Talk:Luz Long

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[edit] Birth date

His birth date is obviously not 1930. Will someone please correct this?

I've corrected it to read only his year of death. I'll look up the date of birth (and hopefully exact date of death) in a print encyclopedia when I have the chance. I would also like to know exactly when he was given the Pierre de Coubertin medal. --Deathphoenix 16:22, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Lutz Long is not in the Encyclopedia Britannica (at least, not in my old copy), but I finally found the year of his birth in the following German web page regarding the 1936 Olympics: http://www.hdg.de/lemo/html/nazi/olymp/ (do a search for "Lutz Long"). --Deathphoenix 17:44, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nickname

The right name is Luz Long as a nickname from the German name of Ludwig. He was never called Lutz, so move the article to Luz Long -- Hunding 23:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

'Lutz' is more common for 'Ludwig' than 'Luz'. :/ number29 04:43, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kilates or carats (karats)

Please don't change the quotation from "It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler... You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the twenty-four kilates friendship that I felt for Lutz Long at that moment." to "It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler... You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the twenty-four carats friendship that I felt for Lutz Long at that moment."

Jesse Owens actually used the word "kilates". The wikilink to carat (purity) should make clear the meaning of the word "kilates". We shouldn't change historical quotations just because the reader might not know what it means unless we use a parenthetical statement, which is unnecessary given the existence of the wikilink to carat (purity). --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:13, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

If you can provide a verifiable and credible source for the "kilates" quote then I would agree. At present the reference for the quote says "karat", not kilates. If someone can track down Owens' original statement (written or oral, with date) and provide the source and circumstances then we can clear this up. Red Harvest (talk) 17:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
The link given in your revert is not to anything that provides real context or explanation. For all I can tell it could be a circular reference to wiki since it is just another form of online user entered encylopedia. The vast majority of other sources say "carat" or "karat." So far nothing authoritative has been produced to explain the "kilates" claim. If you are certain about this, then please explain why by providing some source that clears it up. As best I can tell "kilates" is a corruption of a spanish or portugese spelling of "quilates". Did he actually say "quilates"? So far no evidence has been provided that he did. Who provided the original quote? Was it a journalist from Spain or Portugal, etc? If so, was it a literal translation or an imperfect translation back into english? Unless Owens wrote "kilates" then it appears to be a typographical error at best. If what he actually said is "quilates" then it should be spelled properly and italicized (as a foreign word.) Carats or karats should remain until there is sufficient reason to believe they are incorrect. So far that hasn't been provided. Red Harvest (talk) 05:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
My actual recollection of Jesse's original quotation is based on a coffee-table book written in the 90s (after the '92 Olympics) about Olympians, and "kilates" was the term used in that book, and the term actually used by Owens. It's annoying that we have this revisionist history, but as you've explained, the BBC reference is actually user-edited, a fact of which I wasn't aware. Since most online sources use the wording modified for modern times, I guess I'll just have to leave this revisionist quotation in until I find that book again and provide a citation based on that book. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm... I think I found the title of the book, but on further recollection, that book was where I first found out about the alleged advice that Long gave Owens, rather than Jesse's "24-kilates friendship" quotation. Given that I added that quotation myself on 20 May 2005 without having the book in front of me, and this quotation includes the kilates wording. I believe I must have gotten this quotation from this version of Pierre de Coubertin medal, last edited 14 December 2004. This quotation was first added here. It's too bad Joseph Dwayne hasn't edited since 8 May 2006... --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I hope we can eventually find the original Owens quotation--wherever and whenever it was made so that we can preserve that in this article along with an explanation. It appears in the meantime that karats is the historical consensus. Carats refers to weight rather than purity...and with 24 preceding it the correct description would be karat, even though the sentence makes reference to overall mass. So this is a sort of mixed metaphor or double-entendre--probably unintentional. I had never even considered that the carat and karat had different definitions until I tried to research this quote. For what its worth the use of "quilates" by an American in Europe at the time would not surprise me, nor would a mistranslation by Spanish/Portugese press or others re-translating back into English. Red Harvest (talk) 19:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I hope we can find it too... I agree that it would seem to be a historically possible use of the term kilates (or quilates). --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)