Wikipedia's worst sentences

[AndyTheGrump]

Linked from the 'no poo' article: Curly Girl Method (T-H-L)

The tag at the top says that it "is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay". I'd call it 'promotion', myself.

[orangepi]

The lead paragraph from Egypt–Turkey relations (T-H-L). I'm not sure which sentence is worse.

Egypt and Turkey are bound by strong religious, cultural and historical ties, but diplomatic ties between the two have remained extremely friendly at times and extremely strained at others. For three centuries, Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire, whose capital was Istanbul in modern-day Turkey, despite governor of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, waged war against the Ottoman sultan, Mahmud II, in 1831.

[The Blue Newt]

McPartland had volunteered for the army and was serving active duty when his superiors realized that he could do better work as an entertainer, since he was well known among the troops.

[Ming]

from Smarties (T-H-L) (not Smarties (tablet candy) (T-H-L), which is the American candy):

Smarties are colour-varied sugar-coated chocolate confectionery. They have been manufactured since 1937, originally by H.I. Rowntree & Company in the United Kingdom, and now by Nestlé.

Smarties are oblate spheroids with a minor axis of about 5 mm (0.2 in) and a major axis of about 12 mm (0.5 in). They come in eight colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, mauve, pink and brown, although the blue variety was temporarily replaced by a white variety in some countries, whilst an alternative natural colouring dye of the blue colour was being researched

Are we sure that they are actually proper oblate spheroids? And who says "colour-varied" anyway?

[The Blue Newt]

He was killed during WWI in the Battle Ypres, France in May 1915, at the age of 46.

From Christopher Isherwood (T-H-L). Not entirely sure if this is a “worst sentence” or “personal touch.” Both, maybe.

[The Blue Newt]

They showed the effect of gamma with Joseph Stokes globulin against hepatitis.

From Werner and Gertrude Henle (T-H-L), a once-removed article to today’s Disgrace o’ the Day.

Been sitting like that for about 9 years.

[tarantino]

It also contains the sentence

Henle was in 1936 at the University of Pennsylvania and from 1939 at the same time at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia worked.

[tinyboxs]

Verging on yoda.

[eppur si muove]

Probably translated from a German source. In fact the couple have separate articles on de.wikipedia. So it's translated from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Henle and https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Henle. I've looked at the two redirect pages for the individuals and see no indication of an AFD or merge discussion.

[Lyallpuri]

Chinese expansionism (T-H-L)

Historically, China has been a major empire in history, and throughout its history, China developed from the northern basin of the Huaxia, which is believed to be between modern Yellow and Yangtze rivers, slowly became a major power from ancient era.

[eppur si muove]

Chinese expansionism (T-H-L)

Historically, China has been a major empire in history, and throughout its history, China developed from the northern basin of the Huaxia, which is believed to be between modern Yellow and Yangtze rivers, slowly became a major power from ancient era.

But what I want to know is the history of the place and whether it was major.

[The Blue Newt]

Named after Makhno, the Makhnovshchina (loosely translated as "Makhno movement") was a predominantly peasant phenomenon that grew into a mass social movement.

From Nestor Makhno (T-H-L).

Dunno if this is a “worst sentence” or false friend (T-H-L), but the -shchina suffix has a strong negative connotation elsewhere.

[eppur si muove]

Dunno if this is a “worst sentence” or false friend (T-H-L), but the -shchina suffix has a strong negative connotation elsewhere.

The other place I've met that ending is in the opera Khovanshchina which is translated as "The Khovanshy Affair" or more informally "That matter/business with the Khovanshys". So the -shchina ending also used in Russian.

However Makhnovshchina (T-H-L) gives only the Ukrainian language spelling of the name for the movement. If it is a hostile name as you suggest then it might have bene coined by the Ukrainian nationalists but could just have easily come from members of the Red or White Russian armies where, presumably, Russian would have been spoken. (Trotsky, the leader of the Red Army, certainly was a Russian speaker even if born in what is now Ukraine.)The article itself notes that the Soviets used other neologisms based on NM's name such as "Makhnovia" to describe the territory that RIAS controlled.

Unsurprisingly, the Russian spelling of Makhnovshchina was removed in the first half of last year. The movement's own policy on language was that schools should teach in whatever language was most spoken in the area, This meant in Ukrainian in most areas under their control, but in Russian in some places. They published in both languages though more often in Russian.

[The Blue Newt]

Dunno if this is a “worst sentence” or false friend (T-H-L), but the -shchina suffix has a strong negative connotation elsewhere.

The other place I've met that ending is in the opera Khovanshchina which is translated as "The Khovanshy Affair" or more informally "That matter/business with the Khovanshys". So the -shchina ending also used in Russian.

However Makhnovshchina (T-H-L) gives only the Ukrainian language spelling of the name for the movement. If it is a hostile name as you suggest then it might have bene coined by the Ukrainian nationalists but could just have easily come from members of the Red or White Russian armies where, presumably, Russian would have been spoken. (Trotsky, the leader of the Red Army, certainly was a Russian speaker even if born in what is now Ukraine.)The article itself notes that the Soviets used other neologisms based on NM's name such as "Makhnovia" to describe the territory that RIAS controlled.

Unsurprisingly, the Russian spelling of Makhnovshchina was removed in the first half of last year. The movement's own policy on language was that schools should teach in whatever language was most spoken in the area, This meant in Ukrainian in most areas under their control, but in Russian in some places. They published in both languages though more often in Russian.

The corvee in Russia -not a popular thing, even by the usual standards of work that is paid indirectly, at best- was the “boyarshchina”. Pugachov’s rebellion was the Pugachovshchina. Bullying of draftees by older draftees is, roughly, “gramps-shchina”.

I’ve since seen that modern Ukrainian is adopting parallel terms for, say “Russianness”, because the “-shchina” word is so loaded.

[eppur si muove]

This anarchist source link argues that the term "Makhnovshchina" was of Soviet origin and negative in implication, but also that it was soon reclaimed by followers of Makhno. All the signs are that the original coinage was Russian, not Ukrainian.

[The Blue Newt]

This anarchist source link argues that the term "Makhnovshchina" was of Soviet origin and negative in implication, but also that it was soon reclaimed by followers of Makhno. All the signs are that the original coinage was Russian, not Ukrainian.

Yes, but Ukrainian has a parallel construction, which appears to also be almost always derogatory. I wasn’t sure of that before, but it appears that other constructions for “-hood” or “-dom” or “-thingie connected with” are taking over whenever the intent is to avoid loaded language.

[eppur si muove]

Yes, but Ukrainian has a parallel construction, which appears to also be almost always derogatory. I wasn’t sure of that before, but it appears that other constructions for “-hood” or “-dom” or “-thingie connected with” are taking over whenever the intent is to avoid loaded language.

I don't disagree. But my point is that Wikipedians have purged the Makhnovschina article of the Russian spelling of the word for ideological reasons to do with the current war even though the original coinage seems to have been in Russian.

[The Blue Newt]

Yes, but Ukrainian has a parallel construction, which appears to also be almost always derogatory. I wasn’t sure of that before, but it appears that other constructions for “-hood” or “-dom” or “-thingie connected with” are taking over whenever the intent is to avoid loaded language.

I don't disagree. But my point is that Wikipedians have purged the Makhnovschina article of the Russian spelling of the word for ideological reasons to do with the current war even though the original coinage seems to have been in Russian.

Ahh. Yeah, that does not surprise me in the least. Chicken Kiev is next, although I suppose DickLy oN will probably have to purge it of capital letters first.

[The Blue Newt]

Reputation
Bernardino Corio describes Sforza Veronese, his favorite, to whom he cut off a testicle. The twenty-two-year-old Ambrogio instead, in order to escape his flattery (Sforza was in fact bisexual), castrated himself. He had the young Pietro Drego buried alive and out of jealousy he had both hands amputated by Pietrino da Castello, slandering him as a forger, since he had caught him conversing with his mistress. When he surprised a farmer who had caught a hare against the hunting ban, he forced him to swallow it whole with all his skin until he suffocated. Since an astrologer priest had predicted the date of his death, Sforza had him walled up alive and wanted to see him starve. He raped both men and women, and was known for appropriating the wives of others. Once he had finished, he had them raped in turn by his favorites. Resentment against this behavior formed the basis of the conspiracy that crushed him in 1476. The lightest punishment of all went instead to his barber, the Travaglino, who, having cut it by mistake, received four lashes. The Corio also describes him as greedy, and an imposer of unusual taxes.[4]

Concentrated worst sentences, one following closely on the other. It’s like the Campbell’s Condensed Soup of Worst Sentences. From Galeazzo Maria Sforza (T-H-L).

Perhaps it looked better in Italian, before incompetent translation?

[tinyboxs]

how do we know that the hare was a "he"?

[Alalch Emis]

I think that in literary style, it's possible to use the masculine pronoun for many if not most animals as a presumed gender. Especially with cats and dogs, but it extends to wild animals too. It's a remnant of grammatical gender, which has mostly vanished from the language. In German, Hase is male.

[lonza leggiera]

Reputation
Bernardino Corio describes Sforza Veronese, his favorite, to whom he cut off a testicle. The twenty-two-year-old Ambrogio instead, in order to escape his flattery (Sforza was in fact bisexual), castrated himself. He had the young Pietro Drego buried alive and out of jealousy he had both hands amputated by Pietrino da Castello, slandering him as a forger, since he had caught him conversing with his mistress. When he surprised a farmer who had caught a hare against the hunting ban, he forced him to swallow it whole with all his skin until he suffocated. Since an astrologer priest had predicted the date of his death, Sforza had him walled up alive and wanted to see him starve. He raped both men and women, and was known for appropriating the wives of others. Once he had finished, he had them raped in turn by his favorites. Resentment against this behavior formed the basis of the conspiracy that crushed him in 1476. The lightest punishment of all went instead to his barber, the Travaglino, who, having cut it by mistake, received four lashes. The Corio also describes him as greedy, and an imposer of unusual taxes.[4]

Concentrated worst sentences, one following closely on the other. It’s like the Campbell’s Condensed Soup of Worst Sentences. From Galeazzo Maria Sforza (T-H-L).

Perhaps it looked better in Italian, before incompetent translation?

Actually, the translation wasn't all that bad until it was mangled by this "copyedit". There's a couple of instances of very unidiomatic English in the first two sentences, although I think the most obvious reading of them still constitutes an accurate representation of the meaning of the original Italian. There's also a blunder in the third sentence, most likely arising from a misunderstanding of the usage of the Italian preposition "a". I'm therefore guessing that the translator is neither a native English speaker, nor a native Italian speaker. Apart from the items just mentioned, though, the rest of the translation seems to me to be quite reasonable.

I found the original Italian quite readable, although I certainly wouldn't claim to be a competent judge of the finer points of Italian grammar or style. Here it is:

Bernardino Corio lo descrive crudelissimo: lo racconta capace di torturare perfino i propri amici fino alla follia, come fece con Giovanni Veronese, suo favorito, cui tagliò un testicolo. Il ventiduenne Ambrogio invece, pur di sfuggire alle sue lusinghe (Galeazzo era infatti bisessuale), si castrò da sé. Fece seppellire vivo il giovane Pietro Drego e per gelosia fece amputare entrambe le mani a Pietrino da Castello, calunniandolo come falsario, poiché lo aveva sorpreso a conversare con una propria amante. Quando sorprese un contadino che aveva catturato una lepre contro il divieto di caccia, lo costrinse a ingoiarla intera con tutta la pelle finché non ne morì soffocato. Poiché un prete astrologo aveva predetto la data della sua morte, Galeazzo lo fece murare vivo e volle vederlo morire di fame. Aveva il vizio di stuprare sia uomini sia donne, e di appropriarsi delle mogli altrui, e ancor peggio, una volta che aveva finito, le faceva stuprare a sua volta dai propri favoriti, ragione che fu alla base della congiura che lo stroncò nel 1476. Pena più lieve fra tutti andò invece al suo barbiere, il Travaglino, che, avendolo tagliato per sbaglio, ricevette quattro frustate. Il Corio lo descrive inoltre avidissimo, e impositore di insolite tasse.

And here's my own translstion:

Bernardino Corio described him as extremely cruel, maintaining that he was capable of torturing even his own friends with an inordinate passion, as he did to one of his his favourites, Giovanni Veronese, one of whose testicles he cut off. The 22 year-old Ambrogio, on the other hand, even castrated himself to escape from Galeazzo's advances (Galeazzo was in fact bisexual). He had the young Pietro Drego buried alive, and, out of jealousy, he had both of Pietrino da Castello's hands cut off, bad-mouthing him as a cheat, because he'd discovered him talking to one of his own lovers. When he ran across a peasant who had caught a hare, contrary to the prohibition on hunting, he forced him to ingest it whole, with the skin still on, until he suffocated. Because an astrologer priest had predicted the date of his death, Galeazzo had him immured alive and wanted to see him die of starvation. He was in the vicious habit of raping both men and women, of taking the wives of other men, and, even worse, once he'd finished, he'd have them raped in turn by his own favourites. This was the reason giving rise to the conspiracy which cut him down in 1476. The lightest punishment of all, on the other hand went to his barber, Travaglino, who, after cutting him by mistake, received four strokes of the whip. Corio also describes him as extremely greedy, and as having imposed outrageous taxes..

[tinyboxs]

Midpoint circle algorithm (T-H-L):

The new presented method gets along with only 5 arithmetic operations per step (for 8 pixels) and is thus just for low-performate systems best suitable. In the "if" operation, only the sign is checked (positive? Yes or No) and there is a variable assignment, which is also not considered an arithmetic operation. The initialization in the first line (shifting by 4 bits to the right) is only due to beauty and not really necessary.

[casualdejekyll]

Midpoint circle algorithm (T-H-L):

In this vein, there's pretty bad stuff all over the place at the intersection of math and computer science. May I present my favorite article on the entire Wiki, for all the wrong reasons: Tiny and miny (T-H-L)

Similarly curious, mathematician John Horton Conway noted, calling it "amusing," that "↑ is the unique solution of ⧾G = G." Conway's assertion is also easily verifiable with canonical forms and game trees.

Is it? Is it REALLY?

[tinyboxs]

Midpoint circle algorithm (T-H-L):

In this vein, there's pretty bad stuff all over the place at the intersection of math and computer science. May I present my favorite article on the entire Wiki, for all the wrong reasons: Tiny and miny (T-H-L)

Similarly curious, mathematician John Horton Conway noted, calling it "amusing," that "↑ is the unique solution of ⧾G = G." Conway's assertion is also easily verifiable with canonical forms and game trees.

Is it? Is it REALLY?

What are all these squiggly brackets? They look like broken templates but they're not. Reading a Wikipedia article shouldn't be like picking up a 1000 page textbook and starting to read half way through a random paragraph on page 752.

[casualdejekyll]

Midpoint circle algorithm (T-H-L):

In this vein, there's pretty bad stuff all over the place at the intersection of math and computer science. May I present my favorite article on the entire Wiki, for all the wrong reasons: Tiny and miny (T-H-L)

Similarly curious, mathematician John Horton Conway noted, calling it "amusing," that "↑ is the unique solution of ⧾G = G." Conway's assertion is also easily verifiable with canonical forms and game trees.

Is it? Is it REALLY?

What are all these squiggly brackets? They look like broken templates but they're not. Reading a Wikipedia article shouldn't be like picking up a 1000 page textbook and starting to read half way through a random paragraph on page 752.

Combinatorial game theory is completely fucking incomprehensible to anyone with a brain. Please read Star (game theory) (T-H-L) and explain to me why Star is not equal to 0.

- In Combinatorial game theory, a game is usually studied in an equivalent form where a player loses when they have no valid moves.
- Games are written in the form {L|R}, which has nothing to do with Wikipedia templates, where L and R are the possible moves that the Left and Right player can make - specifically, L is all the games that can happen after the left player makes a move, and R is the same for Right.
- In the game {|}, there are no valid moves, so the player who goes first loses, since it is their turn and they have no valid moves. This game is defined as having the value 0, and more generally, the value of a game is the advantage one player has over another in number of moves they can make - so, the value of the game {0|} is 1, since Left has one more move than Right, and {|0} is -1, because Right has one more move than Left.
- So, here's an interesting question: what's the value of the game {0|0}? The Wikipedia Article I just linked would tell you it's called *, but that's not a number, is it?
- So what's the move advantage? Well, both players have one possible move, so neither has more moves than the other - neither has the advantage. Does that mean the value of * is 0?
- Not so fast. 0 was defined earlier as the value of {|}, and crucially, in a game with value 0, the player who's turn it is loses.
- However, in the game *, whatever player who's turn it is can move to game 0, where the next player will find no valid moves and lose the game - therefore, even though left has no advantage (so * is not positive) and right has no advantage (so it can't be negative, either), * also can't be equal to 0, because in a game with value 0, the player who's turn it is loses, but in a game with value *, the player who's turn it is wins!
- I hope you'd understand why differentiating a game where the player who's turn it is always wins from a game where the player who's turn it is always loses is important.

The incredibly amusing term to describe this state that * is in relation to 0 is to say that they are "confused with" eachother - not greater than, less than, or equal to eachother, but something else entirely which is extremely confusing.

Notably, I had to read... a lot more Wikipedia articles to understand that, and the beauty of combinatorial game theory is that I could be 100%, completely, entirely wrong, and never know because the field is impossible to understand. So please don't trust my explanation to be accurate.

Every article about this field on Wiki is written as if it's some in-joke that expects you to already perfectly understand the field. Which makes it very difficult to learn about the field for people without access to any sort of non-Wiki source.

[AndyTheGrump]

I tend to take the Calvinist approach to maths, myself. link

[Ron Lybonly]

Midpoint circle algorithm (T-H-L):

In this vein, there's pretty bad stuff all over the place at the intersection of math and computer science. May I present my favorite article on the entire Wiki, for all the wrong reasons: Tiny and miny (T-H-L)

Similarly curious, mathematician John Horton Conway noted, calling it "amusing," that "↑ is the unique solution of ⧾G = G." Conway's assertion is also easily verifiable with canonical forms and game trees.

Is it? Is it REALLY?

What are all these squiggly brackets? They look like broken templates but they're not. Reading a Wikipedia article shouldn't be like picking up a 1000 page textbook and starting to read half way through a random paragraph on page 752.

Combinatorial game theory is completely fucking incomprehensible to anyone with a brain. Please read Star (game theory) (T-H-L) and explain to me why Star is not equal to 0.

- In Combinatorial game theory, a game is usually studied in an equivalent form where a player loses when they have no valid moves.
- Games are written in the form {L|R}, which has nothing to do with Wikipedia templates, where L and R are the possible moves that the Left and Right player can make - specifically, L is all the games that can happen after the left player makes a move, and R is the same for Right.
- In the game {|}, there are no valid moves, so the player who goes first loses, since it is their turn and they have no valid moves. This game is defined as having the value 0, and more generally, the value of a game is the advantage one player has over another in number of moves they can make - so, the value of the game {0|} is 1, since Left has one more move than Right, and {|0} is -1, because Right has one more move than Left.
- So, here's an interesting question: what's the value of the game {0|0}? The Wikipedia Article I just linked would tell you it's called *, but that's not a number, is it?
- So what's the move advantage? Well, both players have one possible move, so neither has more moves than the other - neither has the advantage. Does that mean the value of * is 0?
- Not so fast. 0 was defined earlier as the value of {|}, and crucially, in a game with value 0, the player who's turn it is loses.
- However, in the game *, whatever player who's turn it is can move to game 0, where the next player will find no valid moves and lose the game - therefore, even though left has no advantage (so * is not positive) and right has no advantage (so it can't be negative, either), * also can't be equal to 0, because in a game with value 0, the player who's turn it is loses, but in a game with value *, the player who's turn it is wins!
- I hope you'd understand why differentiating a game where the player who's turn it is always wins from a game where the player who's turn it is always loses is important.

The incredibly amusing term to describe this state that * is in relation to 0 is to say that they are "confused with" eachother - not greater than, less than, or equal to eachother, but something else entirely which is extremely confusing.

Notably, I had to read... a lot more Wikipedia articles to understand that, and the beauty of combinatorial game theory is that I could be 100%, completely, entirely wrong, and never know because the field is impossible to understand. So please don't trust my explanation to be accurate.

Every article about this field on Wiki is written as if it's some in-joke that expects you to already perfectly understand the field. Which makes it very difficult to learn about the field for people without access to any sort of non-Wiki source.

It's nice when Simple Wikipedia has an article. It doesn't have articles on more specialized game theory topics like "tiny" and "miny" but it does have one for combinatorial game theory in general:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combi ... ame_theory
I didn't learn any combinatorial game theory but I at least learned what sort of stuff it covers.

[greyed.out.fields]

Unless this is about a person that physically boarded a sailing ship or saddled their horse for a quest from Tang China, any article that in includes the phrase "He began his journey" should trigger an WP:EDITFILTER (T-H-L) and add an automatic WP:G11 (T-H-L) tag. (For those of you who grok regular expression - and I don't - no doubt many more instances there).

[MaryKarrel]

Wikipedia:Username policy (T-H-L):

Usernames that deliberately offend, dehumanize, attack, demean, disparage, discriminate, or support or advocate any such behavior toward any race, religion, gender, sexual identity, sexual preference, political affiliation, or social group or status, or imply the intent to do so; e.g. by containing discriminatory attacks, racial slurs, pejorative terms, or that praise highly contentious people, groups (also known as "hate groups"), or events - future, past, or present - that allocate or allocated efforts or resources toward afflicting direct discriminatory, social, physical, or emotional harm toward those who identify as part of any of these groups.

[tinyboxs]

Wikipedia:Username policy (T-H-L):

Usernames that deliberately offend, dehumanize, attack, demean, disparage, discriminate, or support or advocate any such behavior toward any race, religion, gender, sexual identity, sexual preference, political affiliation, or social group or status, or imply the intent to do so; e.g. by containing discriminatory attacks, racial slurs, pejorative terms, or that praise highly contentious people, groups (also known as "hate groups"), or events - future, past, or present - that allocate or allocated efforts or resources toward afflicting direct discriminatory, social, physical, or emotional harm toward those who identify as part of any of these groups.

I can't even keep track of how many lists are stuffed into this one sentence noun phrase. It's poetry, really.

[The Blue Newt]

They are worn by male constables and sergeants on foot patrol—the expression "Bobby (slang term for policeman, after policing founder Sir Robert Peel) on the beat" derives from this.[3]

(Which, to its credit, even this sorry cite link does not support. )

Custodian helmet (T-H-L).

[The Blue Newt]

Whydah Gally[1] /ˈhwɪdə ˈɡæli, ˈhwɪdˌɔː/ (commonly known simply as the Whydah) was a fully rigged galleon ship that was originally built as a passenger, cargo, and slave ship.

Whydah Gally (T-H-L).

To understand this thing’s hideous wrongness, you have to see it in all its blue-linked glory, where you will learn that a relatively small ship was described as a very large ship. diff diff Someone from Finland appears to have “corrected” the article apparently based on the usual wikiaspie equivocation; words with many possible meanings are all jammed into the blue-linked meaning.

[The Blue Newt]

From the Photo Caption Slush Pile:

Armorers place a .50-caliber aircraft John Browning machine gun M2A1 in the nose of a 41st Bombardment Group North American B-25 Mitchell at the airfield on Hawkins Field as interested Gilbertese look on

Betio (T-H-L)

[orangepi]

Seen on the bad site: HAL 9000 (T-H-L)

Cultural critic Mark Dery, in his 2012 book I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams, argues that "HAL's sibilant tone and use of feline phrases like 'quite honestly, I wouldn't worry myself about that' contains more than a hint of the stereotypic bitchy homosexual."[36] Drawing parallels between HAL and Alan Turing—a gay computer scientist known as the father of artificial intelligence and creator of the Turing test—Dery writes that "HAL was presumably raised by men and, like Turing, schooled in an all-male environment. That all-male environments are hotbeds of sublimated sexuality, haunted by the threat of same-sex love, is news to no one; English boarding schools such as Turing's, where 'contact between the boys was fraught with sexual potential' (Hodges), have long been the, er, butt of locker-room one-liners."

That's a lot of direct quoting of "some dude".

[orangepi]

Seen on the bad site: HAL 9000 (T-H-L)

Cultural critic Mark Dery, in his 2012 book I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams, argues that "HAL's sibilant tone and use of feline phrases like 'quite honestly, I wouldn't worry myself about that' contains more than a hint of the stereotypic bitchy homosexual."[36] Drawing parallels between HAL and Alan Turing—a gay computer scientist known as the father of artificial intelligence and creator of the Turing test—Dery writes that "HAL was presumably raised by men and, like Turing, schooled in an all-male environment. That all-male environments are hotbeds of sublimated sexuality, haunted by the threat of same-sex love, is news to no one; English boarding schools such as Turing's, where 'contact between the boys was fraught with sexual potential' (Hodges), have long been the, er, butt of locker-room one-liners."

That's a lot of direct quoting of "some dude".

That specific paragraph is now gone.

Also, it has come to my attention that Poole versus HAL 9000 (T-H-L) is a stand-alone article, for mysterious reasons. But that is a matter for another thread.

[orangepi]

from Tidal force (T-H-L)

As expected, the table below shows that the distance from the Moon to the Earth, is the same as the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

[rnu]

Joseph Force Crater (T-H-L)

He was last seen leaving a restaurant on West 45th Street in Manhattan and entered popular culture as one of the most mysterious missing persons cases of the 20th century.

[Ming]

from Tidal force (T-H-L)

As expected, the table below shows that the distance from the Moon to the Earth, is the same as the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

Back when Ming was a naive young Mingling, Ming would have assumed it unnecessary to spell this out. Recent history has shown otherwise.

[greyed.out.fields]

List of Telecaster players#A-E (T-H-L)
Emerging in the mid 1960s with the Yardbirds, Beck proved that a ragged Fender Esquire could moan like a fuzzed-out violin. His lines in “Heart Full of Soul” and “Evil Hearted You” defined psychedelic guitar.
MOS:PEACOCK (T-H-L) much?

[greyed.out.fields]

from Tidal force (T-H-L)

As expected, the table below shows that the distance from the Moon to the Earth, is the same as the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

Back when Ming was a naive young Mingling, Ming would have assumed it unnecessary to spell this out. Recent history has shown otherwise.

I guess this is probably more relevant to some other thread, but anyhoo. Back when I was a young greyling, for me there were two kinds of computers:
* beige "all in ones" with a rainbow apple on them
* any other kind of computer (all of which I had no idea how to use)

[AndyTheGrump]

Joseph Force Crater (T-H-L)

He was last seen leaving a restaurant on West 45th Street in Manhattan and entered popular culture as one of the most mysterious missing persons cases of the 20th century.

He left in a huff and a taxi?

[Ming]

NYT, eat your heart out:

It was at this concert that, for the first of many times, Simmons accidentally set his hair (which was coated in hairspray) ablaze while performing his fire-breathing routine.

From Kiss (band) (T-H-L). OF course the Gray Lady's copydesk would have had it read "... Mr. Simmons accidentally set his hair ablaze."

[The Blue Newt]

Joseph Force Crater (T-H-L)

He was last seen leaving a restaurant on West 45th Street in Manhattan and entered popular culture as one of the most mysterious missing persons cases of the 20th century.

He left in a huff and a taxi?

More like a minute and a huff.

[The Blue Newt]

An 82nd Airborne Division soldier with a patrol cap in Universal Camouflage Pattern training with a M24, while another 82nd soldier with a UCP-patterned boonie hat aims with his XM110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System.

Gentle Reader, think how terribly these rifles would fire if the shooter wasn’t appropriately hatted.

From M24 Sniper Weapon System (T-H-L)

[AndyTheGrump]

An 82nd Airborne Division soldier with a patrol cap in Universal Camouflage Pattern training with a M24, while another 82nd soldier with a UCP-patterned boonie hat aims with his XM110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System.

Gentle Reader, think how terribly these rifles would fire if the shooter wasn’t appropriately hatted.

From M24 Sniper Weapon System (T-H-L)

I think they are describing the hats so we know which soldier has which gun. Because obviously Wikipedia readers all know the difference between a patrol cap and a boonie hat.

[The Blue Newt]

An 82nd Airborne Division soldier with a patrol cap in Universal Camouflage Pattern training with a M24, while another 82nd soldier with a UCP-patterned boonie hat aims with his XM110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System.

Gentle Reader, think how terribly these rifles would fire if the shooter wasn’t appropriately hatted.

From M24 Sniper Weapon System (T-H-L)

I think they are describing the hats so we know which soldier has which gun. Because obviously Wikipedia readers all know the difference between a patrol cap and a boonie hat.

…and not a single effing one of them knows the difference between “left” and “right,” or “foreground” and “background.”

[Ming]

An 82nd Airborne Division soldier with a patrol cap in Universal Camouflage Pattern training with a M24, while another 82nd soldier with a UCP-patterned boonie hat aims with his XM110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System.

Gentle Reader, think how terribly these rifles would fire if the shooter wasn’t appropriately hatted.

From M24 Sniper Weapon System (T-H-L)

I think they are describing the hats so we know which soldier has which gun. Because obviously Wikipedia readers all know the difference between a patrol cap and a boonie hat.

…and not a single effing one of them knows the difference between “left” and “right,” or “foreground” and “background.”

...or, judging from Mangoe's edit comment, actually read the caption from the DoD site someone took this from.

[The Blue Newt]

Regarding religion, Wigner was an [[atheist]]

One might ask “how is this a bad sentence? It’s grammatical, concise, and cited!”

Then you read the cite:

{{sfn|Szanton|1992|pp=60–61|ps=: "Neither did I want to be a clergyman. I liked a good sermon. But religion tells people how to behave and that I could never do. Clergymen also had to assume and advocate the presence of God, and proofs of God's existence seemed to me quite unsatisfactory. People claimed that He had made our earth. Well, how had He made it? With an earth-making machine? Someone once asked [[Saint Augustine]], "What did the Lord do before he created the world?" And Saint Augustine is said to have answered, "He created Hell for people who ask such questions." A retort perhaps made in jest, but I knew of none better. I saw that I could not know anything of God directly, that His presence was a matter of belief, I did not have that belief, and preaching without belief is repulsive. So I could not be a clergyman, however many people might gain salvation. And my parents never pressed the point."}}

…which a different Wikitator could have as easily used to support “Wigner was an agnostic.”

(From Eugene Wigner (T-H-L).)

[rnu]

Regarding religion, Wigner was an [[atheist]]

One might ask “how is this a bad sentence? It’s grammatical, concise, and cited!”

I'd argue that even without taking into account the questionable (at best) source interpretation it is a badly written sentence. How about "Wigner was an atheist"? Regarding what else can one be an atheist?