Talk:Mahogany

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Could someone clean this? There were separate entries for neem and mahogany, but they were basically the same. So i made a redirect from one to another. But i guess i did wrong: mahogany is family, neem is one of species of that family. So redirect should be removed, and something usefull added instead in mahogany szopen

OK, this is off the top of my head, so don't shoot me if I've got it wrong, but isn't "mahogany" also used as a term for the timber of a whole stack of trees, half of them unrelated to one another? It's incorrect usage, no doubt - just as the timber trade in Oz calls all sorts of things "ash" which are indisputably not ash at all but eucalypt - but we should mention that usage of "mahogany" somewhere in the article, I think. Probably the same applies to teak. Tannin 14:22 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

That is quite correct. The same goes for cherry, ebony, ironwood, oak, rosewood, teak ,etc. Mahogany is used for any number of woods (incorrectly, in varying degrees). Exceptions are about half the woods listed on the wikipedia page such as those of Cedrela, Toona, etc which I never heard of being traded as mahogany. I guess this shows that wikipedia is doomed. People hate facts, they prefer to perpetuate myths. PvR 16 sep 2005

They may not be traded in commerce as mahogany, but they are called mahoganies by botanists, as they are related plants in the family Meliaceae. The timber trade is not the best source of scientific naming, full as it is of unscrupulous traders trying to sell inferior quality woods as 'the real thing' to unsuspecting customers by attaching false labels and knowing that the customers do not have the wherewithal to check the true identity of the wood they are being sold. - MPF 09:11, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, it all depends on your frame of reference. If you are going by only a single listing ever then anything is possible. You can even generate a usage by entering it on the web somewhere. I thought the point of wikipedia was to give helpful information, rather than mislead. If you are going by a single case here, and a single case there, you can write the weirdest things and "substantiate" these with references.

In the case of mahogany the general pattern is quite clear. If people are speaking about mahogany (other than as a color) they are speaking about wood. There are dozens of species the wood of which may be referred to as mahogany. Look it up. You try and turn up links about the trees in question, rather than the wood, and you will have a hard time of it. Nobody is interested in the trees.

If a taxonomist is speaking about a particular species he will invariably use the scientific name. Besides that, he will list local names. Look it up. If a botanist is running a ecological study he likely will use the local name. Look it up. PvR 18 Sep 2005

I don't understand what you are talking about. This is a general article about usage of the term "mahogany" as it applies to the trees and the wood. Hence, both are specified. As for usage by systematists or ecologists - both use both common and scientific names. In my experience systematists use common names far more than ecologists.

As for "helpful" vs. "misleading" information - the point of Wikipedia is not to restrict information to single conventions of usage - the point is to provide breadth and context. I am well aware that the species-specific stuff needs a lot of work, but it really doesn't do much good if you simply make it your mission to make the articles conform to a single aspect of usage. I quite frankly would rather not have any articles under common names, because they are horribly confusing and vague, but policy leans toward common names. So, given the multiplicity of common names, and given the vague way that the term "mahogany" is used - for the wood, for various meliaceous species, for Swietenia spp...we need to list all. Personally I use the word "mahogany" for three species of Swietenia. I would leave out Khaya and all the rest. But this is not about my usage, and it should not be about any single person's usage. It's about the breadth of usage. The purpose is to provide that breadth. So there is no harm and a lot of good in letting readers know that when someone calls a tree mahogany they might be speaking of a number of different species. Guettarda 18:30, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Frame of reference is everything, of course. If 80% of all people use "mahogany" as being a color; 20% of all people as being a timber (Swietenia or a reasonable substitute); 0,05 % of all people as being a tree of the genus Toona, then it is indeed misleading to list these three options as equal usage.

BTW: you will note that I did write it up as being in use for a multitude of woods/trees, but this was edited out by MDF in favor of his personal hobby horse. If you want to list usage in detail, then that is fine by me but it would need to be done with some care and with context intact. I just read that "wiki" means a fast look-up: in that case what is wanted is the main use, not the clutter of an occasional usage that happens to have caught the fancy of somebody. PvR, 19 Sep 2005

No, wiki-wiki means "fast" but Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopaedia - the "wiki" part has to do with the software, which lets anyone edit. By the way, would you be willing to register a user name? It would be a lot easier and would let these discussions progress more easily. It would also be nice if you could cut other users a little more slack - people here - especially MDF - are generally not here to push an agenda, but to work on trying to build a free encyclopaedia. Try to be constructive in your comments and your edit summaries. Your contributions are appreciated, and would be a lot more if you could be a tad more polite - especially to as hard-working a volunteer as MDF. Guettarda 16:41, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, I will think about registering a username, but it looks to be having more disadvantages than advantages. As for MDF, I don't know much about him, except that he does not check his facts before he acts, cannot spell botanical names, is awkward with botanical names in general and is about the worst case of "a-species-name-should-reflect-the genus-name"-agenda pushing that I have seen. Just about everybody I know will agree that this is a very bad agenda to be pushing. In dealing with reality a little pragmatism is called for. An encyclopedia that is badly at odds with the facts is going nowhere. PvR, 19 Sep 2005

I don't understand what you mean by "a-species-name-should-reflect-the genus-name"-agenda. Can you explain? As the advantages/disadvantages of a user name - advantages include being able to maintain a "watch list" of pages of interest and the fact that it keeps your IP at least a little more hidden. I don't see the disadvantages - it isn't that much harder to block an IP or series of IPs than it is to block a user name (please don't interpret that as a threat or anything, it's just an example of some people's reservations). MDF has thousands of good edits, by the way, and has done an awful lot to improve plant articles, and to expand the coverage. Spelling mistakes are easy to fix - the hard work is putting together the articles in the first place and protecting them from vandalism. Guettarda 20:06, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, the "a-species-name-should-reflect-the genus-name"-agenda is fairly old item. After binary names for species became widely accepted (some twohundred years ago) it struck some people that common names should follow the same pattern. A genus should have a common name (say "Oak" for Quercus) and all the species of Quercus should have a two-part name ending in "oak".

This works moderately well where there is a stable taxonomy and a genus with clear delimitations, but on the whole it does not work well at all. All temperate species of Quercus can be called "oaks", but it is hardly true that all "oaks" belong to Quercus. The USDA tried to apply this for the US trees with moderate succes, even if it looks a little artificial sometimes: "douglas-fir" as one word, to force a common name for a genus (Pseudotsuga) without using "fir" (Abies) and "redcedar" to avoid a combination with "cedar". For more complex situations this works poorly.

Obviously, MDF is a hard case in this respect. Just look at Torreya taxifolia, which now has the common name "Stinking Torreya" that occurs on Wikipedia only, displacing the well-established "stinking cedar" that is in all the books. Obviously MDF goes beyond an excentric choice among existing names and he does not hesitate to fabricate names to his liking. He is not dealing with reality anymore. This is going beyond pushing an agenda, crossing over into zealous bigotry.

I am sure vandalism is a big problem, the more so as I see apparently well-established Wikipedia users and adminstrators engaging in it, wholeheartedly, oblivious to even the hardest facts. Whatever happened to the idea that an encyclopedia should describe reality? - PvR, 20 Sep 2005

The "a-species-name-should-reflect-the genus-name" idea is new to me, but I have never had any patience with common names, and I think that the idea of "official common names" (like the bird people do) is silly. In my opinion, any documentable common name should be in the article, but common names are really just trivia.

More to the point, you accuse MDF of "vandalism" - that's a pretty serious accusation, and you shouldn't use it trivially. He one common name with another - if you thought he made a mistake you should have said so, not called it vandalism. I have no idea what his source is, or what his motivation was for making the change. The point is, that's what Talk pages exist for - so that you can talk, not insult people with edit summaries. Guettarda 17:41, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, I will give Talk pages a try, although I have noticed that in general people are not very inclined to change their opinion, or even willing to check facts. My admittedly few attempts at using Talk pages bear out that this general pattern applies here too. Certainly MDF does not use Talk pages before he tears into things. Yes, "vandalism" ("the malicious and deliberate defacement or destruction of somebody else's [or public] property") is a strong term; maybe too strong, maybe "zealous bigotry" is more accurate?

As to "the hard work is putting together the articles in the first place" that is of course quite true, although it is even harder to acquire the expertise needed to put together a good article. Wikipedia's approach to have everybody add bits and pieces will work well up to a point. Once somebody has "put together a good article" it risks getting skewed by having details added by people who feel detail is better than precision (or that detail is precision). That is even when the bits added are not wrong to begin with. PvR 21 Sep 2005.

Contents 1 Anon's reverts 2 Musical instruments 3 Mahogany 4 Commercial sources 5 ?????????????? 6 Haymaker

[edit] Anon's reverts

• The name "mahogany" is used botanically for Entandophragma spp. If you don't have access to biological abstract, try Google Scholar.
• "and/or" is redundant - or is non-exclusive in English (as opposed to in boolean logic).

Guettarda 17:34, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

It is in use, somewhat. You will note that I included this usage but that this was edited out by MDF. The nice thing about English is that just about anything is possible, except possibly locally. - contributed by 83.117.26.217 (talk · contribs)

Please don't break up my edits like that. Thanks. As for English, no, you can't just do what you want - the language has rules of usage and style. It is useful to follow them. Guettarda 18:30, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

OK. As for "and/or" it is in the dictionary I use, as perfectly regular. PvR

[edit] Musical instruments

In the last sentence of the article, how do the wood's "dark properties" have to do with the tone produced by instruments in which it is used? This doesn't seem to be a meaningful statement. Lou Sander 13:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong but...in general, the darker and denser the wood the "darker" the tone...meaning more low-emd (bass and mid) versus high end (treble)..this is why many guitars will have a mahogany body and a maple neck...the lighter maple providing more clarity and high-end, I believe.

[edit] Mahogany

What is Mahogany?

Well it is a wood from TREES that we CUT down. This is no f**king good as those b**ches LUMBERFUCKS cut them down. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.17.3.197 (talk) 18:52, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

what waht waht waht what what what hwa trhwerhwhahwahawa ?????????? it makes no sence

[edit] Commercial sources

It would appear the Uses section of this article is the product of commercial ghost-writing and Denon may be the source. Google searches for specific sentences return sites affiliated with the company or promoting its products; headphones in particular.

"Mahogany is a very popular material for drum making, because of its great integrity and capability to produce a very dark, warm tone compared to other more common wood types like maple or birch."

"The famous Beatles sound of the 60s was made with Ludwig Drums in mahogany shells."

OopsNotSignedIn 02:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit]  ??????????????

ok, i do NOT get what you guys are talking about.I'm wondering, how long does mahogany take to grow? mahogany wood is beautiful, it's so sad that everyones killing the species.

[edit] Haymaker

I moved this sentence here for clarification:

Mahogany is a Japanese analogue to the English "haymaker".

As far as I know, a haymaker is just a kind of wild, swinging, or windup punch. This sentence appeared towards the end of the discussion of musical instruments. No idea what it means here. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 21:09, 18 December 2007 (UTC)