Linguistic purism or linguistic protectionism is the prescriptive practice of defining or recognizing one variety of a language as being purer or of intrinsically higher quality than other varieties. Linguistic purism was institutionalized through language academies (of which the 1572  set a model example in Europe), and their decisions often have the force of law.

The perceived or actual decline identified by the purists may take the form of a change of vocabulary, syncretism of grammatical elements, or loanwords. The unwanted similarity is often with a neighboring language whose speakers are culturally or politically dominant. The ideal may invoke logic, clarity, or the grammar of classic languages. It is often presented as a conservative measure, as a protection of a language from the encroachment of other languages or of the conservation of the national Volksgeist, but is often innovative in defining a new standard. It is sometimes part of governmental language policy which is enforced in various ways.

The practice opposite of purism, when borrowed words displace native ones, also exists. For example, in English, the native word bookstaff () was replaced by the Latin word letter.

Cognate languages

In one common case, two closely related languages or language varieties are in direct competition, one weaker, the other stronger.  Speakers of the stronger language may characterize the weaker language as a "dialect" of the strong language, with the implication that it has no independent existence.  In response, defenders of the other language will go to great lengths to prove that their language is equally autonomous.

In this context, Yiddish and Dutch have in the past sometimes been considered dialects of German. In the case of Low German, spoken in eastern Netherlands and northern Germany, the debate is still current, as it could be considered a dialect of Dutch or German or a language of its own. An example of a related language that has only recently attained the status of an official national language is Luxembourgish. Since linguistic science offers no scholarly definition of a dialect, and linguists regard the distinction with scepticism – see A language is a dialect with an army and navy – the argument is really about subjective questions of identity politics, and at times it can invoke extreme emotions from the participants.

Writing systems
Closely related languages often tend to mix. One way of preventing this is to use different writing systems or different spelling systems.

Examples of this include:
 Moldovan and Romanian are virtually identical in all respects except that Moldovan used a Cyrillic writing system until the independence of Moldova in 1992 – though it is still in use in Transnistria – while Romanian uses a Latin writing system.
 Hindi and Urdu are distinguished by their Devanagari and Arabic-based scripts. In recent decades, the languages have drifted further apart, due to the Sanskritization of Hindi and the Arabization and Persianization of Urdu.
 The Serbian and Croatian literary standards differ mainly in using the Cyrillic and Latin scripts. They exhibit a high degree of mutual intelligibility as they are based on essentially the same dialect, a stylized form of Neoštokavian (Štokavian being the one dialect common to both Serbian and Croatian).

Forms
Various scholars have devised classifications of purism. These classifications take different criteria as their starting point and are therefore partly independent of each other.

Based on the approach
One taxonomy of puristic orientations is due to George Thomas:
 Archaizing purism: This happens when a speech-community tries to revive the language of a perceived or actual golden age of literature.  Examples: Arabic, Tanittamil Iyakkam in Tamil, Icelandic (see also: Linguistic purism in Icelandic), Ancient Greek (Atticism), Katharevousa in Modern Greek, Sanskrit, Latin (puristic obsession with classical forms among speakers of Romance languages and those influenced by them during the Renaissance). See also Language revival.
 Ethnographic purism: This form is based on an idealization of the countryside, folk stories and dialects.  Examples: Nynorsk (New Norwegian), some versions of Demotic Greek.
 Elitist purism: Associated with a highly formal variety linked to an elite, for example the language spoken at the court.
 Reformist purism: The main feature here is to break the bonds with the past.  An example of this is the removal of Persian and Arabic words during Turkish language reform under Atatürk in order to break with the Ottoman Turkish language influenced by Arabic and Persian. Other examples are the purist efforts in languages like Hausa, Swahili and Hindi to break with the colonial past. In addition, language policies may seek to decrease similarities between mutually intelligible languages for ethno-political reasons, as has been the case with Dano-Norwegian, Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu) and Malaysian/Indonesian.
 Playful purism: Intended as a joke, e.g., Philipp von Zesen's coinage Gesichtsvorsprung lit. 'facial projection' to mean 'nose'.
 Xenophobic purism: involves the elimination or exclusion of foreign elements. Examples include High Norwegian, Korean and Anglish. Many English writers of the 19th and 20th centuries extolled the virtues of "strong" Anglo-Saxon words such as foreword over the "weak" Romance word preface.  French, German, Greek and Latvian are known for their preference for coining words using native roots (often calques) over borrowing foreign words; some are more successful than others.

Based on the goals
 Democratic purism: Aims at safeguarding the intelligibility of (modern) concepts for a larger group of language users through enforcing their expression by the means of common, every-day words or expressions (for example, "back[ing] up" instead of "sustain[ment]")
 Unificatory purism: Aims at better uniting the overall user group of a language by reducing certain regional or professional linguistic peculiarities which could separate varying aspects of life, or even obstruct interconnectivity, between individuals or sub-groups of different regional provenience or professional background.
 Defensive purism: Aims at defending a language from external threats.  Mostly, these are to be understood as influx of foreign ideas which a given language group (or its political system) disdains or has overthrown, or influx of foreign words or expressions which tend to substitute innate vocabulary, thus diminishing and/or endangering supra-regional or inter-generational intelligibility within a language area or between its present speakers and the literary remnants of their venerated ancestors, i. e., some kind of "classical" heritage (as e. g. Shakespeare's usage is already no more widely understood amongst many of today's English speakers  ).
 Prestige purism: Aims at varying prestige functions.
 Delimiting purism: Aims at establishing some kind of separating functions.

Based on the intensity
 Marginal purism: Purism never becomes at any stage a value-feature of the speech community.  On the contrary, there is a certain openness to all sources of enrichment, at the same time characterized by a lack among the language elite of intellectual digestion of foreign influxes, or by a lack of such an elite as a whole.  Examples:  English, Russian, Polish, Japanese, Ancient Greek.
 Moderate, discontinuous purism: A moderate attitude is discernible over a long period of time.  Examples:  Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian.
 Trimming purism:  A reactive correction to a potentially dangerous trend in the development of a standard language.  Examples:  Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Slovak.
 Evolutionary purism: Purism is seen early in the development of a written language.  There are no radical changes or orientation. During the standardising process, purism gains momentum after which it slows down. Examples: Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Hebrew, Latvian, Croatian and Slovene.
 Oscillatory purism: Involves repeated swings between intense purism and a more inclusive attitude.  Examples: German, Czech and Yiddish.
 Stable, consistent purism: No interruption or fluctuation in intensity is seen.  Purism is a constant value-feature of the speech community.  Examples:  Arabic, Tamil and Icelandic.
 Revolutionary purism: An abrupt change from the previously mentioned patterns to another.  Examples: Turkish.

Based on linguistic level
 Lexical purism: directed at the lexicon, first of all against direct lexical loans, often combined with the development of loan translations (such as in Norwegian: hand out > støtteark and snowboard > snøbrett or Arabic tilifūn > hātif and kumbyūtir > ḥāsūb.
 Orthographic purism: directed against foreign orthographic elements (such as in Norwegian: genre > sjanger, in Spanish: football > fútbol). Note that there is also reverse orthographic purism. Some Spanish speakers prefer the English spelling "blue jean" and object to the spelling bluyín.
 Morphological purism: directed against foreign inflection and declension (such as the resistance to plural -s in noun endings in Scandinavian languages).
 Syntactic purism: directed at syntactic features from other languages (such as the stylistic resistance in Nynorsk against some passive constructions and some constructions with the genitive).
 Phonetic purism: directed at foreign phonemes and phonematical combinations (such as gánster or champú in Spanish). There is a reverse phonetic purism, which insists in the original pronunciation, such as pronouncing gángster and shampú in Spanish.

Other forms
 Regressive purism:  The eradication of very old loan-words.  It is one of the main features of ultrapurism.
 : The extreme upper limit of purism.  In this pattern, everything expressed by human speech can become a target for puristic intervention, even geographical names, proper names, etc. (The attitude – in itself "puristic" and associated with increased education and foreign language competency – opposed to the translation or adaptation of toponyms, or even personal names, is historically quite recent, as names are not considered fixed or unchanging in most cultures; and there are many exceptions even in English, especially the names of historical personages, Native Americans, and even contemporary royalty. Historically, names were part of the lexicon of a language just as every other word, and it was common to have different names associated with different language communities. See exonym and endonym. The longer established the tradition of a name or term, the more likely are strong differences.) Two recorded examples of this are High Icelandic (Háfrónska), and the usage of the German renaissance humanist Johann Georg Turmair who even translated the name of the ancient Roman general Fabius Cunctator into Zauderer Bohnenmaier (i. e. literally "Laggard Bean-Mayor"). While not ultra-purism per se, phono-semantic matching is commonly used in a number of languages, notably for translating proper names into Chinese.

By language

 Bangla – Bangla language movement
 Basque –
 Croatian - Croatian linguistic purism
 English – Anglish
 Esperanto –
 Greek – Katharevousa
 Icelandic – Háíslenska/High Icelandic
 Italian – see Italianization
 Hindustani languages – Hindi-Urdu controversy
 Korean – see Linguistic purism in the Korean language
 Malayalam – see Pacchamalayala Prasthanam
 Malay – Beka Melayu
 Meitei (officially known as Manipuri) - Meitei linguistic purism movement
 Norwegian – Høgnorsk/High Norwegian
 Russian - Lovers of the Russian Word
 Sinhala – Hela Havula
 Tamil – Tanittamil Iyakkam
Hebrew during the Haskalah
 Turkish – Öztürkçe

See also

 Inkhorn debate
 Language policy
 Language planning
 Language revitalization
 Language secessionism
 Linguistic imperialism
 Linguistic prescription
 Phono-semantic matching

References
Notes

Bibliography

External links
Neologisms and loanwords in Icelandic and Faroese

Concepts in language policy

Linguistic purism


Pain & Gain is a melodramatic 2013 criminal-comedy movie. It is about events which take place between late 1994 until mid 1995. These events involve several gangsters called The Sun Gym Gang. They kidnap several people, kill others, use steroids, rob armored vehicles and do certain drugs. The events within the movie, however, are fictionalized or made up versions for events that actually happened. The events did happen, although the real-life events are far different from those in Pain & Gain. The movie got mixed reviews, only half of which were good or positive. It performed well, though, in the overall box office. It was released April 26, 2013. Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson are in this movie.

2013 drama thriller movies
2013 comedy-drama movies

Pain & Gain


日產费加罗()是由日產汽車所推出的一款复古迷你汽车,以第一代日產March作為底盘而建。

概述

费加罗最早于1989年东京车展亮相,使用的口号是"回到未来"。它由日产一个名为"Pike Factory"的特别项目组设计制造。该车一共生产有四种颜色:浅黄,翠绿,淡蓝以及石灰,其中又以浅黄色的产量最少,现在最受收藏家的青睐。

费加罗配备了真皮座椅、空调设备、CD唱机以及一个可收回的顶棚。它由Shoji Takahashi设计。该车的发动机是987c.c.涡轮增压直列四缸MA10ET型,前后总共生产了20,000辆。

车名的由来
该车以莫扎特歌剧《费加罗的婚礼》中的主人公之名命名,意味着优雅、机智,富有艺术气息。

详细规格
型式名: Nissan Motor E-FK10
变速形式:3速自排

尺寸
車身長度:1630 mm (64.17 in)
車身长度:3740 mm (147.25 in)
車身宽度:1365 mm (53.74 in)
駕駛室長度:1450 mm (57.09 in)
駕駛室闊度:1310 mm (51.57 in)
駕駛室高度:1130 mm (44.49 in)
輪距:2300 mm (90.55 in)
Treadwidth: Front: 1335 mm (52.56 in), Rear: 1350 mm (53.15 in)
Ground clearance: 150 mm (5.91 in)
重量:810 kg (1782 lb)
核載數量:四人

性能参数
Turning Circle (curb-to-curb): 4.7 m (15 ft 5 in)
Fuel Economy: 7.4 l/100km (38.1 mpg)
Fuel consumption rate: 60 km/h running, on level ground: 4.1 l/100km (68.9 mpg)

发动机
Engine Model: MA10ET (Turbocharged)
Engine Type: Water-cooled in-line 4 cylinder, SOHC
Bore and Stroke: 68.0 mm x 68.0 mm
Total Displacement: 987 cc
Compression Ratio: 8.0:1
Max Power (ps/rpm): 76/6000 (75 hp)
Max Torque (kgm/rpm): 10.8/4400 (78 ft·lbf)
Fuel Delivery: ECCS
Fuel Type/Capacity: Regular Unleaded/40L (8.8 imp. gal.)

其他配备
Steering: Rack and pinion
Suspension: Four-wheel independent
Front: Strut-type
Rear: 4-link, with stabilizer bar (anti-sway bar)
Brakes: Ventilated front discs
Tire size: 165/70R12 77H
Cold climate spec: 155SR12

颜色
车身颜色:
Emerald Green (6K8)
Pale Aqua (6K9)
Lapis Gray (7K0)
Topaz Mist (7K1)

Interior colors:
Main color:
White (Q)
The following parts come the same color as the exterior body:
Top of dashboard
Steering wheel horn button
Seat piping
Carpet

可选件
Uniquely designed CD/Tape/Radio stereo (dealer option)
Manually-retractable trunk tray

功能组件
 Safety equipment and front seat restraints
 Three point seat belts
 Rear seat: Three point seat belts
 Driver's seat belt not fastened warning (buzzer)
 High-mount stoplamp
 Genuine leather seats standard equipment.
 Low mount head rest for classic appearance.
 Synthetic leather piping is used for the prevention of leather fatigue.
 High quality paint on interior and exterior.

机械
Retractable top which became one of Figaro's unique trademarks
External design completely hidden in trunk.
Equipped with a double lock and warning buzzer as a safety feature.
Secondary hood latch designed so the hood should not open while driving or by accidental activation.
Rear window defroster on glass.

车体
Flush mount apron and flush mount fender.
Fiber glass resin material is used with an outer gel coat.
Resulting in durable low maintenance body components.
Fluoroplastic paint is used.

Special mentions
There was a limited release of the Figaro to 20,000 in the whole country.
By the end of August 1991 the car was divided into three portions.
The sold form was taken.

Manufacturer option
 Manual air conditioner
 Air cleaner (pure tron)
 Seat bag hanging type (SR-1)
 CD combination stereo deck
 6x4 inch speaker kits
 Aluminum loading wheel/12×4.5
Jo/s=45 mm Special spoke type/silver
 Steel wheel 12x4.50B For tire in winter
 Air valve for tire in winter
 Wheel nut (for tire in winter)
 Full wheel cover For tire in winter (white)
 Half wheel cover /chrome plating (for tire in winter)
 Steel chain (band addition)
For 155 for 165/70R12/SR12
 Suparsailchan For 155 for 165/70R12/SR12
 Ring super-X For 165/70R12 and for 155SR12
 Luggage room lamp Hitai (white lens) and attachment set
 100 km/h Speed alarm
 Cigarette lighter

外部选件
 Rear side protector Pub mirror Totono
 Door mirror cover (chrome plating)
 Door steering wheel protector (stainless steel)
 Fillet Ttomorl (stainless steel) reception desk set
 Fillet Ttomorl (stainless steel) rear set
 Door edge lace (stainless steel)
 Roof visor (stainless steel)
 Headlight visor (stainless steel)
 Floor mats with car name logo (front and rear)
 Trunk-mounted ski rack (for two ski sets)
 Body cover (silver-colored polyester)
 Accent stripe seeming type (reception desk rear set)
 Decal kit owners plate (aluminum) Car name logo 1000Turbo character
 Winter braid Right and left expert 475 mm
 Corner Paul Design type
 Numberplate rim for reception desk (stainless steel)

内部选件
 Floor carpet (sherbet orange/silver gray)
 Kick plate (stainless steel)
 Half seat cover (one knitting ..silver gray.. race part.) gray & orange and suede. preparing.
 Cushion (rug)
 Rear window screen (brown with car name logo)
 Instorroatorei Net type
 Cup holder (one big or regular size can and with putting small articles) (CDs can be stored.)
 Beige leather covers for steering wheel, shift knob, and parking lever
 Yashetoboccs Beige (combination skin)
 Child safety seat (blue/pink)
 Junior safety seat (blue/pink)
 Trunk tray (body cover storage band addition)
 First-aid kit (A/B type emergency set (A case insertion/B backing type)
 Big bag (seat similar combination skin/A2 size)
 Staff bag set (seat similar combination skin) (A4/A6 glasses case)
 Owners bag Seat similar combination (skin)
 Automobile inspection certificate putting
(seat similar combination skin/door pocket storage type)
 Petit-Cotte Pittorre (carwash and wax cliff articles set)
B set for A set/wax for carwash
 Car care set (with genuine leather cleaner)
 Day planner (seat similar combination skin)
 Handicap mirror (with car name logo)

外部链接
费加罗产品宣传册
日产费加罗爱好者站点
日产费加罗论坛(英国用户为主)
日产费加罗的历史与技术指标

參考

1991年面世的汽車
F
復古車
次紧凑型车
前置引擎
前輪驅動
優良設計獎

日产费加罗


Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an American painter. He became famous for painting in the abstract expressionist style. Pollock's most famous paintings were made by dripping and splashing paint on a large canvas. His nickname was Jack the Dripper. Because of the method, this style is often called action painting. Pollock was helped by his wife, artist Lee Krasner, and her style was very new at the time.

Pollock was bitter, and had serious drinking problems with alcohol.  His paintings are in museums all over the world, and his work is rated very high. Pollock has been the subject of many movies because of his interesting life. The most famous was a short documentary movie directed by Hans Namuth in 1951, and the 2000 movie about his life called Pollock, made by and starring actor Ed Harris. Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming. In 1956, he was killed in a car crash in Springs, New York at the age of 44 years old.

The unique technique
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, New York, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his drip technique.

Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artist's paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.

Later, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. In 1956, Time magazine called Pollock "Jack the Dripper" as a result of his unique painting style.

"My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting".

"I continue to get further away from the usual painter's tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added".

"When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well".

Influences on his dripping technique include the Mexican muralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied "the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.

Expensive painting
Pollock's No. 5, 1948 stands at the fifth highest price ever for a work of art. It was privately sold by Sotheby's for (price adjusted) US$163.8 million dollars. .

Related pages
List of American painters

References

American painters
People from Wyoming
Road accident deaths in New York (state)
1912 births
1956 deaths

Jackson Pollock


Alfonso Daniel  (30 January 1886 – 7 January 1950), also known as Castelao, was a Spanish writer on Galician language and one of the main symbols of Galicia. As a politician, caricaturist, and writer, he is one of the leading figures of Galician culture and identity.

(1886–1929) Early life
In 1886, Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez de Castelao was born on 30 January in Rianxo, Galicia, Spain.

Castelao spent his childhood and adolescence in Santa Rosa de Toay, Argentina. In 1900, the Castelao family returned to Rianxo. In 1908, he obtained his degree in Medicine from the University of Santiago de Compostela. The next year, he passed his doctorate in Madrid, where he started to become known as a caricaturist, and settled down in Rianxo, joining the political movement Action Galicia (Acción Gallega in Spanish). As a caricaturist, Castelao focussed on the everyday in a humorous way, although after the cruelty and tragedy of the Spanish Civil War, he turned to using his art to denounce the misery of Fascism.

In 1916, he moved to Pontevedra, where he joined the Irmandades da Fala and participated in the Asembleia Nazonalista de Lugo, signing an important national declaration. In 1920, he became editor of the magazine Nos and travelled through France, the Netherlands and Germany. In 1922, he wrote the novel Un Ollo de Vidro and in 1924 he joined the Seminario de Estudos Galegos and founded the Coral Polifonica de Pontevedra. Two years later he published Cousas, and in 1929 he travelled to Brittany to study its stone crosses and publish As Cruces de Pedra na Bretaña.

Spanish politicians
Spanish writers
Spanish Civil War
1886 births
1950 deaths
Galician people

Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez Castelao


The problem of religious language considers whether it is possible to talk about God meaningfully if the traditional conceptions of God as being incorporeal, infinite, and timeless, are accepted. Because these traditional conceptions of God make it difficult to describe God, religious language has the potential to be meaningless. Theories of religious language either attempt to demonstrate that such language is meaningless, or attempt to show how religious language can still be meaningful.

Traditionally, religious language has been explained as via negativa, analogy, symbolism, or myth, each of which describes a way of talking about God in human terms. The via negativa is a way of referring to God according to what God is not; analogy uses human qualities as standards against which to compare divine qualities; symbolism is used non-literally to describe otherwise ineffable experiences; and a mythological interpretation of religion attempts to reveal fundamental truths behind religious stories. Alternative explanations of religious language cast it as having political, performative, or imperative functions.

Empiricist David Hume's requirement that claims about reality must be verified by evidence influenced the logical positivist movement, particularly the philosopher A. J. Ayer. The movement proposed that, for a statement to hold meaning, it must be possible to verify its truthfulness empirically – with evidence from the senses. Consequently, the logical positivists argued that religious language must be meaningless because the propositions it makes are impossible to verify. Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein has been regarded as a logical positivist by some academics because he distinguished between things that can and cannot be spoken about; others have argued that he could not have been a logical positivist because he emphasised the importance of mysticism. British philosopher Antony Flew proposed a similar challenge based on the principle that, in so far as assertions of religious belief cannot be empirically falsified, religious statements are rendered meaningless.

The analogy of games – most commonly associated with Ludwig Wittgenstein – has been proposed as a way of establishing meaning in religious language. The theory asserts that language must be understood in terms of a game: just as each game has its own rules determining what can and cannot be done, so each context of language has its own rules determining what is and is not meaningful. Religion is classified as a possible and legitimate language game which is meaningful within its own context. Various parables have also been proposed to solve the problem of meaning in religious language. R. M. Hare used his parable of a lunatic to introduce the concept of "bliks" – unfalsifiable beliefs according to which a worldview is established – which are not necessarily meaningless. Basil Mitchell used a parable to show that faith can be logical, even if it seems unverifiable. John Hick used his parable of the Celestial City to propose his theory of eschatological verification, the view that if there is an afterlife, then religious statements will be verifiable after death.

Classical understanding of religious language
Religious language is a philosophical problem arising from the difficulties in accurately describing God. Because God is generally conceived as incorporeal, infinite, and timeless, ordinary language cannot always apply to that entity. This makes speaking about or attributing properties to God difficult: a religious believer might simultaneously wish to describe God as good, yet also hold that God's goodness is unique and cannot be articulated by human language of goodness. This raises the problem of how (and whether) God can be meaningfully spoken about at all, which causes problems for religious belief since the ability to describe and talk about God is important in religious life. The French philosopher Simone Weil expressed this problem in her work Waiting for God, in which she outlined her dilemma: she was simultaneously certain of God's love and conscious that she could not adequately describe him.

The medieval doctrine of divine simplicity also poses problems for religious language. This suggests that God has no accidental properties – these are properties that a being can have which do not contribute to its essence. If God has no accidental properties, he cannot be as he is traditionally conceived, because properties such as goodness are accidental. If divine simplicity is accepted, then to describe God as good would entail that goodness and God have the same definition. Such limits can also be problematic to religious believers; for example, the Bible regularly ascribes different emotions to God, ascriptions which would be implausible according to the doctrine of divine simplicity.

Via negativa

The via negativa, or apophatic theology, is an approach to religious language based on refraining from describing God, or describing God in terms of what he is not. For example, Jewish philosopher Maimonides believed that God can only be ascribed negative attributes, a view based on two fundamental Jewish beliefs: that the existence of God must be accepted, and that it is forbidden to describe God. Maimonides believed that God is simple and so cannot be ascribed any essential attributes. He therefore argued that statements about God must be taken negatively, for example, "God lives" should be taken as "God does not lack vitality". Maimonides did not believe that God holds all of his attributes perfectly and without impairment; rather, he proposed that God lies outside of any human measures. To say that God is powerful, for example, would mean that God's power is beyond worldly power, and incomparable to any other power. In doing so, Maimonides attempted to illustrate God's indescribable nature and draw attention to the linguistic limits of describing God.

Critics maintain that such kind of solution severely limits the degree to which what can be spoken about God.

Analogy and metaphor
Thomas Aquinas argued that statements about God are analogous to human experience because of the causal relationship between God and creatures. An analogous term is partly univocal (has only one meaning) and partly equivocal (has more than one potential meaning) because an analogy is in some ways the same and in some ways different from the subject. He proposed that those godly qualities which resemble human qualities are described analogously, with reference to human terms; for example, when God is described as good, it does not mean that God is good in human terms, but that human goodness is used as a reference to describe God's goodness.

Philosopher Taede Smedes argued that religious language is symbolic. Denying any conflict between science and religion, he proposes that 'to believe' means to accept a conviction (that God exists, in the context of Christianity), which is different from 'knowing', which only occurs once something is proven. Thus, according to Smedes, we believe things that we do not know for sure. Smedes argues that, rather than being part of the world, God is so far beyond the world that there can be no common standard to which both God and the world can be compared. He argues that people can still believe in God, even though he cannot be compared to anything in the world, because belief in God is just an alternative way of viewing that world (he likens this to two people viewing a painting differently). Smedes claims that there should be no reason to look for a meaning behind our metaphors and symbols of God because the metaphors are all we have of God. He suggests that we can only talk of God pro nobis (for us) and not in se (as such) or sine nobis (without us). The point, he argues, is not that our concept of God should correspond with reality, but that we can only conceive of God through metaphors.

In the twentieth century, Ian Ramsey developed the theory of analogy, a development later cited in numerous works by Alister McGrath. He argued that various models of God are provided in religious writings that interact with each other: a range of analogies for salvation and the nature of God. Ramsey proposed that the models used modify and qualify each other, defining the limits of other analogies. As a result, no one analogy on its own is sufficient, but the combination of every analogy presented in Scripture gives a full and consistent depiction of God. The use of other analogies may then be used to determine if any one model of God is abused or improperly applied.

It is proposed that analogy is also present in everyday discourses. For example, when a speaker uses the word square, the speakers may well use it to refer to an object that is approximately square rather than a genuine square.

Critics contend that metaphor theories are unsatisfactory because metaphors are always in principle susceptible to literal paraphrase.

Symbolism

Philosopher Paul Tillich argued that religious faith is best expressed through symbolism because a symbol points to a meaning beyond itself and best expresses transcendent religious beliefs. He believed that any statement about God is symbolic and participates in the meaning of a concept. Tillich used the example of a national flag to illustrate his point: a flag points to something beyond itself, the country it represents, but also participates in the meaning of the country. He believed that symbols could unite a religious believer with a deeper dimension of himself as well as with a greater reality. Tillich believed that symbols must emerge from an individual collective unconsciousness, and can only function when they are accepted by the unconscious. He believed that symbols cannot be invented, but live and die at the appropriate times.

Louis Dupré differentiates between signs and symbols, proposing that a sign points to something while a symbol represents it. A symbol holds its own meaning: rather than merely pointing someone towards another object, it takes the place of and represents that object. He believes that a symbol has some ambiguity which does not exist with a sign. Dupré believes that a symbol may deserve respect because it contains what is signified within itself. A symbol reveals a reality beyond what is already perceived and transforms the ways the current reality is perceived. Dupré differentiates between religious and aesthetic symbols, suggesting that a religious symbol points towards something which "remains forever beyond our reach". He proposed that a religious symbol does not reveal the nature of what it signifies, but conceals it.

Langdon Brown Gilkey explained religious language and experience in terms of symbolism, identifying three characteristic features of religious symbolism which distinguish it from other language use. Firstly, religious symbolism has a double focus, referring both to something empirical and to something transcendent; Gilkey argued that the empirical manifestation points towards the transcendent being. Secondly, he believed that religious symbolism concerns fundamental questions of life, involving issues important to an individual or community. Finally, he argued that religious symbols provide standards by which life should be lived.

In the Sikh religious text the Guru Granth Sahib, religious language is used symbolically and metaphorically. In the text, Sikh Gurus repeat that the experiences they have while meditating are ineffable, incognizable, incomprehensible, and transensuous – this means that there is no object of their experience that can be conceptualised. To overcome this, the Sikh Gurus used symbolic and metaphorical language, assuming that there is a resemblance between the mystical experience of the divine (the sabad) and those experiencing it. For example, light is used to refer to the spiritual reality.

Myth
William Paden argued that religious language uses myth to present truths through stories. He argued that to those who practice a religion, myths are not mere fiction, but provide religious truths. Paden believed that a myth must explain something in the world with reference to a sacred being or force, and dismissed any myths which did not as "folktales". Using the example of creation myths, he differentiated myths from scientific hypotheses, the latter of which can be scientifically verified and do not reveal a greater truth; a myth cannot be analysed in the same way as a scientific theory.

Lutheran theologian Rudolf Bultmann proposed that the Bible contains existential content which is expressed through mythology; Bultmann sought to find the existential truths behind the veil of mythology, a task known as 'demythologising'. Bultmann distinguished between informative language and language with personal import, the latter of which commands obedience. He believed that God interacts with humans as the divine Word, perceiving a linguistic character inherent in God, which seeks to provide humans with self-understanding. Bultmann believed that the cultural embeddedness of the Bible could be overcome by demythologising the Bible, a process which he believed would allow readers to better encounter the word of God.

Christian philosopher John Hick believed that the language of the Bible should be demythologised to be compatible with naturalism. He offered a demythologised Christology, arguing that Jesus was not God incarnate, but a man with incredible experience of divine reality. To Hick, calling Jesus the Son of God was a metaphor used by Jesus' followers to describe their commitment to what Jesus represented. Hick believed that demythologising the incarnation would make sense of the variety of world religions and give them equal validity as ways to encounter God.

Logical positivism
In the conclusion of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Scottish philosopher David Hume argued that statements that make claims about reality must be verified by experience, and dismissed those that cannot be verified as meaningless. Hume regarded most religious language as unverifiable by experiment and so dismissed it. Hume criticised the view that we cannot speak about God, and proposed that this view is no different from the skeptical view that nothing meaningful can be said about God. He was unconvinced by Aquinas' theory of analogy and argued that God's attributes must be completely different from human attributes, making comparisons between the two impossible. Hume's scepticism influenced the logical positivist movement of the twentieth century.

The logical positivism movement originated in the Vienna Circle and was continued by British philosopher A. J. Ayer. The Vienna Circle adopted the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements: analytic statements are those whose meaning is contained within the words themselves, such as definitions, tautologies or mathematical statements, while synthetic statements make claims about reality. To determine whether a synthetic statement is meaningful, the Vienna Circle developed a verifiability theory of meaning, which proposed that for a synthetic statement to have cognitive meaning, its truthfulness must be empirically verifiable. Because claims about God cannot be empirically verified, the logical positivists argued that religious propositions are meaningless.

In 1936, Ayer wrote Language, Truth and Logic, in which he claimed that religious language is meaningless. He put forward a strong empirical position, arguing that all knowledge must either come from observations of the world or be necessarily true, like mathematical statements. In doing so, he rejected metaphysics, which considers the reality of a world beyond the natural world and science. Because it is based on metaphysics and is therefore unverifiable, Ayer denounced religious language, as well as statements about ethics or aesthetics, as meaningless. Ayer challenged the meaningfulness of all statements about God – theistic, atheistic and agnostic – arguing that they are all equally meaningless because they all discuss the existence of a metaphysical, unverifiable being.

Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein finished his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with the proposition that "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Beverly and Brian Clack have suggested that because of this statement, Wittgenstein was taken for a positivist by many of his disciples because he made a distinction between what can and cannot be spoken about. They argue that this interpretation is inaccurate because Wittgenstein held the mystical, which cannot be described, as important. Rather than dismissing the mystical as meaningless, as the logical positivists did, Wittgenstein believed that while the facts of the world remain the same, the perspective from which they are viewed will vary.

Eschatological verification

Responding to the verification principle, John Hick used his parable of the Celestial City to describe his theory of eschatological verificationism. His parable is of two travellers, a theist and an atheist, together on a road. The theist believes that there is a Celestial City at the end of the road; the atheist believes that there is no such city. Hick's parable is an allegory of the Christian belief in an afterlife, which he argued can be verified upon death. Hick believed that eschatological verification is "unsymmetrical" because while it could be verified if it is true, it cannot be falsified if not. This is in contrast to ordinary "symmetrical" statements, which can be verified or falsified.

In his biography of Hick, David Cheetham notes a criticism of Hick's theory: waiting for eschatological verification could make religious belief provisional, preventing total commitment to faith. Cheetham argues that such criticism is misapplied because Hick's theory was not directed to religious believers but to philosophers, who argued that religion is unverifiable and therefore meaningless.

James Morris notes that Hick's eschatological verification theory has been criticised for being inconsistent with his belief in religious pluralism. Morris argues that such criticism can be overcome by modifying Hick's parable to include multiple travellers, all with different beliefs, on the road. He argues that even if some beliefs about life after death are unverifiable, Hick's belief in bodily resurrection can still be verified.

Falsification
The falsification principle has been developed as an alternative theory by which it may be possible to distinguish between those religious statements that may potentially have meaning, and those that are meaningless. It proposes that most religious language is unfalsifiable because there is no way that it could be empirically proven false. In a landmark paper published in 1945, analytic philosopher Antony Flew argued that a meaningful statement must simultaneously assert and deny a state of affairs; for example, the statement "God loves us" both asserts that God loves us and denies that God does not love us. Flew maintained that if a religious believer could not say what circumstances would have to exist for their statements about God to be false, then they are unfalsifiable and meaningless.

Using John Wisdom's parable of the invisible gardener, Flew attempted to demonstrate that religious language is unfalsifiable. The parable tells the story of two people who discover a garden on a deserted island; one believes it is tended to by a gardener, the other believes that it formed naturally, without the existence of a gardener. The two watch out for the gardener but never find him; the non-believer consequently maintains that there is no gardener, whereas the believer rationalises the non-appearance by suggesting that the gardener is invisible and cannot be detected. Flew contended that if the believer's interpretation is accepted, nothing is left of the original gardener. He argued that religious believers tend to adopt counterpart rationalisations in response to any apparent challenge to their beliefs from empirical evidence; and these beliefs consequently suffer a "death by a thousand qualifications" as they are qualified and modified so much that they end up asserting nothing meaningful. Flew applied his principles to religious claims such as God's love for humans, arguing that if they are meaningful assertions they would deny a certain state of affairs. He argued that when faced with evidence against the existence of a loving God, such as the terminal illness of a child, theists will qualify their claims to allow for such evidence; for example they may suggest that God's love is different from human love. Such qualifications, Flew argued, make the original proposition meaningless; he questioned what God's love actually promises and what it guarantees against, and proposed that God's qualified love promises nothing and becomes worthless.

Flew continued in many subsequent publications to maintain the falsifiability criterion for meaning; but in later life retracted the specific assertion in his 1945 paper that all religious language is unfalsifiable, and so meaningless.  Drawing specifically on the emerging science of molecular genetics (which had not existed at the time of his original paper), Flew eventually became convinced that the complexity this revealed in the mechanisms of biological reproduction might not be consistent with the time known to have been available for evolution on Earth to have happened; and that this potentially suggested a valid empirical test by which the assertion "that there is no creator God" might be falsified;  "the latest work I have seen shows that the present physical universe gives too little time for these theories of abiogenesis to get the job done."

Responses

R. M. Hare
In response to Flew's falsification principle, British philosopher R. M. Hare told a parable in an attempt to demonstrate that religious language is meaningful. Hare described a lunatic who believes that all university professors want to kill him; no amount of evidence of kindly professors will dissuade him from this view. Hare called this kind of unfalsifiable conviction a "blik", and argued that it formed an unfalsifiable, yet still meaningful, worldview. He proposed that all people – religious and non-religious – hold bliks, and that they cannot be unseated by empirical evidence. Nevertheless, he maintained that a blik is meaningful because it forms the basis of a person's understanding of the world. Hare believed that some bliks are correct and others are not, though he did not propose a method of distinguishing between the two.

Basil Mitchell
Basil Mitchell responded to Flew's falsification principle with his own parable. He described an underground resistance soldier who meets a stranger who claims to be leading the resistance movement. The stranger tells the soldier to keep faith in him, even if he is seen to be fighting for the other side. The soldier's faith is regularly tested as he observes the stranger fighting for both sides, but his faith remains strong. Mitchell's parable teaches that although evidence can challenge a religious belief, a believer still has reason to hold their views. He argued that although a believer will not allow anything to count decisively against his beliefs, the theist still accepts the existence of evidence which could count against religious belief.

Language games
Ludwig Wittgenstein's theory of language games likened the differences between different linguistic contexts to the differences between games. Just as there are many different games, each with their own rules, so there are many different forms of language. Wittgenstein argued that different forms of language have different rules which determine what makes a proposition meaningful; propositions can only be meaningful in the context of the language game in which they are uttered. As examples of language games, Wittgenstein suggests: "Asking, thanking, greeting, cursing, praying".

Wittgenstein believed that religion is significant because it offers a particular way of life, rather than confirming the existence of God. He therefore believed that religious language is confessional – a confession of what someone feels and believes – rather than consisting of claims to truth. Wittgenstein believed that religious language is different from language used to describe physical objects because it occupies a different language game.

Various philosophers – including Norman Malcolm, Peter Winch, D. Z. Phillips, and Rush Rhees – have interpreted Wittgenstein as advocating a kind of fideism regarding religion. Such a fideism would imply that religious statements are only meaningful within a religious form of life and thus cannot be criticized from outside religion. However, Gordon Graham argues that to call this position Wittgensteinian is misleading. As Graham argues, the types of thing Wittgenstein gives as examples of language games include singing, making jokes, thanking, greeting, and so on; nothing as broad as religion is included. Religious language includes many language games but, Graham argues, it is a mistake to regard religion as a whole as a language game.

Peter Donovan criticises the language-games approach for failing to recognise that religions operate in a world containing other ideas and that many religious people make claims to truth. He notes that many religious believers not only believe their religion to be meaningful and true in its own context, but claim that it is true against all other possible beliefs; if the language games analogy is accepted, such a comparison between beliefs is impossible. Donovan proposes that debates between different religions, and the apologetics of some, demonstrates that they interact with each other and the wider world and so cannot be treated as isolated language games.

Alternative explanations of religious language

Political
Islamic philosopher Carl Ernst has argued that religious language is often political, especially in the public sphere, and that its purpose is to persuade people and establish authority, as well as convey information. He explains that the modern criticisms of the West made by some sections of Islam are an ideological reaction to colonialism, which intentionally uses the same language as colonialists. Ernst argues that when it is used rhetorically, religious language cannot be taken at face value because of its political implications.

Performative
Peter Donovan argues that most religious language is not about making truth-claims; instead, it is used to achieve certain goals. He notes that language can be used in alternative ways beyond making statements of fact, such as expressing feelings or asking questions. Donovan calls many of these uses performative, as they serve to perform a certain function within religious life. For example, the words "I promise" perform the action of promising themselves – Donovan argues that most religious language fulfils this function. Ludwig Wittgenstein also proposed that language could be performative and presented a list of the different uses of language. Wittgenstein argued that "the meaning of the language is in the use", taking the use of language to be performative. The philosopher J. L. Austin argued that religious language is not just cognitive but can perform social acts, including vows, blessings, and the naming of children. He distinguished performative statements as those that do not simply describe a state of affairs, but bring them about. Historian of religion Benjamin Ray uses the performance of rituals within religions as evidence for a performative interpretation of language. He argues that the language of rituals can perform social tasks: when a priest announces that a spiritual event has occurred, those present believe it because of the spiritual authority of the priest. He believed that the meaning of a ritual is defined by the language used by the speaker, who is defined culturally as a superhuman agent.

Imperative
British philosopher R. B. Braithwaite attempted to approach religious language empirically and adopted Wittgenstein's idea of "meaning as use". He likened religious statements to moral statements because they are both non-descriptive yet still have a use and a meaning; they do not describe the world, but the believer's attitudes towards it. Braithwaite believed that the main difference between a religious and a moral statement was that religious statements are part of a linguistic system of stories, metaphors, and parables.

Professor Nathan Katz writes of the analogy of a burning building, used by the Buddha in the Lotus Sutra, which casts religious language as imperative. In the analogy, a father sees his children at the top of a burning building. He persuades them to leave, but only by promising them toys if they leave. Katz argues that the message of the parable is not that the Buddha has been telling lies; rather, he believes that the Buddha was illustrating the imperative use of language. Katz believes that religious language is an imperative and an invitation, rather than a truth-claim.

See also
 Theological noncognitivism

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Language
Meaning in religious language
Philosophical problems
Philosophy of religion
Philosophy of language

Problem of religious language


The NSDAP 25 points manifesto is a 25-point plan written by Anton Drexler and edited and supported by Adolf Hitler for the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), Nazi Party, when it was founded in 1920.

The purpose of the 25 points was explained in the fifth chapter of the second volume of Mein Kampf

The manifesto in detail
(This is a simple English translation of the original NSDAP manifesto of 1920; unnecessary or explanatory text has been left out)

 We want all Germans to live in "Germany"
 We want Germany to be treated the same as other nations, and we want the peace treaties of Versailles to be cancelled.
 We want land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and to settle our surplus population.
 Only Germans may be citizens of Germany. Only those of German races may be members of the nation. Their religion does not matter. No Jew may be a citizen.
 Non-citizens may live in Germany, but there will be special laws for foreigners living in Germany.
 Only citizens can vote for parliament and councils, or vote on laws. Everyone who works for the German government, a state government or even a small village must be a citizen of Germany. We will stop giving people jobs because of the political party they are in. Only the best people should get a job.
 We think that the government's first job is to make sure every citizen has a job and enough to eat. If the government cannot do this, people who are not citizens should be made to leave Germany.
 No-one who is not of a German race should be allowed to live in Germany. We want anyone who is not of a German-race who started living in Germany after 2 August 1914 to leave the country.
 All citizens shall have equal rights and duties.
 Every citizen should have a job. Their work should not be selfish, but help everyone. Therefore we demand
 The abolition of incomes unearned by work. The breaking of the slavery of interest
 So many people die or lose their property in a war, it is wrong for other people to make money from the war. Anyone who made money from the war should have all that money taken away.
 We want all very big corporations to be owned by the government.
 Big industrial companies should share their profits with the workers.
 We want old age pensions to be increased.
 We want
 to create a healthy middle class
 to split up big department stores, and let small traders rent space inside them
 to make State and town governments try to buy from small traders.
 We want to change the way land is owned. We also want
 a law to take over land if the country needs it, without the government having to pay for it;
 to abolish ground rent; and
 to prohibit land speculation (buying land just to sell to someone else for more money).
 Crimes against the common interest must be punished with death.
 We want the Roman law system changed for the German common law system.
 We want to change the system of schools and education, so that every hard-working German can have the chance of higher education.
 What is taught should concentrate on practical things
 Schools should teach civic affairs, so that children can become good citizens
 If a poor parent cannot afford to pay the government should pay for education.
 The State must protect health standards by
 protecting mothers and infants
 stopping children from working
 making a law for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and
 supporting sports clubs for young men.
 We want to get rid of the old army and replace it with a people's army that would look after the ordinary people, not just the rich officer-class
 We want the law to stop politicians from being anti-German, and newspapers from writing about them. To make a German national press we demand:
 that all editors of, and writers in the German language newspapers are members of the nation (of a German race);
 Foreign newspapers need permission from the government. They must not be printed in the German language;
 Non-Germans cannot own or control German newspapers.
 any non German who does own or control a newspaper will be made to leave Germany, and the newspaper closed down,
 Newspapers which criticise the country or the government are not allowed.
 Art and books which support foreign ideas, should be banned.
 We want to allow all religions in the State, unless they offend the moral feelings of the German race. The NSDAP is Christian, but does not belong to any denomination. The NSDAP will fight the Jewish self-interest spirit, and believes that our nation will be strongest only if everyone puts the common interest before self-interest.
 We will
 create a strong central government for the Reich;
 give Parliament control over the entire government and its organizations;
 form groups based on class and job to carry out the laws in the various German states.

The leaders of the Party promise to work—if need be to sacrifice their very lives—to put this programme into action.

Notes

Nazism
1920s in Germany

NSDAP 25 points manifesto


Eric Henry Liddell (16 Januar 1902 – 21 Februar 1945) wis a Scots athlete, rugby union internaitional player, an missionary.

Liddell wis the winner o the men's 400 metres at the 1924 Simmer Olympics in Paris. Liddell's Olympic trainin an racin, an the releegious convictions that influenced him, are depictit in the Oscar-winnin 1981 film Chariots of Fire, in which he is portrayed bi fellae Scot Ian Charleson.

References

Daiths frae harn tumor
Breetish expatriates in Cheenae
Christian meesionars in Cheenae
Scots Christian meesionars
Congregationalist meesionars
Scots Congregationalists
Scots rugby union players
Scotland internaitional rugby union players
Scottish Sports Hall of Fame inductees
Scots athletes
Scots sprenters
Alumni o the Varsity o Edinburgh
Warld War II ceevilian preesoners held bi Japan
Prisoners that dee'd in Japanese detention
1902 births
1945 daiths
Olympic gowd medallists for Great Breetain
Cancer daiths in Cheenae
Athletes (track and field) at the 1924 Simmer Olympics
Internees at the Weixian Internment Camp
Breetish humanitarians
Edinburgh Varsity RFC players
Anglican saunts
Fowk eddicatit at Eltham College
Olympic medallists in athletics (track an field)

Eric Liddell


The Teslin River is a river in southern Yukon Territory and northwestern British Columbia, Canada, that flows  from its source south of Teslin Lake to its confluence with the Yukon River.

During the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–99, the river became a popular route to the Klondike gold fields near Dawson City with the stampeders who had crossed the Coast Mountains by routes such as the Chilkoot Trail or the White Pass trail.

The English name of the Teslin River is derived from native names. In the local Tutchone language. spoken north of the lake it was called Délin Chú  and the Chilkat Tlingit called it Deisleen Héeni. In the Tlingit language the local kwaan or tribe of Inland Tlingit call themselves Deisleen Kwáan", meaning "Big Sinew Tribe".  Prospectors and explorers passing through the region recorded that the local natives called the river Teslin-tuh or Teslin-too, from which we get the English name.  The portion of the river upstream of the lake (south of the lake) was officially designated the Whiteswan River from 1904 to 1951.  The other major feeder streams of the system, via Teslin Lake, are the Jennings River, from the southeast, and the Swift River, from the east-northeast.

Black Spruce is a significant tree within the Teslin River watershed.

See also
List of rivers of British Columbia
List of rivers of Yukon

References
 C. Michael Hogan, Black Spruce: Picea mariana, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. Nicklas Stromberg, November, 2008
 Andrew Hope III, Alaska Native Knowledge Network. 2000. Map of Tlingit Kwaans and Territories
 Parks Canada. 1976. Wild Rivers: Yukon Territory, Published by Wild Rivers Survey, Planning Division, Parks Canada, 84 pages

Line notes

Rivers of British Columbia
Rivers of Yukon
Atlin District
Cassiar Country
Tributaries of the Yukon River

Teslin River


The Democratic Party presidential primaries of 2008 was an American political event. In various states, various Democratic candidates asked people and delegates to vote for them in primaries and caucuses. Candidates won delegates based on a percentage of votes (in primaries). There were 4,233 delegates. A candidate would have to get 2,110 delegates to win the nomination. The two front-runners of the campaign were New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Although Clinton led in the beginning, Obama soon gained the lead. Obama went on to become the first African-American presidential candidate in American history.

2008 elections in the United States
United States presidential primary elections
Democratic Party (United States)

2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries


In fields employing interface design skills, slicing is the process of dividing a single 2D user interface composition layout (comp) into multiple image files (digital assets) of the graphical user interface (GUI) for one or more electronic pages. It is typically part of the client side development process of creating a web page and/or web site, but is also used in the user interface design process of software development and game development.

The process involves partitioning a comp in either a single layer [image file format] or the multi-layer native file format of the graphic art software used for partitioning. Once partitioned, one would save them as separate image files, typically in GIF, JPEG or PNG format in either a batch process or one at a time. Multi-layered image files may include multiple versions or states of the same image, often used for animations or widgets.

Practical usage
Slicing is used in many cases where a graphic design layout must be implemented as interactive media content. Therefore, this is a very important skill set typically possessed by "front end" developers; that is interactive media developers who specialize in user interface development.

Slices may be produced and used in several different ways. Before tableless web design, sliced images were held together precisely with html tables. Modern interactive page layout includes extensive use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and semantic markup. Tables may be used for compatibility with rarer older web browsers that are incapable of processing modern tableless coding accurately.

Slicing is exclusively used for bitmap images. Vector images are usually processed by media-playing plugin applications and contained within native multimedia file formats such as X3D, SWF, SVG or PDF files.

Benefits
Slicing reduces work loads and computer data storage space requirements to needing only the part of a dynamic image that changes instead of the whole image. If the slice is on a transparent multi-layered image, it can be reused in multiple parts of an image without changing the background.

On the web, slicing breaks up one large image into many smaller ones, which reduces "page weight" or load time considerably. Advanced methods of slicing can be used to further compress the amount of data needed to download to the user's computer in order for the web page to display correctly. Techniques such as repeating background images mean that one small image can be downloaded from the web server only once and then be instructed (via a CSS) to repeat by the markup language, shifting the work load from the web server onto the client's computer. Certain performance issues can be raised, however they are typically negligible compared with today's technology and trends of web design shifting towards rich media websites that typically require high bandwidth connectivity and recent computing hardware.

In offline electronic media, individually sliced sections of a 2D image can be used to decrease the local computer processing requirements to change a section of that image.

Tools
Quite a few industry standard programs offer the abilities to automatically slice a layout directly into tables using built in functions. These are outlined below:

 Adobe Photoshop
 Sketch
 Adobe Fireworks (Previously published by Macromedia)
 Adobe ImageReady (Discontinued after CS2, functionality from ImageReady ported into Photoshop since CS3)
 GIMP
 Jasc Paint Shop Pro

Recent versions of these programs have improved ability to convert artwork directly into CSS, albeit an unorthodox method since the algorithms rely heavily on absolute positioning (for example), which can render (display) inconsistently across modern web browsers.

Alternatives
Slicing is mainly used for 2D computer graphics with single-layered interfaces. Multi-layered interfaces may use slices, but may also use vector graphics (including 3D models) with the drawback of added (most often unnoticeable) rendering time and with the advantage of more options and flexibility in altering the appearance of the individual image. These alternate individual images are commonly referred to as  sprites.

See also
 Web development
 Software development
 Separation of presentation and content
 Image editing
 Graphic image development

External links
 alistapart.com article on CSS Sprites compared to slices
 Things To Remember, While Coding A Website, To Make It Search Engine Friendly
 Slicing tool for HTML + CSS email
 Tool for putting sliced images together to HTML and CSS

Web design
User interfaces
Graphic design

Slicing (interface design)


Anton Rubinstein (born Vikhvatinets 28 November 1829; died Petershof 20 November 1894) was a Russian pianist and composer.  Rubinstein and Franz Liszt were thought to be the greatest pianists of the 19th century.  He was very important as a teacher and influenced many Russian musicians.  He composed lots of music, although hardly any of it is heard nowadays.  As a composer he is best remembered today by a little piece of piano music called "Melody in F".

History

First concert
Rubinstein gave his first piano concert when he was ten.  Between 1840 and 1843 his piano teacher took him on long concert tours of Europe.  He met Chopin and Liszt and was received in London by Queen Victoria.   Between 1844 and 1846 the family lived in Berlin.  His friends there included Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer.

Lessons
In 1846 his father died and Anton went to Vienna where he gave piano lessons to try to earn some money.  When he returned to Russia in 1848 the tsar's sister-in-law let him live in her palace.  He played for lots of parties.  Often the tsar came.

Tours
In 1854 he toured Europe again.  Then he returned to Russia.  He wanted to improve music education in Russia so he started the Russian Musical Society and then he started the St Petersburg Conservatory.  During his long career he spent many years as director of the Conservatory as well as conducting concerts.

Compositions
He wrote a lot of music, but although his compositions often started off with good ideas they often become rather boring.  His opera Tom the fool was not a success.  He was annoyed and wrote an article in a music magazine saying that it was not possible to write operas using Russian stories.  He criticized several composers who were writing music which used Russian folktunes.  This included the composer Mily Balakirev and his friends who were called The Mighty Handful.  He said that they had not learned how to compose properly.

Rubinstein very much wanted to be famous as a composer as well as a teacher, but this made him very narrow-minded.  However, it was as a pianist and conductor that he was important.  He helped to improve the standard of music making in Russia by teaching and performing, and by starting the conservatory in St Petersburg.

1829 births
1894 deaths
Romantic composers
Russian composers
Russian pianists
Classical pianists

Anton Rubinstein


A Monstrous Regiment of Women is the second book in the Mary Russell series of mystery novels by Laurie R. King.

The title is taken from a work by John Knox, published in 1558, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regimen of Women. Knox used the word regimen in an archaic sense to mean government or régime, and his tract was written against the female sovereigns of his day, particularly Mary I of England and Mary, Queen of Scots.

Plot summary

In the winter of 1920, Mary Russell is on the cusp of turning 21 and lives a double life of Oxford University theological scholar as well as a consulting detective and partner of Sherlock Holmes. After events in The Beekeeper's Apprentice, both Holmes and Russell are aware that their relationship and partnership has changed, perhaps romantically, but neither is eager to broach the subject.

A chance encounter unites Russell with Veronica Beaconsfield, an old Oxford acquaintance who is worried about her former fiancé, Miles Fitzwarren, a returned soldier and drug addict. Veronica introduces Russell to the well-financed New Temple in God and its leader, the enigmatic, charismatic Margery Childe, who preaches empowerment of women. Russell believes Margery to be a mystic and begins tutoring Margery in theology and reading Scripture, integrating into their lessons her own current academic work on feminism and Judaism. Russell also witnesses what she believes to be a true miracle, in which Margery is healed of serious physical wounds through prayer. Meanwhile, Holmes takes on Miles's rehabilitation partially as a favor to Russell.

When an attempt is made on Veronica's life, Holmes and Russell discover a mysterious pattern of deaths where fairly wealthy women have left large bequests to the Temple. Coming into her inheritance at age 21, Russell takes on the role of a young heiress to insinuate herself into the Temple's leadership. While learning more about the Temple's operations, Russell also fends off an attacker who threatens Margery.

En route back to Oxford, Russell is kidnapped by a man whom she identifies from descriptions of Margery's husband, Claude. He keeps Russell prisoner and injects her with regular doses of heroin. Against the effects of the drug and solitary confinement, Russell struggles to retain her identity and will to survive, and in the face of possible death, contemplates her love for Holmes. Nine days later, she is rescued by Holmes, who also helps her overcome her reliance on the drug.

Undeterred by her ordeal, Russell breaks into Margery's safe but finds no evidence indicating Margery's complicity in the deaths. The next morning, Holmes and Russell follow Margery, who has gone to confront Claude, disturbed by his actions concerning Mary. In the ensuing chase and fight, Margery is wounded, Claude is killed, and Holmes narrowly survives. The near-death experience pushes both Holmes and Russell to admit their passion for one another. In the ensuing trial, Margery is acquitted of blame, but voluntarily exiles herself from England. Veronica and a recovered Miles finally marry, as do Holmes and Russell.

Timeframe
This book takes place from 26 December 1920 to early February in 1921. Locations include London, Oxford and Sussex. Mary turns 21 on January 2, 1921, and Holmes's age is 58.

Characters
Mary Russell
Sherlock Holmes
Veronica Beaconsfield
Margery Childe
Mycroft Holmes
Inspector Lestrade

Feminism and Religion
The book deals heavily with the intersection of feminism and religion; more specifically, their combination in the form of the character Margery Childe. When Mary first hears her speak, Margery is discussing a passage from 1 Corinthians in the Christian Bible:
"Women should keep silence in church; for they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law says...It is shameful for a woman to speak in church."
Margery's conclusion is that men are afraid of the questions women might ask concerning religion, the Bible, and God, and realize that women are not inferior. She points out that the Bible describes both men and women being created in God's image - not just males. She dissects the "Adam's rib" creation story, noting that humanity was not complete until woman was created.
Mary, a theology scholar, mentions to Margery that in the original biblical manuscripts, there are numerous references to God in the feminine; using "She" and "Her" instead of "His and "Him". Mary has learned through her research that these references were removed as the works were translated into other languages, presumably so that God would appear as a wholly masculine being.
In an author interview, Laurie R. King is noted to describe herself as a "...feminist-although that basically means I support the right of a woman to get paid for doing the same job as a man, not that I believe men to be inferior or superfluous."

Holmes's Past
There is a mention of Holmes having fathered a son, and to Holmes having gone through a very rough period while his son fought a drug addiction. There are also references to a relationship with Irene Adler.

Reception
In a paper examining the feminist narrative in a contemporary context, Lillian Doherty felt disappointed by the ending, believing Mary failed to "uphold the honour of the feminists" when she needed to be rescued by Holmes.

References

External links

1995 American novels
Mary Russell (book series)
Fiction set in 1920
Fiction set in 1921
Nero Award-winning works

A Monstrous Regiment of Women


Adamantios Korais  or Koraïs ( ; ; ; 27 April 17486 April 1833) was a Greek scholar credited with laying the foundations of modern Greek literature and a major figure in the Greek Enlightenment. His activities paved the way for the Greek War of Independence and the emergence of a purified form of the Greek language, known as Katharevousa. Encyclopædia Britannica asserts that "his influence on the modern Greek language and culture has been compared to that of Dante on Italian and Martin Luther on German".

Life and views

Korais was born in Smyrna, in 1748. His father Ioannis, of Chian descent, was demogérontas in Smyrna; a seat similar to the prokritoi of mainland Greece, but elected by the Greek community of the town and not imposed by the Ottomans.

He was exceptionally passionate about philosophy, literacy and linguistics and studied greatly throughout his youth. He initially studied in his hometown, Smyrna, where he graduated from the Evangelical Greek School.

After his school years, he lived for a while in Amsterdam as a merchant, but soon he decided that he wanted to study in a university. He studied also the Hebrew, Dutch, French and English languages, apart from his knowledge of ancient Greek and Latin.

Korais studied at the school of medicine of the University of Montpellier from 1782 to 1787. His 1786 diploma thesis was entitled Pyretologiae Synopsis, while his 1787 doctoral thesis was entitled Medicus Hippocraticus.

He traveled to Paris where he would continue his enthusiasm for knowledge. There he decided to translate ancient Greek authors and produced thirty volumes of those translations, being one of the first modern Greek philologists and publishers of ancient Greek literature.

After 1788 he was to spend most of his life as an expatriate in Paris. As classical scholar, Korais was repelled by the Byzantine influence on Greek society and was a fierce critic of the lack of education amongst the clergy and their subservience to the Ottoman Empire, although he conceded it was the Orthodox Church that preserved the national identity of Greeks.

Korais believed Western Europe was the heir of the ancient Greek civilization, which had to be transmitted to the modern Greeks through education. Additionally, he advocated the restoration and use of the term "Hellene" (Έλληνας) or "Graikos" (Γραικός) as an ethnonym for the Greeks, in the place of Romiós, that was seen negatively by him.

While in Paris, he was witness to the French Revolution. He was influenced by the revolutionary and liberal sentiments of his age. He admired Thomas Jefferson; and exchanged political and philosophical thoughts with the American statesman. A typical man of the Enlightenment, Korais encouraged wealthy Greeks to open new libraries and schools throughout Greece. Korais believed that education would ensure not only the achievement of independence but also the establishment of a proper constitution for the new liberated Greek state. He envisioned a democratic Greece, recapturing the glory of the Golden Age of Pericles.

Korais died in Paris aged 84 soon after publishing the first volume of his autobiography. In 1877, his remains were sent to Greece, to be buried there.

Publications

Korais's most lasting contributions were literary. Those who were instrumental in publishing, and presenting his work to the public were merchants from Chios.   He felt eternally grateful to these merchants, since without them, it would have been financially impossible for him to publish his works. These works included Strabo in Greek, another on Marcus Aurelius, his translation of Herodotus, the translation of the Iliad, and his main literary work, the seventeen volumes of the "Library of Greek Literature".

His political writing begins with the publication at the opening of the nineteenth century of Asma Polemistirion ("War Chant") and Salpisma Polemistirion ("Military Bugal Call"), celebrating the presence of Greek troops fighting alongside the French in Egypt. Earlier he had confronted with his Adelphiki Didaskalia the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem for urging the Sultan's Christian subjects (with the religious brochure Patriki Didaskalia) to support the Ottomans in the war against the "atheistic" French. On contrary, he made a call to the Greeks to fight beside the French, "who have the military virtue of the ancient Greeks", against the Ottoman tyranny.

Korais went on to publish in 1803 his Report on the Present State of Civilization in Greece, based on a series of lectures he had given in Paris, extolling the link between the rise of a new Greek mercantile class and the advance of the Greek Enlightenment or Diafotismos.  In What should we Greeks do in the Present Circumstances?, a work of 1805, he tried to win his compatriots over to Napoleon and away from the cause of their Russian co-religionists.  In later years, though, his enthusiasm for the French Emperor diminished, and he ended by referring to him as the 'tyrant of tyrants.'

Away from contemporary politics, Korais did much to revive the idea of Greece with the creation of the Hellenic Library, devoted to new editions of some of the classic texts, starting with Homer in 1805. Over the following twenty years many others appeared, with lengthy prefaces by Korais entitled 'Impromptu Reflections', with his views on political, educational and linguistic matters.  Although the broad mass of the Greek people was beyond his reach, he played an important part in the shaping of a new consciousness among the intelligentsia, which was to play a part in the creation of a new national movement.

With the breakout of the Greek revolution in 1821, he was too old to join the struggle. However his house in Paris became a centre for informations, meetings among the Parisian Greeks and financial aid. He wrote also many letters advising the revolutionaries. Initially a supporter of Kapodistrias, finally he opposed his policies.

On religion
Korais was a Greek Orthodox but also a critic of many practices of the Orthodox church. He was a fierce critic of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, considering it  a useful tool in the hands of the Ottomans against the Greek independence. So, later, he was one of the supporters of the new established Church of Greece.

He was also critic of the monasticism, the lack of education in the clergy, and practices like that of the "Holy Fire". He was a supporter of religious freedom, empiricism, rationalism and tolerance. He set himself in opposition to some metaphysical ideals of Greek custom and sought to mould Greek Orthodoxy towards a more syncretic religious basis, in order to bring it under the auspices of liberal thought and government.

On Greek language

One of his most significant accomplishments was his contribution to the redefining of the Greek language. The Greeks were dispersed so widely across Europe, people who served several masters. He decided to purge the language of foreign elements (such as Turkish, but also Western words and phrases).

During his time, the Greek language question was already in discussion between the "archaists" and proponents of a simpler language. Another problem was that a common accepted form of Modern Greek (what came to be much later Demotic -language of the people- or Standard Modern Greek) didn't exist, as in every region Greek people were speaking different idioms.

Korais decided to take the "middle path" and cleanse the language from elements that he considered to be too "vulgar". This effort ultimately led to his publishing of Atakta, the first modern Greek dictionary.

Korais' vision led also to the creation and adoption of "Katharevousa" (pure) by future scholars and the Greek state, which was an artificial language based on the ecclesiastical language used by the Greek Orthodox Church, close to the Koine Greek.

Influence on the Greek constitutional and legal system

Unknown to most, Korais held passionate views on how the legal system should function in a democracy (views which of course, were greatly influenced by the French Enlightenment, closer to Montesquieu than to Rousseau) and managed to have a great, albeit indirect, impact on the Constitutions of the Greek Revolution, but also, primarily, on the Constitution or Syntagma created after the end of the Greek Revolution. This element holds significant importance if one takes into consideration the fact that these meta-Revolution Constitutions still, to the present day, form the basis of the Greek Constitution and the philosophy on which the guiding principles of the Greek legal and judicial system are rooted in.

This influence Korais exercised on Greek Law, was due to a personal relationship the intellectual formed with another Greek intellectual, the legal scholar of international repute N. I. Saripolos, who, after the Greek Revolution, became the founding father of Greek Law and the "author" of the Greek Constitution. Proof of this relationship and of the strong and progressive views Korais held on how the legal system of the new Greek state should be formed, is based on correspondence exchanged between the two men, during a long period of time, beginning before the Greek Revolution. These letters which manifest the influence the older intellectual (Korais) had on the then aspiring lawmaker Saripolos, are in the possession of the archives of the Greek National Library, were discovered and brought to academic light, in 1996, by a Law School student, researching a project sponsored by the Faculty of Law of the University of Athens and the National Academy for Constitutional Research and Public Law (adjacent to the University of Athens). The ensuing thesis was published.

Legacy
Korais was declared Pater Patriae ("Pateras tis Patridos") by the revolutionaries at the Third National Assembly at Troezen. Korais' portrait was depicted on the reverse of the Greek ₯100 banknote of 1978–2001. Many streets all over Greece are named after him, while his archive can be found in Korais Library in Chios (town). "Korais" is also the name of a vessel of Zante Ferries.

References

Further reading

 Chaconas, Stephen George. Adamantios Korais; A Study in Greek Nationalism. Studies in history, economics and public law, no. 490. New York: Columbia University Press, 1942.
 Βίος Αδαμαντίου Κοραή συγγραφείς παρά του ιδίου (in Greek, Korais' autobiography)

External links

 Koraes Library in Chios, Greece, webpage
 Koraes Library in Chios, blog

1748 births
1833 deaths
Smyrniote Greeks
Greek philologists
Greek political writers
Greek essayists
Greek scholars
18th-century Greek physicians
Greek nationalists
Eastern Orthodox Christians from Greece
19th-century Greek philosophers
Modern Greek-language writers
Greek emigrants to the Netherlands
Greek emigrants to France
People of the Modern Greek Enlightenment
Burials at the First Cemetery of Athens
Language reformers
Enlightenment philosophers
Age of Enlightenment
Criticism of Eastern Orthodox Church
Greek independence activists

Adamantios Korais


An alcoholic drink is a drink that contains 0.5% or more ethanol. In chemistry there is a whole class of substances known as alcohols. The alcohol used in alcoholic drinks is known as ethanol or grain alcohol. Grain alcohol is generally made through a process called fermentation. In fermentation, bacteria change sugar to make ethanol or vinegar. Other kinds of alcohol are usually harmful to drink, so the only kind of alcohol used in alcoholic drinks is grain alcohol. Since most people do not have to use any other kind of alcohol except ethanol, they will use the word "alcohol" to mean only ethanol. Sometimes people also use the word "alcohol" to talk about any drink containing ethanol, such as whiskey, vodka, or gin.

Fermenting grain can only make a drink that is 20% alcohol. To get higher amounts of alcohol in drinks, distillation is used. This allows to get substances that are made of alcohol to about 80-85% (Certain kinds of Rum used for cooking are at 70–80% alcohol). When beverages are sold, the amount of alcohol is listed as alcoholic proof rather than percentage.

Generally, alcoholic drinks are divided into three classes:
 Beers, meads and ciders (generally up to about 15% alcohol)
 Wines and sake (12–20% alcohol), and
 Spirits (20% alcohol or more, distilled alcohol)

Most countries limit the sale of the different kinds of alcohol. Usually there are two limits, one for wines and beers, and the other for distilled alcoholic drinks.

Alcopops are very sweet, and usually do not contain much alcohol (most have less than beer), but many governments make it illegal to buy them in certain places or at certain times because they have distilled alcohol mixed into them. They are controversial because some people think that they might be popular among young people.

Drinking ethanol causes a person to feel relaxed. Ethanol is very commonly used, and has been made by humans for thousands of years. It is one of the oldest and most used recreational drug (drugs used for fun) in the world. People may overuse it for the same reason. The addiction to alcohol is called alcoholism. Alcoholic drinks can be dangerous. If a person drinks a lot of alcohol, they become intoxicated, meaning that they get drunk. People who are drunk may do or say strange or dangerous things and may not be able to control themselves. The amount of alcohol that it takes to get somebody drunk is different from person to person. All alcohols are toxic, but ethanol is less toxic because the human body can break it down quickly. Some strong alcohols can also cause intoxication and impairment.

Gallery

Related pages
 Beer
 Cocktail
 Rum
 Tequila
 Vodka
 Wine
 Prohibition Era

References

Alcoholic drink


Cyclamen is a genus of 20 species of flowering plants. It is in the Myrsinaceae family. The genus is most widely known by its scientific name Cyclamen. It may also be called Persian violet (it is not related to the violets), or primrose (neither is it a primrose). This is because Cyclamen has been part of the Primulaceae families.

Cyclamen come from the Mediterranean, from Spain to Iran. They are also found from northeast Africa to Somalia. They are perennial herbaceous aestivating plants, with a surface or underground tuber (derived from the hypocotyl) 4-12 cm diameter, which produces leaves in late winter, and flowers in the autumn; the leaves die down during the hottest part of the Mediterranean summer drought to save water. Each leaf or flower grows on its own stem, which shoots up from the hypocotyl. The variegation is thought by some botanists to be a form of natural disruptive camouflage to reduce grazing damage by animals.

The hypocotyl grows leaves and flowers on stems, either one flower or one leaf per stem. The stem for leaves and flowers appears identical except in height. The leaves grow on stems of around 6 cm height.

Species
Here are the species of this genus:
Cyclamen africanum
Cyclamen alpinum
Cyclamen balearicum
Cyclamen cilicium
Cyclamen colchicum
Cyclamen coum
Cyclamen creticum
Cyclamen cyprium
Cyclamen elegans
Cyclamen graecum
Cyclamen hederifolium
Cyclamen intaminatum
Cyclamen libanoticum
Cyclamen mirabile
Cyclamen parviflorum
Cyclamen peloponnesiacumum
Cyclamen persicum
Cyclamen pseudibericum
Cyclamen purpurascens
Cyclamen repandum
Cyclamen rohlfsianum
Cyclamen somalense

Bibliography

Sundberg, M. D. 1982 Petal-stamen initiation in the genus Cyclamen (Primulaceae). American Journal of Botany 69: 1707–1709

Flowers
Primulaceae

Cyclamen


Wet chemistry studies chemical reactions that occur in the liquid phase. It is also called bench chemistry because many of the tests performed are done at a lab bench.

Materials
Wet chemistry uses laboratory glassware, such as beakers and flasks, without quantitative chemical analysis using instrumentation. Many high school and college laboratories teach students basic wet chemistry methods.

History
Before the age of theoretical and computational chemistry, it was the main form of scientific discovery in the chemical field. So, some people call wet chemistry classic chemistry or classical chemistry. Today's society and quality control requirements need a high volume of wet chemistry. So, many wet chemistry methods have been automated and computerized for faster analysis.

Uses
Wet chemistry techniques can be used for qualitative chemical measurements, such as changes in color (colorimetry), but often involves more quantitative chemical measurements, using methods such as gravimetry and titrimetry. Some uses for wet chemistry include tests for:

 pH (acidity, alkalinity)
 concentration
 conductivity (Specific Conductance)
 cloud point (nonionic surfactants)
 hardness
 solids or dissolved solids
 salinity
 specific gravity
 density
 turbidity
 viscosity
 moisture (Karl Fischer titration)

Wet chemistry is also used in environmental chemistry settings and is used for to test:

 Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)
 Chemical Oxygen Demand
 eutrophication
 coating identification

It can also involve the elemental analysis of samples, e.g., water sources, for items like:

 Ammonia Nitrogen
 Chloride
 Chromium
 Cyanide
 dissolved Oxygen
 Fluoride
 Nitrogen
 Nitrate
 Phenols
 Phosphate
 Phosphorus
 Silica
 Sulfate, Sulfide

Further reading

Other websites
Wet Chemistry Lab Photo

Branches of chemistry

Wet chemistry


An inventor is a person who makes new inventions, devices that perform some kind of function. The devices are mostly electrical or mechanical. Someone that invents new ideas or methods on how to do things may also be called an inventor. Inventors can receive a patent.

Many inventors make small changes to old inventions. For example, people have invented new ways to make clocks over history.  Early clocks were sundials, later clocks used water, and pendulums.  Modern clocks are often electronic.  Other machines such as vehicles are made of many inventions.

Famous inventors
 Nikola Tesla invented the alternating current motor, Tesla coil and many other things.
 Michael Faraday, scientist, discoverer of electromagnetic induction, inventor of the electric motor, founder of  electromagnetism.
 Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph and many other things.
 John Kemp Starley, many improvements to bicycles.
 Karl Drais, inventor of the Laufmaschine ("running machine") the first bicycle.
 Guglielmo Marconi (1874 – 1937) pioneer of radio communication.
Alessandro Volta, inventor of the battery.
 Gottlieb Daimler, inventor of the first four-wheel successful car.
 Karl Benz, inventor of the first successful car.
 George Stephenson (1803 – 1859) inventor of the improved locomotive.
 James Watt, inventor of the improved steam engine.

 Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, inventor of the first car (propelled with steam engine).
 Nikolaus August Otto, inventor of the first internal-combustion engine.

 Richard Trevithick, inventor of the locomotive.
 Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine.

Occupations

Inventor