most part, they just aren't perfect.",
"Because this stuff is *hard*. Doing any of these things well is a very VERY rare skill that only a handful of people have anything close to. These people have these jobs because while you may think they're shit, they're miles better than anyone else at it. If there was anyone better, they'd be doing it.",
"Risk aversion. You need a name that people are willing to invest in. Whether that's the actor you want to hire or the producer you want to give a marketing budget. You won't the most notable name you can find. That may mean recycling through mediocre names with a resume rather than a new name fresh out film school.",
"Most of the time, the issue isn't the technical skill that's lacking... film school teaches the basics of story telling, technical skills of cinematography, editing, etc. But it doesn't teach how to negotiate the studio preference for running a franchise into the ground vs. some potentially groundbreaking script from an unknown screenwriter, or how to settle for a different actor when the one the part was written for refuses to take the role without twice as much money as offered, or all the other business decisions that affect the movie let alone the scope of managing 100's of cast and crew on the artistic side."
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7dplnb | In this age of sophisticated online tracking and surveillance, how are criminals able to transfer money through multiple offshore accounts, and be able to withdraw it, without the trail being followed and their identity discovered? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Most often, by using an account of a business whose owners are secret, and/or in a country where banking privacy laws prohibit revealing who owns an account without a ton of paperwork. Sometimes, by withdrawing the money in cash, on using it to buy something untraceable, like gold bars."
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7dprqn | Why can't the American people simply state that we don't believe the FCC has our best interest in mind and request a restructure, different accountability, or a complete disband? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Because the USA is not a *direct democracy,* that is, the people have no right to vote on individual government policies. We have the right to elect Congress and the President, and they then set the policies."
],
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7dr0uq | What's with deer/stag and their association with evil/satanic images in the media? | I always see this. True Detective, Super Dark Times, Hannibal, whatever. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The stag is an Occult/demonology symbol for Furfur, a Great Earl of Hell and leader of 29 legions of demons. His domains are love, storms, tempests, thunder, lightning, and lies. The image has been around for ~3000 years or so.",
"It may have to do with Ceruunos; he is a horned god of Celtic Paganism, and is associated with the underworld. He is associated with deer,stags and the like Since Ceruunos appears allover the Celtic world, it is easy for writers to use him for a standard stand in for a \"spooky pagan satanic \" image that is but your basic devil. If you have more questions I suggest asking about Ceruunos over at r/pagan"
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7drpus | In English language, why some words use ‘more’ for comparative form instead of directly suffixing ‘-er’ with the word? | E.g. why ‘more beautiful’ and not ‘beautifuller’? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The convention is based on the length of the adjective, in syllables. One syllables: -er Over two syllables: more Exactly two syllables: it varies"
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7dvwsd | What are those phonetic things next to words in the dictionary and how do they work? | I see them next to words in websters but have no idea how to use them. How do I utilize these? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Do you mean the IPA? Looks kinda like a load of squiggles and weird Greek signs between two //'s? That's the International Phonetic Alphabet. It's a method devised by linguists to convey pretty much every sound humans can make with their mouths. If I write the word 'read', it can either be pronounced as 'red' or like 'reed'. Likewise, 'phonology' could equally be 'fonolojy' or 'ponologee'. We only know from our experience with our own language how to pronounce and interpret the sounds of words. But imagine if you had no experience with the language. Linguists have to deal with other languages every day, as do plenty of other people. And each language has often very different sounds attributed to each letter (especially to vowels, or open-mouth sounds), which you can't express with just a small set of 26 letters in the (English version of the) Latin alphabet. So now we have the IPA. I could be wrong on this but last I heard there was a few hundred separate symbols (anyone?) to represent a whole variety of sounds across a spectrum of human language. I hope that helps. Also I'd love to show you the symbols but I'm on mobile and not sure how. Just Google 'IPA' or someone else will link it. :)"
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7dw5iu | Why do languages from far away cultures have similarities? | for example the japanese word for cake sounds almost exactly the same like english word for cake, even though the two cultures were very far away | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They are literally copying the word. Japan did not have cake until the idea was brought there by Westerners. Similarly they call bread *pan,* the Portuguese word, because that's who introduced baked bread to Japan.",
"There are a few cases where it's just an amazing coincidence, but in most cases you'll find it's because one language has borrowed the word from the other. This is certainly the case with the Japanese word \"kēki\", which is simply the nearest you can get to \"cake\" in the Japanese language. But this shouldn't surprise you: we have imported several Japanese words into English, like \"sushi\", \"manga\" and \"karate\". Sometimes a word will bounce back and forth. The English word \"animation\" was imported into Japanese as \"animēshon\", then abbreviated to \"animē\", and in that form was re-imported into English as \"anime\" to mean a specific form of animation popular in Japan. Another interesting example is the English word \"orchestra\", borrowed by the Japanese language as \"ōkesutora\" (the nearest you can get to the original in Japanese), then abbreviated to \"ōke\". Then a new form of entertainment was invented in Japan, which they called \"empty orchestra\", which in Japanese is \"kara ōke\", and this was the birth of karaoke. (This is the same \"kara\" as in \"karate\", which means \"empty hand\"; i.e. \"unarmed\".) There's also the famous franchise featuring fictional \"pocket monsters\". The creators deliberately took the English words \"pocket\" (as \"poketto\") and \"monster\" (as \"monsutā\"), abbreviated them as \"poke\" and \"mon\", and so gave the world \"Pokémon\". In case you're wondering why the Japanese versions of English words look so different from the originals, there are certain limits to what the Japanese language can do. There are several English consonants that don't exist in Japanese; but also, in most cases a consonant (except \"n\") must always have a vowel after it. In the other direction, the English spellings are also only an approximation of the Japanese.",
"If I had to venture a guess I’d say that if the Japanese word sounds similar it’s either because of coincidence, or that word was actually influenced by English at some point."
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7dwqw7 | Orientalism by Edward Said and/or expansions on the topic. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Did you watch the movie Doctor Strange? Do you remember the Ancient One? It might not surprise you to know the original character was an old Tibetan man, and having magical powers was depicted as the result of schooling in Ancient Oriental Mysticism. In Iron Fist, one of the new Netflix series, that's also the origin story for Danny Rand - being a white person raised by monks in Asia made him magical. Worse, every Asian in the story wasn't just a martial artist, but a magical martial artist who could treat guns like they were toys. Consider for a moment, that in comic books, 'raised by Asians' was put into the same category as 'bitten by a radioactive spider'. During the mid 20th century, from the 20s to around the 90s, westerners became fascinated with foreign cultures and ideas, but presented them frequently in a patronizing or cartoonish light. While unambiguously enthusiastic, these depictions usually relied on stereotypes, and accidentally promoted racialized thinking. This created a series of subtly or unsubtly racist tropes in media and fiction. By making foreign cultures into tropes, these stories exaggerate our differences, and make people from other places seem to have entirely alien values and experiences. They typically depict these foreign cultures as mysterious and alluring, but worse for missing certain types of common sense or vital wisdom. You may think to yourself, 'so what, it's only a story, stories don't affect people'. But you'd be wrong. Set aside for now how weird it is for people from minority groups to have to explain to adults that a fairy tail isn't true. Before 2001, Orientalism would have frequently included the tropes surrounding the Arabic world, depicting all Muslims as quiet but medievally-minded people who are guided by a romantic sense of faith. These sorts of cartoon views of culture infect our instincts and decision making, even when presented as fiction, and so the American government had no problem with the quaint monarchy that ruled Arabia, feeling that such a government was a perfectly 'Arab' kind of government. When they needed to recruit resistance fighters in Afghanistan, they picked men who fit that image of the spiritual warrior, and raised and trained Al Qaeda. It appeals to us, as mythology or fiction. We like our Vulcans and our Klingons, our unified alien cultures with secret wisdom and power that are still somehow worse than ours. We like our elves and our dwarves, for the same. And when writers were exposed frequently to costumes and customs from around the world, it was delightful and easy to write the same sort of stories about real peoples, especially in the 20s when the concept of a distinctly 'German' or distinctly 'White' culture were being broadly debated. It was easy in the 70s and 80s, when rising intercultural connection left many seeking a romantic and unambiguously positive role for foreign cultures to play in media. But any such portrayal of a culture as a collection of tropes and key differences, whether positive, negative, awesome, or lame, produce the same end results. Individuals must be depicted as individual. There are other people in your culture and history you have less in common with than you do with someone who shares your history or job in another country. The concept of culture as a trope, a repeating, common thread that unites a people, is simply wrong. Failing to recognize that, you disinvite individuals who don't fit the stereotypes, and make dangerous mistakes about who you can really trust."
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7e286w | Why are standard water bottles 16.9 FL OZ? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because 16.9 fl oz is equivalent to 500mL, or 0.5L. It's a simple conversion from metric to imperial which makes the standard bottle 16.9 fl oz. Four 16.9 fl oz bottles will equal a standard 2 liter bottle.",
"Because 16.9 ounces is exactly 500ml. The US has a strange hybrid system where we use mostly imperial with metric peppered in. Beverage containers are one of those areas where we often use metric, inexplicably."
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7e6115 | Why is polygamy illegal in the US? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It's not that it's \"illegal\" in the sense of going to prison for it. It's just not possible to be granted a marriage license if you're already legally married to someone else. The government will only allow a person to get the legal benefits of marriage for one marriage at a time. The origin of this is religious in nature, since US laws are based on earlier European legal ideas, which were heavily influenced by Christianity. But even without that, it's a very difficult task to try to figure out how multiple marriages would work in a legal sense. For example, if someone has two spouses, and that person become incapacitated in the hospital, which spouse gets to make medical decisions for them? Situations like that are much easier to handle if there's no ambiguity, and you only have one spouse.",
"Polygamy is illegal for two reasons. First, polygamy tends to be a religious practice in which minor girls are pushed into arranged marriages with adult men. In the USA it’s generally illegal adult men to marry or have sex with minor girls. Also, due to a shortage of women, polygamists tend to cast out teenage boys. Again, child abandonment is generally illegal in the USA. So rather than wait for polygamists to commit child marriage, statutory rape, and child abandonment, we just ban polygamy so that it’s hard for polygamists to form groups without attracting scrutiny."
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7e9fla | Charles Manson | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dq3cujh"
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"text": [
"Perhaps it was because he was able to worm his way so far into the \"American Dream\" of the times, namely Hollywood. He hung out with famous rock stars (The Beach Boys, *Dennis Wilson*) and struck fear into Hollywood by killing one-of-theirs (*Sharon Tate*)."
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7ebbag | Why do we deflect compliments? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"I know that I do it because if I accept the compliment, it feels like I am praising myself. For example \"You have such nice hair\", \"ah, no, my hair is terrible\" because I don't like my hair. It is rude because it signals to the person \"I care about my opinion more than I care about your opinion\", so it's best to just say \"aww, thank you.\"",
"Downplaying compliments is a hallmark trait of social animal behavior. In terms of human behavior, it shows humility and acquiescence instead of unnecessary aggression and dominance. The idea of showing your peers that you are not a threat and that you do not perceive them as a threat goes very deeply in our ingrained social behavior. Ever wonder why it is common to nod your head in a downward motion when you greet an acquaintance but you tilt your head back to acknowledge a good friend? It is because in the former case, you are simply acknowledging the presence of another person near your physical space while in the latter, you are showing that you trust the other person just based on your recognition of him/her as a friend by leaving your neck exposed for a moment. The idea of social pliability is increasingly important as the sophistication of an animal's society also increases. Humor is often used as an equally effective alternative to humility, with the expectation that the audience understands the humor. This is all to put your peers at ease and not to have them view you as a threat. If you ever have the chance to interview/converse with psychopaths and sociopaths directly without any other outside influence, you will notice that if you compliment them on their specific character traits, notably intelligence, they will downplay your assessment. If you instead point out the intelligence of certain actions they completed, on the other hand, they are a lot more likely to take pride in what they did and become more assertive. If you intentionally throw out an inaccurate compliment about one of their actions, they are *likely* to correct you, especially if you downplayed the importance of one of their actions. This is because in the former case, the psychopath is trying to relate to you so that you lower your guard while he/she enjoys your praise, whereas in the latter case, he/she is trying to correct you on what he/she believes to be an abject truth, over some previously committed action. There is a reason why confidence is admired but arrogance is not. Social pliability allows a person to navigate the tiny differences in details, prompting people to be humble when everyone knows the praise is deserved, and aggressively assertive when the situation presents an appropriate benefit to the supposed risks. On an entirely different note: constant compliments from one source is just as damaging and suspicious as constant criticism. It is hard to trust people who resort to either tactic."
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7ebumr | Why do humans enjoy "gatekeeping"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dq3w8wj"
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"text": [
"People like to think they're special. If they're unique, that suggests they're better in some sense than other people. The more people there are in your group, the less special it becomes, and the less unique you are... or at least that's how people think of it. Thus the desire to gatekeep."
],
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7ee4j5 | If both sides spoke British-English during the Revolutionary War, how did America slowly develop their own dialect? | I understand how in modern times, say if an Englishman came to the US and lived there for a lengthy period of time, their accent would slowly disappear, but that is due to the fact that they are constantly hearing the American dialect being spoken wherever they go, right? If that is the case, I doubt that the original colonists went out of their way to 'develop' their own dialect out of spite? Perhaps I am overlooking something obvious here, but I just can't think of it. Thank you! | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Both the American and British English variants are different from what they were at the time of the Revolution and both have different parts that are closer to the English spoken then. For example, the way that Americans pronounce \"Rs\" is closer to how English was spoken then. Both dialects have drifted over time (with the British very recently taking up the received pronunciation after the adoption of the radio and tv). American English on the other hand was heavily influenced by German immigrants, and to a lesser degree the languages other immigrants have spoken.",
"Both sides didn't speak British English. They spoke similar versions of 18th Century British-English. Over time, the dialect the British spoke evolved into 21st Century British English and 21st Century American English. Since the were separated and had different linguistic influences, they evolved in different directions. It is a mistake to think that American English changed while British English remained the same.",
"Language naturally shifts and grows over time. Just compare the slang that you grew up with to that of your parents. When two groups don't have regular contact, they will shift & grow in different directions. When the US was founded, we didn't have TV, radio, movies or sound recording to keep everyone on the same page. Even travel between the US and Europe was uncommon because it could take weeks to make the trip. On top of that, you had a constant influx of immigrants from other countries adding their own influence to the local accent & dialect."
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7egt1b | Why Kids having an artistic job like Singer or Actor is allowed while any other job is a crime? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"A child is allowed to have a job under the following conditions: 1. The job does not require missing any school. 2. The job is not physically dangerous. So, for example, it's very common to have kids work in restaurants or theaters, especially for a summer job high school students will be found there all the time. Usually, you don't see kids younger than that being employed because they're unreliable, but on farms and other family run businesses you'll see them get involved. You can't, however, put them in a factory. Acting and singing are not physically dangerous, and can usually be fit around a school schedule. As a result, they're legal professions for children."
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7ehp26 | How does globalization affect politics? | So I have heard alot about globalization and was wondering how it was affecting the politics other countries. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"dq506zz",
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"text": [
"This is gonna be a biased answer so, take it with a grain of salt. Globalization is a boogeyman as it is presented, imo. It is generally tied to the woes of those who usually are isolationist. It is also a dog whistle term used by those with xenophobic tendencies who want to push a narrative that their borders are too porous/under attack or that their culture is being diluted by the outside influences that the rest of the world has, in their opinion. The internet is the main impetus of globalization at the moment and that is very much due to people being able to communicate with those across the world much easier in addition to the information that is available on the web. But globalization is just how things are. The monetary system in the US is recognized worldwide and English is recognized across the globe too. Globalization has been a thing for awhile. Hell, our media, like movies and music that we share with the rest of the world is globalization as well. My personal opinion is that its effect on politics is that it has made the nationalist movements a lot more invigorated and looking to push back and prevent it, as can be seen by the recent political climates and also the fact that this false narrative has been pushed as well.",
"One notable proposed effect of international trade is a reduction in the likelihood of war. If the other country makes your stuff, you now have an incentive to avoid having supply lines disrupted, factories damaged, refugees abandon production lines, or trade relations rejected. Even better, economic interdependence can be stacked on top of having a military alliance. On the other hand, it gives a subset of the population a \"reason\" to resent foreigners for \"taking jobs\". I put quotation marks there because most economists disagree and favor trade as wealth-creating, despite the common perception. But politically, it does mean that candidate politicians can appeal to a subset of the population by adding restrictions on such things."
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7ei2vg | Why do singers from earlier eras (such as the 1920’s) sound different from singers today and why can’t many people still replicate that tone? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dq526q1",
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"text": [
"For one thing, they were recorded with primitive technology that had limited frequency response and sparse sensitivity which limited the dynamic range. Today's singers are recorder much more faithfully. The recordings from that time period do not accurately reproduce the voices of singers.",
"Generally people in show business used their voice differently in the 1920's, and this will have affected the way they sang, too. They learnt that as a part of their training in the arts of theater, among others, and this way of using one's voice seems to have a name as well: URL_0"
],
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55,
23
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent"
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7eim6w | Why anchors from way back (30s, 40s, 50s...) sound so different from today’s anchors? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"That accent (Mid-Atlantic/Transatlantic Accent) was cultivated in the industry. It has since fallen out of style.",
"> The [Transatlantic accent]( URL_0 ) is a consciously acquired accent of English, intended to blend together the \"standard\" speech of both American English and British Received Pronunciation. Spoken mostly in the early twentieth century, it is not a vernacular American accent native to any location, but rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, an affected set of speech patterns whose \"chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so\"",
"In those days, regional accents were still very strong. From the way someone talked, you could tell whether they were from Boston or Baltimore, and often even what part of the city they were from. As media started to go more national, overt accents presented a problem, as these accents could be distracting and confusing. People in the media started to gravitate towards Transatlantic English, which was sort of a remix of American and British English, often spoken by the American elite. It served as a neutral accent not tied to any specific location and anyone who wanted to go anywhere in radio or movies pretty much needed to learn it.",
"Completely different metals. Anchors used to be cast iron, but most are now either stainless steel, or even aluminium for certain types of anchors."
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|
7einyd | How did traditional Thanksgiving dinner foods become so universal in the USA despite regional differences? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dq59q4t"
],
"text": [
"The major traditional foods: Turkey, Corn, Cranberry, Pumpkin, Potato, and Sweet Potato are all native to the Americas. All save the Potato and Sweet Potato are native to New England where these traditions started. For all the other side dishes that has a massive amount of regional variation, but a large number of dishes have proliferated due to cookbooks, magazines, and TV."
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7ek6qo | How are the Sami people of Scandinavia considered “indigenous”? | Is this because they arrived before Fins/Sweds/Norwegians? If so, where are those groups of people from, and how much later did they arrive? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dq5vb6f",
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"text": [
"The United Nations definition of an indigenous people has a few specific requirements: 1. That this people existed in their current location before the era of colonialism. 2. That they are now a minority or non-dominant element of the country or countries their population is native to. 3. That they at least somewhat identify as distinct from the dominant population and have cultural traditions they wish to maintain. So the Sami don't have to have lived in their part of the world longer than the Finns or Swedes necessarily in order to be considered indigenous by the formal definition.",
"They didn't. Scandinavia was settled from the south (approximately 10,000 - 15,000 BC) following the end of the last ice age. People had in other words lived there for thousands and thousands of years before the north (and thus the Sápmi region) became habitable. The Sami, just like the Finns, arrived much later from Asia, pushing in from the east. They have their roots in the Ural mountains and their cultural and linguistic history can be traced back 2,000 - 2,500 years while the oldest estimates for northern Scandinavian settlements range from 7,000 to 9,000 years. It's more honest to consider them the settlers of the Sápmi region, not Scandinavia as a whole - Danes, Norweigans, Swedes and their precursors have lived in areas that roughly match (at least the southern and central parts, i.e the most habitable) their modern nation state borders. Think of it as different people settling different parts of the peninsula, only that the Sami were eventually conquered after Scandinavian expansion towards the north."
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7eltho | why do musicals play a medley of the music in the musical at the beginning before things start? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dq5wec3",
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],
"text": [
"Traditionally the Overture (from French for \"Opening\") introduces the musical themes used later in a piece like an opera. The Finale will recap them at the end. It's a little like the essay structure Introduction - Body - Conclusion.",
"To add, the orchestra often gets very little recognition for their hard work during the actual show because the onstage performers get the attention. The overture and finale are a chance to recognize the hard work of the orchestra members."
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7emqpw | Why are vulgar words known as swearing/cursing? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dq62t7l"
],
"text": [
"EDIT: I misread the first link, and have corrected my post since then. The term 'swear word' apparently first occurred around the 1500's. To quote eytmonline: \"The secondary sense of \"use bad language\" (early 15c.) developed from the notion of \"invoke sacred names.\" Curse apparently comes from the Old English word \"curs\", which means to growl or grumble, or could mean a dog depending on context. URL_0 URL_1"
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|
7enm1j | how does a drug deal “go bad”? | Why does this happen? I don’t really understand why someone wouldn’t just walk away if the other person doesn’t bring what they agreed to bring. Is it mostly just people getting greedy and trying to score the drugs and keep their money or vice versa? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"You're not talking about situations where a drug addict tries to buy drugs, you're talking about a mid-level deal where where drugs are sold by someone to a drug dealer. In this situation drugs are the means to an end, the end being money. Greed dictates that you want to get as much from a deal as possible, which means leaving the other guy with as little as possible. One side pushes too far, and the other side responds with violence. Remember, for the most part a drug problem is an economic problem.",
"When you were a kid did you ever try to trade with someone you didn't quite trust? And you had to play this little game where you had to trade at the exact same time so no one would up with both? Now imagining doing that with lots of guns, a half a million dollars on the line, and no teacher or parent to bail you out if someone tries to cheat. Even if both sides go into with the intention of making an honest deal, tension are high and even the slightest misunderstanding can lead to bloodshed.",
"Running a drug smuggling operation is an illegal business. You can't seek redress from the court if you've been wronged like Apple can if Samsung infringes on their patents. The only conflict resolution besides dialogue is violence.",
"A drug deal is a high risk illegal transaction. They've put themselves into a very risky situation making the deal. Walking away puts them into an even riskier situation as they need to find another buyer and the longer they hold on to the product the higher chance they will either get caught or someone will try an steal it. Further to that, letting someone get away with not holding up their end of the deal could lead to others doing the same, so an example needs to be made."
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7eo9wf | Can video game and movie commercials just put the three dots in a quote to misrepresent a review? | Example. IGN writes a review: "This game is awful. A great example of what not to do!" Then the video game makes a commercial. "This game is" ... "great" -IGN | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dq6dp9q",
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"text": [
"No, they can't legally do that. Misquoting someone like that is unethical, and could open them up to lawsuits from the person whose quote was being misrepresented, as well as from customers who believe the modified quote to contribute to false advertising.",
"Adam Sandler did this exact thing when promoting the movie Little Nikki. Siskel and Ebert reviewed it, and panned the movie completely. At one point, Ebert said something like, \"This movie was truly awful, and it was the best Adam Sandler movie yet\". Adam Sandler (or his publicist) cropped the quote, and used it in commercials as, \"The best Adam Sandler movie yet - Rodger Ebert\"."
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7ew1bx | Why are 'tips' such an integral part of a persons income in America, especially in the Hospitality and Restaurant industry? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Tipping had already become common long before minimum wage was a legal protection in the US. When they were making the laws for wages they incorporated the fact that some jobs commonly got tips into those laws and as such those jobs have a lower minimum wage. As to how tipping came to the US. That was from Europe in the late 1800s. Rich Americans would visit Europe and their European counterparts would tip generously as a way of displaying their wealth. They brought the practice back to the US and with the social classes of the US being less rigid than Europe quickly had middle class people emulating the upper class by tipping as well. In turn lower class people started to tip too and you now have all of society tipping. The fact that all of society tips is what fosters the creation of social norms that govern what a good tip is. This is what the 15% standard tip, 20% for great service comes from."
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7ezl2r | Why is the marriageable age and age of consent set lower for girls than for boys in most of the world? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"For girls its the age they can be expected to bear and care for children. For boys its the age they can be expected to work and support those children.",
"One part is gender norms and stereotypes: In many societies were (or still are) women considered not fully autonomous human beings. They were (or still are) the property of their fathers and later of their husbands and they were denied the right to decide on their own not only whom to marry but also when. Then there is the virginity thing. In many religions and cultures its desired for women to remain virgins until they are married (also for men in some societies but that is harder to prove), and one way to make sure this is the case is to lower the marriagleable age. Then there is the financial aspect. In a society where the women are seen as the property of the men, men are responsible for financially caring for the women. The sooner the girls are part of a new family, they don't have to be fed and clothed anymore. Also we have some biological aspects. Its easier to determine when a girl is able to reproduce than a boy. Men in many societies have or had to undergo some sort of initiation rite that defines the time where the boy becomes a man, defining marriageable age, while for women it was (and still is in some parts of the world) the beginning of menstruation."
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7f2adx | If Latin is the parent language of many modern languages, and is still being taught today, why do people not speak Latin? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Try to imagine the Roman empire back in the day. It comprised a big chunk of Europe and went all around the Mediterranean sea, included parts of the Arabian region and North Africa. It was really big. Back then, education wasn't as we understand it today. People from the lower socio-economic classes didn't get a formal education, which translates to learning latin -the official language of the Empire- from what you can hear and trying to mimic it, but never formally learning how to write ir read it. Over that, consider that most of the territory was conquered, people already had a common language before the Roman empire conquered them. Now, think about English. Even with a standard education system that's common for an entire country, you can find differences on how the language is treated between regions. For example, the english used in the south of US is different in some instances to the english used in the northwest. And that's in a country founded with people speaking the same language. Now imagine what happens when those populations begin with a mix of latin and their native language, the education system isn't common, AND the populations aren't as connected as they are today. The result is that you get a lot of local variations that begin to differentiate, which later on become languages of their own. With the fall of the Roman empire the use of latin began to decrease, leading it to its death. The upside of this, is that it spawned a lot of languages which where then exported all around the world with European conquering, and it was a refined language in the upper socio-economical class that used it. Thus, it was widely used as a common language for formal and technical endeavors, like science and art. It is a dead language because there aren't any native speakers left, meaning it won't ever change, its rules are set in stone. Compare to greek or english, which have been used for a long time and are still used natively to this day. A living language will keep changing as long as it has enough native speakers.",
"Even during the heyday of the Roman Empire, written Latin had deviated quite a lot from the common street language in Italy. Language evolves much like living things do. If a sub group of speakers becomes more or less isolated from the rest, the language they speak will change over time. Take a look at Wikipedia: URL_0"
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7fbr66 | What's the difference between Reggae, Ska, Calypso and Rocksteady? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"calypso began on the caribbean island of trinidad. it’s a style of folk music that later was popular on another, nearby island named jamaica. the rhythms of calypso were put together with jamaican styles of music plus jazz, blues, and r & b. the result was ska. jamaicans loved ska music, but eventually they felt it was too fast and dancing to it was exhausting in the hot island weather. they started to play rocksteady, a slower form of ska. more than ska musicians, rocksteady musicians thought the bass guitar and drums were very important. jamaican music became “groove-driven” music. after a few years, rocksteady changed to reggae. rocksteady singers often sang about love and dancing with their boyfriend or girlfriend. reggae singers sang about these thing too, but also began singing more about god, problems in their neighborhood and what it’s like to be poor. early reggae music often replaced horns with the electric organ and keyboards. people who made reggae music tried different things with sound, using echoes and sound effects to create new musical experiences."
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7fcesc | Why are "prior bad acts" not allowed in the criminal cases? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You are supposed to be judged on this event, not past events. If you can't establish guilt based on the current event and need previous events to add weight to the crime, your case is pretty weak.",
"It's unfairly biased. If they allowed this you could just keep arresting the same person and he'd always be found guilty. *He did X so he probably did Y too. He did X and Y so he probably did Z too.* I ran out of letters. *I am not a clever man.* You should be able to prove that this person is guilty based on evidence. The fact that the person was guilty of something else in the past isn't evidence. Lots of people have been guilty of things in the past. There's zero evidence that they committed this new crime. You should find real proof, not just hope the jury thinks \"this is a bad person, they must be guilty\".",
"Sometimes they are allowed, but it's up to the judge and what each judge thinks is relevant can vary. A lot of prior acts are allowed in, but they have to have been proven true - like a conviction, etc. and they have to have some bearing on the current crime you are on trial for. Like others have posted, you are on trial for that one thing only. In some cases they can be used to rebut testimony that someone had no experience with {whatever} Like testifying that you have no idea how to fence stolen property, but you have a prior conviction for doing just that. And in a lot of cases it's not really on point, because they're very different things. Like bringing in your speeding tickets when you're on trial for stealing. Or saying that your history as a burglar means it's likely that you killed someone."
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7fezt7 | How did English come to power as the global lingua franca? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The British took over a decent bit of the world and ran a global trading empire for about 300 years. If you wanted to trade with the British, you learned some English. That lasted until the 20th century, when the US arose as a new global power, and after the Second World War as one of two superpowers and a global hegemon. If you wanted to participate in the American economic, military, and cultural empire you had to learn English.",
"British and then American hegemony. Money and military influence around the globe, first of the British empire and then American imperialism, means that they had the power to make people do business the way they wanted, which included their choice of language.",
"Besides what has been mentioned, it's also because of the medium you are currently reading on. The internet was created in America with a lot of the bigger websites being American still. The programming language for the internet, HTML/XML is mostly based on English grammar, body, heading, p for paragraph, ect. Although there are a lot more languages that just English on the internet - I'm sure there are some pages in Klingon- English is still the majority language.",
"The prevalence of US-based interests following the Second World War. Including the presence of American pop culture all around the world in that era. While the rest of the world was rebuilding, the new sciences were being worked out in the US. Often by immigrant populations. In science, commerce and popular entertainment English became a common language. More than a few folks from Europe and Asia have told me English is easy to learn because all the songs are in English."
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7fg0kf | Why are certain phrases such as "Mom and Dad" or "Salt and Pepper" always said that way and never backwards, like "Pepper and Salt"? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the case of the two you mentioned, it's just the way we say them. There's no other explanation for that: these phrases have become so well established that we all instinctively say them in that order. What's basically happened is that we have stopped thinking of these phrases as lists of individual things, but as single units: \"mom and dad\" means \"parents\", for example. In a way, you can think of them as \"words\": not \"salt, and also pepper\", but \"saltandpepper\", a word used to describe the most basic of condiments in Western tradition. As a society, we have collectively decided that this is how we say them. Nobody made a conscious decision about this, it just happened spontaneously. This isn't always the case, though. There's a very interesting phenomenon called \"ablaut reduplication\". This has two parts: 1. \"reduplication\" means \"repeating a word (or sound) exactly, or almost exactly\" -- examples of reduplication include \"choo choo\" (as in \"Chattanooga Choo-Choo\") or \"la la la\" (as in \"La la la, I can't hear you!\"); 2. \"ablaut\" is a specific change in the pronunciation of a vowel. The ablaut in English goes like this: 1. the short \"i\" in \"sit\" 2. the short \"a\" in \"hat\" 3. the short \"o\" in \"fog\" So ablaut reduplication means repeating a word, but each time changing the vowel. But the vowel change always happens in this order: i - > a - > o: so \"bing bang bong\" sounds correct, but \"bong bang bing\" sounds awkward. Examples of ablaut reduplication include chit-chat, King Kong, criss-cross and zigzag -- notice how the second vowel always comes later in the list above.",
"As long as we're talking about this, another interesting tidbit: Adjectives have an order. For instance, we say \"Little iron key\", which sounds normal, but saying \"Iron little key\" doesn't. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the order goes: Opinion (unusual), size (long), quality (rough), shape (round), age (old), colour (red), origin (Japanese), material (metal), type (general-purpose), purpose (cleaning). That would give us an unusual long rough round old red Japanese metal general-purpose cleaning tool. The opposite order would be a cleaning general-purpose metal Japanese red old round rough long unusual tool. :)",
"I once got marked wrong in a school paper because \"I ruined the flow\" of my paper by saying pans and pots instead of pots and pans. Fuck you Dustin",
"I need clarification on this one, is it Bacon and Egg/Egg and Bacon? I prefer Bacon and Egg what does everyone else say?",
"\"Fork and knife\" sounds a bit rude if you mis-hear it, especially said with an Irish accent. \"Pass the fork and knife...\"",
"In Sweden we call hot dog ”sausage with bread”. The biggest manufacturer for the hot dog bread made a commercial that you should instead say ”bread with sausage”, because you have the sausage in the bread. I remember people getting REALLY annoyed at this commercial, because it just sounds so fucking wrong. And i imagine the same thing applies here, we’re just used to hearing it that way."
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7fhozl | Why is the Mona Lisa so highly valued? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. It took two years for the police and officials to recover it. The painting, which was somewhat popular to begin with, achieved a celebrity status of sorts during the affair. When the Mona Lisa was recovered in Italy, it went on a tour of the country before returning to the Louvre, which increased it's popularity even more so.",
"Wasn’t it also famous because Napoleon kept it in his bedroom?"
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7fiyd0 | How did Christmas become associated with a snowy/wintery landscape and aesthetic, given Christianity didn't originate from a nordic country? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Christianity had the habit of usurping exiting religions as it converted a population. Pre-existing gods, or their domains were converted or taken over by Saints and their religious holidays were converted into Christian ones. Samhain became a 3 day holiday of Halloween, All Saint's Day, and all Souls Day. Spring festivals became Easter. And Solstice festivals such as Yule or the festivals of Sol Invictus became Christmas.",
"Also Charles Dickens helped create the thought of a snowy Christmas with his stories. And weather science can tell us that of the first 8 years of his life, it snowed on christmas like 5 times, so it heavily influenced his writing.",
"It didn’t originate in a Nordic country, and Israel doesn’t get much snow. However, it became a westernized and Eurocentric tradition, so much of what we associate with Christmas is European in origin. The church chose it to be on December 25th for various reasons, including the winter solstice (December 21/22) and other celebrations that historically have taken place around that date. As a reference to Nordic influence of Christmas, their Yule celebration during the winter solstice consisted of visiting family, eating a lot of food, and singing songs. 1800s Europe established much of what we associate with Christmas, specifically stories written about Christmas, like A Christmas Carol, The Nutcracker, etc. “A visit from St. Nicholas” aka “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke Moore was published in 1823 and is often credited with popularizing st Nicholas (Father Christmas), and winter imagery is prominent: > The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow, gave the luster of mid-day to objects below...",
"Because the vast majority of the christmas aesthetic is literally from coca cola commercials, right down to the traditional colors red and white. Old school christmas’s either focussed on santa wearing furs, or st nicholas who was a cardinal (or a bishop?i i forget) . Most everything “christmassy” began in the last couple centuries, well removed from early christianity.",
"The North American Christmas tradition is based off Northern European ideas. Canadians celebrate the same way as the British did, and the British adopted a lot of German traditions in the 19th century (because Queen Victoria married Prince Albert; who was from Bavaria). Snow at Christmas was reasonably common in Britain at the time and very much so in that part of Germany."
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7fja1o | Why are coins not (smaller) rectangles or squares like bills or why aren’t bills circular like coins? How did they choose the materials for these currencies? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> Why are coins not (smaller) rectangles or squares like bills or why aren’t bills circular like coins? Bills are rectangular because they can be cut out of larger sheets without waste. Coins are usually round because originally coins were made by dropping molten metal into water to form rough balls of a general weight, then smashed flat to imprint an image onto their surface. This naturally smashed the balls into a somewhat circular shape. Afterward coins followed this traditional shape, and of course it is nice not to have sharp corners on little metal chunks you are going to carry around all day. > How did they choose the materials for these currencies? Coins started out being made of metal because their value was based on the value of those metals. A nickel for example was made of nickel, and a dime was made of silver so it was smaller than the nickel despite being worth more. Bills on the other hand were created from a durable paper-like material (linen in the case of the USD) because that was an appropriate medium to print the designs necessary. If metal were used it would necessarily be smaller and in the general form of coins for convenience, and too many denominations of coin around the same size and shape would be confusing."
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7fmsqt | how does one person compose for an orchestra? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Playing the instrument really isn't all that relevant, because the parts are generally written in the same format regardless of what instrument they're for. In theory the composer really only needs to know what the instrument sounds like, as opposed to actually knowing how to play it.",
"Music theory (which is what composers study) isn't the same as the ability to play an instrument. A solid understanding of music theory allows a composer to create sheets of music without having to hear it played back, while knowing that it will sound the way they want it to sound. There are drawbacks to not being able to play the instruments, of course, and that comes when the final draft of the composition is ready and the composer then has to hire/find an orchestra to play it, so he can tweak parts here and there. With the advent of music programs for computers, though, this part becomes less relevant. You can just plug your stuff into a machine and hear what it would sound like."
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7fqeaa | Why Sampling in Music is Generally Acceptable While Plagiarism in Written Works is Such a Big Deal. | Why is it that a musician can sample large portions of someone else's song while an author cannot take a portion of someone else's written work? If the resulting work is sufficiently different and has a recognizable source, what's the big deal? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sampling in music is typically done with permission and paid royalties, or obfuscated to the point where it is no longer recognizable. Either that or it's low-key enough/doesn't make enough money to go after.",
"In both cases, only a very tiny sample is acceptable, and even then, if it forms a key part of the resulting work, the original creator may sue for (and win) payment.",
"Sampling is done with some form of permission (or, at least, with a credit to the original). Plagiarism is where you're not crediting the original, and in so doing you're passing off someone else's work as your own.",
"Plagirism is taking someone elses work for your own. Sampling is not supposed to be that way.",
"Sampling is acceptable because the people doing the sampling have gotten clearance for the samples & pay some sort of royalties to the original artists. [Due to a series of court battles in the 80s]( URL_0 ), it's pretty much impossible to do *any* degree of sampling without having the samples cleared anymore. Plagiarism is, by definition, taking somebody else's work *without crediting them or getting permission*.",
"As already stated, musical sampling typically starts off with getting permission and some revenue sharing. Also the nature of a novel means that the author can't just take a passage and graft it onto his own story. People so rarely buy a 300 page novel because they really like one chapter. Meanwhile people might like the beat of a song. Or the hook. Blurred Lines sounds just like a Marvin Gaye song, so his estate won that lawsuit."
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7frnia | How and why did Prohibition fail so miserably? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The reason prohibition failed is because a lot people, rich and powerful people, did not want to stop drinking. They had enough money to fund bootleggers to continue making and distributing alcohol. Other countries continued to make liquor, so it wasn't that difficult to import it illegally. Most people in power (police, politicians) also drank, so were more willing to take bribes and allow the illegal operations to continue. In the end, crime exploded as rival bootleggers fought gang wars to control the liquor industry. Removing liquor was an attempt to lower crime, but crime increased, and no one actually stopped drinking.",
"1) The government lost a massive amount of money in taxes due to the loss of alcohol production. 2) The government spent even more money trying to enforce the prohibition. 3) The population did not actually want prohibition. This caused a lot of problems. It increased the money and power of criminals who smuggled alcohol and ran speakeasy establishments. The population was at risk from unregulated alcohol being made or cut by shady sellers with no oversight poisoning the population. And finally congressmen felt pressure from their voters to undo the prohibition or face an end to their careers.",
"Yarr! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why was the US prohibition created and what led to it being stopped? ]( URL_1 ) 1. [ELI5: Why did Prohibition end, but the War on Drugs continues? ]( URL_2 ) 1. [ELI5: Why was the prohibition ended in 1933? ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5: why alcohol prohibition has been considered a failure when now alcohol is a major health concern ? Could prohibition have limited the banalisation of alcohol ? ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5: Why was prohibition less successful than the war on drugs? ]( URL_3 ) 1. [ELI5: Why did US prohibited Alcohol and repealed the ban just after 13 years? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [ELI5: Why was the prohibition of alohol overturned in 13 years while marijuana hasn't been in 45 years? ]( URL_6 )",
"You can't just legislate away something that there is tremendous public demand for. People want to drink, and don't particularly view it as a sin. If the government takes away legal means of supply, illegal means will gladly swoop in to fill the void.",
"Because alcohol, and drugs in general, have been embedded in human culture since we discovered their mind altering properties; and they are nearly universal. So the demand for them was never going to go away. When you have a demand for something, there will be people who will supply it for profit. If that something is illegal, it creates a black market. This leads to criminal organizations, who are able to effectively manufacture and distribute the illegal product better than individuals. There is also competition with other organizations, as naturally happens in market systems, and because the product they supply is already illegal, they have little compunction for using violence to protect their market share. Where a legal company might buy out another, criminal organizations would just kill the leaders. This is how you ended up with figures like Capone and the crisis of violent crime that comes with them. It is the same thing with drugs too. Despite the heavy criminalization of drugs, demand remained consistent. Violent organizations end up filling that role to supply the drugs."
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7fsoyg | Why does Japanese and Chinese media seem to portray the Buddha as some sort of dogmatic deity, when the crux of his teachings were that he's just a guy. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are a lot of different types of buddhism. They range from thinking hes just a normal dude, to types that get closer to deifying him. Buddhists in Japan tend to lean towards the god-buddha side.",
"Buddhist here. The Buddha did teach that he was just a person who sought and found enlightenment. That said, he did claim that this enlightenment granted him some special powers, such as the ability to escape the cycle of rebirth, and to remember past lives. And that anyone who attained enlightenment could expect to attain these too. But the idea that he should be treated like a god, or prayed to? These were introduced much later, long after his death. These days the Pure Land sect of Buddhism has almost as much in common with Christianity as it does with, say, Zen Buddhism. More info available at /r/buddhism.",
"Buddhism spread from India to China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia over a period of centuries and although all schools of Buddhism trace their origin to the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) the Buddhist traditions throughout Asia differ in their specific \"theology\". The most popular forms of Buddhism in China, Korea, and Japan hold to the existence of Boddhisatvas (individuals who refrain from attaining enlightenment in order to altruistically assist other beings still in the cycle of rebirth) who are treated very much like gods or major Catholic Saints from a Western perspective. These forms of Buddhism incorporate Hells and Heavens and demons of various kinds in their mythology in addition to the Buddha.",
"There are several different forms of Buddhism. While the form developed in India is as you describe, the forms that made their way and took hold in East Asia are far more deity like. This is in part because Buddhism incorporated elements of pre-existing religions as it spread, much like how Christianity did."
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7ftndm | Why does the "church of scienctology" still have tax exempt status in the usa? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There is no hard set definition of what a religion or \"church\" is in US law and each group that desires to gain tax exempt status under the religious clauses applies and then is either granted or denied that status. Once granted there is really no strong mechanism to remove the status as attempting to do so would be hindering a recognized religion and would be a violation of the First Amendment (or at least could be argued to be a violation). Scientology obtained the status after years of petitioning for it, and finally effectively holding the IRS hostage by filing hundreds (if not thousands) of individual lawsuits that bogged down the system and force them to divert resources from other issues and took up court time from more legitimate cases.",
"Real questions should be why any religion should get tax exemption at all?",
"The IRS threatened to take it away, and they arranged for their members to file a huge number of simultaneous lawsuits about it. The government decided to give up.",
"This is from Australia, but I'm sure the reasoning is the same. > The Church of Scientology requested a tax exemption from wages originating from a religious institution based on the Victoria Pay-roll Tax Act 1971. The High Court asked the question on whether Scientology was to be accepted as a religion, and decided that they were. Scientology met the two criteria that they stipulated for the determination of whether an organization is religious; first “belief in a supernatural Being, Thing or Principle” and second, “the acceptance of canons of conduct in order to give effect to that belief.” In other words, it meets the same standards as any major religion."
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7fxfka | How does bowing work in Japanese culture. I've heard there are so many subtleties to bowing that a Westerner should never attempt it. Is this true? What are some of these subtleties? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are subtleties of how far and how long you should bow based on your social status in comparison to someone else's but you are wrong that Westerner's should never attempt it. It is generally seen as a very good thing that Westerner's attempt to use proper etiquette and any mistakes are just assumed to be because you are a foreigner.",
"White guy living in Japan for over a decade here. If you don’t look Japanese everyone here will assume you are completely ignorant of the culture and language and most indiscretions will be forgiven. Any attempt at anything “Japanese” will generally be met with happiness and cultural pride that you are trying and interested. The only things you can do off the top of my head to piss people off that you might not know to do or not do: don’t talk on the phone in trains or on busses, stand on the left side of elevators (or the right side in Kyoto/Osaka), let people get off trains before you get on. Maybe more, but that’s all I can think of. Edit: Whoops! Why did I say elevators?! I meant escalators!",
"Think of it like a non-English speaker trying to express gratitude by saying \"Thank I\". It's wrong, and an American saying it would get a very strange look, but from someone who doesn't understand the language, it's completely acceptable and welcomed because it's shows effort and respect.",
"American here who's been to Japan, they typically don't have a huge expectation that you'll know the rules as a westerner and **trying** to do it right is more than enough. Pretty much any polite greeting, \"thank you\" or \"good bye\" moment is the right moment for a quick bow. It's kinda like handshakes, sure there's stuff about confident handshakes vs polite vs \"this guy's too important for you to stroll up to\" but largely as long as you're TRYING to be nice, nobody's worried.",
"99% of the subtleties you'd never need to know, or would be forgiven for not knowing as a foreigner so long as you bow in general. If it's in a traditional setting, expect to bow. If it's in a non-traditional formal setting (e.g. business meeting), expect to make a short bow, followed by a handshake. That's literally all there is to it.",
"You bow lower the more \"respect\" the person deserves. You would bow much lower to your teacher than you would to a fellow student. Consequently your teacher would bow shorter to you than a colleague. basically a status thing. The lower you bow, the higher above you than they are. But if you are above the other person you still bow, don't just nod your head. That is seen as very disrespectful. Kind of condescending \"Here's a token attempt\" Maintaining eye contact shows a bit of distrust \"I respect you, but I am not willing to take my eyes off you.\" This is why you will see martial artists bow but maintain eye contact. Because technically they are opponents at this moment. Those are the two I know.",
"Basically bow when you would say thank you as I understand it. As far as \"subtleties\" its mostly about social standing. The roots go back to when Japanese society was very caste oriented. If you were a peasant you had to bow really low to a Samurai. They had to bow to a higher ranked Samurai, but if it was only a rank or two separating them, then they didn't need to put their head in the dirt. If you outrank someone then you don't need to bow as low as they do. However a downward nod in response to a bow is condescending. Kinda like saying that you are so far above them that you don't even need to make the effort of bowing.",
"Korean dude here. **Sorry this turned into a long post. Wall of text incoming** I am not all that familiar with how bowing works in Japan, but I'm pretty sure we are pretty similar... Korea and Japan (countries) have been a part of each others history for a long time now and a lot of our cultures/language/food have mixed together. For Koreans, the bow can be pretty casual or very formal. It all depends on duration of the bow, how far you bow and also the context in which you are bowing. 1) The most formal standing bow would be a full 90 degree bow that you hold until the person you are bowing to has left the room. That is some hardcore shit meant for like royalty or shit like that. 2) The second formal bow would be the type you would do during your first time meeting someone important. For example, meeting your new Korean Father-in-law for the first time is pretty formal. You bow closer to 70 degrees and hold the position for a second or two. Usually the person receiving the bow would give a verbal queue on when to go back to regular standing position. 3) Then most other bows after this become more and more casual. The most common type of bow would be when meeting someone of similar \"status\" (age, social position, work position, etc...) you can be more casual. The bow is roughly 30 degrees and there is no need to hold the bowing position. For all cases, your hands should be at your sides and it would be advisable that you do not maintain any sort of eye contact during the bow. I've found it useful to look at the persons shoe when bowing. 4) There are other bows that we traditionally do as part of yearly rituals that involve getting down on your knees and fully bowing down on the ground with your extended to your head. It's mainly done on New Years and is the ultimate form of respect that you show to your family elders when wishing them a healthy and lucky New Year. **In your case, you're going to be dealing mainly with bow #3.** From what I've seen you shouldn't worry too much about how you bow. When White people or other foreigners bow, it's definitely not held to the same standards as when we bow within our own. As long as it's not done mockingly, when we see foreigners bow (bow #3)* and say the customary \"an-nyoung ha sae yo\", it's pretty endearing and will get you points. Even if you don't have a firm grasp of the language, just give it an honest try and no one (normal) would be offended by it. *I would imagine that the Japanese would feel the same way.* Some people like to mystify Asian culture like it's some sort of sacred thing. But in the end the Japanese are human, just like you. They appreciate it when a person is trying to learn their culture. *edited #4 to #3",
"I went for a week and no one seemed to care at all that I didn't. They understand a smile and a wave just fine. It'd be like a Japanese guy bowing in America and you being offended by it like \"WTF THATS NOT WHAT WE DO HERE\"",
"In my experience (white American!), though there are many subtleties and rules surrounding bowing as far as social status, politeness, ceremony, etc., it doesn't mean that you should never attempt to bow. Personally, any time I've bowed incorrectly or in the wrong situation, I've been gently corrected, but I've never caused offense. In general for foreigners, it's the attempt, the respect, and the deference that matter, and you're not expected to know all of the subtleties that a native would know. At least not in everyday situations.",
"I feel like a lot of people are putting too much emphasis on bowing like it's some mythical art. If you save a member of the Imperial Family's life and they hold a banquet in your honor, sure, you'd better learn to get a formal bow right. But it's like worrying about formal table etiquette. If you're in a business setting, sure, know your basics. But you're never going to be eating with the Queen so, no, you don't need to know what the other 8 spoons are for. If you are ever going to be in a situation where you'll need to know formal bowing procedure, you'll know it. If it's a business setting just keep your arms at your side, bend at the hips, and keep your head down. It'll be fairly quick like a handshake. You just do it when you meet and get on with things. But if you're coming over to Japan so you can rub your otaku boner all over Akihabara or you want to impress your other middle class white friends by saying how the sushi you ate is the most authenticest, don't worry about it. In 99% of situations in daily life, it's a very casual forward bend. When I pick up or drop off my kid at school, his teachers and I exchange very shallow, lean-forward-a-bit \"Yeah, thanks. See ya\" bows. Somebody stops to let you through in traffic? Give 'em a quick \"hey thanks\" bow. That's what it is most of the time doing regular stuff. Your waitress doesn't want a fucking formal bow. Also, Japanese people aren't mystic or aliens. \"The Japanese are like this so must never chance to gave upon them!\" and other advice is fucking stupid. They're normal people. You can look them in the eye just fine. They're not fucking bears. You're not challenging them or bring great shame to famiry. They're normal people living 9-5 jobs, doing laundry, helping kids with math homework, figuring out what's for dinner, and just wanting to have a nice drink and watch a favorite show. People really go overboard with the Orientalism. People talk about \"the Japanese\" and honor and shit like it's the god damn feudal era. No, Daisuke wants to get off his construction job, grab a six pack and some food at the convenience store on the way home, and see his girlfriend this weekend. Because they're normal people.",
"I've been living in Japan for more than a few years. Short answer, if you don't look Japanese (basically everyone but some Koreans and some Chinese) you will never fit into Japanese society. You can speak Japanese perfectly and be fluent in all the cultural rituals (like bowing) but you will always been seen as an foreigner making a thoughtful attempt. Longer answer, bowing is more of a formal ritual. For most things, like saying \"thanks\" to the traffic guards or someone who lets you pass on the street, just a simple bob of the head works. But bowing is just the tip of the iceberg for all the ways you can offend a Japanese person in Japan. Just know that.",
"At the very basic level, you bow deeper based on the level of gratitude and how much higher in terms of social status the person you are bowing to is. You have the quick neck bow which is like a quick greeting in passing. The 45 degree bow which is the norm in many interactions. There is the 90 degree bow for when you are dealing with a superior. Then there is the dogeza which is bowing while on your knees with your head pretty much touching the ground. This is pretty much reserved for when you fuck up and are apologizing to the person you caused trouble to or the person who is saving you. Of course there are a lot of intricacies but thats the general gist. Most of the time if you are greeting, thanking, or leaving you say the proper greeting, put your hands on your hips like you are standing at attention and bow your body to 30 to 45 degrees and you are golden.",
"I agree with what's been written but the basics are to imitate what the Japanese person is doing (how low, how long, etc.) When in doubt go shallower and shorter and offer a handshake, they'll understand your attempt was imperfect, but politeness has been served.",
"I know this isn’t the most serious response here, [but Larry David has a sort of tutorial about the subject of a proper bow]( URL_0 )",
"Living in Japan 10years. There are rules, but unless you are in a super formal situation you won't be expected to follow them. Most Japanese won't even know the rules, just a gerneral bow lower than you're superiors. Heck most people can't even properly speak polite formal Japanese. Like bowing, there are rules but most people just wing it. If you want actual rules, you're probably gonna have to Google them and find some in depth guide that is no longer applicable to modern Japan.",
"*if you bow deeper than the person you’re talking to it’s because they “outrank” you for lack of a better word *never point with your chopsticks! *take someone’s business card with two hands, and treat it with respect, it’s a representation of the person. Put the business card somewhere safe like a card holder. *take your shoes off when you enter someone’s home or a classroom there are special slippers you will switch to *do not talk too loudly in public. *in Japan it’s seen as impolite not to speak Japanese. There are a lot more but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.",
"When standing: 15° for your equals, 45° for superiors (generally people that you should respect, e.g. your boss or in-laws (yeah, right)), 70° should you happen to come across a person of the imperial family. Hands on your thighs, about where your pockets are, back straight. Don't bow while walking. Bowing is polite and shows respect for the culture. Even if you don't get it right, you'll get credit for making an effort. Many japanese don't know how to shake hands, but you don't hate them for getting it wrong.",
"Just walk around with your right hand out eyes at the floor and say shitsureishimasu like a small schoolgirl any time you walk in front of someone and you will be fine. Seriously though the subtilties take time to learn but are not impossible for a foreigner, as long as you are the type of person that can pick up on that kind of stuff(read a room social ques etc). Generally you are a henna gaijin and wont be expected to be civilized. Even more so if you have red or blonde hair. Being a hairy silverback gorilla of a man myself i cause most japanese to head to the other side of the street the same way a white person would upon encountering a minority in the ghetto at night.",
"foreigners generally look funny when bowing because they get their hands and their face wrong... for a formal, important, somber, or otherwise significant bow, you want your palms flat, fingers together, at your sides. no kind of bow should be accompanied by idiotic grinning, which foreigners are prone to, though a slight smile is ok for a \"hi\" bow. however you bow, please don't make me shake your hand all the time... upon meeting and farewell is fine, otherwise it's overkill.",
"Seems like most comments are from non-Japanese who read about it somewhere. I think everyone’s getting too caught up in this. Basically, the stuff about varying degrees of bowing only matters if you’re thanking/apologizing to a customer or something like that. Not something you need to worry about unless you have important clients. For most daily interactions, you’ll do one of two types. One is a nod while smiling and briefly looking down. This is like, when you’re thanking the restaurant owner while walking out of a restaurant or greeting a casual acquaintance. The other type would be more than a nod— look down at your shoes for like 1 full second with your hands at your side and your body facing the person or slightly diagonal. This is like “nice to meet you” or “thank you for paying for this meal”. But really, the words count more than the bowing in those situations. The only mistake you can make is to put your hands together in front of your chest. That’s not Japanese at all so it shows cultural ignorance. All the other details are kind of hard to describe but you’d pick it up naturally if you observe people.",
"There is a book series entitled Kiss, Bow Or Shake Hands that proved very helpful to one of my friends on his first extended business junket to Japan. Although the general volume addresses business in over 60 non-American countries, the series is further broken down by region and those editions are more exhaustive. I imagine that the book or an Asian countries would be the definitive one in this case. Has anyone read any of that series?",
"Yes, there are shit piles of subtleties. No, that doesn't mean you should say \"Fuck it\" though you will be forgiven for doing so. Here's a dirty guide to getting through bowing... If someone is obviously younger, or lower rank than you in a company, bow a little bit less deeply and a little shorter than they do. If not, bow a little bit deeper, and a little bit longer. There is a lot more to it than that, but people will give you a lot of leeway for being a foreigner. They will also be a lot happier that you tried and got it as little bit wrong then if you just have it up. This was the pattern I used and it got me by pretty well.",
"You have to understand how many levels of status are enshrined in their culture and their language. It's deeply impenetrable to outsiders, and ESPECIALLY to English speakers...One of the crazy beauties of English is that it has no mode of formal address: there is no *vous*, no *sie*...no polite form of \"you\". We just say \"you\". To EVERYONE. If you're at a fancy ball, and everyone is dressed well, but you don't know ANYONES status...You pretty much wouldn't be able to speak to them in Japanese, because it's rude to get it wrong by being too formal OR too informal. It's a huge social thing in a lot of languages, and unusually so in Japanese, same with their bowing. In English, it's all the same. It's why we have issues there, we don't even think in those pronouns, and it's a way we trip ourselves up in languages where that is important. Now, if you bow, or if you speak passable Japanese, but without the subtleties, they're not going to call you out (that would be crazy rude), and they may appreciate the gesture. Just be aware that you're probably missing a ton of subtext.",
"I used to do some business in Japan, and I found most Japanese generally appreciated Westerners who tried their best to follow Japanese etiquette. I never got the sense that they were offended by or judging me for the fact that I didn't understand the nuances of it all. Generally, I think most reasonable people understand that someone who lives thousands of miles away isn't going to grasp every little social cue of their culture. It's a sign of respect to make an effort to understand another person's culture, and to most people the effort is more important than getting it perfectly correct.",
"A lot of people here are making interesting points but as someone who is typing this under his desk in class at a school in Japan, I would like to add a few things. People seem to want to believe that bowing deeper is to show lower social standing but that is a really old way of doing things. Currently the only time someone would need to completely bow like that is if they were presiding over a traditional omatsuri or festival. Government officials will sometimes bow deeply if they are appologizing or are beeing inaugurated but nearly 95% of the time japanese people will bow more like a nod that includes the shoulders. In modern Japanese bowing has become much more relaxed when it is separate from Shinto customs. Everyone does things differently; today in class my english teacher did a 30° bow and my book keeping teacher barely nodded and immediately started class. Nowadays bowing definately has less subtlety and rules than most people are stereotyping. If you get bowed to in a tourist location or Narita airport it is because their employers told them to bow to get gaijin interested.",
"Bowing serves a few purposes. It can be used to show gratitude, as a greeting, when asking a favor, etc. There are different levels of bowing. When one is asking a favor from or greeting a boss, generally one will bow at the waist. Oftentimes you will observe people talking on the phone, say, with a customer (in a business context) and bobbing the head constantly as they talk. This sort of half-bow behavior is done as a humbling gesture and is such an integral part of the culture that it is done over the phone even though they can’t be seen. The same nod-of-the-head half bow can be used as a quick greeting for a peer, neighbor, etc. The depth of the bow depends on the perceived place in the social hierarchy of the other person. Thus, waist-bows with a boss or customer and head-bows with a peer. Deeper bows also tend to be more traditional. In tea ceremonies for example, a very traditional act, the guests will bow on their knees with their forehead to the ground (dogeza) in order to pay respect to the arts of calligraphy and flower arranging that are on display. The same prostration would have been used in greeting an emperor. I don’t know who told you that Westerners should not attempt it but let me say this — the Japanese culture is ridiculously welcoming of Americans in particular, and will welcome your effort to learn about their culture.",
"Read this as Japanese bowling and was intrigued that there was a different style of bowling.",
"I suggest you watch these [VIDEOS]( URL_0 ). You can find detailed explanation on bowing procedure in real life situations by expert Larry David",
"Limited experience in Japan just going to confirm what most people seem to be saying. I bowed to Japanese people who did random nice things for me (like carry my suitcase and show me to my hotel) and I don’t doubt I did it “wrong” but they bowed back and seemed to appreciate it. From what I can tell unless you’re working in a real Japanese company and have a very high command of Japanese language no one really expects you to follow/understand the non-obvious rules.",
"I've lived in Japan for 6 years now. I don't think there's any stigma about westerners or foreigners for that matter performing a bow. I work in a sales position, so they taught us 1) that we always bow lower than the customer. 2) If it's a customer you've had for a while, a small bow of the head is fine. 3) if you made a mistake in anyway, a deep bow and a \"sorry for ruining your life\"-esque comment is important so on so on",
"I remember sensing a few reactions when I lived in Japan and tried to \"fit in\" * Outside of Tokyo in smaller cities with fewer foreigners, confusion, surprise, and a little bit of discomfort. Not in a bad way, just that they weren't used to foreigners being around and weren't sure how to act. * They thought it was cute, like I was a circus clown performing like a normal person. * The one time I interacted with a senior person and spoke in honorific (haltingly), they deeply appreciated my effort. * 99.9% of the time, I was treated as a normal person.",
"If you are a foreigner in Japan, you must understand that the Japanese people (who grew up and stay in Japan) really don't have a first-hand experience with racism. They don't think about a white person doing Japanese things is anything to be offended by, but rather they see it as something to be proud of. Unless you are deliberately mocking Japanese culture in a very *very* obvious manner, the people will all pretty much just think \"Oh wow a foreigner being polite! How nice of them to try to adapt to our culture\". They'll even say the same thing if you arent in Japan and are trying to do something that their culture does, although Japanese-Americans are more likely to be more sensitive about it as they have probably experienced racism before. For the most part, if you are making a sincere effort, then thats all that matters.",
"If you’re a foreigner in japan you have 2 easy choices: 1. Don’t bow 2. Do a very slight bow (mostly just bending at your neck, not really at the waist) Japanese don’t care if foreigners don’t bow, and they certainly don’t expect them to. So no need to worry about it, at all (Been living in japan for 6 years)",
"You should try your best anyways. I am from Taiwan, and I get sent to Japan for business on occasion. While we are a former Japanese colony, beyond a older generation we don't know much Japanese language or customs at all. We are still expected to do our best to match their customs when facing Japanese clients. While we are not westerners, we are still foreigners and this is expected of us as courtesy. I'd imagine you would want to do the same as fellow foreigners in this context.",
"The complexity is way overblown. If someone is a superior to you, you should bow lower than them. The deeper you bow, the more respect you are showing. Assume everyone is superior to you, and just give everyone a quick bow to about 45 degrees, while looking down, and you'll be good to go. It's really that simple. Be aware that if you are white / black / anything that looks Western, 99% of Japanese people you meet will just give you a handshake. Just do whatever they do. Also, in passing, many Japanese people will give you a quick, tiny bow that pretty much just amounts to a head nod. It's pretty much indistinguishable from a nod you might give any random person in passing in the West. Also also, no one in Japan really expects anyone from the West to know their customs. You could mess up every single \"rule\", and no one would care. They wouldn't think you're being disrespectful. They would think you're just a dumb foreigner that doesn't know any better. Source: Taught English in Rural Kyushu for two years.",
"Westerners should definitely attempt bowing. Much as Japanese people should shake hands when they go to a country where that is standard. People will definitely understand that you didn't grow up with bowing and won't mind if you don't get all the subtleties. Many large companies will have their new employees straight out of university take a workshop in proper bowing. So, heck, you can always tell people you were sick the day of the workshop. I did get some very useful advice when I first got here in '94. When you first meet a business contact, you will exchange business cards and bow. (I won't go into the full etiquette because I'm about to go home.) It is good manners to look carefully at the other person's business card before you bow. The idea is to see if you should bow lower and longer because they are in a superior position. If you cannot read Japanese well and they don't have an English translation (most business cards have Japanese on one side and English on the other) then go ahead and bow and *look at their shoes*. If their shoes are more expensive than yours, bow lower and longer.",
"Western here currently living/working in Okinawa. First thing about the people of Okinawa, their exposure of American foreigners are common place here. There are quite a few military instillations and with several military members having family joining them. The people of Okinawa are really laid back compared to the people of mainland Japan. In the time I've been here bowing has become second nature. It's like a friendly smile or hand wave to even people you walk by on the street. When I first came here it did feel awkward as a foreigner bowing but I noticed right away that the situation can change the meaning. It's all about respect. If I pass someone on the street I'll probably just give someone I meet eyes with a simple head bow in passing but when I am given like food that I ordered at an establishment a few thank you bows are gonna happen. Business and work bows seem to be deeper especially when we are helping the other accomplish something. I'm really actually going to miss this place. The Japanese people are overall really kind and peaceful. They keep to themselves as a simple rule or thumb but will help you in a heart beat if simply ask. Even my fellow co workers always comment how nice it is to be back around nicer people after visiting the States for a bit. They are always epic on customer service too... God does the traffic blow here at times though!",
"Japanese here. Born in the states but both parents are fully japanese and I was fortunate to be able to go back every summer for about a month or so. There definitely are different types of bows. Rarely in japanese culture do we do the hands together bow as a greeting. This is mostly reserved for when we bow to the food we are about to eat and say \"itadakimasu\" which means \"I will eat,\" but it's said as a thank you to the person who prepared the meal. The meal ends with the same bow and a \"gochisousama,\" which means \"that was delicious\"- again said to express gratitude. For the most part, Japanese bow strictly with their head/upper body. The most casual bow is the eshaku, it's really just like a head nod. I would do this whenever I saw my friends' parents or somebody like that. A \"keirei\" is a little more formal. The waist bends at a 45 degree angle and it is used in customer service (the Japanese are VERY polite) or in business settings. Sometimes people bow at 90 degree angles for somebody they respect very much (like the boss's boss's boss), or to express deep apologies. Finally there's the \"dogeza,\" which is when the person is on his knees and bows to the point that their head is touching the floor. You see this in old samurai movies when one of the underlings fucks up big time or something like that. In real life, people rarely ever do it because it has a connotation or being sort of pathetic or over exaggerated if not used in the right situation. These kinds of situations rarely happen-hence why you only see it in TV or movies.",
"Bowing is part of culture. In Japan, bowing as a custom is prominent in business. Like being given pointers and practicing good business handshakes, your boss at a sale job and jobs with lots of time with customers may review proper bowing etiquette appropriate to the job. It is remarked by older bosses that young employees lack common sense, and bowing is considered under that umbrella. Other comments summarize that these guidelines are more involved than a handshake, but not overly rigid. A proper bow in some situations may be 30 or 45 degrees if you push the matter to the persons involved.. In practice a low bow from the waist that is lower than the person in a higher position is correct. A higher position is defined as a client, customer, elder, upperclassman, teacher, VIP, etc. This can also apply to public officials, some famous people. Bowing lessens but does not disappear as intimacy grows between people or a situation. For example, health care professions and police officers are not close to you, but they can interact with you in highly personal and sensitive/intimate situations. For this reason bowing may be lessened or excluded until the interaction is done and there is increased social distance (a farewell, saying thanks at a later time etc. Bowing has a good form while standing, and while sitting on your knee in \"sei-za\" style. This is so that you don't look awkward bowing as much as for politeness. If you are bowing while sitting, place both hands open palm down on your thigh and move your hands down while bowing. As your body lowers, you can easily put your hands in front of you in an open diamond shape with your fingers facing out. This completes the bow. If you are holding an object such as a fan (such as used in Japanese tea ceremony) then clasp the object and bow while moving one hand outward only. Finally, bowing to an extreme (on your knees, head touching the ground) has a time and a place. A real example, not from me, may be skydiving and landing in an old mans cabbage farm. The farmer is indigent and beside himself. Your skydiving club will face risk, and you want to get out alive. Your apologies are spat on. So you do the full on, on your knees, forehead to the ground. The ultimate apology. This really does hark back to feudal my- neck-is-yours level. It might even look comical. But if heart felt, even an angry farmer at a person dropping from the sky and crushing his cabbage has little choice but to step back and remark, \"ah...well...I guess...it's not so bad, calm down, it's alright...\" Failing at bowing is partially excusable for anyone. This is even more true if you do not look Japanese. The effort is almost universally appreciated to bow. Bowing culture in Japan is different than in Korea and China. What is polite in Japan will not be applicable in China, despite bowing being a custom in both countries. A tldr: Bow lower than the person in a higher rank or position. Don't bow lower if you are the higher position or rank. Bowing lessens and has less rigidness as intimacy increases. Family, close friends, bowing as a custom will be present but is much relaxed. Bowing while standing and while sitting have guidelines that help you look elegant and also be polite. These are taught to young people as part of business common sense. Bowing as a non-Japanese person is appreciated."
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7fyj96 | Why does the British Monarchy still exist? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Instead of asking what the purpose of the monarchy is, you could look at it another way and ask \"what would be the point in getting rid of it?\" Getting rid of the monarchy would involve a lot of change. We'd have to figure out what will replace it, how our constitution will work, what happens to the Crown's property, even things like changing signs for things. What would be the practical benefit of doing all of that? There is the principle of equality, but in practice the poor people will still be poor and the rich will still be rich. The people's power to influence political decisions wouldn't really change because the Queen doesn't make those decisions anyway. From my point of view there are far more important changes we could make that actually could improve people's lives or make the country more democratic in practice.",
"There is easily enough support for the monarchy in the UK for it to continue, especially given that the current monarch, Elizabeth II, is so well respected. Changing the system would be very complex and there's no defined or obvious process to make the change, particularly since the UK has no written constitution. The obvious big problem is, how would a future president, or equivalent replacement for the monarch, be chosen. A big advantage of the current monarchy is that the head of state can be apolitical but any system to elect a president would change that, so there's uncertainty about how that might work. Yes, the monarchy is an expensive institution but people value tradition and some of the cost is recovered through tourism."
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7g50yq | Why dont countries use the color purple in their flags? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Purple dye was expensive when the flags were first designed. It's the same reason you don't see older purple clothing outside of royalty and aristocrats.",
"Because historically purple dye was very expensieve and a cheap version wasn't invented until the 20th century.",
"Most countries designed their flags long ago, when purple dye was very, very expensive. It's also why only very royal people wore purple long ago, while no one else did, because it was more valuable than gold."
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7g5goh | How did the trend of Casinos being on Indian preservation's start? Why did they choose Casinos instead of having something else being protected on their land? | Edit: Reservation's | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Just so you know, it's \"reservation\", not \"preservation\". And casinos are good money makers that can be operated by native peoples on their own land even if gambling is illegal in the surrounding US state.",
"State laws often forbid casinos, or heavily regulate where casinos can be located, total number that can operate, etc. BUT Indian reservations are exempt from these state laws. This means they can often operate casinos where others cannot, and this captive market means the potential for lucrative operations.",
"Casinos came into being after several court cases in the early ‘70s established that Indian reservations were only subject to federal law and regulation, and not subject at all to state level law. This led the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians to open the first casinos in the late ‘70s. In 1988 the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act passed, which put some limitations on Indian gaming. Indian reservations are generally far away from major cities and don’t have too much economic activity. Casinos became perfect ways to generate cash and economic benefits - they have a relatively low capital investment, they are guaranteed to profit, and they draw visitors from afar. For those that have natural resources, opinions vary. While tribes in the Southwest absolutely reject uranium mining on environmental and ethical grounds, peoples of the North Slope in Alaska lease oil fields and mines because they don’t have too many other options.",
"All Indian reservations are countries (or quasi countries) to themselves and therefore out of the bounds of national or state regulations on gambling. You can make a lot of money with very little layout with gambling. Not only do the games rake in money so do the services at the casinos. It is possible that this also offers reliable employment for a substantial number of tribe members."
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7g6ao8 | How something like “fan death” can be such a persistent myth in a modern country like South Korea which has such a great education system | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I don't have a reputable source for this, but the fact that fan death is a persistent myth is apparently a myth in itself; fan death is actually a euphemism for suicide (or other \"shameful\" causes of death, like liver failure due to alcohol issues), and allows for conversing about people who have killed themselves without openly stating it.",
"Superstition is rampant in every country regardless of education system. Do you know how many places in the world skip either the 4th or 13th floor in their labeling, or how much harder it is to sell properties near cemeteries? Education systems educate people, they don't make them smarter.",
"There are parts of culture that don't get erased. We have a Flat Earth Society, and there was a television \"reality\" show in the US called Finding Bigfoot that ran for 5 seasons (they almost found him uguys!). People rarely research things they believe to be true. They wait for someone to attempt to disprove it, and even then are reticent to change their minds. Urban myths and old wives tales are a substitute for knowledge because humans are already ready to believe whatever people tell them. Especially if it came from their parents."
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7g8mbn | Why did early humans settle such inhospitable places like deserts and the artic tundra? | *Arctic | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because there was less competition for them. Everyone wants to live on the rich farmland next to the clean river with the mild climate. Enough so that they will fight a lot of wars over it. A more marginal territory is going to be ignored. Also, it is less about inhospitable and more about population density. Inuits and Laplanders can live pretty well on caribou and fish, they just can't feed cities of millions. As long as they can keep their populations small, they land isn't as inhospitable as you might ~~thing~~ think.",
"Human migration tens of thousands of years ago was (relative to a human lifespan) a slow process. The people who migrated to arctic tundras did not come there from tropical regions, chances are they came there from just over the next hill or valley. Generation by generation people fanned out a little further in order to find more resources. Each generation moved to a place that was not perceptibly different from where they started, so it did not feel like a radical shift to them. Over the course of 60,000-100,000 (there are various estimates) years that gradual migration led to a lot of niches being occupied that would seem wholly unsuitable to the original humans who left Africa."
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7g8sqo | What's up with generation labels like "millennials"? Is there any truth to these generalizations? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You can only accurately judge a generation when you’re well removed from them. For instance, as the stereotypes go, some people think millenials are entitled and slow to grow, but conveniently forget to mention circumstances beyond their control: a lot of millenials entered the work force during the 2008 recession, which is routinely called the worst recession since the Great Depression, and the economy has still not fully recovered from it. That is to say, while unemployment is down, the *quality* of jobs hasn’t really bounced back. A bunch of industries are increasingly bottom-heavy with low-paid, entry-level work positions, and they’re slow to grow, which means millenials are slow to rise and earn more money. This makes things like moving out of a parents’ house or saving money to buy a home much more difficult, to say nothing of things millenials are “killing” — often luxuries, like diamond engagement rings, expensive vacations, expensive dining, etc. Wage stagnation is only making a bad situation worse. Having said all of that, again, you can’t fully judge a generation until after it’s well and gone. We won’t be able to get a clear picture of the effects that policies have had on a generation as young as millenials for decades to come, and whether or not there was truly a sense of entitlement, or if they were simply growing up in a bad stretch of economic policy. More importantly, though, *every* generation is always hailed by older ones as entitled and immature. Every single one. There’s nothing new about what people are saying about Millenials that hasn’t been said about literally everyone else throughout all of history, and this is going back thousands of years to when someone scribbled a picture on a clay pot of a balding man eating pizza on his aged parents’ sofa."
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7ganil | How does an illiterate person's mind develop over time compared to a person who can reads? | Do thoughts or memories form differently or with more or less precision? I know reading a lot can help with empathy but does even being literate affect it too? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"An illiterate person would, in general, have less to think about than a literate person does. Memories, though, would not be that different. For example, if I were to have dinner with an illiterate person at a restaurant, we might both have equally clear memories of the food, but only I would know what the menu said. Then again, the menu might be totally boring. Maybe only the food was worth remembering. Or perhaps the food and the friendly waitress. Bear in mind that for almost all of human history, very few people learned to read. Illiteracy was once the norm. And the human race functioned anyway. Illiterate people are capable of learning very complex information if they try - it's just harder, without being able to consult notes. Some cultures had very elaborate traditions of orally transmitted knowledge. The poems of Homer (for example) existed as an oral tradition for a very long time before anyone wrote them down. In the modern world, there are many ways to get around illiteracy. Even if you cannot read books, you can still listen to audio-books. They are recorded for the benefit of the blind and visually impaired, and also for people who want to have a book read to them while they are doing their housework, or driving a car, and so forth, and of course, audio-books also open up the world of literature to the illiterate. So, illiterate people are not *necessarily* intellectually stultified, although I am sure that there are many who are.",
"Non-scientific, anecdotal comment: reading is a learned skill. It's an add-on. The brain will develop whether reading is a part of it, just as it does for people who -- as an example -- never learn to read standard musical notation. there are advantages to learning to read, certainly in modern life, but lots of people are often functionally illiterate and get along just fine. Certainly before reading became the norm, there were clever, inventive people with great imaginations who were good teachers and soaked up information like a sponge. Think of the traveling storytellers, bards, blind harpists like Turlough O'Carolan who contributed so much to civilization without being literate the way we think of it. Reading also is teachable at any time of life, so if you miss it in elementary school, you can pick it up as an adult. I volunteered with an adult literacy organization and the clients went from people in their early 20s to those in their 70s."
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7gbfpe | in television/film credits, what is the difference between “starring” “featuring” “with” and “and”? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When actors are signed to a role, their agent typically arranges for them to have a certain credit. Some will insist that it say \"Starring\", while others will reach an agreement with another title. Like \"Special Appearance By\", for example. Some insist upon top billing, others, if they can't justify top billing, want their name larger than others, or they'll take having their name shown not first but in other ways more prominently.",
"The billing is something that's negotiated. The big prize is the first (or top) billing. Because only 1 person can have the top billing, there are other ways to get the right amount of \"attention\". Obviously, you can just go from top to bottom, where 2nd billing is more important than 5th. I believe that's the traditional way. Featuring, introducing, and, with and guest star all have traditional meanings. \"Introducing\" is for a new actor, \"guest star\" is a big name that's not a regular in this production, \"featuring\" is something like new, but perhaps has credits in a different genre? But at some point in time, somebody figured out that the last \"significant\" line is also noteworthy. So the agents negotiate for the final significant position as well. And to ensure it's not \"lost\" in the other lines, they end it with a special type of billing, like \"and\" or \"with\" or \"special appearance\". And you get \"fake\" guest stars who are in reality series regulars. All to attract the right amount if attention."
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7gbnmq | Why is religion still so big in a hyper-informed world? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The world is not hyper informed. Information is easily accessible, but this also makes *mis*information easily accessible. Basically, you can find a community of thousands that support any crazy belief you have. This also drives people into more niche social groups. The fact that you can be in an online community of thousands of evangelicals only makes you *more* evangelical."
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7gg8kr | why is fainting so common at weddings? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Is it? I'm in my 60s and have never been to a wedding where anyone fainted.",
"From my understanding, it is caused from people locking their legs and reducing circulation. Alcohol, nervousness, and low food consumption probably adds to the problem. Seems to happen when people are standing in one spot for too long.",
"Brides often diet in an attempt to lose weight for their wedding. Some brides take this way too far, and they basically starve themselves the week before the ceremony. This, combined with standing in one place for a very long time (meaning blood pools in the legs instead of circulating), has the unfortunate result that they end up collapsing at their own wedding.",
"It isn't? Although to the extent people might faint at them, weddings are normally in the summer, in old buildings which get very hot, stacked to the brim with people (including lots of old people), all of whom are stuck in there, socially obligated not to move, for a long period of time, wearing smart (read: hot) clothing. Now add in standing for long periods and not having eaten anything because there is a big wedding reception afterwards... That's pretty much the perfect storm for fainting."
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7gj98v | Why is violence more "acceptable" than sex in most forms of media/entertainment (movies, books, etc)? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because violence is much more innate and easier to understand for children. Sex is something that shouldn't be introduced to a child until they're at least nearing sexual maturity, if not when they do reach it. Kids fight on the playground and play games that revolve around violence without having to be shown it. But you don't see kids playing games revolving around sex, so it's safe to assume that they aren't naturally ready for it. Kids kiss and stuff, but it's nothing *sexual* necessarily. And as a society, we have a responsibility to make sure our kids have as smooth of a transition into maturity as possible. Do I agree with little kids playing extremely gorey and violent video games? Not really. I don't think it causes school shooters, but they probably don't understand how serious the content is."
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7gmhu7 | How did gun rights come to be defined as a Left/Right issue in the US? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Left-right also divides along urban-rural boundaries. For people living in urban areas, guns are something used by criminals to commit crimes. For most law abiding urbanites, there is no firsthand experience with guns. In rural areas guns are ingrained in the culture and more people are familiar with their operation and less fearful of them. There is also a racial component to the urban opposition to gun ownership since a disproportionate amount of the gun violence is perpetrated within the black communities of cities."
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7gnk7r | How does the Royal Family work? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Way back in the days of King George III, he had quite a bit of debt, but also quite a bit of land. The tl;dr is that he made a deal that the governing body could use the land rent-free in exchange for a fixed salary. This deal has been passed down through the ages. That land accounts for approximately 200 million pounds in revenue, and at the low cost of a 40 million pound budget for the royal family. There's also some immeasurable ancillary benefits from tourism. Source: URL_0",
"The monarch receives an annual grant called the Sovereign Grant, currently about £43 million. That pays for part of the cost of the monarchy, about £300 million a year, and covers things like maintenance of properties (which actually belong to the taxpayer, so the taxpayer is essentially the queen's landlord) and official duties. And yes, there are official duties: these are mostly ceremonial and diplomatic, but it's not true she doesn't do much. She cannot be seen to get involved in party politics, but she does hold regular audiences with the Prime Minister, at which they discuss matters of state. However, these talks are confidential and not even minuted, so some critics worry that the queen may indeed have a lot of power over the PM, which is hardly appropriate in a democracy. The Sovereign Grant is only for official expenses. It's mostly financed not by the taxpayer, but by the Crown Estates. This is land that belonged to the monarch until the 18th century, when the king went through a cash-flow crisis: it's now held in trust by the government, and generates income for the government -- 15% of this income goes to the Sovereign Grant. Members of the Royal Family also have their own business interests, and additionally the queen in her capacity of Duke of Lancaster owns land which generates a private income, on which she pays income tax. She has recently been criticized, as evidence has emerged that she may have moved some of her wealth offshore in order to avoid tax. The queen's lifestyle is not as lavish as you might expect. In fact, she is quite famous for her susprisingly un-lavish lifestyle (when not performing her public duties): guests at her private residences frequently complain that the heating is turned down so low. In short: The government owns land on her behalf which generates income which pays for her official duties, and for everything else she has a private income."
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7gnsr1 | Why do many people claiming to be US patriots display the Confederate Battle flag when the Confederacy was fighting against the US? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"America is a free speech country, you can mostly say whatever you want, it doesn't have to make sense or reflect history accurately.",
"Many people believe that the Civil War was more about states rights than slavery. This line of thinking sees the Confederates as fighting against an oppressive government and for the ideals of the Founders.",
"They aren't fans of *America*, they're fans of \"America\" which is the nation they have made up in their head. They're frequently very unhappy with the actual country of America, both in spirit and in practice.",
"My father has a USMC tattoo that incorporates the Confederate flag. I know his stance on it, so I guess I'm qualified to answer this. He refers to it as the \"rebel\" flag. Slavery, or who won the civil war, or what it was fought over, mean jack shit to him. It's the rebel flag. Rebels founded this country, as far as he's concerned. If you were to try to burn the American or Confederate flag in front of him, he'd pass the lighter fluid if you asked nicely. He once said \"burning the American flag is the most American thing you could do, so it doesn't bother me.\" Americans love the under dog story. There are people that wave that flag to be racist cunts, yes. But the majority of these people have different reasons. Personally, I wish slavery never would've happened. I wish the civil war still did, though. And I wish the south would've won. The civil war killed the union of states we're supposed to be.",
"I'm not a \"confederate flag\" displayer. FYI. Because the Confederate Flag (Rebel Flag) has anti-establishment inferences, and is a demonstration of independence from the modern concept of America. Remember, it doesn't have to make sense to you, it has to make sense to them. The \"Rebel Flag\" made a comeback in the south about the same time there was a significant amount of disenfranchisement with the the mainstay U.S. Government in the 60's. It's one of the reasons the Dukes of Hazard car has it prominently displayed in a show that routinely demonizes the local leaders. It's not an actual demonstration of a wish to separate; it's a demonstration of individualism, standing against \"the man\" and all the other quality bullshit people sell themselves on when they feel that they're interests are not being looked out for. In the south, that manifested itself in the resurrection of the confederate flag as a symbol of being anti-establishment. West coast / East coast has Antifa, and other such flags. 4Chan has the flag of Kekistan. Chances are, if you talked to the majority of people who display the flag; you'll find that they hold almost none of the views of the confederacy. There's probably more racists who don't display any flag at all out there.",
"As many have stated, it is the idea these individuals have that the Confederate states split from the North over issues related to states rights vs. federal rights. And in some respects, they aren't wrong. Many historians agree that the North made little effort in trying to work out what to do after slaves were freed for the economically-dependent states, and instead (the states thought) were ting to weaken the South's growing economy in favor of Northern economic supremecy. However, the South did about as much to fix it themselves. That is where I personally draw the line. It's that, in my opinion, this issue of states' rights is the secondary issue to the proposed rights of who were considered non-humam. And the Confederacy openly fought the war for this right under a guise (though as good as it is) of state's rights. Now, as someone who grew up in the deep South, here's the real answer: it's a symbol that's been applied to their other beliefs. Same reason that they disproportionately drive big trucks yet don't need them. Or disproportionately dip (chewing tobacco). Or what have you; it's a part of the group they identify with. As it's been evidence that in most of psychology, it is the group that typically defines the morals and opinions of the individual, and the symbol is adopted to represent that.",
"First, understand that the current American independent government system was the second attempt. The original attempt was called Articles of Confederation which had a very weak central authority. It proved to be unworkable in practice for the former colonies so they called a do-over and we got the current US Constitution which required the Bill of Rights Amendments to be approved and put into action. Yes the Civil War was about slavery, but that isn't the complete viewpoint. It wasn't a case of 'you can pass any other law you want' it is just the issue was the one big enough to start a fight. Hypothetically there could have been another event, say for example a draft to World War One where enough states were isolationist that they would refuse, that could have divided the US. While most people today tend to think of themselves American first and then by state second back then it was much more common to think their state deserved first allegiance. When you see talk about California and other states wanting to secede from the US so they don't have to deal with Trump and/or the Republican Congress it is similar to the mindset of the Confederate States of America. tl;dr American Patriotism is often thought to be devotion to freedom and liberty from an overbearing government. Don't get lost in the slavery/race sideshow."
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7gw565 | Why is the Mona Lisa a big deal? | I'll preface this by saying I know almost nothing about art. From what I've seen and general knowledge (I've been at the louvre today and the Mona Lisa was packed) it's an insanely popular painting. That being said, it doesn't seem to me like an especially incredible painting. I'd love for someone who knows things about art to explain what the big deal is. | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A lot of it's fame is fairly meta- It was stolen which made it even more famous. It was a rather understated portrait by a famous artist, but it was stolen and missing for two whole years, then became global news. So people who had never even heard of Leonardo da Vinci has heard of the Mona Lisa. If the thief had stolen a different painting you never would have heard of the Mona Lisa."
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7gyxuf | if comedy is about the unexpected, why are recurring jokes so funny, even when and sometimes because you know the joke is coming? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not necessarily about the unexpected, so much as the subversion of expectations. It's a subtle but important distinction that separates humor from \"LOL RANDOM\" of young children that can grate on people who are older. So, the really simple answer is that running gags are funny because they subvert your expectation *about the joke being over* when they're done skillfully. [This blog post]( URL_0 ) goes into a bit more detail, but the real answer is that it's subverting expectations at *some* level, just not necessarily the level that you expect"
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7gz09g | Why is France in general (and Paris in particular) considered to be a country of romance? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In comparison to much of Europe, specifically the UK, and to the US the French are much more casual when it comes to sex and sexual expression. They are also known for good food, and have a lyrical flowing language. Combine all of that and add to it as slight pride in the concept of big romances within the culture and you have a country and people that become known for romance.",
"What I remember reading from a book entitled \"Sophie's World\" was that the philosophy (basically one's interpretation of the world around them, the codes they live by) was divided into two categories, classical and romantic (this was in the 1700s, 1800s and so on). Classical philosophy has to do with logical thinking, like maths and so on...romantic philosophy has to do more with the arts, music, food, paintings, theater, and the expression of emotion especially love.. Romantic philosophy really took off in England but then spread to France, in like the early 1800s. From then on they really embraced the culture and had great pioneers in each respective field like music, theater and such. Their romantic culture then spread to other countries; as the world in that point in time was starting to shift away from classical philosophy that dominated thinking. That's basically what I remembered from the book and other readings. If you're interested in philosophy or just curious in general, I would recommend this book 100%. It's written in a fictional way that anyone can pick up and understand while sticking to some very interesting topics.",
"I guess the reason is the 18th century. France was the central of culture and was famous for the love affairs and all the stuff. Many royals were send there to marry someone.",
"Because in much of Europe and European-decent countries sex is considered naughty, as is anything associated with sex like kissing and verbal intimacy. The French don't see it that way - they celebrate sex and relationships and affection. There's a mistress's palace for the French Prime Minister's girlfriend to use - but he's also expected to have a wife. And it's generally in use too. So basically you've got one place where sexual taboos are lessened surrounded by lots of places where it's considered naughty and best kept to oneself. So it naturally is seen as a more 'sexual' place, and people from other regions visit they are exposed to naughty things talked about freely."
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7h4fr1 | If most psychopaths become psychopathic due to their childhood or a birth defect, why are most psychopaths male? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The debate about whether psychopaths are the result of nature vs nurture is still very much ongoing. If and to the extent it is due to nature then the sex difference in psychopathy is likely to be due to the sexual dimorphism in the brain. Both women's and men's brains are mainly formed by estrogen, but the male estrogen is slightly different than the female estrogen because the estrogen in men is due to conversion of testosterone. If and to the extent it is due to nurture then it is likely to be due to differences in how we raise boys vs girls. For example the amygdala - the center for emotions - is about 18% smaller for psychopaths. But newer research shows that the brain structure itself is due to the how we use the brain, especially in the formative years. The neural pathways we use as kids are the neural pathways that will dominate our brains as adults. Research shows that a young child dressed up as a boy receives less affection than a child dressed as a girl, and this will affect both personality development and brain structure.",
"Because contrary to what you might have been told, gender is not actually a social construct. Our brains are wired differently, and when they malfunction, they malfunction in different ways. Just like women are much more likely to suffer from unipolar depression, men are more likely to become psychopaths.",
"1. first of all psychopathy isnt a term used in psychology anymore. 2. What you may be referring to is anti social disorders 3. I personally think its a nature thing 4. Sexism affects men, believe it or not 5. The role of a \"man\" in our society might be more financially lucrative, but there are many downsides 6. Men and boys are expected to be emotionless. People tell 4 year old boys to stop crying and act like \"men\" that might mess a kid up in the future if it happens frequently 7. This directly relates to the idea of \"an emotionless killer\" women are allowed to have emotions in our society, men are not 8. This explains why most serial killers are men 9. Fun fact, if a person is raised without social contact in their formative years, they cannot function properly later on and it cannot be fixed and many end up in homes for the mentally ill. This really shows how much environmental factors have an impact on young people, how suppressing boys emotions might have a large impact in their future selves"
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7h6bth | Why does listening to music you dislike feel so offensive? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Same reason why certain food can taste nasty. It’s just not your taste. You’ve adapted to your own style. Nothing wrong with that, imo."
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7h6p1y | What does it mean to play music with and without emotion? | Culture | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Playing music is like acting. Think about someone the variety of ways someone can act being sad or something - some people are better at it because they can fake it well, while others draw on personal experiences to convey it. Other actors suck at because they're bad actors. Now, if you listen to a sad piece of instrumental music, say, played on a violin, some people will make certain notes swell or play them more delicately or quietly, because they feel the piece. Someone who doesn't connect with the emotion could just bash every note out in a uniform way, and you probably wouldn't feel a thing as a result. All musical instruments can be played a variety of ways through control of breath, the force or lightness you press the key or string - if the artist is able to use their emotions and translate them through the instrument (be it happy, sad, angry, romantic, hopeful, whatever), the idea is that you'll feel it too.",
"Music isn't played exactly the same way every single time. You can play music with a kind of robotic precision, and for some kinds of music and some pieces, that's needed. But instrumental music - particularly live music - should be just the smallest bit messy. Maybe hold a big, powerful note just a *hair* longer, or slur up to a note instead of hitting it neatly, or playing a hint louder than called for. Even the way you hold your instrument can make a difference, because the sound will carry differently: a trumpet pointed up, over the rest of the group will stand out more than a trumpet pointed straight ahead normally. Or if you swing your instrument around the sound changes as it moves through the space differently. You can also affect what's called the *timbre* (pronounced \"TAM-ber\") of your instrument. Timbre is all of the sound coming from an instrument that *isn't* strictly the pitch or tone. It's what makes a trumpet sound like a trumpet and a saxophone sound like a sax, even when they're both playing an A-flat. It includes stuff like what the instrument is made out of and how the sound is made (buzzing lips like trumpet, reed like saxophone, or air over an open hole like flute), but it also includes stuff like the clicking of the keys or valves of a sax or trumpet, or the way a trombone slurs into every note because the slide is never perfectly positioned. When you \"play with emotion\" you affect the timbre in a number of ways, like *angrily* hammering down the keys, or overblowing a little so they sound is distorted; or playing softly and with a loose embouchure (\"OM-bih-sher\") so that you can't *quite* hold the note and it distorts a different way. You can also make your notes \"punchier\" or \"looser\" with how you \"tongue\" the notes. ([Tonguing]( URL_0 ) is when - for wind instruments - you very briefly stop the air going into your instrument with your tongue, creating a new note even if you're playing the same pitch. It's like going \"doodoodoodoo\" without stopping the air with your lungs. The video I linked gives a bunch of different tonguing techniques.) Honestly, I could try to describe it but I couldn't possibly describe it better than what the video will give you by just hearing it. Suffice it to say, how you control the starts of the notes with your tongues changes the sound, even if you're not changing the timing or the pitch. And there can be emotion in there: if you tongue the notes hard and punchy, it'll sound angrier, or more energetic. If you tongue them softly it'll sound more light and either happy or sad depending on the context. You can also make your notes a little shorter, like a \"doot doot doot\" or longer with more \"dooodooodooo\" even though the timing doesn't change, they're still on the same beat. Most of the time, a good musician doesn't even consciously decide how to play \"with emotion\", which is why the conductor or director will simply tell you just to \"play with emotion\". It's hard to describe exactly what the piece should sound like at any given time. And indeed, if you did codify exactly how to play, it would lose some of the messiness that you're looking for in the first place!",
"Playing with emotion is challenging to describe. As a guitarist I love to play along with music that I enjoy. Some days when I pick up the guitar I just play along with the songs, work on my technique and timing, and basically just practice. While this is fun and enjoyable, it is not exactly playing with emotion. Other days I will pick up my guitar and as I play along with music, I will just really feel the music. I will be head banging all over the place, and putting tons of energy into my playing. I will play so hard I begin sweating. I am completely into the music and loving every second of it. This to me is playing with emotion. Truly feeling and becoming one with the music. Music is an emotional release, while at the same time a science. You know how some songs can have a sad sounding vibe, while others are upbeat and happy? This is because it invokes an emotional response from you. Of course this is all from my perspective, others may see it differently."
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