Talk:John Brown

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This is an excellent and thorough article. My only suggestion would be to add some reference to the song "John Brown's Body" that emerged after his death (for which new lyrics were written as the "Battle Hymn of the Republic").

John Brown is a pretty common name. Another one is mentioned in Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Somebody needs to disambiguate this abolitionist John Brown that the song is about from Queen Victoria's John Brown that the movie Mrs. Brown is about and that I have a picture or two of that I want to post. -- isis 26 Aug 2002


Maybe we should disambiguate by year of birth, eg "John Brown (1859)". I don't think we'll ever come up with a satisfying, simple, intuitive qualifier. "John Brown (Queen Victoria)" is a bit long and unwieldy. -- Tarquin 13:52 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

I was thinking of birth and death dates in parentheses and/or nationality: Scot and American. The only alternative I can see is to call one a lover and the other a fighter. -- isis

We have used nationality before. See Piet Hein (Denmark) and Piet Hein (Netherlands). Rmhermen 16:24 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

I would much prefer to use dates to distinguish them, but that's not helpful in this case, because their lives overlapped [(1800 - 1859) for the abolitionist and (1826 - 1883) for the ghillie], so a person who knew the man they were looking up lived in the middle half of the 19th century would not be able to tell which it was. I think the nationality would be more helpful, but I'm not sure someone would know Victoria's John Brown was a Scot (if they just had his name mentioned in passing in some article about her), and Buchanan's John Brown could have been a Scot by birth (tho he wasn't).
So I would like to distinguish them by what they did, which raises the issue of how to label them. I was born and reared in Virginia, and the first epithet that comes to my mind for Buchanan's John Brown is "terrorist," which may not be NPOV enough, altho he WAS executed for treason and murder, and if that's not terrorism, what is? (Same problem with "fanatic," plus the other John Brown was gaga about Victoria, too, and so could merit that description.) I'd like to label Victoria's John Brown "ghillie" and then define that in the article, but that wouldn't help the person looking them up who didn't already know that term.
So the best I can suggest, thru gritted teeth, is "abolitionist" and "servant." Can anyone else, please, please, please, do better? -- isis


General discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people with the same name)

Contents

[edit] John Brown

Has anyone heard the saying, "I'll be John Brown!" Both my husband and I, who grew up about 100 miles apart in Arkansas/Louisiana, use this saying. Does anyone know the origin? 155.58.116.247 (talk) 16:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)SSWaites155.58.116.247 (talk) 16:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Links to here that require fixing

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle G (talk • contribs)

Thanks for listing them. If you'd contribute a short stub with basic biographical data on one or the other that would be great as well. -- User:Docu

[edit] Infamous raid?

The term used here is not objective

John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859), famous abolitionist who led an infamous raid on Harper's Ferry

There were at the time, and are today, enough people who think that this raid was not infamous (a very negative term) but rather glorious, and wonderful, and admirable, and what have you. Of course any of these terms would not be very objcetive either. I suggest cahnging it to

John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859), famous abolitionist who led a controversial raid on Harper's Ferry

There can be no question that the raid was controversial, that is an objective fact whether you are in favor of it or against it.

Comments, anybody?

Adam Keller 22:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Yeah, John Brown is a very controversial figure and any value judgment wll be very easily contested. I'll do it. Vultur 17:45, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I LOVE CHEESE!!!!! AND MONKEY PAWS!!! FOOD IS A DREAM YOUR HEART MAKES

As i searched John Brown, i noticed " I LOVE CHEESE!!!!! AND MONKEY PAWS!!! FOOD IS A DREAM YOUR HEART MAKES" at the bottom of the page. Can someone please remove this unwanted line, which is probably posted by some hacker!!

Update: It has been deleted—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ainstushar (talk • contribs) 18:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] The link and/or description for John Elward Brown, Sr. is incorrect

The page redirects incorrectly. Somebody please fix/correct this. SJCarlson22 (talk) 08:33, 15 February 2008 (UTC)