Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 April 16

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[edit] April 16

[edit] "Stop" in Telegrams

In movies and TV shows whenever someone is reading a telegram they always say stop at random times while reading it. Why? and yes I've read the article telegram--ChesterMarcol 03:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

"Stop" is short for "full stop" which was the original name for the punctuation mark which, in North America, is currently called a "period". I believe the word "stop" was used so as not to have it be confused with an stray mark on the paper on which a telegram was printed. (I am more certain of the first half of this answer than the latter.)Bielle 03:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

According to this article[1], it was cheaper to use the word "stop" in a telegram than it was to use a period. Punctuation cost money, but a four-letter word was free. --Charlene 06:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
There must be more to it than that, surely. Why have a pricing system where a small dot costs more than four letters? In any event it ought to be explained in the Wikipedia article so I put a note at Talk:Telegraphy. --Mathew5000 14:48, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I can find many references via Google that repeat the information that Charlene has mentioned, but nothing that seems authoritative. There is also a reference within the full stop article. --LarryMac 15:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I think I've found the answer at telegraph-office.com. That site contains a reproduction of a 1928 booklet entitled "How To Write Telegraphs Properly". The booklet says:
If you do not intend to stipulate that marks of punctuation be transmitted, write your message without punctuation and read it carefully to make sure that it is not ambiguous. If it seems impossible to convey your meaning clearly without the use of punctuation, use may be made of the celebrated word "stop," which is known the world over as the official telegraphic or cable word for "period."
This word "stop" may have perplexed you the first time you encountered it in a message. Use of this word in telegraphic communications was greatly increased during the World War, when the Government employed it widely as a precaution against having messages garbled or misunderstood, as a result of the misplacement or emission of the tiny dot or period.
Officials felt that the vital orders of the Government must be definite and clear cut, and they therefore used not only the word "stop," to indicate a period, but also adopted the practice of spelling out "comma," "colon," and "semi-colon." The word "query" often was used to indicate a question mark. Of all these, however, "stop" has come into most widespread use, and vaudeville artists and columnists have employed it with humorous effect, certain that the public would understand the allusion in connection with telegrams. It is interesting to note, too, that although the word is obviously English it has come into general use In all languages that are used in telegraphing or cabling.
The booklet elsewhere mentions that each punctuation mark is counted as one word for purposes of the fee. Thus you can see how the journalist writing the AP story got it wrong; it isn't that a period costs money while "stop" is free but rather both cost the same but if you go for the period there's a danger it will be accidentally omitted. --Mathew5000 15:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry - but I don't buy any of the previous explanations for why 'STOP' is used in place of '.' - the true reason is surely that telegrams were frequently transmitted by morse code which only has dot/dash codes for the letters A-Z and the digits 0-9. If you want punctuation or any other kind of typography - you have to spell it out. Even something like a dollar sign has to be spelled. Telegrams also arrived ALL IN UPPERCASE - same reason - there is no lowercase in morse. Given that 'STOP' has to be spelled out, it's not surprising that they charged for punctuation at the same rate as normal words. If you wanted your telegram to have proper punctuation, it would have to be retyped by someone at the receiving end (using a normal typewriter) with all of the punctuation manually converted back from words into symbols - which obviously cost a lot more. SteveBaker 22:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Do you have any source for that, SteveBaker? The 1928 source I referred to above doesn't say anything like that. Also the Wikipedia article Morse code does give representations for punctuation marks. --Mathew5000 06:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
[2] says that by 1928 80% of telegrams were sent by Teletype. [3] has the lyrics of the comic "Telegraph song" with the use of stop. Many images of old telegrams from the early to mid 20th century, sent via teletype, show periods. [4] from 1944 from the War Department spells out "period." Googling images of telegrams shows some with periods, some with "stop" and many with just run on sentences. Edison 19:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] bartending in Louisiana

I just would like to know how old do you have to be to be a bartender in louisiana specificly Alexandria,La. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.193.219.201 (talk) 06:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

According to this page[5], the age everywhere in Louisiana is 18. Also you must be licensed by the state to serve alcohol, which apparently requires that you take a course in liquor laws and handling[6]. --Charlene 06:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, in many US states you can serve alcohol before you can legally drink it. StuRat 16:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

A piece of trivia - the provincial government in Alberta, Canada was recently pressured into backing down from a proposed plan to make it legal for 12-year-olds to work in bars. Yippee for the Wild West! Anchoress 23:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Did they decide all the 12 year olds were needed as airline pilots instead ? StuRat 00:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] David Lee

In the 1970's was there a painter by the name of David Lee, if so how & where do I get more info regarding his work? Thanking you in advance, 68.63.204.253 06:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Can't find much biographical info for you, and we don't appear to have an article on him. However, there are some prints available to buy credited to a David Lee [7]. They look kinda 70s-ish to me, though I'm no art critic. Rockpocket 07:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
What they show, Rockpocket, is some very strong Japanese influences, particularly the Rimpa school! Clio the Muse 08:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vehicle detection

Does anyone know the technical term for the black rubber hoses that are are laid across roads (at least in the UK), presumably as some form of vehicle counter or speed measurement device? – Tivedshambo (talk) 06:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I've heard them called traffic counters, vehicle counters, volume counters and hose counters. The latter is used to distinguish the hoses you're talking about from actual humans whose job it is to sit by the side of the road and count vehicles. I would generally use the term hose counter (get a hose count, get hoses on a road, etc.) from my perspective as an engineer who would want hose count data; I'm not interested in the technical details as much as the fact that we need hoses somewhere. I make the big distinction between hoses and humans; the former can count 24/7 as necessary, but the latter can count things like vehicle occupancy or turning movements at an intersection.
Searching for vehicle counter is probably your best bet, since on the Internet, a "traffic counter" is how many people go to your website. A device with a single hose can only count the number of axles driven over it, but when arrayed in sets of hoses (pairs or more), advanced counters can produce information on the configuration of vehicles (i.e. how many axles and how they're laid out), the speed of the vehicles, which lane they're in and so on. There will always be a small, nondescript metal box on the side of the road (usually chained to something) that has the actual count mechanism, and the processors needed to transform hose hits into usable data. The whole system is the counter; I'd guess the hose itself is called a hose, but it's useless without the box. --ByeByeBaby 07:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I thought they were called automated traffic counters. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:45, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I was trying to find an article about it, but it doesn't seem to exist (yet!). – Tivedshambo (talk) 11:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Social Incentives

How can social incentives be used to promote ecological conservation, particularly in an online environment? (Any relevant research or some good examples would be useful. Specifically, I am looking into promoting alternative transit, but examples of social incentives in other areas would also be useful.)

Martivg 07:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)MVG

You might want to look at other attempts at using social pressure, such as the positive social pressure exhibited by the National Recovery Act in the US during the Great Depression, including blue eagle stickers for store windows that said "We Do Our Part": [8]. For an example of negative social pressure, how about the One Child Policy in China ? As for online versions, you could give free access to a web site with wallpapers, games, blogs, etc., for those who do something ecologically responsible. StuRat 16:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative LTERNATIVE DEFINITION; NOT COMMENT

Reputable Dictionaries such as Oxford/Chambers offer equally valid alternative definitions of the same term. Why does Wikipedia does not do the same?

To illustrate my point below is a posting I wish placed alongside the current conventional Wikipedia definition of Psychiatry. Bear in mind history proves wide acceptance does not validate or make fact.

The conventional definition may be verifiable in its own terms but repeats myth and is based on unverifiable inferences such as that related to biomedical cause-effect, and omits verifiable facts such as denial of Human Rights and abuse.

There is no factual difference between my submission and the conventional definition of psychiatry. Indeed mine is entirely factual because verified by considerable academic, peer-reviewed work of the past 40 years, some of which is patronisingly cited in the listed definition (Laing; Szasz et al). The conventional definition is not.

True science welcomes and thrives on dispute; quackery fears and rejects it without serious consideration - as psychiatry ignores dissent from a position of unarranted power apparently endorsed by Wikipedia. Does this not defeat its basic purpose?

85.210.54.175 08:58, 16 April 2007 (UTC)Dixie Dean (prof)85.210.54.175 08:58, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Five pillars. This is the reference desk in any case, you would be better bringing up issues with an article on that article's talk page. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 09:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary would be a better place for alternate meanings of words. Wikipedia articles tend to only deal with the primary meaning(s). StuRat 15:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you should let us know what your definition of psychiatry is, and/or add it to the article and see if it flies. I see no evidence in the psychiatry page that you;ve tried to do that; perhaps you're confusing omission with censorship, when it's more likely to be the mere absence of anyone stepping up to the plate. The Psy article does have a tag stating that it is from a US point of view and encouraging a world view. Meanwhile I can think of any number of articles which posit more than one viewpoint about a subject. Homeopathy would be a case in point. --Tagishsimon (talk)

[edit] Spiders

How long can the average house spider go without food? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.144.161.223 (talk) 09:07, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

There is really no such thing as a house spider, which is a generic term for a number of species. Larger spiders can go longer without food without then smaller ones, certainly several days, but remember that they package their food and store it, and they don't use much energy just sitting around, so they keep going pretty well. Moisture is more critical then food, and they will go looking for it, which is why you often find them in the bath.--Shantavira 10:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, to come back to my original question. There has been a spider on the windowsill in the bathroom for about 6 months, there has never been anything is his web (greg is his name) so yesterday I gave him a small caterpillar worm type thingy, and he seem quite happy. but he has lasted a long long LONG time without anything so, how long can a common house hold spider live without food? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.144.161.223 (talk) 16:09, 16 April 2007 (UTC).
Also, the spider's quest for a drink will lead them to craw all over you at night - drawing liguid from around you mouth and eyes. Think outside the box 11:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but I find both of these answers dodgy. I accept that dehydrated spiders need to drink, and will imbibe from water droplets. But IMO spiders are found in the bath merely because they cannot get out of it if they chance to get in it. I'd want convincing that they know that baths have an association with water. As for "they crawl over you at night", that looks like nothing more than a scary story for little children and arachnophobes [9]. Using the RD to spread myths such as this is to be deplored - it's not big, it's not clever, and it is not the purpose of the RD to spread mis-information. --Tagishsimon (talk)
A myth; I'd like to see you prove that. One link is not proof. Any studies done on it? Think outside the box 09:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I once woke up with a spider on my face, I sure couldn't get back to sleep that night. StuRat 15:53, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm. Are you sure it never caught anything? They usually take their prey out of sight, off to a corner or into their funnel. And even a tiny fruit fly could sustain a small spider for some time.--Shantavira 17:58, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

cockroaches can go for a long time without food, and they tend to run around a lot. You can prove they aren't eating anything by cutting their heads off.

Man, I wish I hadn't read this thread.

You may get a better idea of the spider's activities by looking for its detritus on the floor beneath the spider. There, you may find insect (prey) exoskeletal bits and also spider excretions.
Atlant 13:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I once had Karl living in the mirror casing of my car (drivers side), where he could build his net hanging below the mirror and attached to the cars body. He stayed for about half a year and vanished, probably dead. Most spiders have a short life expectancy, even if they have plenty of food. Btw, how could I have found out whether Karl was actually Karla?

Haven't you ever read Charlotte's Web?
Atlant 17:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Without a picture of "Karl", the best way to find out would have been to kill the spider and use dissect it under a microscope, and look for the sex organs. Also in general, female spiders are usually larger.--Kirby♥time 08:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old South African Prisons

In the Old Apartied South Africa, were the prisons segregated? Or were Black, White, Indian ect people seperated. If so were they in sperate prisons or was it just different wings of the same institute or building? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.144.161.223 (talk) 09:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

Yes, the prison system was subject to the same rules of Apartheid as the rest of South African Society. You will find some detailed background information here [10] and here [11]. Clio the Muse 09:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

When did celts stop being celts and start being germans? Joneleth 10:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Who told you that celts were Germans? Aren't celts a group of people that were all over Europe, not just Germany? Think outside the box 11:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

when they stopped supporting the 'hoops' (celtic football culb) and started supporting rangers football club(sometimes called 'the huns')- bad football joke Perry-mankster 11:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, a joke! I love jokes. Think outside the box 11:50, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

ah, sarcasm! I love sarcasm.Perry-mankster 12:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Joneleth, you might as easily have asked when an elephant stopped being an elephant and started to be a dove! The answer, of course, is that the Celts and the Germans are two quite different peoples. Once widspread across Europe, the Celts today are largely confined to Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, Brittany, and Galicia in north-west Spain. Their cultural and linguistic roots bear no relation at all to that of the Germans. If you are interested in obtaining some more in-depth information on the subject I would recommend The Celts: a History from the Earliest Times to the Present by Bernhard Meier. Clio the Muse 13:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I hate to contradict, but the archaeological and genetic evidence do not support the identification of Celts as "a people". What exist instead are peoples speaking Celtic languages and peoples speaking Germanic languages. The former group (Celtic speakers) includes some minorities in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany, and arguably the Isle of Man and Cornwall (where dead languages are being revived). There are currently no Celtic-speaking peoples in northwest Spain, although the ancestors of some people in northwest Spain spoke Celtic languages in ancient times. Germanic-speaking peoples include the national group we know as the Germans. Germanic-speaking peoples also include the English, most other inhabitants of the British Isles, and most Americans of all races. About 2,500 years ago, peoples across northwestern, central, and even parts of southwestern Europe and in Asia Minor spoke Celtic languages. Peoples living in parts of present-day Germany, including the area around the Rhine and Mosel valleys and much of southern Germany, spoke Celtic languages 2,500 years ago. The archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that those peoples' descendants still live in those regions today, although they now speak German, or dialects of German. We lack written records documenting this social and linguistic change, but archaeological evidence and fragmentary written references in Roman records suggest that the change took place over several centuries from around 200 B.C. to around 700 A.D. In many cases, the change happened in two stages: 1) The local warrior elite was defeated by the Romans, and the local Celtic-speaking population was subjected to a Latin-speaking elite; 2) Germanic-speaking warriors defeated the Romans several centuries later and gradually imposed their languge and other elements of their culture on the local population, which may by then have been speaking a form of Vulgar Latin. In some areas in central Germany, there is evidence that Germanic-speaking tribes conquered and intermarried with formerly Celtic-speaking peoples, who then adopted Germanic speech, even before the arrival of the Romans or outside the area under Roman control. Marco polo 14:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Do not hate to contradict, Marco; do it, and do it boldly! Clio the Muse 15:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The simple answer is that parts of Celtic land was conquered by Germans in around 600BC, and presumably Germanic culture was forced on the Celts then, but they were always two separate groups, mostly defined by their language.

read the articles on Celts and Germans

Clio helpfully gave the links to those articles. As the article Celts notes, a Celt is "a member of any of a number of peoples in Europe". This is why I think that it is too simplistic to say that Celts and Germans were "two separate groups", because the Celts were not a separate group in any way other than sharing related languages. The Celtic-speaking peoples were (and are) plural, and have been at least since the time of the early (Bronze Age) Hallstatt culture, before 1000 B.C., when proto-Celtic may have been spoken by a single people who spread their language by trade or conquest to surrounding regions. The Germans as such did not exist until the Middle Ages and so could not have conquered any Celtic-speaking peoples in 600 B.C. It is possible that some Germanic-speaking groups conquered some Celtic speakers around that time, but this was before even the most fragmentary written records exist for this region, so we really cannot be sure about the ethnicity of groups involved in conquests, even if those conquests left some archaeological trace. It is clear that Germanic-speaking elites conquered Celtic-speaking and formerly Celtic-speaking groups from the time of the Roman conquest of Gaul onwards. Finally, we really cannot know whether Germanic culture "was forced" on Celtic-speaking groups. Language change tends not to happen by force, with some recent exceptions. The most common scenario is that a new elite, speaking a foreign language, takes charge. Their language becomes the prestige language. In order to advance socially or attract mates, younger generations of the subject group adopt the language of the elite. This is largely what has happened in Scotland and Ireland, for example, in recent centuries. Marco polo 18:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
If the Celts were not a people, then is Celts#Population genetics incorrect? Corvus cornix 23:07, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Corvus, I have read the section of the Celts article on population genetics. I have no disagreement with the arguments made in that section and am somewhat familiar with the research on which it is based. The research suggests that the areas where Celtic languages are now spoken are populated by the descendants of an ancient, almost certainly pre-Celtic, perhaps pre-Neolithic migration from the Iberian peninsula. These regions have less evidence of more recent genetic additions than most other areas of Europe, including the region around the upper Rhine that is probably the strongest candidate for the original homeland of proto-Celtic. What this suggests is that relatively small groups brought Celtic languages to the northwestern periphery of Europe, where they were adopted by the indigenous population, some of whom still speak Celtic languages today. How is this inconsistent with the assertion that the Celts were not a people (or at least not after proto-Celtic had evolved into the various continental and insular Celtic languages of ancient times)? Marco polo 01:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I am reading the Celts article as saying that they are genetically similar, which makes me question how we can say that they are not a single people. Corvus cornix 20:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phone/battery

Ok. So in front of me I have a mobile phone, without a battery. Without using anything that would be (only) found in any other telephone/mobile phone/modem, or any phone rechargers, is it possible to make the phone work (without the battery).Cuban Cigar 12:27, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The battery supplies electrical power. Presumably an external power supply could be used to do the same, if you know what voltage & current is required. That external power supply might be a mains converter, or for all I know a bundle of conventional AA type batteries. Does that help? --Tagishsimon (talk)
If your supplier has told that batteries are no longer available for a particular model, don't believe him. I was told this once, but a quick internet search gave my (solid, reliable, and audible) old phone a new lease of life.--Shantavira 18:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
And FWIW it'll make a great paperweight just as it is :) --Tagishsimon (talk)

I was thinking of a more detailed explenation. A power supply will be needed yes, but how would you go about attatching it to the phone? I just took out my battery and had a look, and it acutally looks pretty complex. Cuban Cigar 06:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the whole point of a mobile phone that you do not need to attach it to an external power supply? ^^
Depends on the design of the phone and the equipment available to you. You might be able to rig up connectors which emulate the battery & press against the contacts on the phone. You might have to solder connections to the phone terminals - this is somewhat less reversible. You might want to open up the phone and connect to whatever the phone's connectors are attached to: it might well be that there's a flexible wire connector behind the contacts which might be a better bet for a soldered contact. Or you might be able to clip to this supposed wire connector. It's not so much complex as small & fiddly, and not designed to be hacked as you wish to hack it. Bench power supply connectors (crocodile clips, banana plugs &c) tend to be larger in scale that you're looking for, which is why soldering might be the only way to go. Good luck. --Tagishsimon (talk)

[edit] Car Prices

Can you please help settle a family argument?

Are cars cheaper in New Zealand or America? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 125.236.135.123 (talk) 15:48, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

Intuitively, the answer has to be the "cheaper in the US". They have a very much larger market, and have their own auto industry. NZ is a small market geographically remote from, err, anywhere. Empirically, you have to start comparing prices in each market. I've just done so with the BMW 335i. The NZ price is $115,900 NZD, which equates to 85 290.81 U.S. dollars. The US price for the same car is $40,000 USD. Now I'm sure I have not taken all tax issues into account, but I'm satisfied that the US is cheaper by a country mile than NZ. --Tagishsimon (talk)

I believe the primary cars sold in NZ would be what, in the US, would be called "economy cars". Therefore, the question comes up as to whether you want to compare the same car in both markets (as in the above response) or the average car for each market. You might get quite different results using the two methods. StuRat 17:07, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

A toyota camry is 36500 in NZ$, 19000 in US$. The NZ price converts to almost 27000 US$, so definately a higher price in NZ.- Czmtzc 17:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
And some more gratuitous info. In 2006 in NZ, 99,986 new cars were registered, and 136,615 used cars were registered. By contrast, 1,542,229 new cars were sold in the US in the month of March 2007.--Tagishsimon (talk)


[edit] Whatever happened to Buena Vista Plantation?

Buena Vista Plantation was located on the Philippine Island of Mindanoao, approximately 30 miles from Zamboanga; in the same direction as, and about 15 miles beyond, the village of Bolong. Paton Island, one of the Panubigan group of islands, lies about 3 miles offshore of the plantation site.

The operation began as the Zamboanga Plantation Company in 1912-1913 and was reorganized as the Buena Vista Plantation Company in 1916. The Principal was an American, Colonel John Hudson Poole, who published a book titled "Buena Vista - An American View of the Philippine Islands" in 1925. As that time, the 2000 acre plantation boasted some 50,000 coconut trees and more than 600 head of cattle.

During World War II the Buena Vista employees dispersed and management fled. I understand that Col. Poole died in the US with disposition of the plantation uncertain. I am curious to know if the plantation and/or Buena Vista organization still exists in some form today.

My name is John and I'd appreciate any information that people may add. —The preceding [[Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages|unsigned]Jdfbowman 03:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)] comment was added by Jdfbowman (talk • contribs) 18:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] feminist movements in the Middle East

Have there been or are there currently any feminist movements comparable to that of the USA in the Middle East?

141.213.140.104 18:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)Jennifer

Google middle east feminist finds this feminist webpage as the first entry. A wikipedia seach of the same words returns Islamic_feminism on the first page. -Czmtzc 19:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Feminists in Islamic countries receive many threats, some obvious, and some veiled. StuRat 00:20, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
While I've noticed and enjoyed your proclivity for punning StuRat, please, please tell me that one was not intended in this particular case ;) --38.112.225.84 06:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't know myself any more, I just naturally speak Punglish. StuRat 14:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. 'Nuff said.--Kirby♥time 08:50, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Units clothing store

I am curious about the old Units clothing stores. They seemed to be everywhere in the eighties. Who owned them? Were they a stand alone company? Any information would be greatly appreciated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.230.206.75 (talk) 18:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

Here is an article that sheds some light. Here is another. Marco polo 01:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dolphin shorts

Why are Dolphin shorts called Dolphin shorts? Were they originally a brand?

For those who were as confused as I was after reading this, here are a couple links I found on Google that show pictures of what Dolphin shorts are: [12] and [13] Dismas|(talk) 21:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I see, they are shorts so low at the top that the butt crack becomes a handy place to store your pencils, much like lowrider jeans. How practical ! StuRat 00:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
If you have $178 burning a hole in your pocket, you can buy these dolphin shorts from Neiman Marcus. The description says something about a "dolphin cut", but after a little more searching, I still don't know what a dolphin cut is. It isn't cheap, though, at least at Neiman Marcus. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 01:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)