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April 6

Hemingway's Pilar

Hemingway's fishing boat shares the same name with the heroine in "For Whom the Bell Tolls". Is there any reason for that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.221.149.239 (talk) 03:24, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

From Pilar (boat): "Pilar" was a nickname for Hemingway's wife Pauline and also the name of the woman leader of the partisan band in his 1940 novel of the Spanish Civil War, For Whom the Bell Tolls. —107.15.157.44 (talk) 05:46, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:WHAAOE! --Lgriot (talk) 12:32, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Japanese era name

I'd like to find the origin of Japanese era names. I was able to find only few of them. For example, Heisei was taken from Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Documents, two Chinese history and philosophy books. Shōwa is from a passage of the Chinese Book of Documents. Reiwa is derived from the Man'yōshū. Thanks! --79.32.130.94 (talk) 15:36, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

The Japanese era names article you linked to has links to articles on each era, and all the ones I looked at (admittedly a small sample) included the origin. Henry^Flower 16:22, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Some do not. And most explanations are very brief. However I was able to find a useful quote from Google Books: Of the 247 Japanese era names: 35 are from the Shu ching (Book of Document); 27 from the I ching (Book of Changes); 25 from the Wen hsuan (Anthology); 24 from the Hou-Han-shu (History of the Later Han); 2I from the Han-shu (History of the Former Han). Heisei (Peaceful Becoming), the current Japanese era name, is also from Shu ching, and no era names have been chosen from Japanese classics.--79.32.130.94 (talk) 20:01, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Galland-Kellman-Shafran triplets

I'm planning to grab the premise from Three Identical Strangers and start Galland-Kellman-Shafran triplets as a standalone.

Two things:

• Galland Kellman Shafran triplets or Galland-Kellman-Shafran triplets?

• I need a freebie image from flickr (flickr is blocked in my location). Nothing at commons.

Can anyone help?

Many thanks.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:58, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Get your freebie images here: Free Image Search Tool (FIST) —2606:A000:1126:28D:F935:C7E2:FE1:E49 (talk) 16:26, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, 2606:A000:1126:28D:F935:C7E2:FE1:E49. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:45, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

April 8

Babi Yar

My understanding is that only 10% of names of people Nazis killed at Babi Yar have been recovered. I don't think Wikipedia mentions that but there is a memorial at the site with a granite wall like Vietnam Memorial in Washington with the names of those killed, again but 10% of them. Is it possible to get a list of those enshrined on the memorial? Thanks, - AboutFace 22 (talk) 01:51, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

See: List of victims of the Babi Yar massacre & Babi Yar memorials (but it seems both articles need updating). —2606:A000:1126:28D:F935:C7E2:FE1:E49 (talk) 02:36, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

April 9

Did Mexican revolutionaries ever put forward a claim to Florida?

I know that Mexico acquired its independence from Spain shortly after Spain gave Florida to the US. This made me wonder--did Mexican revolutionaries/independence activists ever put forward a claim to Florida? I mean, I would think that the Mexican independence movement would have begun while Florida was still under Spanish rule. Futurist110 (talk) 03:13, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Florida was under Spanish rule, but was never attached to Mexico, contrary to Texas, southern California and other areas of the southwestern U.S. Its fate was not of significant importance to Mexican revolutionaries. --Xuxl (talk) 12:59, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

So, Florida's distance from Mexico meant that, even before the Adams-Onis Treaty, Mexican revolutionaries were uninterested in it, correct? Futurist110 (talk) 21:50, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No, Mexico's claims ended in the east at the Red River of the South. Florida was never part of it, and post-independence Mexico never made any claim towards it. Three treaties defined Mexico's claims: the Adams–Onís Treaty defined its borders with the U.S. (and also was the treated that ceded Florida), the Treaty of Córdoba defined independent Mexico, and the Treaty of Limits (Mexico–United States) which confirmed the Adams-Onis borders previously negotiated with Spain. None of those agreements have any mention of any Mexican claims to Florida. --Jayron32 13:09, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Do you think that this would have been different had Spain not given up Florida to the US shortly before Mexico acquired its independence? Futurist110 (talk) 21:50, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Unlikely. While both Florida and Mexico/New Spain were part of the broader Spanish empire, they were separate colonies. economically, Florida was more tied to Cuba than Mexico. Blueboar (talk) 12:29, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for this information! Futurist110 (talk) 14:04, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Please stop asking people to speculate. That is not what the Reference Desks are for. --76.69.46.228 (talk) 11:56, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, I am not asking people to purely speculate. Rather, I am trying to figure out if there is any evidence as to the thoughts of Mexican revolutionaries in regards to Florida in the years before Spain gave Florida to the U.S. Futurist110 (talk) 14:04, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Any other US states with something similar to Tennessee's Grand Divisions

Just found this article on the "Grand Divisions" of Tennessee.

Are there any other U.S. states with similar such regions that are larger than counties and that have some constitutional significance? 118.160.99.133 (talk) 07:42, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Many states have such subregions, though may not have separate articles on them the way Tennessee does. Indeed, MOST states have at least two. For example, even really small states like Delaware does, there's "Upstate Delaware" and what locals call "Slower Lower Delaware", which is everything south of the C&D Canal. The article List of regions of the United States has a whole section on subregions of states. --Jayron32 12:49, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

It's not just that Tennessee has separate articles; it's that the divisions in Tennessee actually matter. For example, I doubt there's anything in the law about various regions of Delaware receiving particular seating on the Supreme Court, but that exists in Tennessee. The OP asked about regions with constitutional significance. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other than Tennessee. --Golbez (talk) 13:51, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Ah. That makes sense. I missed that. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any specific state that has that sort of significance. --Jayron32 15:43, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Not a state but a territory—from United States Virgin Islands#Politics and government:

At the territorial level, fifteen senators – seven from the district of St. Croix, seven from the district of St. Thomas and St. John, and one senator at-large who must be a resident of St. John – are elected for two-year terms to the unicameral Virgin Islands Legislature.

Loraof (talk) 17:32, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

18.160.99.133 -- Up through the early 1960's, some states had constitutional provisions that allocated seats in one or both houses of the state legislature by counties, but the Supreme Court struck down such provisions in cases like Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims, due to persistent abuse of such devices to weight rural votes above city votes... AnonMoos (talk) 03:09, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

There could be an argument for the Unorganized Borough, Alaska being treated differently than the other boroughs, Alaska not having any counties. Rmhermen (talk) 17:54, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Unicorn

How did ancient/medieval sources describe a unicorn's anatomy? Was the horn seen as an extension of its spine, part of its skull? Why is a unicorn a symbol of chastity and peace, when the horn would more obviously be seen as a deadly weapon or phallic symbol? Temerarius (talk) 14:38, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

How certain are you they had this level of detail? Many people didn't even have human anatomy down to that level of detail, and they saw at least one of those every day. --Jayron32 15:41, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

The Unicorn article indicates that the horn is on the forehead, hence it's on the skull. The article does not state that unicorns are universally considered symbols of chastity and peace. Aside from that, keep in mind that folklore can assign any traits it wants, to mythical beasts. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:52, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Our articles at unicorn and unicorn horn address some of this and are pretty well referenced if you'd care to continue your research. One strange omission I'd direct the OP to is The Natural History of Unicorns by Chris Lavers, which is an excellent investigation of many aspects of unicorns. Matt Deres (talk) 17:43, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

A Google Books preview of that work is here. Alansplodge (talk) 17:07, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

The Thornbirds

In the above mentioned novel, the main part of the book takes place on the fictional farm of Drogheda. Without having to re-read the book, can someone please tell me where in Australia the farm is supposed to have been located. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.40.58 (talk) 17:18, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article says "the Outback", which isn't much help because that basically means "anywhere that isn't a major urban center" and could be in any of the states or territories of Australia. The article on The Thorn Birds (miniseries), however, says that bulk of the story was set in western New South Wales. Hope that helps. --Jayron32 17:51, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Are there any sites that attempt to spit out which House of Commons district is most similar to US district X or vice versa?

So look up MO2, FL12 or whatever and it will show the most similar House of Commons district.

Whether their methodology is simple or complex I'd be interested to see it. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:58, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean by "most similar"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:10, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Well if someone has ranked UK districts from left to right I could find the ones with the same percentile as the Partisan Voting Index, but the positions of the average voter wouldn't be the same of course. But trying to place UK districts on the US scale seems like a pain in the ass. The scales don't line up (i.e. their Republicans seem left of Bernie Sanders on welfare but just like ours on fox hunting). Maybe someone has tried? Or even weighted educational attainment, income, age, percent service job, population growth, religion, white percent etc.? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:28, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

You could certainly do a ranking on the curve according to some simple objective measures (average income, gini coefficient, percentage of graduate degrees, and so on), but that would still leave open the question of alignment of the scales - absolute or relative? And I think that independent of such simple measures, a New England district is probably more similar to most UK constituencies than e.g. a Texas or Alabama one. Also, the "Labour-Conservative" split is very much not analogue to the "Democrat-Republican" split in the US. If you talk about "Republicans" in the UK, most people will probably assume Irish Republicans, not the Conservative Party. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:44, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Are there any Rust Belt-like constituencies? Do they have high UKIP percents which is probably the party most similar to Trump? (the importance of that region of the US to Trump's victory cannot be overstated) And I realize that if you tried to average out all those issues' disparate absolute scales into a single absolute scale many US districts might map to the same most right wing district in the UK without being that similar to them. Yes I meant Tories, we're all republicans (small r) and very few of us are (wanting to rejoin Canada or Mexico), maybe republican constituencies would be most similar to districts with a lot of Catholic Irish-Americans (not Scots-Irish). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:31, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

The BBC has an excellent set of interactive maps to explore the election results here. You can try to check your hypothesis the other way round - see where UKIP got high shares, and see if there is a common theme. I checked Boston and Skegness (UK Parliament constituency), where the UKIP got 34% in 2015, and still 7.7% in 2018, and this seems to be a largely touristy and agricultural community with a lot of Eastern European worker immigration. Buckingham (UK Parliament constituency) seems to be an outlier - it's the constituency of John Bercow, the Speaker of the House, so the other major parties do not field candidates. Thurrock (UK Parliament constituency), on the other hand, somewhat fits the rust belt profile, being a former industrial town. In general, as I understand it, a lot of England (not the UK), and especially northern England, has suffered from a wealth and job drain towards London, so in the wider sense, this is comparable to the rust belt. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:48, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I think Thurrock's support for the radical right is more of a white flight issue, as discussed here. Alansplodge (talk) 17:24, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

The far right is almost always based on bigotry. That's the central tenet of almost any far right political group; it is built upon the fear of the other and on the changing ethnic landscape of the country in question. Nativism is the sine qua non of any far right political party. Social conservatives or economic libertarians that lack the bigotry aspect are just "right" or center right. --Jayron32 13:13, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

April 10

Do we know if the US was going to militarily intervene if the Texas rebels would have been on the verge of losing?

Had the Texas rebels been on the verge of losing their war of independence, did the US make any decision (ahead of time) as to what it would have done in such a scenario? Would it have militarily intervened or would it have simply set back and watch the Texas rebellion be crushed by Mexico? Futurist110 (talk) 02:29, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Unofficially, America was already heavily involved in the Texas Revolution, numerous empresarios (Colonists originally from the US) had settled Texas, and were still well connected with the political aristocracy in the US, and during the war many battles on the side of the Texians were fought by Filibustering expeditions led by Americans. As early as the beginning of the 19th century, American political forces sought the annexation of Texas, see Texas annexation#U.S. territorial expansion and Texas. Indeed, until the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819 decided the issue, the US considered part, or all, of modern Texas to have been part of the Louisiana Purchase. Throughout the 1820s, while America officially recognized Mexico's control of Texas, nearly all American political leaders sought to obtain Texas eventually through backroom channels and the like. We have no idea of what would have actually happened in the hypothetical scenario you describe, but from the earliest days of the Republic and Manifest Destiny, Texas was always in the plans, even if prior to the 1840s no official policy existed to pursue it. --Jayron32 12:26, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Makes sense. Thank you, Jayron32! I was simply wondering if the US government actually made any contingency plans in a scenario where Texas was going to lose its war of independence. Based on what you wrote, it looks like it didn't. Futurist110 (talk) 22:56, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Not that I believe. Texas was something of a political "hot potato", the unresolved slavery issue that dominated American politics in the first half of the nineteenth century hindered anyone from discussing it officially. Neither major party of the day officially advocated for Texas annexation, trying to avoid the elephant in the room of how to deal with slavery in annexed territories, but individually, key members of both parties all wanted to annex it. They just couldn't bring it up. It was messy. This is covered in some of the articles I linked above. --Jayron32 14:34, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for this information, and I will make sure to take a closer look at these articles. In fact, I have looked over one of these articles significantly more right now. Futurist110 (talk) 03:52, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I would tend to doubt it. I think they'd have waited for another revolt and hoped for better results. Had Santa Anna put down the Texian rebellion, none of the problems that led to revolt would have been addressed. Texas would still be heavily American, minded to separate and too far from Mexico City for the weak central government to control. Not to mention the difficulties of raising and transporting, etc US forces, which proved hard enough in 1846; there would have been a lot less enthusiastiasm ten years earlier with no "American blood spilled on American soil", as was alleged to be the casus belli for the Mexican-American War.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:17, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but all of that is doubly so for Mexico defending Texas. Texas was very remote from the population centers in Mexico; part of the reason why Spain and then Mexico accepted the presence of the empresarios at all was because 1) they needed white people from somewhere to settle the land to claim it and 2) they weren't getting any from anywhere else. American southerners were looking for virgin land to set up slave-based plantations, and they were running out of such land in the U.S.; Texas was the perfect investment in that regard. It was a perfect storm for Texas independence; you had what was essentially a bunch of rich, American slave owners moving in rapidly, many of whom were eager to be free from the meddlesome anti-slavery politics of America, you the land was so distant from Mexico City to be functionally independent from them anyway; Mexico had a hard time enforcing Mexican authority in Texas from the start. "Crushing the Texas rebellion" would also presume that you had a stable Mexican state which could concentrate such efforts on a single issue. Mexico was an monarchy under the Plan of Iguala until 1824, then a Federal republic under the 1824 Constitution of Mexico, however it was functionally a military dictatorship under Antonio López de Santa Anna, and by 1835 had a new Constitution as a unitary republic under Santa Anna, the Centralist Republic of Mexico. The Centralist Republic period was one of widespread rebellion across Mexico; the table of contents of that article tells you all you need to know. The Mexican government had a lot to deal with, and letting Texas go was probably in their own best interests. --Jayron32 13:06, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

First language of Scottish kings

Am I correct in thinking that the last Scottish king to speak Gaelic as his first language was Alexander I and that all kings from David I primarily spoke Lowland Scots? Surtsicna (talk) 09:52, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

James IV of Scotland notes that he was the last Scottish King to speak Gaelic, but I don't know that it was his first language. The article Scottish Gaelic notes that Margaret of Wessex spoke no Gaelic and brought up her sons in her own language; at that point it was not really Lowland Scots, Lowland Scots diverged from Middle English many centuries later. Alexander I's first language would have been Old English, i.e. the Anglo-Saxon language. The last native Gaelic speaking king of Scotland would have thus been Malcolm Canmore's brother, Donald III of Scotland. Donald was succeeded by his nephews, both of which were sons of Margaret of Wessex, and would have spoken Old English. The Scots language didn't become distinct from Northumbian forms of what is now called Middle English until the 15th century or so, which would have been sometime during the reigns of the numerous James Stuarts. --Jayron32 12:16, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

File:Alexander III and Ollamh Rígh.JPG shows Alexander III of Scotland at his coronation in 1249, being addressed in Gaelic by the national poet or ollamh rígh Alban. Not sure if he understood what was going on though, he was all of seven years-old. Alansplodge (talk) 12:50, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

It's far more likely by that time that his home language would have been Norman French; his mother was from a Picard/Norman family and England was still using Norman French as the language of the aristocracy, it would seem likely that such trends also permeated into Scotland. See Scoto-Norman, which notes " the Kings of Scotland between the reign of the David I and the Stewart period are often described as Scoto-Norman." Most of the noble families we think of, from that time period, as stereotypically Scottish, such as the Bruce, Balliol, Comyn, were mostly of Norman French origin (from Brix, Manche, Bailleul, Somme, and Comines, Nord respectively) and while most of them would have been at least partially fluent in several languages (including likely the form of English that was in the process of developing into Scots, as well as Gaelic and probably a smattering of Latin) I would not be surprised if Norman French was how they spoke at home. --Jayron32 13:45, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

April 11

City monarch

Are there any cities with a monarch whereby the monarch rules only that city? Also, are there nominal examples of such a city; i.e. whereby the monarch only reigns over the city in a nominal/de-jure-only way? 92.2.64.31 (talk) 14:26, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Historically or currently? There was, for example, once a Count of Paris. In modern times, the best example is the Holy See or the Vatican City, for which the Pope serves as absolute monarch. --Jayron32 14:29, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

• Monaco? Loraof (talk) 14:48, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

  Good one. --Jayron32 14:49, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Not the Vatican or Monaco since they also function as a state. I'm thinking of a monarch (whether a nominal example or an actual-ruling example) who only reigns over a city, whilst having no influence over the wider state. As for the time period, currently. 92.2.64.31 (talk) 16:08, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

But Monaco and the Vatican have no "wider state". The monarch's influence, especially in Monaco, ends just a few hundred meters away. --Golbez (talk) 16:10, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Per Golbez, there is no non-urbanized land in either Monaco or Vatican City. They literally rule over 100% city and 0% non-city land. There is no functional space in either country which is not the single city in question. --Jayron32 16:26, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I guess this is an extremely pedantic distinction but more than half of Vatican City is actually gardens... Adam Bishop (talk) 21:33, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Which are part of the city. Defining things like population density (for doing things like defining urban areas) suffers from the same problem as the coastline paradox: the value you get for an area's population density is highly dependent on the size of the unit you are calculating over. After all, if you use the square meter as the size of your base measurement, you find that even in the largest cities in the world, most of those square meters are unoccupied by people at any one given time. --Jayron32 12:05, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

In fact, the technicalities around these terms are going to have to be defined if the examples given are no good. For example, if I get declared as king of my hometown with no control over the countryside in any way - am I really a king? Does it make sense to refer to someone as a monarch if their control doesn't reach the borders of their state? Regardless of wealth or power, the term monarch just wouldn't be used AFAICT. Matt Deres (talk) 20:23, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

The word "monarch" tends to only be used to refer to a sovereign ruler: one not subservient to any other earthly ruler. As some have noted, monarchies often have all kinds of titles relating to cities and regions of the realm (random example: Duke of York), and in the past the holder of said title sometimes did exercise power over their fief, but they were still subjects of their monarch. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 22:50, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I thought kings were monarchs but in some situations they could be subservient to emperors. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 23:13, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

It complicated (and IMO somewhat arbitrary). Monarch says that monarchs are sovereign, and King says kings are monarchs, but as you say, there are cases of one sovereign conquoring a king or kingdom, and the ruler of that kingdom retaining their title and some of their powers, while becoming subserviant to the conqueror. (Note that "the ruler of that kingdom" isn't necessarily the king that got conquered - it could be a new, more compliant king imposed by the conqueror). Plus there are even more complicated situations, like the Duke of Normandy being subserviant to the King of Frace, while also being (since 1066) the King of England and so sovereign. Iapetus (talk) 08:58, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

These things exist on a continuum, and there is of course the difference between de jure and de facto, i.e. one can be a fiefdom on paper, and still essentially sovereign in practice, as was true of basically all of the fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire after the Thirty Years War, where various treaties and laws and bulls and the like essentially stripped the power of the Emperor and made him a figurehead. After the middle 17th century, Holy Roman fiefs began maintaining their own armies, coining their own currency, establishing their own independent foreign relations, i.e. behaving exactly like sovereign states, even though they still sent representatives to the Imperial Diet and otherwise were technically fiefs of the Emperor. --Jayron32 12:09, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

The Principality of Sealand was in the news once upon a time. Not what you were asking but maybe interesting. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 23:19, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

There's a Greek word politarch (not referring to royalty, however). AnonMoos (talk) 23:34, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

April 12

Did a lot of White Southerners also move to the Northern US during the Great Migration?

I know that several million African-Americans moved from the Southern US to the Northern US during the Great Migration. However, I am wondering if there was ever a similar migration of Southern Whites from the Southern US to the Northern US. Futurist110 (talk) 04:31, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

In the 1930s, there were the "Okies", but that was mainly a migration from the Great Plains westward.

One of the main "push" factors behind black migration northward in the early 20th century was that white agricultural landowners needed less labor than before to cultivate their land, with improvements in farming machinery. This didn't end up displacing poor whites in the same numbers as it did poor blacks... AnonMoos (talk) 07:43, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

There was some white migration. Not sure of the time period. There are communities that are given a derisive nickname by appending "-tucky", such as Taylortucky, Michigan. I've heard of others, but that the only one I can think of. older ≠ wiser 09:13, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

And again while the timeline of the original migration is unclear (or I just don't recall it from the book), Hillbilly Elegy provides a personal narrative about the effects of such southern migration for economic reasons. older ≠ wiser 12:08, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

"More than 20 million whites left the South during the 20th century, vastly outnumbering the 7-8 [million] African Americans who left". America's Great Migrations, University of Washington

Quoted on that website is The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of White and Black Southerners Transformed America, by James Gregory (University of North Carolina Press, 2005) which has a Google Books preview.

Alansplodge (talk) 12:48, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much for this information, Alan! That link certainly seems worthy of me checking it out! Futurist110 (talk) 21:36, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

April 13

here's the definition what's the word

There's a Wikipedia article whose name I can't remember but it's about a concept in philosophy, that refers to answering a concrete question by generalizing it to an abstract principle and then applying the principle. The article (iirc) describes various virtues hazards of this approach, and mentions that it's sometimes used in theology, if I remember right. It's a not-too-fancy-sounding word (i.e. not a goofy latin expression) that probably ends in -ism or -ization. I did some searches and scrolled through List of philosophies and Glossary of philosophy and still didn't see it, but might have missed it. Any idea? Thanks. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 01:25, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

The Categorical Imperative is similar (maybe not exactly what you're asking about). AnonMoos (talk) 04:08, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

No, not that, but thanks. I'm pretty sure the one I'm looking for is a single word, and it's descriptive rather than prescriptive. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 04:56, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

There's "reification", though that's Latin... AnonMoos (talk) 08:08, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

That's kind of close but that's not it either. I actually spent a while looking at outgoing links from that article. The word probably does have a latin root. I just meant it's not one of those phrases that sounds like a Harry Potter spell. Thanks and I'll keep thinking about it too. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 08:49, 13 April 2019 (UTC)